For most of the fourteen years I’ve been blogging, it’s been a habit of mine on the last post of the old year (or, now and then, the first post of the new one) to offer predictions for the year ahead. I won’t be doing that this year. I think it’s quite possible to predict some of what we can expect next year. Just now, though, it seems more important to me to focus on the things we can’t know yet, because some of them will play a crucial role in the future taking shape before us.
It’s an unsettling thing, this journey we make into an unknown future. Scientists craft equations, politicians demand answers from supposedly qualified experts, advertisers convene focus groups, mystics seek visions, astrologers chart the heavens, conspiracy theorists convince themselves that the world really is under somebody’s control: these are all attempts to extract the future from the grip of the unknown and unknowable. That grip becomes particularly uncomfortable when some of the things that are unknowable ended up that way because of human action of one kind or another—and of course that’s very much the case just now.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of these riddles as we brace ourselves for tomorrow night’s plunge into the unknown territory of 2021.
The first one that comes to mind is the gaggle of vaccines against the Covid-19 coronavirus now being injected into long lines of recipients in countries around the world. The corporate media here in the US, at least, has been insisting at the top of its electronic lungs that “the vaccine” (there are of course several of them) is safe and effective. The stark truth is that nobody knows. It takes one to two years of repeated tests and long-term assessments to figure out if a vaccine is safe and effective, and the Pfizer vaccine—the first one approved in the US and Britain—got a total of eight weeks of hurried testing before it was approved for sale. It’s quite common for problems with pharmaceuticals—even horrific problems—to take months or years to surface, and the Pfizer and Moderna products belong to a type of vaccine—mRNA vaccines—that have never before been successfully used on human subjects, so no one anywhere knows what will happen when millions of people take them.
One thing that interests me is the shrill tone of the claims being made by the media about the supposed safety and efficacy of the vaccines. For some years now, the comfortable classes in today’s America have lost track of the fact that control over the public narrative does not equal control over the facts underlying the narrative. For what it’s worth, I suspect that the positive-thinking pandemic Barbara Ehrenreich chronicled ably in her book Bright-Sided plays a large role in setting the stage for this situation. Convince yourself that something is true, and the universe has to play along: that’s the mentality of a frighteningly large share of the privileged in America these days.
As the song has it, though, it ain’t necessarily so. Tens of thousands of people who plunged into flipping houses in the runup to the 2008 crash, convinced that the Law of Attraction guaranteed them wealth they didn’t earn, had to declare bankruptcy when their dreams ran face first into the laws of economics. Quite a few of them got shrill, too, when the housing crash pointed out the problems in their ideology, and the strident tone of media pronoucements about the vaccines reminds me rather forcefully of that earlier collision with reality.
We don’t know yet if a similar fate awaits the pundits and politicians who are loudly insisting that coronavirus vaccines must be safe, when neither they nor anyone else knows if this is true or not. The vaccines might all be safe; in that case, well and good. One or more of them might have the kind of nasty side effects that have caused hundreds of pharmaceuticals that were approved by the authorities to be pulled from the market in a hurry. One or more of them might be one of the great pharmaceutical disasters of our time, up there with thalidomide and Fen-Phen. We simply don’t know, and since the social-media barons have made it clear that they plan on censoring any discussion of the vaccines that doesn’t toe the pharmaceutical industry party line, we may not know for months or years.
The political implications of all this deserve attention, however. The corporate media and the scientific establishment in general have nailed what little remains of their fraying credibility to these vaccines. A great many people no longer believe anything that the authorities say about health care, and they have good reason for their disbelief—do I really have to remind anyone of the way that Barack Obama insisted that the ACA would make health insurance prices go down, and of course you’ll be able to keep your doctor and your existing plan? If one of the current crop of coronavirus vaccines turns out to have harmful or fatal side effects, the massive crisis of confidence in establishment science and medicine that has been building for decades now may just go kinetic—metaphorically or otherwise. But we simply don’t know.
Let’s move on. Another thing we don’t know about 2021 is exactly what policies the incoming Biden administration will pursue once Biden takes office in January. I assumed during the election campaign that if Biden won, he would lead a headlong flight back to the disastrous mix of neoliberal economics and neoconservative foreign policy that the younger Bush set in motion and Obama copied with such clueless enthusiasm: that is to say, the policies that made Donald Trump inevitable. It’s quite possible that Biden (or rather, his handlers) will still do this, but there are several curious details that suggest an alternative view.
One of the signature elements of his environmental platform, for example, is a program to fund energy-conservation retrofits on American buildings, providing a great many working-class jobs in the process. I admit I was rather startled to see that on Biden’s platform, as it’s something I pushed fairly hard back when I was writing extensively on energy issues. It seems improbable that anyone on Biden’s team would stray far enough from the airtight bubble of approved thinking to reach the fringes where archdruids lurk, so I’m assuming that this is a coincidence. At the same time, the fact that Biden’s flacks have even noticed that working class Americans might be concerned about jobs suggests a degree of attention to the hard realities of life in today’s America that’s become vanishingly rare among our clueless elites.
One of the lessons that the Democratic Party spent the last four years desperately trying not to learn is that what working class Americans want is plenty of full time jobs at decent pay. That’s all they want, and it’s the only thing they’ll accept; give them that and they’re happy, don’t give them that and it doesn’t matter what else you offer them. It’s because the bipartisan consensus welded into place before Trump ignored that enduring reality of American politics that so many people in the upper midwest who voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012 decided to take a chance on Trump in 2016.
Biden, it bears remembering, will face a tremendously difficult situation when he starts his term in a little less than a month. He won election with paper-thin majorities in the battleground states, with even more than the usual evidence of election irregularities; his party lost more than half its majority in the House; he doesn’t have the faintest ghost of a mandate, and he’s facing heat from both sides—on the one hand, the ranting ideologues on the leftward end of his party, who hate him nearly as much as they hate Trump; on the other, a furious Republican Party that considers his presidency illegitimate and has a long list of grudges from the last four years of Democratic antics, which they will take out on him at the first opportunity. (You know as well as I do, for example, that the moment the GOP regains control of the House, Biden will face impeachment—unless they do the smart thing, that is, and target Harris first.)
Very nearly the only thing Biden and his handlers can do that might get him through this mess is to move toward the center the moment the inauguration ceremony is over. That will require him to throw the left wing of his party to the wolves and make common cause with moderates on both sides of the aisle—basically, the same thing Bill Clinton did, and Barack Obama did too, once the 2010 midterms taught him that catering to the far left was a recipe for political disaster. One thing that could strengthen Biden’s position in a big way is doing something to address the needs of working Americans—not, please note, telling them what they ought to want and then trying to browbeat them into accepting it (the usual behavior of the privileged left), but listening to them and then giving them at least some of what they ask for.
If he does that, he might be able to build enough of a coalition of moderates from both parties to fix some of the serious issues that beset this country just now, find common ground among the issues that so many ordinary Americans want to see addressed, and end up with a successful presidency despite the odds. I have no idea whether that will happen, and neither does anyone else outside the inner circle of Biden’s handlers. I’m open to the possibility that Biden will exceed my expectations—it’s quite literally impossible for him to fall below them—but we’ll simply have to wait and see.
Let’s move on. Another unknown, an important one, surfaced the other day on that charmless soapbox of the Anglo-American elite, the BBC news website. I’m not easily surprised by the babblings of the mass media these days, but this article had me staring open-mouthed, because the BBC—and even more to the point, the collection of UN environmental flacks their reporter was quoting—actually admitted in public that if the world is going to do anything significant to curb anthropogenic climate change, the well-to-do are going to have to change their lifestyles so that they produce only a fraction of the carbon dioxide pollution they currently emit.
You have to be aware of the recent history of climate change activism to understand just how astounding this utterance is. For the last few decades, celebrity activists have been busy giving new relevance to the word “hypocrite” by loudly insisting that we all have to do something about climate change, while continuing to lead the kind of personal lifestyle that dumps more CO2 into the atmosphere each year than the entire population of a midsized African city. The hypocrisy reached fever pitch as celebrity environmentalists flew in their private jets to high-profile meetings on climate change, where they waxed rhetorical about how the world had to use less carbon, while demonstrating their utter unwillingness to use less carbon themselves.
Where celebrities led, inevitably, the comfortable classes followed. Back when I was a speaker on the peak oil circuit, I noted with wry amusement how many of the upper middle class people who loved to talk about how awful climate change would be if we all didn’t pitch in and change their ways would backpedal frantically if you suggested that maybe they should lead the way by decreasing their own bigger-than-average carbon footprints. Their idea of changing the world always amounted to pushing off as many costs as possible on the working classes and the global poor, while treating their own lifestyles as sacrosanct. Notice, as one example out of many, how often climate change activists fixated on banning coal mining, which provides jobs for millions of working class people worldwide, while never mentioning the equally gargantuan pollution generated by nonessential air travel. It was fine to make coal miners lose their jobs, but heaven help you if you suggested that the well-to-do give up vacationing in Mazatlan or Bali!
Once the raw hypocrisy became so blatant that it started attracting critical attention, I predicted here and elsewhere that the comfortable classes would doubtless dump climate change as a fashionable issue and find some other issue that they could use to play virtue-signaling games and load more costs onto working people. (That duly happened—have you noticed that office fauna have been able to work from home during the current epidemic, thus continuing to draw their salaries, while people who work in factories, shops, and other lower-class venues have been laid off instead? Once again, the middle classes get coddled and the working classes get screwed.) Yet here we are, and the BBC is busy announcing that the well-to-do are going to have to do the unthinkable and rein in their absurdly extravagant lifestyles for the sake of the planet.
I suppose it’s just possible that after years of hard work analyzing the ecology of our planet and the sources of the carbon pollution that’s messing up its climate, it suddenly occurred to the experts consulted by the United Nations that it’s going to be hard to cut carbon emissions unless the people who produce a disproportionate share of those emissions do something to change that. I confess, though, that I find this hard to believe. My guess is that the political blowback against the pet policies of the clueless well-to-do has reached a high enough pitch that the organs of the establishment have been forced to notice it, and have realied that it will no longer work to insist that “shared sacrifice” means that the working poor are loaded with all the costs and the middle and upper classes get all the benefits.
That’s an issue, of course, because it’s not just environmental policy that’s been twisted out of shape along those lines. For decades now, across the board, nearly every policy that’s been pushed by the establishment here in the US and in most other industrial nations has benefited the middle classes at the expense of the working classes. That’s why we’ve gone from the situation in 1960, when one working class income could support a family comfortably, to the situation in 2020, when one working class income won’t keep a family off the street. Those changes weren’t accidental, nor were they inevitable; they were the results of readily identifiable policies pushed by a bipartisan consensus, and defended by government, corporate, and media flacks with a disingenuousness that borders on the pathological.
The difficulty we’re in now, of course, is that a very large number of people are aware of this, and they’re far from happy about it. Here in the United States, a vast number of citizens—quite probably a majority—believe that they live under a senile kleptocracy propped up by rigged elections and breathtakingly dishonest media, in which their votes do not count and their needs will not be addressed by those in power. What’s more, they have more than a little evidence to support these beliefs, and strange to say, another round of patronizing putdowns by the mouthpieces of the well-to-do is unlikely to change their minds. The resulting crisis of legitimacy has become a political fact of immense importance.
A few years back, my fellow blogger and more than occasional debating partner Dmitry Orlov wrote a series of essays (later collected into his book Reinventing Collapse) pointing out that the United States is vulnerable to the same sort of sudden political implosion that overtook the Warsaw Pact nations of eastern Europe in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991. His point has lost none of its sharpness since then. When political theorists of an earlier generation noted that governments exist by the consent of the governed, they were stating a simple fact, not proposing an ideal; a government, any government, survives solely because most of the people it rules play along, obeying its laws and edicts no matter how absurd those happen to be. If they withdraw that consent, the existing order of things comes tumbling down.
As we saw some thirty years ago, the most effective way to get people to withdraw their consent from the government that claims to rule them is to show them, over and over again, that their needs and concerns are of no interest to a self-aggrandizing elite, and that they have nothing to hope for from the continuation of the present system and nothing to lose if it falls. A very substantial share of Americans, and a significant number of people in other Western industrial countries, have already had that experience and come to those conclusions—and the enthusiasm displayed by the comfortable classes for shoving off the costs of change on the impoverished majority while seizing the benefits for themselves has played a huge role in that state of affairs.
As a result, it’s entirely possible that at some point in the near future, when next the United States faces a serious crisis, most Americans will shrug and let it fall, as most Soviet citizens did when the Soviet Union hit its final crisis in 1991. Keep in mind that the vast majority of active duty US police and military personnel—the final bulwark of any regime in crisis—voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and might not be in any hurry to come to the rescue of a system that treats them with the same casual contempt it turns on everyone outside the circles of privilege. It’s entirely possible, in other words, that ten years from now people will talk about the former United States the way they talk about the former Soviet Union.
Will that happen in 2021? It’s impossible to say, and one of the reasons it’s impossible to say is that it depends, among other things, on the other unknowns discussed already in this essay. If the Covid-19 vaccines turn out to be safe and effective; if the Biden administration moves to occupy the abandoned center of American politics and gives working Americans some reason to think that their concerns have some chance of being addressed by those who claim the right to rule them; if the privileged classes in the United States and elsewhere finally notice that policies like those they favor reliably end with some equivalent of tumbrils and guillotines, or at least the irrevocable collapse of the system that provides them with their comfortable lifestyles—why, then, things could swerve in a different direction entirely.
On the other hand, if one of those inadequately tested vaccines turns out to have bad outcomes for a significant share of the millions of people lining up to receive them, or if Biden’s talk about providing jobs for working Americans turns out to be just as dishonest as Obama’s promises about his health care legislation, or if the clueless elites keep on believing that they can pursue their pet policies at the expense of everyone whose labor keeps the system going—or, gods help us, all of these at once—then we may just find ourselves plunging into a chaotic future for which very few of us are prepared. For the moment, though, we just don’t know.
With that in mind, I’d like to encourage my readers to stay watchful, stay nimble, keep your pantries well stocked with necessities, and remember that all those yammering faces on glass screens are there to sell you something you don’t want to buy. I’ll be taking January off blogging, as usual, so we’ll resume this conversation on the first Wednesday in February. Until then, be safe, and may the powers that guide your destiny bring you good things.
Thanks for this post. I must admit, I’m filled with a nervous tension when reading about the potential end of the US in this post. I kind of think it makes sense because who wouldn’t be nervous in a move from order to chaos. If I hadn’t been for my spiritual practice these last couple of years, I’d probably reject the collapse idea and run away like a frightened turkey. I think rejection of ideas like this comes from a fear of death. People are so afraid of it, they won’t even let themselves imagine or think about poo hitting the fan. Good ole myth of progress optimism with a dose of repression.
May you have a fruitful month off.
Have a lovely break, and thank you for your writings and for your moderating!
I guess we will see how long their thinking caps stay on.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/30/democrats-party-joe-biden-working-class-americans
“…political strategist David Axelrod said the problem was that the party needed to learn how not to talk down to working-class voters, noting that while Democrats dominated in and around big cities in the 2020 election, Republicans had won in 80% of US counties.”
“…“It’s not just about having deliverables and tangibles to offer,” said Axelrod on the Hacks on Tap podcast. “It’s about changing an attitude that basically thinks of these folks as something less.
“The Democratic party envisions itself as the party of working people but it doesn’t feel that way to a lot of working people. And the Democratic party needs to figure that out.”
Oh JMG, you had to bring up all these contentious issues, which raises the specter of a seven hundred comment reply thread in your absence! I have one request for your vacation, please stop putting comments through for January. It would be nice to give your readers a break as well. Comment threads used to be 64 comments long! Nowadays things have gotten a lot more verbose and chummy, and time-consuming.
This post definitely made me re-think my vaccine plan. I had been planning on waiting six months until after someone I know personally had gotten it, so I could see if they had any severe negative side-effects. But now that you’ve thrown the two year figure out there, I feel even more cautious. I guess it will require some thought. It seems like I probably won’t have even a chance to get vaccinated until next December anyways, at the pace things are going, so I will have oodles of time to make my decision.
As far as old man Biden goes, I find it odd that his team have been doing some sabre-rattling vis-a-vis China lately. I figured if anything, China was probably secretly supporting his campaign (or opposing the Trump campaign). I don’t have much hope for any good policies to come out of this administration, but if they would at least stop enabling China, that would be a step in the right direction.
Have a nice break.
Thanks for your post JMG. Im a newer reader and happened to be perusing your previous post when you posted this. I found you from the Hermitix Podcast and recently purchased your translation of The Picatrix!
Its both unnerving and satisfying to see the few people I pay attention to express their dismay for the year to come. Ive seen you express a few opinions on large scale models and I was wondering what your opinion of Martin Armstrong’s various models? (sorry if you’ve answered this in the past).
Sounds like the coming year is the perfect example of “hope for the best, prepare for the worst!”
Thanks again for your post, I really enjoy listening to you on Hermitix! Hope to hear you on there again soon
I just discovered your blog when I was looking up info on the Law of Impactation through Google. I am taking the unsupervised course through The SIL and just wanted you to know how helpful your information is and how happy I am to discover that I can read your commentary and other’s questions/answers giving me a more expanded view on the subject that I am most interested in at this time. Thank you so much.
If Biden pulls a Bill Clinton– using media-provoked race riots to propel himself into office on the enthusiasm of radicals, only to sell out the radicals at the first opportunity and run to the center– it will be the most cynical moment in the history of American politics. It’s also probably the best chance we have. I’d like to imagine that someone close to him is smart enough to notice that it would be far better for him to win back the working class, the white ethnics and the Catholics than to hold onto the furious 4% who actually believe in the Social Justice party line. If he can do that, it may set the stage for a Gabbard presidency in 2024, and there might be some hope for the republic.
If he were to give Ibram Kendi his Sista Souljah moment, I’d consider changing my registration (back) to Democrat.
There will shortly be two vaccines available in Britain, the very high tech mRNA Pfizer one, and the slightly more conventional AstraZeneca one that was approved today. The latter is not as fussy about its transport and storage and so I’m hoping that it is the one that they will offer me and mine. Whichever it is however, I have decided that I will be taking it and I fully accept the risks in doing so. From my perspective it’s a trade off, the vaccine may have unpleasant long term side effects. If I’m very unlucky or perhaps did something egregiously evil in a previous incarnation it might kill me. On the other hand COVID has a really excellent chance of killing me since I am vulnerable and there have been many, many, reports of lingering issues. The absence of easily available tests early in the year means that it’s unclear if I’ve already been exposed.
I’m going to pass over US politics in silence, beyond mentioning that the situation is regularly in my thoughts and I wish the best for all Americans reading this.
Anyway, wishing you @JMG a restful and rejuvenating January.
Andy
Spot on in so many respects, as usual my friend. I will be getting the vaccine however. I’m a public school principal and educators have been one of the many “essential workers” America has realized it requires to operate. Albeit more in terms of child care to allow the public to work than perhaps nobler causes. I have studied the science and the rush makes me nervous, but I still plan to trust this bit of technology with the hope of resolving this current dilemma. What worries me more is the lack of public dialogue on the real causes of this virus (current global conditions) instead of the typical medical view of a reactionary, instead of preventative, approach to personal and global health. Thanks again Mr. Greer, a blessed and prosperous new year to you and yours.
Many thanks JMG for all of your work these past years, and for the powerful blessing at the end of today’s article. Sincere prayers and wishes for a prosperous, peaceful, hale and hearty new year to you, Sara and all Ecosophians.
Gawain
I for one, do not have any faith in the inadequately tested vaccines, and will resist being propagandized into getting one. I suspect the driving force behind the vaccine push is a burning desire to return to business as usual, which ain’t gonna happen. My husband and I can’t afford health insurance, nor can we afford to stop working. What would happen if we got the vaccine, and suffered serious side affects? The medical establishment pushing these untested drugs would just shrug and say “oh well…” I’d rather trust my immune system than Big Pharma.
Thank you for this post, and this blog. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written here, although I think things will continue to get worse in the more urban areas no matter what happens. Things have deteriorated too much. The mass fleeing from the cities has begun, and I think will continue for quite a while.
I am just incredibly thankful to be ringing in the new year in a small town in a sparsely populated state, in no small thanks to reading this blog, your books (and the thoughts of your commentators) over the past few years.
Here’s to 2021!
Thanks for all your work at the blogs you run JMG. They have felt like the last remaining center of calm in a mad world.
Those are mixed notes as to how the next year and following will play out. What I found interesting was how this post seemed at least hopeful compared to the tenor of your recent mundane analysis of the United States, which seemed to point towards more unrest, major governmental problems (including a major Biden gaffe in his term) and a continued path towards not really resolving outstanding issues till at least 2025. Is that more of looking for the silver lining or trying to stay balanced?
I can only imagine the effects on governmental legitimacy should the vaccines turn out to have significant negative results. Though that’s tempered by the amount big tech is censoring and will let out to the general populace. I believe you mentioned the 3rd house of communications/internet companies was due for a major hit and hope that stays true.
Thanks for the post John. We live in interesting times. The potential for greater disorder in the USA concerns me from my perspective north of the border. I hope that the new American administration can do better than the previous administrations, but that may be a slim hope given the deep institutional corruption at work in the country. For my part, I fear that we may be having to deal with American refugees in the north half of the continent
John, et al.–
Perhaps I’m being too cynical, but I cannot see Biden, of all people, as being one who “gets it.” Like you, my assumption has been that he represents a fast-track to status quo ante, or at least the attempted return to such. I’ve always thought that the change-agent would have to be, rather like Trump, an outsider and not a card-carrying member of the political establishment. I’m prepared to be wrong, however. We’ll see how this first year of the administration unfolds. (I’ll be particularly watching to see if some of Trump’s more telling EOs–such as EO 13932, dated 26 Jun 2020, which revised the criteria by which applicants to federal jobs were assessed and pointedly removed educational credentials as an exclusive criterion, allowing the substitution of pertinent experience–get reversed by Biden.)
As for the vaccine–no plans to get it myself. I’ve managed w/o the flu vaccine for decades and I can manage w/o this one until the potential side effects are better known. Even my wife, who was no fan of Trump and who was far more accepting of the COVID restrictions than I have been, has stated that she dos not plan on getting jabbed anytime soon. I hope no one suffers b/c of the rush-to-approval. This is one time I’d hate to be right.
I would be shocked if the call-to-arms for reduced energy consumption takes off among the elite. I can’t say that I have a good sense of the psychology of these things, however, and I’m prepared to be wrong here, too. I think it’s far more likely that climate change gets dropped as a cause celebre. (I mean, we all know that fusion technology is right around the corner, so nothing needs to change…right?) In the end, we can only keep on keepin’ on and working within the space of our own lives: this is something I’m–very slowly–coming to accept.
Finally, I’ll join my wishes of the others here for you to have a safe and productive break, John. And to everyone in the community, blessings upon you all: beyond the immense value this community brings, you all have helped make a challenging year more bearable. My deepest and most sincere thanks to everyone here.
@JMG
Please feel free to delete this comment if it seems off – topic, but given that you have written about the media, I thought that you might be interested in this book called ‘A Road to Nowhere: the idea of Progress and its critics’ by Prof. Matthew Slaboch of the University of Pennsylvania. It is surprisingly good, especially, given that the author is an academic. To describe the book briefly, the author discusses Spengler, Danilevsky, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn and other ‘pessimists’ who have critiqued the belief in unchecked progress, and concludes (with some reluctance and handwaving, IMO) that they are right and mainstream opinion wrong.
Also, wishing you and Mrs. Greer a Happy New Year in advance!
“With that in mind, I’d like to encourage my readers to stay watchful, stay nimble, keep your pantries well stocked with necessities, and remember that all those yammering faces on glass screens are there to sell you something you don’t want to buy.”
While this is very true, please everyone remember that you are, in fact, looking at a glass screen this very moment.
I wish you all peace in the coming mystery.
A couple of notes, and this from finding myself at some strange front lines:
1) Remember that, when everything shut down in Mid-March, flights around the world and car travel to various downtowns deeply dropped off as everyone with an office job and a commute to match suddenly had to stay home…and Greenhouse Gas emissions dropped deeply as a result. This wasn’t just the working class being forced to stay at home and lose all sources of self-support (although that indeed happened, along with a malign neglect of duties from certain congresspeople), this was also much of the comfortable classes being forced to change their habits.
This would explain the seemingly sudden willingness to call out the extremely rich for their lifestyle – now that it has been proven that emissions can be cut when deemed necessary, now’s the time to actually lay some active guilt on people who could probably take on some deeper cuts with a small amount of actual sacrifice.
(Admission: I was one of the masses canceling a round-trip flight mid-March, along with a hotel room, a registration at a gathering, and plans for a few days in Las Vegas. Was close enough to my birthday for that day to count as an excuse. Also drove around at my job for months afterwards and noticed how wonderfully empty the Expressways of Chicago were.)
2) Probably the most interesting thing about the COVID vaccine is that the Medical Establishment has had to give their bodies in direct support of the Vaccines, as the Medical Practitioners of all stripes (from doctors to surgeons to nursing home employees) have been the first in line for the vaccines. If those vaccines are safe, they’ll be the proof (and the medical establishment will gain new life), if the vaccines prove dangerous enough then even those with blind faith and the ability to draw medical support to them will find themselves needing to turn away from the medical establishment – even while many others pull away (or pull FURTHER away) from a medical establishment which may be unable to deal with a self-administered mess that came from the one moment that they HAD to take their own medicine first.
(Context: having some heart trouble at the moment, having to deal with the medical establishment. Had a couple of doctors talk about taking the COVID Vaccine. And since we’re talking about two widely different practices (GP and Cardiologist), the assumption is that the whole of the Medical Community is busy getting the vaccines – both out of belief in the Vaccines and the understanding that they have to deal with the Virus as a matter of course.)
Maybe this story is a tell-tail that our elite is beginning to get a clue:
(From Tulsi Gabbard – Bill to ban biological men from women’s sports gains bipartisan support in Congress )
https://campusreform.org/?id=16497
–Lunar Apprentice
I can’t imagine the US military would stand by and let the system collapse because I can’t imagine they would want to allow the power vacuum that would create for China to step into. That scenario would place the US beneath China irrevocably for the foreseeable future. Cheaper perhaps, but not one the military would consider desirable.
From what I understand about the Soviet Union, the system was so derelict it couldn’t have survived much longer either way. I don’t know enough about the state of the US to tell just how derelict/functioning it is and whether a sudden implosion is a real possibility at this time.
Thank you for your good wishes. I will second them.
I have been looking at some possible investment opportunities for 2021, but ultimately I think I will end up hunkering down. As someone who enjoys long term planning with many contingencies, there are just too many what-ifs to make a sensible, even risky, decision. At this point it seems positive just to survive 2021.
On another note, I am finally reading The Long Descent. Its both frightening and comforting in an odd juxtaposition.
One of the things I’m watching with astonishment is that the fact people are having horrific reactions is making the mainstream media, who then contextualize it as “This is one person out of millions! Covid is worse!” I keep finding references to things like “Health care workers in Alaska” and when I look it up, find mainstream media articles discussing this very fact. The TImes even had an article there. This is going to be very, very interesting, in the sense of the curse.
My mental model suggest that 2020 was the year that the powerful decision makers (be that informal billionaire corporate networks, the deep state, a secret satanic cult, or whatever— I don’t pretend to know) changed tactics from delaying the inevitable collapse to one of mitigating the consequences, and they are doing so by means of what has made them so powerful in the first places: lies and deceit.
It’s interesting to note that 2020 was the year in The Limits to the Growth that was most often predicted to be the beginning of the end of industrial growth. Seeing as how the Fed’s balance sheet went exponential this year an unwelcome congratulation may soon be due to Meadows and company.
So I think that it’s safe to predict and plan for a 2021 that will be filled with more of the same kind of media/government induced hysteria and BS that took 2020 to wartime propaganda heights: new deadly pandemic strains, safe & effective vaccines, mostly peaceful protest, unquestionably fair elections, small handouts for the masses, big bailouts for the massive, and nonexistant inflation.
I hope I am wrong and maybe even crazy — I have a years worth of backpacking left that I wanted to do.
Nate D.
will not be wearing a mask next year in Bonner’s Ferry Idaho.
Have a restful and pleasant break and thank you for another year of insight and excellence.
Happy New Year, everybody!
JMG, you enjoy your break. Don’t worry at all about your suddenly Druidless readers. We’ll manage. Just go on your merry way and don’t give us a thought…
From the site’s “National “ Mom…
There’s an article from Scientific American on the risks of the vaccine. The fact this is appearing there of all places says that even a lot of their staff, who’ve been bought and are usually all gung-ho for progress anyway, are worried. If they’re concerned, I think it’s safe to say there’s a major problem….
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-risks-of-rushing-a-covid-19-vaccine/
Meanwhile, here’s what Newsweek has to say on the topic. The headline says it all: “Unknown COVID Vaccine Side Effects May Appear After Millions Immunized—But Benefits Outweigh Risks”. Their argument is literally Covid is COLD PRICKLY, so vaccines are good.
https://www.newsweek.com/covid-vaccine-side-effects-rare-long-term-benefits-outweigh-risks-millions-immunized-1552009
Dear gods this is going to end so badly….
Excellent post, John Michael. I just read it aloud to Connie and we both loved it.
Wishing you and Sara a blessed and fruitful 2021,
~ M & C
The debates you had with Dimitry Orlov sound interesting. Are they archived somewhere? For myself, I wish the Dems would abandon the identity politics that they’ve embraced so enthusiastically for decades, and attend to policy issues with more real substance; like dealing with corporate power for example. Have a productive month off.
Thanks JMG for another year of insightful and entertaining writing – enjoy your much-deserved winter rest.
Feels like we’re walking a narrow and rocky path at high elevation – both exhilarating and scary. We could get to a safer place, fall hard or just keep on wandering. I don’t comment much these days, but read the comments every week and learn a great deal. So thanks to the commentariat too, and best wishes to all for a blessed and hopefully not-too-interesting 2021.
Do you think, in light of the indications in the Grand Mutation chart, plus the truly atrocious inauguration chart, that Biden might end up being the last president of the US? That this could be the term it all comes crashing down?
Given the fact that certain loud voices here in Ontario are now suggesting getting the vaccine be made mandatory in order to have a job (not go to work, get a job), I’ve been looking into the vaccine more, trying to decide how I’ll handle that, thus the repeated posts. After seeing the arguments for why this is different from Thamaldahide (IT WAS NEVER APPROVED!) and Fen-Phen (TWO DRUGS!), I think I’d rather take my chances being homeless for a bit…..
Also, a doctor friend of mine has informed me that she sees reason to suspect the vaccine can have a lethal interaction with alcohol. Given how common that intoxicant is, if true this could be a disaster….
@ JMG – That certainly is a lot to chew on, and I hope you enjoy your time off. I will ask you to clarify some of your thinking on these issues for me:
1 – I’m a bit perplexed by what you are considering a ‘moderate’ political stance, especially when using the left/right verbiage, which should apply more to economic policy than social ‘issues’. Take the current fight over stimulus checks. This fight has laid bare, again, just how grossly enabling Washington is for kleptocratic class. Outside of Washington, most people (and keep in mind, that I live in Oklahoma which is, shall we say, center-right at best) view stimulus money are a no-brainer that should happen, rather than a contentious fight. I think when most people hear any DC politician say they’re going to ‘reach across the aisle’ or be ‘bi-partisan’ they immediately assume said politician will pursue another endless war, corporate bailout, or gutting some other policy like Social Security, that actually helps people. So which is it?
2 – Have you noticed how visible the ruling class is making it that they, themselves, appear to be getting the vaccine? Do you think they’ve noticed that actions speak louder than words?
3 –I am concerned that people are taking these claims of voter fraud seriously enough they may decide to act against an ‘illegitimate government’. Perception sometimes is reality, I suppose. That said, If the Democratic Party could rig multiple state elections to get Biden into the White House, wouldn’t they rig the Senate races to give themselves a majority? Why lose seats in the House if you don’t have to? To that end, if the evidence is so convincing, why has the Trump legal team lost 49 out of 50 court cases?
A few weeks ago I spent an hour or so looking up pre-covid articles on MRNA vaccines on the internet. Most of this was pharma-industry articles ( those not behind paywalls) talking about the bright future of MRNA vaccines in 2018 and 2019 . The interesting part was that most of the insider type articles did not extoll this new type of Vaccine for its safety or effectiveness but instead lauded it for its reduced development time and ease of manufacture. Traditional vaccines require large facilities painstakingly culturing virus bits in labor intensive “incubators”. Most of these traditional vaccine factories had been shut down or off-shored in the last 20 years because they were deemed to be unprofitable. MRNA vaccines can be cranked out in a sophisticated but easily automated set of enzyme and other chemical reactions. These articles from 2019 predicted a bright future for these new high tech vaccines but warned that they would still be a decade or more in development because of issues with long term side effects and real world handling difficulties ( the need for ultra cold temperatures among them). Seems pretty risky to fast track such a thing to me.
Dear JMG,
Many thanks for this! Recently I’ve been thinking about how immediately I’ve felt the Grand Mutation and the various aspects it can make with the planets in people’s Natal Charts. My geomantic divinations indicated that aspects formed by Grand Mutation in people’s charts will endure for the length of the Grand Mutation as a reality of how the zeitgeist and the person interact. The Grand Mutation might conjunct, sextile, square, trine or oppose any planet in the chart, and for many people several planets may be directly effected. I find this fascinating since it seems that a lot of people will be touched by Fated change in the new era we are entering.
This year, then, seems extra unpredictable on that account. As I understand it, some people will be met with good, some with evil, and some with straight up weird based on how the Grand Mutation interacts with the Natal Chart. On my own blog I’ve written a meditation on these themes and also offer my prayers to those who may wish for folks to pray on their behalf, the details are on my blog for those who might be interested: https://violetcabra.dreamwidth.org/.
That said, I think things will get extremely interesting with far greater rapidity than usual, at least for many people who have the Grand Mutation aspecting planets in their charts. On my end, I find myself looking forward to the new year with enthusiasm. I firmly believe that there’s all sorts of ways that we as individuals can make a difference in ways that matter, and in that spirit I hope to have the insight to see the opportunities in crisis and the courage to act on those insights.
I wish you and Sara a wonderful New Year, JMG, and a wonderful New Year to the commentariat.
My mum worked in third world medicine in the 1970s, including treating one of the last cases of smallpox in Latin America. She says there’s always been a proportion of people who’ve had bad reactions to vaccines. But if the vaccine killed you, the disease probably would have too. Vulnerability to one signals vulnerability to the other. So people in that segment of the population were likely in trouble either way.
Maybe I’ve become too cynical over the years, especially since 2006, when Cold bowl Nancy&co. pulled that icecream-stained linen cloth .. with all those shiny plebian promisesettings, OFF THE TABLE! .. only to be scattered upon the dirty House floor. So with all that’s been hurled down the D.C. pipe since, I see nothing but more hemming & hawing to be furthered by the KamJoe administration – blowing the more-than-occasional Cackling Kiss of Death to rain down on all those deplorable LowerMokestanis – by hitching their Wokewagon ‘securely’ to the Schwabian WEF/davos Cloud Chariot, thinking their glidepath invulnerable to any and all ‘passed-wind’shear!
Guess we’ll see what giveth first, the Chariot .. or the Mokes. Who knows?? … Could be the makings of an Epic!
Enjoy your restivities, Mr. Greer .. as we roll into Year 21!
First off, thank you to everyone who wished me well on next month’s break!
Youngelephant, sometimes anxiety is an appropriate response.
Ian, if even David Axelrod has noticed so obvious a fact, there’s at least a little reason for hope. Thanks for this.
Merle, nope. If you don’t want to have to follow all the comments, why, then don’t visit this blog between January 1 and February 3!
Taylor, I don’t think I’ve heard of Martin Armstrong. Can you suggest a good print source online (I don’t watch videos)?
Kim, you’re most welcome. The series of posts on The Cosmic Doctrine will be coming out as a book eventually, for whatever that’s worth.
Steve, no, it won’t be anything like the most cynical moment in the history of the republic. It’ll be business as usual in politics; this kind of thing has happened over, and over, and over again in the history of every country you care to name. That said, if it happens, next year may not be quite as bad as this one has been, and that’s a worthwhile thing to hope for.
Adwelly, the choice is yours, of course. I won’t be taking the vaccine, but that’s because I already had the virus and got through it fine with three days of bed rest and my preferred methods of crackpot medicine. But it’s a choice everyone needs to make for themselves.
Chris, see my comment to Adwelly immediately above. It really is an individual choice.
Danaone, and likewise…
Tude, it depends on which urban area you have in mind. The big coastal cities (counting Chicago as north coast)? Sure, and yes, people are fleeing from those for very good reason. Some of the cities in the interior are seeing their tax base boom, and others are doing quite well. That said, if you’ve got yourself comfortably situated in a small town and all is well, enjoy!
Tamanous, my post attempted to maintain a balance between positive and negative possibilities, because both are, ahem, possible. I know which way I think things will go, but those thoughts are speculations rather than certainties.
Raymond, in your place I’d be getting ready to deal with them.
David BTL, I seriously doubt that Biden gets much of anything these days, other than his daily meds. It’s his handlers and the team of political operatives who are using him as their sock puppet who might just possibly have a clue. But we’ll see…
Viduraawakened, hmm! Fascinating. I’ll see if the local library can scare me up a copy.
Docshibby, do you see my yammering face?
Godozo, thanks for this. If one or the other of the mRNA vaccines turns out to have serious problems, watching the impact on the medical industry is going to be, er, colorful…
Lunar Apprentice, yes, I saw that. A straw in the wind? We’ll see.
Piglet, the military leadership? Sure. The grunts who would actually have to do the work of propping up our derelict system? Not so much. The supreme weakness in any hierarchical institution — and the military is a fine example — is that the power of the people who are notionally in charge depends utterly on the willingness of the people who actually do the work to follow the orders of their superiors — and that willingness, of course, is not limitless.
E Wilham, invest in skills. What you know how to do will do you much more good in a chaotic situation than what you own.
Anonymous, I think they realize that if they try to silence every report of negative reactions, the rumor mills will run wild. They’re trying to stay out in front of the curve, in the hope that it will just be a few scattered negative reactions. If they’re wrong, it’s going to get ugly in a hurry.
Nate, well, we’ll see!
Your Kittenship, trust me, I won’t. 😉
Anonymous, here again, they’re trying to stay out in front of the curve. How it ends is not something anyone can know in advance.
Phutatorius, you’d have to look for videos from peak oil conferences back in the day, where Dmitry and I used to have some lively disuptes.
Anonymous, once again, we’ll see…
Ben, I’m going to let you and my commentariat ponder those questions yourselves, as I don’t see any point in repeating things I’ve said many times in the past.
Clay, that does seem rather risky. Of course since vaccine manufacturers are legally protected against product liability issues, the risk is all on the side of the recipients and the gain is all on the side of the manufacturers.
Violet, well, we’ll see! The Grand Mutation made a hostile aspect to my midheaven, and I certainly hope I don’t spend the next 199 years (say, 2-3 lives) having career problems as a result…
Yorkshire, that’s true of conventional weakened-virus vaccines. Whether it’s true of mRNA vaccines is one of many things we just don’t know yet.
Polecat, as I noted earlier, it’s intriguing to see how many people try to find certainty in one way or another in uncertain times.
It’s very good to read a sober analysis of where we are, even if it is so difficult to be certain about the (near) future.
I have a friend who is an MD. I have tried to raise the concerns I have about the vaccines with him – nothing crazy, just the very same perfectly reasonable concerns you wrote about. His response is more or less to call me a tinfoil hatter; of course these vaccines are safe!! The thing is, the harder I get shouted at that it’s all perfectly safe, the less convinced I become. Meanwhile, I read about would-be future fathers being recommended to freeze their sperm – just in case.
As for Biden moving to the centre, let’s hope so, but that begs the question of why he waited until after the election to do that. Perhaps even the DNC was shocked to see how hard it was to, ahem, arrange for him to have enough votes. BTW Orlov has a nice post up (http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2020/12/world-satanic-society-2020-year-end.html#more) pointing out how the numbers just don’t add up and yet this isn’t even being discussed.
If Biden has had a look at your analysis of the inauguration chart, maybe he has decided to “develop a disease” almost immediately and hand over to President Harris. He certainly makes enough gaffes which point in that direction.
Enjoy your break from blogging.
Have a good vacation! Some of us did weird(er than usual) things this year and you and your writings were a bright beacon of sanity. Thank you.
FWIW, my predictions for the vaccines are that they’ll be largely a plutonian fizzle health-wise. They’ll be rolled out so slowly, and the first doses and being prioritized for people so old and in ill health they are largely going to die in the observation period to know whether they would have long term side effects anyway. My health region got vaccine in mid-December, but the first responders – third down the list behind care home residents and their carers, and hospital staff – aren’t getting their first dose until the end of March. They won’t be considered immune until their second dose in June. Since other respiratory viral pandemics blew over without vaccines within 2-4 years, by the time they could possibly ramp out all the vaccinations to the entire population, people won’t bother because suddenly the rate of infections will drop – it’ll be spring and summer in the northern hemisphere again, by then, after all – and they’ll quietly drop the panic about it, and the low risk people will forget about how badly they’d needed everyone and their dog vaccinated, and will approach it with the same diligence most of us approach getting our flu vaccines (irregularly, if at all). The governments paid for the vaccines already, so the fact that they’ll all expire, go bad because of the extremely finicky storage requirements, etc. before everyone gets them will be able to be quietly swept under the rug to their great relief. Pandemic over, vaccinations for everyone who had really needed one, and the world carries on as usual with anyone who showed particular incompetence being promoted at least once, and the people who worked really hard in the trenches leaving in disillusionment and disgust (oh, that might be me projecting based on my own corporate experience ;-)).
Not to mention, of course, that most people will never get their second dose, making the entire exercise largely worthless, because politicians have bowed to public insanity, and, in Ontario so far, but I’m sure other jurisidictions will follow, they are not reserving the second dose to ensure it will be there for recipients to complete the series, and are giving it all out, and just hoping that somehow enough vaccine will continue to arrive in large enough, ever increasing quantity, to ensure that everyone who got a first dose gets a second dose of the same vaccine. Anyone who thinks that there will be remotely enough, or that it will arrive to the right places at the right times, and without mixing up brands or doses to people, has apparently never encountered a medical system in the developed or developing world before, and have not gone shopping lately or spoken to a shop keeper about the major supply chain and long distance transport issues that are occurring.
JMG, how do you know whom the vast majority of military personnel voted for President in 2020? What are your sources of information? Do those sources show a difference between officers and enlisted personnel?
I am unlikely to have the opportunity to take any of the Covid-19 vaccines until the fall. I am planning on getting it unless really nasty sideffects have cropped up by then, as I think the risk lower for me than getting Covid, and I also don’t want to pass Covid to someone else at higher risk. Since I won’t be offered it for many months, I figure that the risk profiles will be better-known by then, and I’ll be able to make a reasonably informed decision.
I am simply flabbergasted that our betters seem to genuinely believe that vaccinating billions of people with experimental vaccines is a good idea. This looks like WWI level stupidity, and sadly, all I can do is try to get through this more or less unharmed. My plan is to delay getting vaccinated for as long as possible. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to avoid it entirely (or at least for a few years, while data is collected and we can see if the thing is as safe as they say it is). But I should be able to delay getting vaccinated at least until next summer, at which point, at least some data will be in (if the data looks very bad, they’ll withdraw the vaccine in question, or at least one can hope they will).
BTW, what does it mean to “go kinetic”? I understand “kinetic,” but this must be some sort of idiom I’d never encountered before, and Google is no help.
Reply,
JMG,
Here is Martin’s Website, which is probably the best place to start:
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/the-business-cycle/
(hope the link works) There are also lots of other people talking about him online that I feel like can explain his work really well. Gordon White seems to stand by this guy’s work.
Martin seems to be hailed as a genius to some, crack-pot scam artist to others. His various models seem to mirror your various predictions for next year, most notably the uptick in civil unrest, peak oil, and peak in the “plague cycle” (ie. negative vaccine side-effects) within the next year.
Personally, I dont think I have enough of a reference point to think I understand a lot of his work, but you seem like someone with a lot of life experience under your belt, so I was curious what you think considering some of the similar predictions.
Thanks again for your time! 🙂 Happy New Year
@Docshibby: My screen seems to be made of some kind of plastic composite. Harlan Ellison’s book The Glass Teat, from the 70s, is still relevant today, close to five decades later. Always preferred text to yammering heads.
This year has flummoxed me in terms of predictions. I thought, as Covid started, that the economic fallout would pop the housing bubble here in Canada. Wrong! I didn’t expect at all that it would actually fuel the housing bubble.
That’s one realization I had about predictions in general – it’s one thing to try to predict WHAT may happen, it’s another to predict WHEN it will happen. One can infer a change based on current circumstances, ie, a car is heading towards a cliff and the driver doesn’t know, therefore the car will eventually drive off the cliff. But suddenly the engine breaks down, and the car stops. The driver still doesn’t know the cliff is there, but the prediction has been proven wrong.
We knew that at some point that a pandemic would occur at some point, because that’s what they do. But predicting when? Much more difficult.
In addition to those points you noted, there’s also this great unknown: the economic consequences of the Covid vaccine not working. Basically, to the authorities, the vaccine HAS to work. All the stimulus is aimed at getting us to the point where immunization to Covid is widespread. If it doesn’t work or there are numerous side effects, as you suggested is a possibility, then we could be in for an economic reckoning as then the powers-that-be can’t continue to print money to provide stimulus for whenever lockdowns are imposed. If that’s true, that alone is a pretty good reason to be wary of the vaccine. Although, why do I assume that governments can’t continue to print money…
I’ve been watching what’s been happening with Bitcoin lately as a proxy for the economy, because it appears that the reason for the spike in its value is because it’s supposedly an inflation hedge for those worried about where to park their money. Gold is pretty high this year, too. So these surges in value may have less to do with people wanting to get rich (though of course that’s a factor, too), and more to do with the fear of the loss in value of one’s dollar assets.
On the other hand, this could be marketing on the part of those already invested big in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general – to make them look like safe havens. That would be quite an act of thaumaturgy: to make Bitcoin, with all its volatility, appear as the safest place to invest. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin charts are looking right now an awful lot like they did back in 2017 during its last big spike.
But who knows? Like I said, I was wrong this year with most of my other predictions. The whole weave of causality is less like a weave, and more like a wet, shrunken wool sweater of causality – even more jumbled up than usual.
Martin Armstrong can be found at armstrongeconomics.com. Ongoing daily blog posts going back years.
Dear JMG,
For what it’s worth, further geomantic divination indicates clearly that the direct effects of the Grand Mutation on anyone’s natal chart won’t necessarily abide in natal charts of future incarnations of the individual, which fits my intuition. Also, I have the sense that there are plenty of techniques that you know far better than I for mitigating hostile aspects and supporting planets in one’s natal chart. 😉
Of course, you’re absolutely right that we’ll see regarding my speculations as with so many other speculations. I’m prepared to be wrong, of course, which is why I divined about my speculations, but like so much broader pattern stuff I only expect to really grasp it when my mental sheath has developed far more than it has yet.
Still, I feel a far greater sense of change occurring right now in the collective than ever before in my life, it’s like a spring thaw revealing forgotten ground, a chaos of rivulets cut into dissolving ice and the soft earth, a rapidly changing landscape where what was yesterday in no way predicts what will be tomorrow.
Venturing into the unknown is a fearful adventure that requires courage and wisdom, nonetheless.
I am reminded of Ted Kaptchuk’s homily on the more spiritual/emotional aspects of the Kidney* in his introductory Traditional Chinese Medice treatise called “The Web that has no Weaver”. He noted that the emotion that particularly disturbs the Kidney is fear (fear can literally make you pee your pants!) while one translation of the “spirit” of the Kidney, Zhi, is “Will”. Kaptchuk divided this into the Yang will (the one we use every day when deciding what to do next), and the Yin will, the one which may correlate (for this commentariat) to the higher self – the direction a life can take, but which may not be apparent until long afterwards, looking back. The growth of the Yin will is considered to correlate to the growth of Wisdom informed by experience.
And the insight this reading gave me was the idea that both fear and wisdom engage with the Great Unknown – but while fear can freeze or paralyse one in the face of the unknown, wisdom can release the will to be effective, and help one stride forth, with courage, into that unknown that will never diminish, only continue to recede into a moving horizon…
Thanks for this, and many blessings upon your goings and doings in the month of January.
If in fact, the election was successfully rigged, a thing that we may need to add to our list of unknowables. Then it, in of itself, is a fulcrum for political collapse. Answering to the voters is the only real factor that keeps the elites in power from being even more self serving. With the power of big money, and such this fear has been watered down and resulted in the increasingly self serving behavior that we have all seen over the last decades. But once they have the inkling that they might be able to fix future elections ( weather that turns out to be the case or not) they will begin acting in an even more craven and self serving way. Such behavior will quickly tip the scales and result in a Soviet type collapse due to the masses loosing interest in keeping the carnival running.
Could you briefly review your predictions you made for 2020? I always look forward to that annual post on your blog. It is always educational. I understand it it’s too much for a comment though!
I am concerned about what happens to trust in medicine if a widely-used coronavirus vaccine were to prove to have really bad long-term results. If it were to cause refusal of all vaccines to go mainstream, this would likely cause resurgences in infectious diseases like measles, rubella, mumps, whooping cough, and potentially polio, diptheria, yellow fever, typhoid etc.
That has the potential to kill a lot of people worldwide over the long term, as well as taking resources that we already need to deal with cancer, heart disease, and antibiotic resistance. Combining antibiotic resistance with vaccine refusal seems tailor-made to send death rates soaring and beat down lifespans.
John,
I wish Sara and you a relaxing, rejuvenating, etherically regenerating rest, and that all things raucous, redundant and recidivist leave you alone so you may recalibrate as needed .
Thanks for a years worth of wonderful essays and thought provoking interaction with you and the commentariat. I am grateful for a place to have some great conversations.
Thanks to the commentariat for being such a fun digital community to be a part of. As others have noted, I learn so much by reading the comments after the essay, and if you don’t mind I’d like to borrow your blessing from the end, “may the powers that guide your destiny bring you good things.”
Onward’s to the wilderness of 2021 and the rest of this decade. Until February y’all.
Oops, hit the “enter” button too quick…
* Kidney is capitalised and singular here, because it refers to the TCM concept which is subtly different to the standard medicine concept of the plural organs known as the “kidneys”. The TCM idea is rather like a civil service department – each “organ” being an office that is in charge of carrying out certain tasks and functions, which sometimes, but not always, overlap with what the anatomical kidneys actually do.
JMG, thanks for another excellent post and enjoy your break. As years go, 2021 seems very difficult to predict, so keeping your comments at the higher level is wise. If I were the oddsmaker at the local racetrack however, I’d give “Biden does the right thing” a morning line of at least 25-1.
It’s my opinion that the economic changes will dominate 2021, as the impact of tens of millions unemployed and the structural changes of going from a consumer-based model into extreme contraction really takes hold. COVID will be a minor thought by the end of the year. There will be potential for employment in the refurbishing, recycling and lower energy sectors of the economy, but the momentum to “get back to normal” for many will make it a rough ride. You have history on your side about the timeline of collapse, but I see it happening much faster as .GOV hoards the dwindling supplies of fossil fuels and other resources. Good luck to us all, as the next leg down should come in January.
@David, By the Lake – I really enjoyed your five part story, “The Hard Streets of Aphrodite” out on the Solar System Heritage web site. Any update on future installments or compilation into a novel?
We both know the answer to your question.
I know you don’t watch video much, a position I agree with, but you may enjoy this song and the accompanying animation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubTALMnfsfE
It is from the Netflix show Big Mouth. The lyrics are a little hard to understand, so I recommend using the subtitles.
If you choose not to watch it, the lyrics are below. I do recommend watching though, it is quite spectacular.
When the ghosts of fear and failure come to haunt you
And the gleaming lights of hope all fade from view
When the armies of doubt and dread
Are marching in your head
Then the answer, my friend is tried and truuuuue
“Whatcha gonna do?!”
When a mother leaves her babe to cry in darkness
And the storm clouds of betrayal begin to brew
When the fortune-teller lies
And the faithful hide their eyes
Then the cosmos has but one answer for youuuuu
“Whatcha gonna do!?”
When you think that you’re da man
Cuz they told you you’re da man
And you want to be da man
But it turns out
You’re not da maaaan
“Whatcha gonna do!?
I sense that there are many travelers here who would gain some enjoyment from it, perhaps more.
Confidence. Relationships, groups, societies all have cohesion -or not – depending on how much confidence the parties have in each other.
For the disaffected in the United States, my perception is that confidence among the working poor for the governing system is nearly exhausted, only the thinnest threads of “hope” remain – and that remains because of a lack of alternative vision.
That edifice of imaginary and actual bureaucratic/political structure that orders our lives is crumbling. Its form yesterday will not persist into tomorrow. Change is upon us, but we in the US are facing a tomorrow similar what became evident after the “Arab Spring”. In those select countries where governments fell (Egypt, Syria ,Libya and Tunisia) there was no alternative vision in place to roll the change into so there was eventually a reversion to the old systems (Tunisia, Egypt) or the countries are still in states of violent chaos.
We here in the US don’t have an alternative system. I think many of us on the lower end of the economic ladder sense (or even fantasize) impending chaos and violence. The market demand this year for ammunition and reloading supplies illustrates my assertion, I believe.
Perhaps you, dear Archdruid, would consider dedicating a bit more energy (on top of that you do and have) to leading an effort to construct some alternative visions?
I have a great respect for your thoughtfulness and wisdom, as do, I am sure, most of your readers. You hold our confidence. Many of us will participate if you lead.
Thanks for this post, a very good commentary on the unknowns ahead and a better, more honest way of addressing the shift from 2020-2021 than the usual forecasts that we will see aplenty. I’d like to share with you something I found quite odd that I saw yesterday in a youtube video of what seemed a fairly routine military gathering to celebrate the one year anniversary of the U.S. Space Force. Most of it was the usual review of the great things that happened this year, with congratulations and thanks to the people involved. Until Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller spoke. He did much of the same, but at the end of his talk he turned to VP Pence who was seated near him, and said that he wanted to give him a personal thank you. He started by saying, “We’ve been through some stuff”, and went on to thank him for “his steady hand and leadership” during *some of the [most] complex military operations this country has ever conducted.* As he said this, his voice started to crack slightly and by the end he almost sounded like he was fighting back tears. At the very least, he was obviously moved. But what “complex military operations (from this year) could he have been talking about?? Then he got control of himself and continued with his scripted speech. You can see it here:
https:www.facebook.com/WhiteHouse/videos/2166069656858966/
(You don’t need Facebook to watch it). That moment occurs around 19:52.
Wishing you a restful January.
Had a weird experience on the last day of work this year. Our team was signing off and somebody said “let’s hope 2021 is better than this year. Although, there’s not much chance of that.” If even salaried employees who’ve been working from the couch all year are thinking that way then that might be a telling sign.
JMG – thanks for another year of providing the most thought-provoking forum on the web.
My daughter is a licensed practical nurse. The facility in which she works has been severely affected by the covid virus. She dumps all her clothes in the washer immediately upon arriving at home and takes a shower. Her kids are keeping the house sanitized. She will be receiving the vaccine soon as will all health care workers as a condition of continued employment. Health care and access to same being a major status symbol in the USA, I doubt the first round of vaccines will be toxic. Members of the elite classes are after all getting vaccinated themselves, nor do they want to see a large die off among health care workers. What I do worry about is cost cutting and simple incompetence affecting later issues of the vaccine. Does anyone still doubt that American business is no less incompetent and corrupt than American government?
Much as I admire Canada I would not care to be a citizen of a country where the Queen of England is the head of state. I suspect the people who not only will be but already are crossing our Northern border are the recent arrivals from other continents once they realize that there are no more easy fortunes to be made in the USA.
For those of you who object to face masks, that is your business as far as I am concerned. Now you know how some of the rest of us feel who over the past decades have chosen things like not wearing crippling high heeled shoes, which are slow motion foot binding, and not spending money we don’t have on the latest fashions.
Thank you Mr. Greer,
This is both fascinating and sobering. Given your talk of vaccines I was wondering what you think are the odds of 1) government enforced vaccinations and 2) indirect forced vaccinations through employers requiring it.
Over on Saker’s site I was kind of surprised to find this:
https://thesaker.is/secrets-about-time-they-are-still-keeping-from-you/
I’ve heard this sort of thing from my millennial friends, that the past has no value. It used to take a communist revolution to get to year1, now a college education is all that’s required. But, since the past has all been a creation of “man,” the future can be as well – and it will be. Many of the commenters expressed the same problem I had reading through the thing, but one commenter said that he had always dug Hesse and was able to follow it :- )
I am finding more and more how little I know.
Thank you for your generosity with what you know, and I wish you and Sara well. Hope you have a great break.
Irena, kinetic is American slang for flying lead…
@ drhooves
Re The Hard Streets of Aphrodite
Many thanks! I really enjoyed writing that series. The protagonist’s voice-in-my-head was incredibly persistent (!) and I found his character arc extremely satisfying. I’m not ashamed to say that I cried as I wrote the ending scene.
My hope is to get it published as a novel. Given that it exists within the universe many of my other stories (in particular, the various adventures of Lady Penelope), I’d like to have the initial series of that universe (presently titled This Precarious Balance) published first, with The Hard Streets of Aphrodite as something of a companion novel. There are two further novels in the sequence (sequels to Balance which deal with later events along the main storyline): the first is in first-draft form and the second has been started.
I also have a few more tales planned, a subsequence of adventures of Lady Penelope beginning with Lady Penelope and the Drug Lords of Venus (appearing in Volume 3 of Vintage Worlds), which I’ve also begun working on and which will likely appear (at some point) on Zendexor’s site.
Plus, of course, there’s de-industrial stuff I’m working on for New Maps. I’m trying to be patient with myself, but there are so many stories to tell 🙂 The nitty-gritty of publishing, however, is much more involved than I’ve realized and I’m having to learn about that side of things. There’s more to writing than just the writing!
Blessed be, Happy New Year, and may the vaccines work, the Biden team address the need to get people working, and the rest of us do something about what needs to happen.
On the good news front, you asked “have you noticed that office fauna have been able to work from home during the current epidemic, thus continuing to draw their salaries, while people who work in factories, shops, and other lower-class venues have been laid off instead?” The Gainesville Sun is well aware of this.
Hereward, I suspect that a lot of people in the medical profession know perfectly well that if the vaccine turns out to have major problems their industry is toast, full stop, end of sentence. People frantically insisting that X must be true, because if X is false they’ll lose their status and a lot of money, is quite common these days, as I’m sure you’ve seen. As for waiting until after the election to veer to the center, that’s standard practice on both sides: you spend the campaign mouthing the slogans of your captive constituencies, then once you get into office with their help, you ignore them until the next election campaign begins.
Pixelated, I could definitely see that happening! So long as there are no serious health problems from any of the vaccines, or those that happen are limited to a very small percentage of cases, that would be quite plausible.
Deborah, I saw several surveys during both campaigns and after the 2016 election, which showed what I’ve described. No, I didn’t keep the links. As far as I saw, no, they didn’t differentiate by rank.
Pygmycory, if that’s your choice, by all means.
Irena, that seems quite reasonable to me. As for “going kinetic,” it’s soldier’s slang for that moment when the talking ends and bullets start flying.
Taylor, many thanks for this. I’ll find some time to go read his posts when I can.
Jbucks, the coronavirus will fade out fairly soon one way or the other. If the vaccine protects against infection, that’s one end to the epidemic; otherwise, so many people will catch it that it will run out of vulnerable hosts, and shut down the way other respiratory epidemics have done. Your broader point, though, is true, and relevant: knowing what will happen is much easier than knowing when.
Violet, I think there’s definitely serious potential for change at this point, but of course I do tend to think that you can predict tomorrow from yesterday — but which yesterday? Ah, that’s where the art comes in… 😉
Scotlyn, thanks for this.
Clay, true enough. Add to that the very widespread conviction among ordinary Americans that their votes won’t be counted fairly, and yes, that very quickly turns into political dynamite.
Breanna, I think this year I’m just going to ket people go back to last year’s final post and draw their own conclusions. Thanks for asking, though!
Pygmycory, that’s quite true, of course. It would be a bitter irony if public revulsion against a problematic vaccine were to turn people against the ones that work well!
Drhooves, so noted. You do know, I trust, that various people have been predicting exactly that turn of events every single January since at least 2006…
Docshibby, put it down to my Aspergers syndrome, but if you expected me to catch some kind of hint or subtext from this, I didn’t. Whatever…
Zhao, I published my vision several years ago in book form. I don’t know what else I can do to get it out there.
Lydia, thanks for this. Yes, that’s really quite odd.
Simon, ouch. Yeah, that’s telling.
Mary, don’t assume that the rich and influential are as smart as they think they are…
Stephen, I don’t expect the first; the second will doubtless happen in some corporations, though even the medical industry has been forced to back down when they’ve attempted it.
Coboarts, hmm. I’ll have to take the time to read that at some point, and see what kind of sense it makes. Or not. 😉
Patricia, that’s very good to hear. Thank you for the data point!
When considering what Biden might do I’m reminded of an essay you wrote back in Nov. of ’16 – just after the election. http://7goldfish.com/archdruid/2016/11/reflections-on-democracy-in-crisis.html
Among other things, your essay pointed out that many peopel focus on personality rather than policy. I find this true of many Biiden supporters. They seem quite content to go back to the policies that eventually gave us Trump as long as the policies are put in place with an air of “dignity”, or “competence”, or “expertise”. They don’t mind how bad the policies are just as long as Biden plays the role of anti-Trump. This is his “mandate” to fein competence and expertise. I have a hard time beliving Joe gets it. The only hope I see is that maybe his handlers know the country is in such bad shape that the old policies won’t work anymore.
On a more hopeful note, we might soon be able to set aside the knee-jerk opposition, and knee-jerk adulation of everything Trump. With Trump out of the picture we might be able to discuss policy on it’s own merits (or lack) rather than whether or not Trump supports/opposes it. The current “debate” over stimulis checks is a case in point. The MSM is doing backflips to keep from endorsing the $2K checks, which would greatly benefit the working class. Of course they’d have no problem supporting $2K if only Trump hadn’t come out in favor of it. Meanwhiile, back at the ranch, Trump supporters are suddenly in favor of “free stuff”, the more the better, even though Trump is supported on this issue by Bernie and AOC.
You deserve a break, but I always find Jan. difficult to get through wiithout the weekly dose of Archdruid insight.
And have a refreshing and enjoyable vacation – see you back around Imbolc/Groundhog Day.
Without going into much detail I will express my gratitude for the various occult themed courses and support you have offered over the years. I wandered over to your corner of the web about a decade ago and and gradually began the work of shifting my focus from seeking material security as a prepper to a much larger and more meaningful project. At the moment if feels like I have only dipped my ankle into the kiddie pool but when I look back the transformation has been remarkable, and it is my sincere wish to pay it forward.
As for the changes in the near future I am aware of many very disturbing possibilities as well as the inevitability of total surprises out of left field, but this passage from Dion Fortune’s The Training and Work of an Initiate gives me something to aspire to. Facing the coming challenges can be terrifying, but they could also be a catalyst for development.
“The discipline of the Path in its earlier stages is directed primarily to the production of a definite type of character; whatever variations of intellectual quality and calibre there may be, the character-type is constant. It is the first thing that impresses one in meeting those who may justly be reckoned as initiates.
There is a simplicity of life and a serenity of demeanour. The initiate is entirely unperturbed amid catastrophe and horror. He possesses many of the qualities of a traveller in wild lands, especially an ability to arrive right side up and smiling in the most surprising circumstances. He is equally contented and at ease in the humblest cottage and the most imposing and ceremonious surroundings.
This harmonised, free-moving poise is the inevitable result of the discipline to which he subjects himself, for he learns control of emotion and desirelessness. It is not easy to upset the equanimity of a man who has achieved these qualities. He loves simplicity, cleanliness, and quiet, but if he cannot obtain them, he walls himself up in a shell of his own thoughts and maintains his equanimity undisturbed.”
@JMG. One of the reasons it’s been such a strange year for me has been my remarkably positive experience with your favourite crackpot medicine. My judgement is that there’s no chance of convincing anyone else in my circle though – even standard herbal approaches are derided as woo and there’s a perfectly western science explanation for that. Their loss, but it is a pity.
“Since other respiratory viral pandemics blew over without vaccines within 2-4 years, by the time they could possibly ramp out all the vaccinations to the entire population, people won’t bother because suddenly the rate of infections will drop – ”
If these high priority people get the vaccine in March, that will be two years right there. March is when they stop the flu vaccines for the year. Season is over. I don’t see how the infection rate will drop when it is artificially high due to the fake PCR test. They won’t drop this pandemic until they are through with its dividends or they lose in court enough times.
“Anyone who thinks that there will be remotely enough, or that it will arrive to the right places at the right times,”
But one of the goals for this pandemic was to make billions for the vaccine industry. It’s one reason for the clamp down, censorship and muzzling of doctors about HCQ, budesonide, and ivermectin. It’s not like there aren’t cheap and effective treatments! But the FDA is not allowed to bend the rules and fast track a medicine/vaccine unless there are no effective treatments…hmm…could that be a factor here in refusing to acknowledge that there are indeed good treatments?
By the way, one potential side effect that I have seen mentioned in several places might take quite a few years to play out – the vaccine causing the body to attack the placenta.
JMG, this may well be too nutty and conspiratorial for you to put through, but I’m interested in your take if you have one.
Dmitry Orlov in his latest posting, behind a paywall, references
deagel.com
specifically- https://deagel.com/forecast as contrasted with –
https://deagel.com/country
This is a strange, shadowy website of unknown ownership, and anonymous authorship that has extensive analyses of military/political/economic/social factors throughout the world. The analysis seems rather knowledgable and sophisticated, representing some well-funded effort IMHO. It has the appearance of being a public, plain-text bulletin board for the global elite, but requiring some insider background knowledge to fully comprehend its content.
The site booted up in 2014, and I first learned of it several years ago through Dmitry, when the site came to his attention. It has been repeatedly updated, last 9-25-2020, though the forecasts appear unchanged, notwithstanding the “disclaimer” at the bottom of the ‘forecast’ page, which is an interesting read in its own right.
Dmitry’s particular reference is to a table forecasting future populations of the world’s countries by 2025. The US forecast is for a population reduction of 70%, with similar figures for Western Europe.
Here is a snippet from the deagel ‘disclaimer’, which suggests the thinking behind the forecast:
“The Soviet system was less able to deliver goodies to the people than the Western one. Nevertheless Soviet society was more compact and resilient under an authoritarian regime. That in mind, the collapse of the Soviet system wiped out 10 percent of the population. The stark reality of diverse and multicultural Western societies is that a collapse will have a toll of 50 to 80 percent depending on several factors but in general terms the most diverse, multicultural, indebted and wealthy (highest standard of living) will suffer the highest toll. The only glue that keeps united such aberrant collage from falling apart is overconsumption with heavy doses of bottomless degeneracy disguised as virtue. Nevertheless the widespread censorship, hate laws and contradictory signals mean that even that glue is not working any more…”
Reading further down, it postulates a scenario in which Russia is preparing a nuclear first strike against the US (a preposterous idea IMHO), but also suggests that a nuclear war started by the US might be a preferable course (again preposterous). All this leads me to suspect elite far-right types are behind the web-site, and that they are delusional. It’s that delusion at fairly high levels which unnerves me more than anything. Good Lord…
Unless you happen to be familiar with deagel.com JMG, I hardly expect you to review it now. I myself had consigned it to the fringe bucket when I first encountered it, but now it seems uncomfortably pertinent.
—Lunar Apprentice
No hint or subtext. I apologize for not identifying a non-sequitur and I probably should have emphasized that much of the message is in the symbolic imagery. I enjoyed the video immensely, I thought others here, including you, might as well.
I’m the fake meat opened psychic abilities guy: one major unknown I’m watching is the possibility of some major emotional meltdowns due to mishandled and unacknowledged psychic abilities, which would spread far faster than anyone would expect, as a result of fake meat messing with psychic abilities, seemingly on a permanent basis.
As I mentioned in Magic Monday, if even a small fraction of the people who have these fake meats have these kinds of effects, even on a much milder scale, the results could be quite drastic, and quite long lasting if the effects are permanent. And by long lasting, I mean if these things are permanent, the consequences of these fake meats would still matter in 2060 even if all the fake meats are pulled tomorrow….
Alas, I suspect we’ll never know one way or the other, but it’s still worth keeping an eye out for evidence.
As for the Grand Mutation, I’ve done some divinations of my own and it appears that aspects to anything in that chart matter; which tells me I have an eventful time upcoming, as the sun, moon, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune, and the grand mutation itself all fit nicely into aspect patterns in my own chart….
Vaccine side effects: my best friend (who works for a mega pharmaceutical firm you’d recognize and in vaccines, no less) told me on Tuesday about an odd side effect that is cropping up with Covid-19 vaccines. I’m not sure which firm makes them.
It’s this: if you’ve had severe allergic reactions to anything in the past of the type where you carry your epi-pen with you at all times, you’d better get your shot in the doctor’s office where you’re moments away from medical rescue. She said it didn’t seem to matter (so far) as to what you are severely allergic to: bee stings, shellfish, peanuts, etc. You’ve got to wait for a while to see if you’re going to die on the spot.
Traditionally manufactured vaccines are grown in eggs so egg allergies count but I had not heard of this. She thought it was new.
Thanks again for a great post: I just got back from the supermarket and it had spot shortages all over the place so stock up, folks.
Enjoy your break!
Hi JMG. As your blog post is largely about events happening in the near future, I’d be interested in your views on a recent Bloomberg article I read. The article predicts 2021 will indeed be a year of peak oil, but in DEMAND, not supply. As evidence of this they point to the fact that EV car batteries have dropped in price by 10x in the past decade or so, and will likely drop 50% more by 2030. Do you think this will this give the industrial world more time before any possible great decline?
Article: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-peak-oil-era-is-suddenly-upon-us/
Best New Year wishes to you.
Stephen,
In the US at least I don’t foresee the govt having to enforce vaccinations. But if you want a job, or to travel, or go to school, or enter a public venue…
JMG, I’m with you on the vaccine; if there’s one thing I’ve learned when it comes to making anything, it’s that if something is rushed, the quality suffers. With that in mind, if you’re right about the public losing faith in modern medicine once the vaccine has its unintended side effects, I’m curious to see how the blowback will arrive: will it just take the form of the silent majority rejecting modern healthcare for alternative methods, or will it be something more noticeable? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
As for Biden’s possible willingness to compromise with the wage classes by providing more working class jobs, I hope you’re right on that, and I hope Trudeau follows suit. I had never actually heard of this until now — after all, the American media mostly focused on the personalities of each candidate in lieu of their policies, as usual. If this happens, I guess your prediction of an overall paradigm shift in the Western world would be taking effect a little faster than you anticipated. Perhaps the possible embracing of a reduced-pollution lifestyle by the privileged classes would be an example of the same thing? These are all maybes at the moment, but if they do come into effect, then you might be proven right shortly.
Finally, since I haven’t gotten around to it yet, I’d like to wish you a (belated) happy winter solstice. I enjoyed most of my Christmas gifts, but the stars of the show, if you’ll pardon the pun, were Star’s Reach and some other books by you and the inimitable James Howard Kunstler. I’ll wait to finish off volume 10 of your essays while I dig into the new books!
(An aside: while I was reading that collection, I noticed that you mentioned The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. We had to read it this year at college, and I enjoyed it… just not as much as the other one that served as its counterpart. The other one, The Ones Who Stay And Fight, feels like a grotesque parody of the original. I won’t spoil anything for you, but it reads like it was written by a member of a dystopian society who hasn’t yet realized it’s a false utopia…)
There is no “far left” in American politics. Left/right being properly understood as an economic continuum (Political Compass does a good job illustrating this, although you would certainly need more than two axes to fully model the situation), the far left would be people fighting for a wider distribution of wealth — not transgender bathrooms or any other sort of identity-based grievances. As someone firmly on the economic left myself, I find the latter groups and their movements as unhinged and bizarre as anyone else. It’s not an accident that class is the one verboten fault line, the one none of those folks fight for or even talk about (which serves the ownership class just fine — you can have all the “justice” and “progress” you want as long as it doesn’t cost us a dime). It is one of the ultimate triumphs of modern propaganda that there are so many people that think they’re fighting for a better world rather than the irrelevant, insane, counterproductive, or rife-with-unintended-consequences causes they’re actually pushing for. It’s a fascinating time to be alive.
Biden is certainly moving to center but not nearly far enough. The one area he seems hell-bent on pursuing is gutting the second amendment. I know that appeals to everyone left of center, but given the mood of the country (and the aforementioned police & military who rank highly among the 2A crowd) that could be a grave mistake.
Meanwhile, the fact that the far left has been otherwise shut out of the new administration virtually ensures the Dem-controlled cities will burn more brightly early next year, which should put them all in a bit of a pickle.
I’m hoping the Rep’s retain at least one of the GA seats simply to stem the new administration’s worst impulses.
—
The “vax”? I’ll hold out as long as possible as I don’t need to do anything that might engender such a requirement. The idea that the vax is necessary for a “return to business is normal” doesn’t stand close scrutiny, though — they’ve already proven that there are effective, inexpensive treatments available and the continued suppression of same means there’s more sinister aspects to the overall story.
—
Peak Oil is already upon us and was likely a major factor behind the economic havoc starting in late 2019. It would be much more apparent were it not for COVID and virtually ensures an unending recession/depression going forward.
My daily practice this morning (before your post went up) offered me the chance to recognize that I have an opportunity to release the view of this topsy-turvy-ness as something to tug and chafe and worry at. I admit to some weeks of nervousness, dismay, general unsettledness, etc., and yet if the practices I’ve come to adopt and the realizations they’ve guided me toward are going to mean anything, I have to let them MEAN it and live accordingly. In other words, if I’m going to attempt to live a life guided by spirit and higher powers, and if I accept that life is (or lives are) a chance to learn whatever lessons my soul needs to learn, then I need to stop second-guessing where I am and what I’m doing to the point of working myself into a lather trying to plan for all scenarios. Not that I was completely worked up, but still. I’m not advocating going through these times blind and unprepared, but rather appreciate the perspective (with thanks to Steve T and his posts at https://readoldthings.dreamwidth.org/ ) that it’s possible to recognize that divine will is going to send me exactly where I need to be, literally and figuratively, and perhaps it would be wiser for me to not fight fate and destiny. It’d be like trying to wrestle the reins that lead the horse of one’s life from the god who holds them! Better to stand in the chariot with that god and go where he might, facing the lessons head on.
I am very most definitely not in control of much. I’ll keep working on what’s within my realm. Thank you for the sentiment expressed in your last sentence
I wish you a productive January and I extend my thanks and gratitude to you and all who show up here for making this the space it is.
Have a wonderful January break. Lovely cold weather too, lucky ducks.
Hi JMG, thanks for the post
I live, in I think, the first country (government) in the world that will register the people who refuse to be vaccinated, AND the database will be shared accross Europe, I guess demanding the same from the rest of Europe:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/29/spain-to-keep-registry-of-people-who-refuse-covid-vaccine
We are a country very (too much) dependent on the tourism and it seems that our politicians think
about the brand new vaccines as a kind of Deus Ex Machina that will solve all the problems of Covid-19 and will allow the return to the “normallity” before the next summer, and I think they will try to enforce (with sticks and carrots) the entire population to take the vaccine.
If I were more than 70 years old and living in a nursing home I will take the vaccine, because the rate of mortality in Spain for those people is around 5- 10%, but in my situation I will wait and see at least until next summer, I am not saying I will never take it, but it is worth to wait and see.
I think the real test of the risks of the vaccine, apart the allergic reactions after the second shot, is when the immunity start to vanish and then we have to see if the ADE (Antibody-Dependant Enhancement) happens or not (as was the case in the failed SARS-COV vaccines, or Dengvaxia vaccines or those of cats’ coronavirus peritonitis). It seems that the risks are low, but not so low as appears in the MSM, in fact in the repport of the CDC says:
“Vaccine-enhanced disease
Available data do not indicate a risk of vaccine-enhanced disease, and conversely suggest effectiveness against severe disease within the available follow-up period. However, risk of vaccine-enhanced disease over time, potentially associated with waning immunity, remains unknown and needs to be evaluated further in ongoing clinical trials and in observational studiesthat could be conducted following authorization and/or licensure.”
It is in page Nº 49 of the FDA and CDC report about the results of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, here is the link:
https://www.fda.gov/media/144245/download
But “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” as Nassim Taleb like to say, and if it is reasonable that a dangerous risk could happens, it should be tested. The weight of the evidence is on the side of the supplier, not on the public side, that have “to prove” if there is, or not, evidences.of the risk but only the supplier of the vaccine.
I recommend to read carefully this report to have an idea about what has been analyzed and what has not, and what has been concluded and what has not.
I wish you a good 2021!
Cheers
David
Glad to see a BBC article admitting that CO2 emissions in developed countries need to be cut to around 10% of their current level; this agrees with Richard Heinberg’s view that we need to reduce our energy usage by up to 90% in weaning ourselves off fossil carbon.
But I imagine >90% of the general public have never heard such a statement (including enviromentalists, many of whom mistakingly believe that renewables can actually replace all fossil fuels), and they’re gonna cry Foul as soon as they learn of it:
“Reduce my energy use by HOW MUCH? Change my WAY OF LIFE? No WAY, pal!”
Then we have to suggest ways of arriving at a 90% reduction. For example, say goodbye to luxuries such as commercial aviation and personal vehicles. How’s THAT gonna fly?
And yet, that’s the reality we’re facing.
It seems that enviros who keep shouting “Renewables will save us!” are engaging in a form of energy denial as strong and as blind as anthropogenic climate change denial, and the longer they believe it, the more painful will be our transition to a post-carbon world.
The most suspect thing about the official response to COVID-19 is the downplaying of evidence that vitamin D and zinc supplementation is effective in mitigating all respiratory disease, including COVID. Vitamin D and zinc supplements cost a few tens of cents a day. Almost nobody gets enough of these in their diet or from sunlight exposure, especially people of color living at high latitudes (which explains the worse COVID outcomes in people of color living at high latitudes).
Well, here goes…
First, Happier New Year to all here.
Second: I am not taking any vaccine, for the simple personal reason that the last 4 vaccines I did receive promptly made me ill. If those were carefully “vetted”, then this bunch appears tp be a crap-shoot. Further, 100% of the group of 30 people I work with have ha the virus – I have yet to acquire it, even rubbing shoulders with them in a drilling rig environment. They all just say I must be immune – maybe so. Have been tested 6 times and all negative…so, no strange materials going under my skin.
Third – I got no idea what is coming down the pipe WRT Biden admin, but I am reasonably sure that the narrow path this admin will be forced to walk, along with congressional gridlock and vengeance politics is going to make things interesting to say the least. The only thing that appears to be in growth mode is the disbelief and disgust at the upper classes. This is fertile ground for locals to grow change – DC is not going to change.
Fourth – I do not see any change coming in the media – half-truths (at best) are de rigeur and I expect those to become ‘non-truths’ based on the visible media bias ongoing. This will leave citizens turning to other means, and it will be interesting to see what flowers in the truth vacuum they have created for themselves.
In my industry, it has NEVER been this bad. I will again caution people to watch petroleum prices. Depletion is increasing rapidly due to near-zero ongoing exploration, and at some point this will raise oil in a spike that is likely to be crippling. What is different this time is that it is not going to turn around quickly – think a couple of years rather than months.
For everyone, remember you CAN withdraw your consent, but you have to be ready to accept or have viable work-arounds for the consequences. We have embarked on this path late last year in some ways, and it is doable. There already exist underground and gray markets – you just have to find then with a needed or wanted product.
JMG, enjoy your break. I’m taking one as well – too many tractors need work!!
BUT…upon your return, with all the excreta flying about, I would suggest you opine on things in a sort of “State of the Aether” address. Your historical and high altitude POV is much appreciated by many here, even if they don’y mention it – so I am…
A pal recently pontificated that “all motorcycle accidents are being counted as COVID deaths.”
Last Tuesday, all Republicans Members of Congress received the COVID vaccine, even the young ones like Marco Rubio and Jodi Wentz. (I didn’t have the heart to tell any Republican).
I think if the vaccine is a disaster, they will just blame the Trump administration rushing it through. The claim will be made that Biden and the media cautioned against releasing the vaccine so quickly, even though the opposite is true, and “independent” media “fact-checkers” will “confirm” that claim. On the other hand, if the vaccine is a great success, they will say the only reason it got released at all was pressure from Biden and the media on a Trump administration that was deliberately dragging its feet, and in this scenario also, “independent” media “fact-checkers” will “confirm” that claim. (What, me, cynical?)
Christopher, I’m quite sure that the people who’ve built their entire lives around hating Trump for the last four years will find some way to sustain the rush, since it beats the living bejesus out of having to face the future that their own choices have made for them. One possibility I’m keeping an eye on is that Biden may become the next Trump, once Trump himself is out of the way. The various backflips going on right now are good markers of how easy that would be…
Juan, that passage from The Training and Work of the Initiate had an enormous impact on me when I first read it, and inspired me to work at emulating that state of mind. I’m glad it’s having a similar effect on someone else!
Adwelly, I know. Biochemic cell salts work; there’s no physical way they can work, but they work, and anyone who gives them a fair trial will discover this for themselves. Try telling that to people who’ve bought into the materialist party line!
Lunar, people have been saying things like that since before I was born, and the hour of doom invariably passes with only the most minor of hiccups and lurches. I’m sorry to hear that Dmitry has gotten sucked into yet another of these.
Dude, I’m also watching this closely. If that isn’t just a one-off, things could get very, very weird.
Teresa, both the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccines have caused cases of sudden anaphylactic shock, which is what your friend is talking about. It seems to be specific to the mRNA vaccines; the most recent stories I’ve read indicate that researchers have no idea what’s causing it and are scrambling around to figure out what gives. Definitely gives one confidence… 🙁
Kel, that’s one of the standard talking points in the cornucopian script these days. The problem is that while those batteries were declining in price, world fossil fuel consumption was continuing to climb steadily year over year — it’s down in 2020, but that’s purely a function of coronavirus shutdowns. Jevons’ Law, a basic principle of energy economics, shows that when you increase the supply of energy in the market, consumption goes up — so adding wind, solar, etc. to the energy mix hasn’t replaced fossil fuels, it’s just made fossil fuels a little cheaper and so driven increased consumption. Demand destruction is always possible, but it takes government regulation, economic contraction, or both.
Ethan, the loss of faith in mainstream medicine is already taking the form of a flight to alternative medicine. A few years ago it came out that in the US, alternative practitioners get more patient visits than mainstream doctors. That was when the big push to require people to buy medical insurance got under way — the whole point of the Obamacare fiasco was to force people who weren’t using mainstream medicine to pay for it anyway. The question is whether this gets enough traction to get state legislatures to strip the medical industry of its monopoly status, allow nurses to provide routine health care on their own without a doctor’s supervision (which they’re perfectly capable of doing), remove barriers to alternative health care, and so on. As for “The Ones Who Stay And Fight” — grotesque indeed.
Loren, I’m always amused by the endless bickering between different factions on the left about who is or is not a leftist. As I’m not on that end of the political spectrum at all, it reminds me of quarrels between the various subspecies of Baptist about who is or is not a real Christian!
TJ, the fact that he’s shutting the extremist left out of his administration is evidence enough that he’s moving toward the center. I also note that all of a sudden, he’s not going to be discarding all of Trump’s executive orders the day he gets into office. Entertaining times!
Temporaryreality, good. This is where the rubber meets the road; you have the opportunity to meet the challenge and rise. I’m glad to see you’re bracing yourself to do so.
DFC, antibody-dependent enhancement is one of the big unknowns about the mRNA viruses. If it turns out to be a serious issue, away we go.
Yoyo, yes, I know. At least they’ve gotten to the point of admitting that the celebrity class really is going to have to give up their private jets.
Justin, I know. The replacement of “first do no harm” by “first miss no profit” has gone very far in today’s medical mainstream.
Oilman2, thanks for the heads up. I predicted a while back that we were likely to see a serious spike in oil prices around 2022, and I think we’re well on track for that.
Jenxyz, of course they did. Don’t assume that the populists aren’t aware of this.
Trojo, and that in itself might finish off what little credibility the media has left. The 2020 campaign saw viewership of mainstream media news venues drop very sharply, largely because people could compare the latest Pravda (“truth” in Russian) to what they already knew. And of course at this point, if one or more of the vaccines do turn out to be a disaster, a lot of politicians will likely be caught up in it…
I was thinking myself that 2021 is a particularly difficult year to make predictions about, even more so than 2017 was. So, I’m not surprised you decided not to make any.
One particularly bad scenario that is a possibility from the vaccines is if they end up causing antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE), as has happened with some previous attempts to develop coronavirus vaccines. This article is a good summary,
https://sciencewithdrdoug.com/2020/08/01/is-a-coronavirus-vaccine-a-ticking-time-bomb/
It’s unlikely to show up in the near term (next few months) as it would have shown up in the trials, but the risk may actually increase over time because, as the article describes, mutations in the virus itself may turn what was initially a neutralizing antibody that is protective, into a non-neutralizing antibody that has the potential of causing ADE.
I can imagine a scenario in which over half the population is vaccinated by the summer, COVID cases have plummeted due to herd immunity from both natural infection and the vaccine, as well as seasonal effects. Summer is enjoyed with no restrictions, the economy is recovering, and the vaccine is given all the credit even if its only one of the factors. At some point in the fall, severe COVID cases start being reported in those who were vaccinated because mutations in the virus have led the vaccine-induced antibodies to become non-neutralizing and causing ADE. At first, it’s it’s not reported on as anything more than a few strange oddities. By November, though, it’s gotten bad enough that it’s impossible to ignore anymore. This time, we’re facing a virus that has a significantly increased mortality and serious injury rate, but only for those who’ve had the vaccine. Another round of lockdowns is rolled out in many places just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This time, the politics is even worse as much of the population has a worse virus to fear, while many others desperately don’t want to go through a lockdown repeat and trust in the authorities is collapsing. By New Years next year, the USA (and probably a number of other countries as well) is rapidly falling towards being a failed state, and the religion of Progress has collapsed as well.
Or, it may be several years until a strain of COVID emerges that causes ADE in vaccinated people. In that scenario, it could be even worse as that much larger a percentage of the population would likely have been vaccinated by then.
On the other hand, since that vaccines have been pushed so hard as a symbol of progress, I wonder what result will come down the road even if the vaccines are largely safe and effective. Given the increasing vitriol of believers in Progress to those who are skeptical, I suspect a successful COVID vaccine would be likely embolden the believers in Progress to force whatever the next technological fix they are enamored with down our throats. it may be another vaccine, maybe a GMO like in Retrotopia, or something else, but if that mindset continues there’s bound to be some sort of technological disaster eventually.
The other possibility which is probably more likely than either extreme is that the vaccines have significant issues, side effects and/or not being as effective as hoped, but not enough to cause a major disaster. The true believers could claim some success, and the skeptics could point to very real problems, and it would continue to be a hot button issue that divided us.
There is one possibility i see where the vaccine drama wouldn’t lead to things getting worse. That is if Biden and the Democrats back off on pushing the vaccine. They could hedge their bets, make sure it’s available to those who want it but distance themselves from it enough that if it fails, they could blame it on Trump and his Operation Warp Speed rushing things faster than science should go. In that case, the religion of Progress could extricate itself from its dependence on the success of the vaccines. I doubt that will actually happen though, given the inclinations of the Democrats in recent years.
The other major variable that I’m considering for this year is a possible spike in oil prices. According to Art Berman, production from fracking in the US will plummet by this summer due to a lack of new drilling. The partial recovery recently has been due to uncapping wells that were capped in the Spring when the price really plummeted, but that won’t last. If oil demand gets back near it’s pre-COVID levels this summer, it looks like a price spike is likely, and such a spike hitting the economy just as it’s started to recover could be bad.
I haven’t commented much lately, but I’ve been listening. Thank you for this closing post. It was just what I needed to hear. My wife will enjoy it in the morning over coffee, too, I’m certain.
Here’s wishing you a most (whatever it is you want) time off!
We’ll see you in February.
Grover and Co.,
in Lower Appalachia
An additional comment about the vaccine. I am absolutely positive that taking any of them are riskier for someone of my age and fitness level (I say that looking at CDC mortality figures) than just contracting the coronavirus itself. However, that is a very low threshold; it is inconceivable that the MSM is going to report honestly on the short-term dangers and long term unknowns of the vaccine so anyone could be able to make an informed decision on their own. Just look at who their advertisers are! The press and their audience is deeply invested in a very simple story where the phDs in lab coats peer into their microscopes trying to save lives while the anti-vaxxers are just a bunch of kooks.
How deeply invested? I think sometimes when you talk about the religion of progress going to the stars you leave out an equally important part of the belief-system: that many people think one day science will out-smart death itself, or at least should try. It’s not just conquering infinite space in a spaceship but also our finite time by taking a pill. I think the reason the immortality angle was left out of Star Trek is that all the expendable crew members fatalities were necessary to create dramatic tension.
JMG, yeah, I knew that you knew. The rot is deep though, even in countries with socialized medicine like Canada and the UK, sensible low cost measures (that only a few genuine kooks would disagree with) like vitamin D and zinc supplementation are ignored. For what it is worth I’ve had a lot of trouble with depression, and although I’ve tried SSRIs, found high dose vitamin D to be effective.
Populist politics in Canada are brewing beneath the surface, but all three of our mainstream political parties are tightly controlled. The Conservative and the Liberal parties in particular could be interpreted as being a single party which puts on a show every four years to maintain legitimacy. It is perhaps not a coincidence that both of the Conservative challengers to Trudeau have been fat, baby-faced dweebs who don’t have much of a chance compared to the more attractive and fit Trudeau, just like how during the Harper years the Liberal challengers were weird dweebs with minimal connections to Canada…. The NDP is more distinct, but too far left for most Canadians.
JMG said, referring to providing jobs for the working class:
“Biden and his handlers can do that might get him through this mess is to move toward the center the moment the inauguration ceremony is over”.
We really need to find better words for this. You are saying that helping the working class is not a leftist policy which contradicts at least a hundred years of the use of this word.
In reality, both Democrats and Republicans are extreme imperialist right with minor differences in priorities like which country to attack next.
The fact that Trump was a populist who happened to be in the Republican party does not make populism a conservative or right idea.
Let’s not forget that the USSR was the first country to guarantee full time jobs to everybody. If that is not a lefty idea, I don’t know what is.
Enough nitpicking and you can ignore this but words have power and the US is unique in managing to turn a lot of good ideas into curse words (like community and yes some left policies) – I learned that from you so I hope you don’t mind me mentioning it.
Thanks
JMG,
I wanted to ask what do you think of this CDC statistic:
“However, deaths have been 20-50% above average levels for most age groups. Deaths among people 25-44 have been particularly above normal, since deaths among people this young are generally low.”
https://usafacts.org/articles/preliminary-us-death-statistics-more-deaths-in-2020-than-2019-coronavirus-age-flu/
It’s amazing how high the mortality has been this year for age groups unaffected by COVID. It’s hard to believe that this is a coincidence – the most probably causes are restrictions and lockdowns. In normal times this would be the biggest news of the year – not the paltry 20k people that died of COVID (as opposed of something else – see comorbidities information in CDC).
It looks like your prediction about population reduction via economic distress is coming faster than expected!
I was reading an article wherein a WHO authority was quoted as saying that we don’t know if the vaccine will stop the disease or the spread of the virus.
At the very least this is a big admission that they have not tested the vaccines. But I believe that it is more than that – I think they are already paving the way for the continuation of the lockdowns/restrictions into the indefinite future. This is bad news for some people that are eager to get the vaccine so they can travel.
Another related statistic was that it will take until 2024 to vaccinate 70% of US (supposedly to reach herd immunity).
While I agree with your “unknowns”, it is surprising to me how many things look already set for the next year.
Lockdowns will continue (with ups and downs), small businesses still closed and the new scare (super-duper COVID) is already used to close more countries. Money printing will continue (number of US dollars in circulation increased by 70% this year) and I expect stagflation to finally show up (due to lower oil production).
With that in mind, I am building a hoophouse and planning to enjoy my garden and the occasional swim in the lake. A happy new year and good health to you all!
Archdruid,
Am I the only one really looking forward to the future after this year? The grim, and quite frankly boring, predictability of the future peaked in February of 2020. The Trump administration, which I feel was the absolute peak of our societies ability to generate noise without substance, like reality TV boring, seems to have sucked the boredom out of the world and burnt it to ashes. Left in it’s place a wild frontier. I’m actually interested in the state of the political-economy again.
I really feel like Kek did his thing. Opened up the world to a whole range of possibilities that had absolutely nothing to do with any of the ideologies that we fight over.
Regards,
Varun
Exit polls show that the military voted 52% Trump and 45% Biden, which is not a huge margin. In 2016 the margin was huge, not in 2020. I don’t see exit polls on police, but I assume they did go Trump by a large margin, not that Biden won’t cater to them, you need have no worries that he will offer meaningful support to BLM.
https://nowthisnews.com/news/veterans-showed-up-for-biden-this-year-and-trump-wants-to-dump-military-ballots
>I also note that all of a sudden, he’s not going to be discarding all of Trump’s executive orders the day he gets into office.
Almost as if the President doesn’t really run much of anything.
@Your Yoyo… there’s no way to a 90% reduction without a commensurate reduction in population. Of course, there are suggestions that the vax may lead to sterility. Have you read and/or watched Inferno? 😉
Lol.
Nobody is even entertaining the notion that Biden is going to be dropkicked out the door and Kamala is going to be installed in his place. You forget that Biden has got the intellect of a child now, when he’s not pumped full of drugs, anyway.
The question you need to ask, isn’t What Would Biden Do – but What Would Harris Do? Whatever the answer to that second question is, I can almost guarantee you, it isn’t going to pleasant or prudent. It’s likely to be foolish and very very partisan.
And Trump doesn’t look like he’s going to go willingly either. Shrug, the president doesn’t really run anything much, so I care about it proportionately these days. Guess we’ll see soon enough.
As far as mRNA goes – I think everyone who gets it should also get a bumper sticker that reads “I rewrote my DNA! Ask me how”
Since I’m new here, one last question, are your current views related to the Pluto return?
Not that the entire world isn’t going through something of the sort but since you are an astrologer, had to ask. Thank you for your consideration.
Just on the Subject of how the modern left talk down to the working class, have you heard of a recently read book called ‘Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class’ by Paul Embery. The Book is set in the context of the UK and Labour’s defeat there last year, but also has lessons for the modern left more generally. He discusses the book in this interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7sevFjAMXY
Anyway, just though you/the commentariat might be interested
John,
Recently I’ve been wondering if Trump might be our version of Gorbachev. If so, there is the possibility of Biden being our version of, err, Yeltsin. The old adage that history never repeats but it does rhyme should be kept in mind here.
Temporary,
It’d be like trying to wrestle the reins that lead the horse of one’s life from the god who holds them! Better to stand in the chariot with that god and go where he might, facing the lessons head on.
I assume you know that is a theme in the Bhagavad Gita.
“Krishna is the charioteer!”
Anyone who works his *** off with his hands knew instinctively, years ago, that government, media, healthcare, education…everything big, was the enemy. The horse left the barn long ago. They have no integrity and deserve no trust.
Let’s say, hypothetically, the vaccine is totally safe. Does it matter? The alternative media is already flourishing with claims of risks and adverse reactions, with in my opinion a high likelihood some are accurate and some not, in the usual way of things; people are justifiably skeptical, and I know I personally cannot be convinced these are safe, and I can’t imagine I’m alone here. I could easily see a situation where, if the vaccines are safe, it doesn’t matter: lie to people enough times, and even when you tell the truth no one will believe you…..
I just want to thank you and everyone in the commentariat for your insights and help this year, and for being a bastion of sanity.
Enjoy your vacation, and Happy New Year!
1) I really like how you changed it up this year to a discussion of unknowns. It’s more interesting than the typical laundry list of prognostications!
2) I guess you could say I am one of those people who think we now live under a senile kleptocracy propped up by rigged elections and a breathtakingly dishonest media. The way I phrased it to friends recently was with the word oligarchy—although kleptocracy is just as applicable.
In my mind the US is already over—that is to say, it’s no longer a democratic republic. I came to that conclusion on December 14, due to the fact that on that day the electors elected the Biden/Harris ticket and—more importantly to me—Bill Barr announced his resignation. I believe that portends the death of any chance we had for justice to be brought to those who circumvented the will of the people to enrich themselves, and used Soviet-style secret-police tactics to cover it up. In my mind those two events made it a truly dark day.
3) If you don’t mind me asking, what was your take on what happened December 14? Did it match your astrological forecast? (I recall it was ominous—a solar eclipse among other things)
4) If you don’t mind me disagreeing with one of your predictions, I don’t think Biden will face impeachment the moment the GOP regains control of the House. I think the GOP is simply one face of the system—call them the Uniparty, the Demublicans, the establishment, the deep state, call them whatever you want—and they won’t see any need for impeachment as long as they feign a token resistance to Biden’s administration.
5) I wish you a restful first month of the new year!
Thankyou JMG for the work you do each year. Best wishes for your month off.
Hey jmg
I’ll miss your blog posts, but I can always search the archive in the mean time!
Have a nice holiday!
BTW, before you go, do you have any idea if Australia will have similar problems to America’s with in the decade, or do you think you don’t know enough to comment?
Kashtan, since there are scores of potential scenarios, I’m not even going to try to offer one — or more. We’ll just have to see.
Nate, of course that’s part of it. Remember that the religion of progress is a materialist version of Christianity with the serial numbers filed off. Space travel is the equivalent of going to heaven, and omnipotent physicians curing death itself is the equivalent of eternal life.
Justin, too much control over the political system simply guarantees that those who seek change will seek it outside the system, causing considerably more disruption to the status quo.
Nomadic Beer, as I noted above, it’s always a source of amusement to me to watch leftists of varying stripes debate who is or is not a real leftist. From my outside perspective, the different factions are interchangeable except in their rhetorical choices. As for “helping the working class,” the left in the US hasn’t been in favor of that for a very long time. It’s always about helping this or that subset of the middle class intelligentsia to a bigger share of the pie, using “concern for the working class” as the excuse. You might want to read the book by Paul Embery that BB cites below.
As for the mortality statistics, I’d have to do some serious research into causes of death. There are a lot of ways dieoff can happen, and it would be worth knowing which of them is involved in the present situation.
Varun, well, we’ll see!
Ian, interesting. Thanks for this.
Owen, alternatively, his handlers may have looked at the political realities and decided to veer to the middle. But we’ll see.
Kim, I see Pluto as a minor body, not on the same scale as one of the major planets, and so its return isn’t of great importance. I know that’s an unpopular opinion these days but I’ve seen far too many astrologers make fools of themselves by making political and economic predictions based on Pluto phenomena, so I class it with Ceres, Eris, and Chiron — useful for some specialized applications, but not for general predictions about politics and economics.
BB, thanks for this! I’ll have to see if I can get a copy.
John, a case could be made! In that case, any guesses about our Putin?
Anonymous, and that’s also an issue, of course.
Blue Sun, the effects of the December 14 eclipse, which was quite baleful, will be unfolding over the next five years and a bit; ask me in the spring of 2026 and I’ll tell you how well my predictions worked out. One thing that makes astrology complex is that its effects tend to unfold over time! As for Biden, I think you’re wrong, but we’ll see.
J.L.Mc12, I don’t know. Not living there, and having only a limited knowledge of the culture and politics, I’m probably not the guy to ask.
I will be so bold as to make a prediction for the year 2021: January will be a dull month for those who frequent this blog!
Best wishes, JMG, for a great month off. And best wishes to all in the commentariat for the coming year. The ‘wiggier’ this world gets, the greater the value of having a safe haven for civil, intelligent and stimulating discussions on all things weird and wonderful.
Onething, I can’t say I knew it consciously; I may have read the Bhagavad Gita 25+ years ago. Mostly I just recognized something and found myself asking, “why am I jerking the reins…and from whom?”
It’s an apt metaphor and one I’ll be thinking about for a while.
***
Grover, I was just about to ask after you. I’m glad to hear you’re well.
@JMG:
(1) Martin Armstrong is one of only two people I know of who by January 2016 correctly and without contingencies said Trump would win the 2016 election. You, of course, were the other. I’ve mentioned him to you before.
He forecasts trend changes, with dates, very far in advance. He uses cycles or, more correctly, claims he wrote a computer program decades ago to follow a number of overlapping social and economic cycles, updated continually with new data, to do his projections — all tied to the number pi. I find his accuracy personally unnerving, as he calls trend changes often years or even decades in advance. I started reading him, very skeptically, around 2012 and now I just don’t know what to think…other than I wouldn’t bet against him.
(2) I think you should look at the first page of wtfhappenedin1971.com as a datapoint regarding the comfortable class and what is driving all this. I continue to think it is peak oil, rather than “anthropocentric climate change” that our Masters are concerned about. But they can’t say that, of course, because it might cause their livestock to panic….
(3) Am I correct “Land of the free and home of the brave” (aka the idealized version of America the Beautiful) is an egregore? What happens when an egregore of that power is suddenly falsified in public view of hundreds of millions of people? I’m asking what happens on a magical or astral level — not just what a psychologist might predict.
(4) I hope you check your PO box from time to time? Have a great and reinvigorating holiday!
@onething: I looked a little deeper into that rumor about the vaccine causing the body to attack the placenta. This is a hypothetical arising from the way the vaccine teaches the body to attack a type of spike protein that occurs on the exterior of the COVID 19 virus (usually depicted as little red tufts on the grey orb of the virus itself) which happens to very strongly resemble a protein that is necessary for the formation of a placenta. Will the immune system, after it learns to attack the protein when it occurs on the surface of the virus, also start attacking it when it is involved in placenta formation? Nobody knows. The research hasn’t been done. However, if the vaccine has this effect, then so will the virus itself. Any woman of childbearing age who gets infected with the virus, even if her symptoms are so mild as to be unnoticeable, will be at risk of reduced fertility. I’m sure you are capable of teasing out the implications.
Nomadic Beer, JMG,
I’m in the younger age group, and more people I know committed suicide in December than in all of the 2010s put together. This has been the case every month since April, particularly if you count the number who drank themselves to death. So my guess is alcohol and suicide probably played a massive role in driving death rates up.
Those changes weren’t accidental, nor were they inevitable; they were the results of readily identifiable policies pushed by a bipartisan consensus, and defended by government, corporate, and media flacks with a disingenuousness that borders on the pathological.
To be honest, when I hear about politicians moving towards the moderate center, the above is what I picture happening. Would it be accurate to say, the moderate centrism described in The Culture of Contentment, versus the sort of moderate centrism that might actually fix problems?
Also, 2020 really hammered home that I’m awful at predictions. I thought Covid would be a flash in the pan, I thought Trump would win. I’ll leave the predictions to more able folks than me.
Along those lines – I started reading Kunstler as a counterweight to MSNBC propaganda. He seems to have lost it since the election, spinning up fanciful tales of Chinese infiltration of the government and midnight military maneuvers to keep Biden out of office. I don’t know if he’s noticed that William Barr (who was supposed to deliver a hard rain of indictments) has resigned; I don’t know if he’s noticed that he sounds like the Democrats in 2016.
And finally, does anyone have any Internet reading recommendations for a long, cold, Druid-less January?
Here’s an article about both known deaths from COVID and the excess deaths happening. No cause is guessed at for the excess deaths.
Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries
On the same topic Tucker Carlson also discusses an article by Paul Embery in this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd-JdtZ5Xio
here’s the article: https://unherd.com/2019/12/is-this-the-end-for-labour/
I appreciate this refreshing post acknowledging that the unknown and unknowable is OK. History definitely presents us with a lot of good background to get an idea what direction things may be heading in, and in this instance, things may be a bit more uncharted. Without a doubt, change is in the air. This whole year has reminded me of the long Minnesota winters, and it feels as if spring is in the air. Although I also wouldn’t be surprised if the spring is like one of our Minnesota springs, with a lot unexpected snowstorms, freezes and thaws.
As for our future here in the USA, I’ll go out on a limb as I did when speaking with my brother over the Christmas holiday, and say that I expect the USA to fall apart within the four years of a Biden/Harris. Not that he himself did anything wrong, but the reality that many have lost faith in our government and feel that representation has not fulfilled its promises. There’s isn’t any way out, other than to begin dismantling what is here, and that seems to be happening with the police in some areas, and the fact that many people are picking up and moving away from state governments they’ve found oppressive. I could easily, and hopefully be wrong. We will see. A new season is upon us, and this one likely will be different from seasons past.
Have a productive month with your projects that need attention, and I hope you’ll have a chance to get out and look at the stars. Thanks for providing a lighthouse in a sheltered harbor during a turbulent year.
Thanks for the uncommon common sense.
I’m rather mystified myself at what I’ve been seeing from other doctors. I’m well aware of your rather jaundiced eye towards the profession, but I guess I still expected a little better. At the largish practice I’m at, many of the doctors are falling over themselves to get the vaccine ASAP. I’ve been my typical iconoclastic self pointing out the lack of testing, same as you mentioned, but it’s mostly in one ear out the other. Amusingly enough, out of well over a dozen medical assistants I’ve spoken to, only one was planning on getting the vaccine, and his justification was essentially he was a guinea pig for Uncle Sam all the time in the military, so it’s nothing new to him. The rest seem to make the connection after seeing hordes of patients their age that for them this is closer to a cold than smallpox cubed, and taking a inadequately tested vaccine with so many unknowns is probably not warranted at this time.
Kind of the same for treatment options. There’s been an astonishing amount of research recently in support of ivermectin, from countries that I believe to be not coincidentally generally too poor for Big Pharma to have much interest in. I’ve been doing what I remember actually being taught to do and follow the evidence leavened with ethical pragmatism wherever it happens to lead, but I’m still relatively alone in this. What’s overwhelmingly popular among American doctors seems to high priced, rather impractical, experimental treatments that have failed over and over again in actual studies (remdesivir, tociluzumab, convalescent serum, monoclonal antibodies). But, hey, Big Pharma makes a bundle on them, so that’s what their “authoritative sources” tell them to keep using. That’s literally the only explanation I can logically come up with, and it’s incredibly disappointing. I’m sitting here watching them be the stereotypes that critics have long accused them of being.
JMG, I was wondering what you think of the creator economy, seeing as you yourself are a part of it?
You’ve already read about journalists leaving mainstream publications due to wokeism running wild and setting up their own publications on various platforms. But there are whole industries of people creating things and putting them online, whether monetizing the content outright or using it to get consulting clients/teach courses. I can name many of these but one guy I found unique is ScorpioMartianus on YouTube, who tries to promote Latin as a spoken language using reconstructed Classical Pronunciation.
Anyway, this part of the internet is something I personally find really valuable and I like to see all these creators creating interesting things that allow them to make a living. I feel like your general chart for the solstice has some indications that this trend will continue for the time being, but what do you yourself make of it?
Also, what options for this to continue as the internet wind downs do you see?
Thank you, JMG, for all you do! May you and Sara have a great month off.
I just skimmed the Deagel “forecast” page. Specifically the “disclaimer” essay at the bottom contains boatloads of probably-unintentional nuggets of information. There are many hints that it was written by someone for whom English is not their native language. This and the opinions, biases, and even many of the phrases used, lead me to think that these are Russian authors, and ones who are somewhat nostalgic for the CCCP at that. This would also explain why Dmitri Orlov is intrigued with the site.
Not that they don’t have some points, but I also think they may be a bit too “optimistic” in the other direction, i.e. that “the West will crash and burn due to its decadence.” As we’ve seen the “decadence” more and more is just the propaganda of the MSM; in their real lives people are, down in the grassroots, already moving in other directions.
– Cicada Grove
(1) Happy New Year to All and especially to JMG and Mrs Greer.
(2) A very lucid assessment. Any hints as to the sort of foreign policies he might pursue? Any return to the Bush-Obama type of policies might well spiral out of control now.
Regards
I think it might even end up being worse if the vaccines are perfectly safe. The medical professionals would see it, and so would double-down on them; well the people outside would dismiss it as another lie. The awkward fact is that one of the best ways to make someone furious is to dismiss what they’re saying as a lie when they are telling the truth. So you’d have a jaded, paranoid public, with a health system that is now furious, and holds quite a lot of power. The results could be colourful in the extreme….
Also, if this isn’t too far off topic, I’ve heard from a friend of mine in rural Ontario (Near Ottawa’s city limits) has told me she’s just been told she will not have home internet or a landline soon. They are both being discontinued as of June 1 in her area. Her response was astonishing: she’ll just live without a phone or internet. Looks like the Grand Mutation prediction for technological regress is getting started already in some places…..
I’d like to join those thanking you for both your useful and interesting posts themselves and for maintaining the comments as the spam-free, reasonable-discussion-filled environment they are.
Thank you for all the good you’ve done over the years, and I hope you have a good vacation. 🙂
John Micheal Greer,
Thank you for this blog and do enjoy your time off.
Loren,
There is a “far left” that fights for a wider distribution of wealth. It is just smaller and given far less visibility than the anti-working class left.
Black Agenda Report comes to mind as one example.
This piece
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2020/09/28/the-rump-professional-class-and-its-fallen-counterpart/
does an excellent job of explaining how non-economic justice issues
function right now. Basically, the professional class, which has been shielded from the decades long attack on the working class and much of the middle class, has far more aspirants than it has positions. Some of the increasing numbers of folks who don’t make it into the professional class or who worry that they might not make it seize on woke issues as a way to differentiate themselves from the working class that objectively they have been put into. This loyalty to professional class status markers (even in the absence of professional class material benefits) is of course quite well received by the professional class and those it serves.
The resulting split between the working class and those trying to being put into the working class is similar to the split that bedeviled the labor movement for many years between artisans, who had some degree of independence, and workers, who were dependent on employers for their survival.
There are folks out there who want both wider distribution of wealth and power and who support anti-racism etc. but there is not enough clarity about just how nominal support for social equality is used to block moves toward more balanced distribution of economic and power.
In some ways, what is going on in American now, with parts of both the Christian right and the woke left, seems similar to the last days of the (western) Roman Empire after one specific variant of Christianity was made the official state religion and all alternatives banned. An empire in decline was marked by increasing authoritarianism and regimentation of thought. The idea that everyone had to believe the same thing, as opposed to participating in the same civic rituals, was a new creation of that time and place. (Though there was a parallel development around Zoroastrianism in Sasanian Iran.)
It was at this time that teachings of original sin and eternal damnation became prominent. It is ironic that the woke left can condemn people without their needing to do anything wrong (original sin) and lacks a path to redemption and forgiveness. Though being permanently cancelled is not nearly as bad as eternal hell fire.
John of Red Hook: “Recently I’ve been wondering if Trump might be our version of Gorbachev. If so, there is the possibility of Biden being our version of, err, Yeltsin. The old adage that history never repeats but it does rhyme should be kept in mind here.”
JMG: “John, a case could be made! In that case, any guesses about our Putin?”
Hahaha! It’s too early to tell! Putin was a nobody in the early 1990s. (Okay, that isn’t entirely true, but certainly, the general public hadn’t heard of him.)
@Danaone
@JMG
Re: kinetic
Got it! Thanks. 🙂
Hi John Michael,
Respect for the hard yards you’ve done over the years, and enjoy your well deserved break. But I tell ya, I’m hearing a little whisper coming from somewhere beyond my right shoulder blade suggesting that you’ve got some writing work lined up to fill in the gaps created by your break from blogging and replying. 😉 Time for rest later! Of course I could have misconstrued the whispering noise, and it was simply one of the dogs snoring. It’s possible. 🙂
Things down here have yet again become super-weird. We have a handful of cases of the health subject which dare not be named, in the entire state, and borders are being closed. Health outcome considerations aside, it’ll be an economic bloodbath of major proportions. I also note that negative interest rates have reared their heads, and our Federal Government was this time doing the borrowing. Bizarre stuff, and it hints at the dark underlying realities of the value of paper.
Cheers
Chris
With regard to the novelty of the mRNA vaccines, I found this article really fascinating. It is really quite impressive what has been achieved and also notable how little we fully understand about the levels we are working at. A bit more humility would be advisable in the press IMHO.
https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/reverse-engineering-source-code-of-the-biontech-pfizer-vaccine/
Matt
John,
I think we wouldn’t know who might be our equivalent of Putin until they show up and are around for a while. That being said, right now such a thought brings to mind a certain non-Christian woman of color who is both a Senator and a solder. However, the U.S. would have to hold together for that to happen, since her state was originally one of our overseas colonies. The fact that several of my liberal friends and family have said that they would never vote for her since she is a Nazi is a feather in her cap.
Thanks as usual for another thought provoking essay!
All fair points although I do wish the debate over the vaccines was a bit more nuanced although of course that’s also sympomatic of our times; the issue of immediate benefits vs potential longer term risks looks very different, for example, to a not very vulnerable 30 year old and an 85 year old…
I also think you, consciously or otherwise, downplay the circulation of your blogging. For example, I know where were certainly people who knew Obama who read it although of course whether they had any influence on him or his policies is a different question…
@TJandTheBear – “@Your Yoyo… there’s no way to a 90% reduction without a commensurate reduction in population.”
I would say that math can be approached in different ways… Just as a thought experiment **, if one chose to take the population reduction approach to reducing energy usage, and you took the figures cited in the BBC article, you would not need to reduce the population in a “commensurate” way (ie – reduce it by 90% across the board). You would just have to reduce it in an “energy commensurate” way (ie – *selectively* reduce it by removing the fewest number of humans whose proportionately higher energy usages adds up to 90% of the total).
I expect this number to be somewhere between 10-20% of the population (so a much smaller human “cull” than your thought experiment indicated) – although that percentage, undoubtedly still includes most, if not all, of the commenters here, even though most, if not all, of us are *already* quite busy thoughtfully reducing our own energy usage.
** Please note this IS a thought experiment – no persons have been harmed while conducting this thought experiment. Also this thought experiment emphatically does not express a wish, a desire or a policy proposal! Merely a cautionary tale, as, in my humble experience people who DO advocate for policy proposals involving population reduction never consider that the “population” that is most inimical to climate and the environment is the one that includes THEM.
John–
Re Biden and the cycles of history
I saw this story this morning:
https://www.rt.com/usa/511210-secret-service-trump-biden/
and found myself seriously wondering if we’re getting into Praetorian Guard territory. The thought saddens me greatly, though after so many years of conversations re the cycles inherent to societies, I really oughtn’t be surprised if we do end up there at some point.
@JMG – Jean Lamb in Klamath Falls, OR, says the need to put people back to work is on everybody’s lips up there. Of course, K. Falls and Gainesville are both “flyover country.”
Have a lovely vacation!
Thank you JMG for another year of thought provoking essays – both the mainstream ones like this, and the more outre discussions of esoteric matters which are beyond my comfort zone but usefully challenging for me.
Enjoy your silent month and may you continue to thrive for many cycles of seasons to come.
One brief comment on your reference to the BBC article and the possible trajectories of the Biden administration.
The BBC maintains what shreds of credibility it still has with the leftie chattering classes by claiming to be “balanced”. I think the article you referenced falls into the category of providing an occasional somewhat contrary narrative to backup their claims of impartiality and balance. I no longer take any of their output except music performances and comedy so missed this article – but none of my chattering group, who are still reluctant to be sceptical of what they are fed, picked up on it – so I guess it was only very briefly visible for you to find. Now, 3 weeks later, it is well buried.
You are right that it is interesting that UN sponsored voices are behind this, but it is not unusual – if you manage to talk to actual experts on any topic down the pub you will usually get a very different story to what appears in the scientific papers approved by their masters, let alone the mass media. The Beeb publishing an isolated story on one such alternative, or possibly more truthful, view seems hardly significant to me.
Regarding Biden’s future path I suspect much of what Dan Glazebrook said about Corbyn and Starmer in the UK in his recent CounterPunch article ( [here now – but possibly behind a paywall tomorrow](https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/27/the-tragedy-of-corbynism-a-postmortem/).
Essentially he points to the truth that the working class (in the UK, but possibly also largely in the US) has a gut understanding that they are the beneficiaries of a neo-colonial system. In global terms even the poorest in the “West” are bourgeois middle class and have a strong vested interest in the wealth pump that drives the flow from the South East to North West continues to operate.
Any slightly left leaning incoming leader rapidly discovers that if he is to survive he has to “get with the agenda” and continue the foreign policy direction of the establishment. The only wiggle room is at home where things like creating “a million new climate jobs” are entirely acceptable so long as they are paid for by off-shoring the costs onto the global poor to benefit the domestic bottom of the pyramid.
A group of doctors have formed the Front Line Covid Critical Care Alliance and have been trying to get the word out about curing and preventing Covid-19. Their work is based on numerous studies that have been done around the world. The work has been censored here in the US, I expect to protect the vaccine makers.
I think it is important to get this information out to as many people as possible. I was on on the C-Realm podcast talking about this:
https://c-realm.com/podcasts/crealm/566-covid-epistemology/
What You Can Do To Prevent Getting COVID19 video at:
https://vimeo.com/486829903
More at flccc.net
Please share. Happy New Year!
Bob
If these vaccines turn out to have serious side effects, I can already see what the medical establishment will say: “But nobody could POSSIBLY have predicted this!!!” Cuz, y’know, those very particular side effects could not reasonably have been predicted. Gah.
Glenn Greenwald saying it like it is: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-threat-of-authoritarianism-in?fbclid=IwAR2h7x7eNI36ZfRuyCROpctElzx-6IZFMNHIyx0PFrWicHdlRj2eL73TgZ4
This is a further example of what’s going on with the Grand Mutation.
I will never get this vaccine. I would urge people who are thinking of doing so to watch this short video where doctors warn about the vaccine and you don’t need FB to do it.
https://www.facebook.com/TeresaKae/posts/10218122272423921
I would also encourage people to search for Dolores Cahill, a Professor of Immunology who said that when they did trials of mRNA vaccines on animals, injury and death were quite common. Anyway at this stage, with the amount of information out there (despite the efforts of Big Tech), I think people have only themselves to blame if they suffer adverse health reactions as a result of being jabbed.
JMG, I think that Trump will not go quitely, gently into the night, although Twitter will probably ban him as soon as Biden takes office. His supporters, rightly convinced that the election was stolen, are planning demonstrations and they and I think the USA is obviously no longer a democratic country. Sidney Powell has already produced a 270 page legal document for anyone who says, “There’s no proof!” We are not talking about the small scale vote rigging of before and many Americans know this (despite the efforts of the MSM). So it will be interesting (in the Chinese way) to see how this all pans out…
@ Fake Meat dude
Is the ‘meat’ in question Incogmeato?
JMG, this speaks more to your broader topic than this specific post, so feel free not to put it through.
My local community radio station just reposted an interview they did in 2015 with Patricia Clare Ingham regarding her book “The Medieval New: Ambivalence in an Age of Innovation. Here’s part of the summary:
“Popular models of innovation (including buzzwords such as “creative destruction” or “disruptive innovation”) prize getting rid of anything that’s old. But some folks are starting to reimagine innovation in different terms: as reusing, recycling, refurbishing, sampling, or updating the old. In her new book, The Medieval New, Patricia Ingham shows that creative models combining old and new have a long and interesting innovating history. Focusing on the period that gave us eye glasses, windmills, courtly love, and mechanical clocks, (not to mention falconry and the blast furnace), Ingham asks us to reconsider what we think we mean by calling something new.”
I haven’t listened to it yet, but it seemed like the sort of book you might find interesting. Here’s the link to the interview if you want to listen to it: https://wfhb.org/news/interchange-whats-old-is-new-again-going-medieval-on-the-cult-of-innovation-2015/
I hope you and Sara enjoy your break, and that 2021isn’t quite the buzzsaw that 2020 has been!
Squirrelly Jen
@NomadicBeer: “We really need to find better words for this. You are saying that helping the working class is not a leftist policy which contradicts at least a hundred years of the use of this word.”
It may suffice to say “economic left,” as opposed to simply “left.”
About the vaccine….. here is something that my Neuro told me. I see him for my brain injury, and am considered in the group that needs the vaccine sooner My Neuro studied plagues and still reads up on them. He discussed the vaccine with me.
It doesn’t stop you from getting the virus or passing the virus. —- yes, he said that. The virus, a plague, mutates so much that no vaccine can get it. What this vaccine does is…… Keeps you out of the hospital.
Instead of getting it in your lungs, you get it in the upper part of your body.
Why — as he said, the MEDICAL SYSTEM IS BROKEN. yes, he said that. The medical system from soup to nuts is totally and completely broken. They are trying keep people from needing doctors, insurance, hospitals, etc.
He said I should get the vaccine since it does give me a lesser sickness. However, only masks prevent the transfer of droplets from the nose or mouth from one person to another.
I was carefully watching the medical experts on the regular news answer questions. In the subtext, they were actually supporting what my neuro said. They danced around people getting sick after the vaccine, sort of not answering the question. We are still asked to wear masks.
Dear JMG, I have finally started my magical journey through the book you co-Autored Introduction into ritual magic. I’ am in a natural enviroment closer to nature than civilisation and will be for some time, the number three keeps, reappering in my life, and I have been visited by by some of natures more shy creatures, a seal , foxes and a cat. Thank you for your presistent call to work and actions, your inspiration has helped my bevildred soul, and I feel better now than I have for years. May 2021 bring good fourtune, strenght and justice. Sincerly your novice apprentice.
To JMG and the peanut gallery – have a pleasant New Year! As for predictions for 2021, I think of a quip attributed to the great yogi, Yogi Berra – “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” When I try to visualize aspects of how things will play out in the future, a chance meeting from the past pops into my head. Years ago, my husband and I were at a gas station in our town, Boonville MO. Boonville is on the Katy Trail, an old rail corridor of the MKT rail line, converted to a bike path, and also on I-70. As we were gassing up, three young folk (two guys and a gal if I remember correctly) came flying into the station on bicycles, to use the facilities. I assumed that they were just riding the trail, so I asked them how far they were going. They replied that they had left Denver, CO, two days previously, and were riding to St. Louis! They waved ‘bye as I was picking my jaw up off the pavement. Not using petroleum to travel is actually an option, it seems!
Analysis of the Brexit trade deal: https://briefingsforbritain.co.uk/the-uk-eu-trade-and-cooperation-agreement-minimum-brexit/.
The funniest pimp slap at the centre I’ve ever seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23xFAwDRdnU. Short version: is there anything smugger than a centrist? 🙂
@ MCB
Thanks for the link to the article about how the m-RNA vaccines are made.
Reading the article with the “Precaution Principle” all this method of using a novel nucleotid to avoid detection of the RNA from our immune system seems scary to me, The article say:
“Many people have asked, could viruses also use the Ψ technique to beat our immune systems? In short, this is extremely unlikely. Life simply does not have the machinery to build 1-methyl-3’-pseudouridylyl nucleotides. Viruses rely on the machinery of life to reproduce themselves, and this facility is simply not there. The mRNA vaccines quickly degrade in the human body, and there is no possibility of the Ψ-modified RNA replicating with the Ψ still in there. “No, Really, mRNA Vaccines Are Not Going To Affect Your DNA“ is also a good read.”
So the answer to this kind of “extinction event” (Taleb) question is that the RNA from the vaccine cannot be coded in the DNA, but a lot of people think otherwise, because we have endovirus in our DNA with retro-transcriptasa enzyme and, at least theorically it is possible retro-transcript the RNA in our DNA. Also simply it is not true that the RNA molecule “quickly degrade in the human body” because the fundament of the vaccine is to maintain the RNA inside the cells producing the S protein of the virus using the intra-cellular ribosomes.
So the prospect of a virus adquiring the Ψ nucleotid to avoid our immune system doe not sound so impossible, and it is a another huge risk to take account.
The problem of our Faustian Civilization is not that it does not know WHERE to stop, the real problem is that it does not know HOW to stop, this Mega Machine was built without brakes.
Cheers
David
Yes, as we have heard in a couple of the comments above, there is at least one other approved (only in the UK for now) more traditional vaccine. There is also, perhaps surprisingly, this: The British American Tobacco Co has been given the go ahead to start testing their vaccine for covid that they have been developing.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/16/british-american-tobacco-approval-test-covid-vaccine-humans
I remember hearing, early on, that some were suspecting that some part of tobacco, nicotine, plant proteins, were a possible prophylactic against covid. There is a now a large study going on that was begun in Oct, but won’t finish until Aug 2021.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04583410
I will leave it to conjecture, but one wonders if the more traditional view of the tobacco plant as a sacred and medicinal one wasn’t, in fact. woo-woo, but based on experience and hard-won earth and ‘spirit’ knowledge.
WRT a 90% reduction in energy use. That reminded me of the Riot for Austerity from over a decade ago. IIRC they had a very nice calculator to figure out where your household energy usage fell on the continuum.
It’s not hard at all to reduce household energy consumption of every kind by 10%. You just have to pay attention and turn out the darn lights in empty rooms and limit your showers and plan your car trips.
20% is a bit more work, involving insulation, growing some veg, and walking all the time.
After that, it depends a lot on how many resources (of all kinds) you use. If you fly to the tropics four times a year because your soul needs the equator sun, you’ve got plenty of room to cut back. If you’re trying to keep the drafts out of the singlewide you live in, you’re already at the bone.
Even so for most of us, it’s quite doable to cut back 20, 30, even to 40% while still living something approximating a middle-class American existence. You just have to follow those old principles:
Reduce, reuse, repair, repurpose and then you recycle. Notice that Reduce is at the front of the line because it is the most important one.
Ron, I hope it’s dull. There are any number of interesting things that could happen in the world, and I’m hoping that we avoid them!
Gnat, I’ll definitely check those out. The American egregor? That’s an immense issue, and what happens — well, it varies from case to case, but magically speaking that’s what the collapse of the Soviet Union was about. As for my PO box, I do indeed, and you should be receiving a thank you note in the mail as soon as our postal system gets around to it.
Anonymous, ouch. Yes, I thought that might be part of it.
Cliff, what counts as the center varies from time to time, of course, and as I noted some years ago, the notional center in today’s American political system is very, very far removed from the central beliefs of most Americans. It’s the latter, not the former, that would give Biden a chance at a successful presidency. If he embraces the former instead — the consensus of the clueless elites, which was what made Trump inevitable — he’s doomed.
Godozo, many thanks for this.
BB, thanks for this. It’s just possible that a clue is being had…
Prizm, well, we’ll see. You’re right that it could certainly turn out that way. If some state legislature or other were to pass a bill calling for a constitutional amendment to dissolve the Union, in particular, I think it would get two-thirds of the states on board very easily — Massachusetts would be as happy to be rid of Arkansas as Arkansas would be to get rid of Massachusetts…
Hector, welcome back — it’s been a while! Your experience with your fellow doctors is fascinating, and very disturbing. I hope that sort of blind trust in Big Pharma doesn’t cost them too bitterly.
Alvin, I noticed a while ago that none of the people I know who are actually thriving work for an employer — they’re all out on their own, and the vast majority of them have worked out some arrangement that allows them to provide goods or services to a niche market. What you’re calling the creator economy is an important part of that. Basically what’s happened is that economic overcentralization is well past the point of negative returns, in at least two senses. On the one hand, the superstructure of the centralized corporate economy is so gargantuan and so costly that the people who actually provide goods and services within that economy are no longer being paid a decent share of the value of their own labor — too much has to be raked off to support the legions of office fauna and all the other costs of excessive scale. On the other, because corporate behemoths have to focus on goods and services that have a mass market, a vast and growing array of more specialized human needs and wants is going unmet by the centralized economy. That leaves a dizzying array of niches wide open for individuals who can use their own skills as capital and find ways to thrive in the interstices. It’s certainly what I do, and I expect it to become even more prosperous and popular as the corporate economy becomes ever more rigid, sclerotic, and corrupt.
As for the internet, it’s a convenience, not a necessity. A century ago creators used classifeid ads in magazines to reach their audience. As the internet begins to wane, expect print magazines to stage a lively resurgence — the zine scene shows that there’s already plenty of talent and entrepreneurship waiting to move into that niche once the internet abandons it.
Cicada Grove, that doesn’t surprise me at all. Many thanks.
Karim, if Biden (or rather his handlers) have the brains the gods gave geese, he’ll denounce Trump’s foreign policy and then carry out a somewhat less erratic version of it. Right now the only set of policies that can keep US prestige internationally from facing the kind of disaster I chronicled in my novel Twilight’s Last Gleaming is a staged retreat from global commitments we can no longer afford to maintain.
Anonymous, that’s fascinating to hear about your friend. I wonder how widespread and rapid the retreat of the internet will turn out to be.
Chris, it’s one of your dogs snoring. I do have some writing contracts to finish up, but I plan on taking it easy and getting caught up on some reading while I’m on break. As for the economics of the current epidemic, that’s one of the most astonishing things about all this — governments are using shutdowns instead of the proven methods of quarantine and contact tracing, and causing immense economic damage, which is going to whip around and bite them in the buttocks. Why? it makes very little sense.
Matt, thanks for this.
John, I could see that.
Guilliam, if the corporate media was discussing the vaccines in terms of risks and benefits, instead of cheerleading for the pharmaceutical industry and insisting on the absolute truth of statements about safety when neither they nor anyone else know whether those statements are true or not, I’d doubtless be more nuanced. As for having readers who knew Obama, I find this hard to believe; the degree of stark ignorance of the bleak realities of contemporary American life that Obama and his flacks have consistently displayed is extreme enough that I’d be astonished if anyone in that circle reads anything outside the oxygen-deprived bubble of elite intellectual culture.
David BTL, well, Trump was consistently dogged by Democratic loyalists within his administration, so it doesn’t suprise me that Biden’s handlers are trying to avoid the same thing! More broadly, though, that’s a serious concern at this point.
Patricia M, unless it gets out of K-Falls et al. and finds its way to the centers of power, it may not amount to much. People in flyover states have been talking for years about the hard fact that without full time jobs at decent pay, nothing is going to improve for them.
Roger, I noted in my post that the BBC article may or may not mark a shift in that consensus. We simply don’t know — and I think it’s crucial to accept that uncertainty.
Investing, I’m not surprised to see KMO all over this! Thanks for this.
Irena, sure — but the fact that negative side effects were predicted by quite a few people is what will finish the process, at least here in the US, of shredding what little remains of the credibility of the corporate media and the medical and scientific establishment. You can only lie blatantly to people so many times before they stop believing anything you say…
Bridge, thanks for this. You might also find this post on Naked Capitalism interesting.
Squirrelly, thanks for this! That’s a book I’ll want to read.
Neptunesdolphins, I’m delighted to hear that your doctor admitted that the system’s broken. As my friends who’ve dealt with addictions like to say, it’s not until you admit that you have a problem and it won’t fix itself that you can actually start doing something about it.
Martin, delighted to hear it. May the work go well for you!
Danaone, indeed it is. Good for them!
Yorkshire, thanks for these.
Shamanicfallout, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of effects the more conventional vaccines have. As for tobacco, I’ve long assumed that the hideous death toll from tobacco use is what you get from treating a sacred plant so casually.
Teresa, true enough! And that’s why the people who take vacations in the tropics four times a year are the people who need to lead the way by cutting back first.
JMG, are you going to continue to put comments through in January? Also, how should we treat tobacco?
Drgrumpyinthehouse.blogspot.com writes in detail about his vaccination experience.
@ Joan
In your reply to Onething (re. the prospect that Covid vaccines may trigger the body to attack syncitin-1 homologues of the vaccine antigen derived from the Sars-Covid-2 spike protein) you venture a supposition that if a woman has been infected with Covid her immune system will look and behave exactly as it would if she has been vaccinated with a Sars-Covid-2 vaccine, such that if her post-vaccine immune system attacks syncityn-1 proteins in the placenta, her post-infection immune system would do so, as well.
This does not follow at all. Vaccines do not emulate normal immune function. They emulate a 300-year-old simple irritation/response immune system *model*, which may or may not be a useful proxy for normal, complex, adaptive, immune function, which is still very poorly understood.
That is to say, it does not follow at all that infection with Sars-Covid-2 will direct the unvaccinated immune system to attack syncitin-1 analogues of the Sars-Covid-2 spike protein (the specific possibility that is under discussion), anymore than infection with H1N1 swine flu has been found to direct the unvaccinated immune system to turn on homologues in hypocretin producing neurons, as the H1N1 swine flu vaccine Pandemrix is now known to have done, causing a spike in the number of narcolepsy cases during the pandemic of 2009.
Of course, whether this homology (Sars-Covid-2 spike proteins and placental Syncityn-1 proteins) will bear out in practice, is still unknown.
“As for tobacco, I’ve long assumed that the hideous death toll from tobacco use is what you get from treating a sacred plant so casually.”
If I may jump in, one of the things I find so fascinating about the history of tobacco is that it was once considered to afford massive health benefits. Rather than doing the usual thing and saying “People in the past were morons”, I started thinking through the various possibilities which could explain this. One I came up with was that something in how tobacco is handled makes it dangerous; this then lead me to looking into the history of it, and this then lead me to the discovery that it was only after the mechanization of tobacco production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the health claims started being challenged. So I think that’s a very big part of it.
Hi JMG.
Here in the Hispanic South America,Biden is seen as “the gringo that will give visas and citizenship to everyone”, I wonder if the USA (also Canada) will keep being a major inmigrant destination in the coming decades.
Thanks for flowing with the times in 2020 and providing a greater proportion of current-events posts alongside the intriguing magical history series. I’m always interested to read your perspectives and to join in the discussion when I have time.
Re: economic fallout
There’s a story being told about how mega-corporations are winning and small businesses are closing, but the reality on the ground seems to be far more nuanced than that. On the big side, Boeing, Delta Airlines, Disney World, and Royal Caribbean aren’t doing so hot. On the small side, many mom-and-pop businesses are thriving through the pandemic. That is certainly true in my industry – those who produce local food or cater to gardeners and small farmers. Even in the restaurant world, the little Mexican lunch cafe that I frequent is doing just fine: they mainly cater to truckers and day-laborers who are now simply getting their burritos to go. Meanwhile it is the upscale, dine-in-experience restaurants that cater to the chattering classes that are going under.
On a larger scale what this says to me is the majority of the folks suffering the most are in industries which cater to the comfortable classes (travel, tourism, hospitality, fine dining, boutique shops, malls, etc. etc.). And these tend to be the sorts of jobs occupied by downwardly-mobile children of the comfortable classes, who have now been given a harsh lesson in their expendability and who now have even more reason to discard the identity politics of their families and make common cause with the economic grievance politics of the working classes. If nothing else, immiserating a larger proportion of the populace – including many who were previously quite comfortable – can hardly end well for the Marie Antoinette class.
Re: vaccines
I’m watching and waiting along with everyone else, and will avoid getting the shot for as long as possible. Just wanted to add that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine just approved in the UK is still not a “traditional” vaccine. It is a viral-vector vaccine, which uses a live engineered chimpanzee adenovirus to carry the covid spike protein DNA into our cells, where it is transcribed to express the spike protein on the surface of our cells where it elicits an immune response. Viral vector vaccines are still considered “genetic vaccines” in that they introduce genetic instructions to produce an antigen rather than the antigen itself in the form of dead or weakened viral particles. There are a number of viral vector vaccines approved for use in veterinary medicine but none, to my knowledge, in humans until just now (the Russian Sputnik V vaccine is also in this category). Traditional attenuated-virus covid vaccines are still a ways down the pipeline, since it is more challenging to grow and purify the actual virus in the necessary quantities.
I grew the lovely ornamental tobacco, ‘Only the Lonely’ last summer. I was astonished when a local Native American healer asked if I would trade some of my tobacco plants. I pointed out that this was strictly an ornamental, and that Victory Seeds in OR carries seeds for smoking tobacco, but apparently the ornamental plants I traded for a bottle of her renowned elderberry syrup were adequate for whatever use she made of them.
I have been ordered by my daughter the LPN to stay at home. “If you have to go to the hospital, you will die.” she said
Anyone looking for future responsible leadership might look at NM Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. She turned down a place in Biden’s cabinet, which shows sense. She was also, pre-covid, very quietly, implementing the free tuition at NM state colleges proposal, I think for NM residents only.
So, all in all, sounds like even with the potentialities you’ve mentioned, your overall prognosis remains roughly the same. If this hits, we’re in for hard times — but not the end of the world. If this doesn’t hit, we’re in for other hard times — but still not the end of the world. Am I on the right track?
Regarding the refugees to Canada question you answered above, I’m assuming that’s a situation you feel might unfold and not something you’d advocate for, correct? I’ve been reading your blog for a long time so I think I know the answer, but I’m a gifted over-thinker.
Back in November, you suggested that now would be a good time to devote more time to our spiritual lives (which I’ve been doing; thanks for suggesting it). I feel like magic is a good way to maintain mental fortitude in the face of these shifts and difficulties we’re seeing. Beyond that, are there practical elements of spiritual study a student could focus on in situations like the present? I’ve been working with banishing rituals and meditation, following LRM. Just curious if I should be supplementing anything else in there…
Thanks for taking our questions/comments. Enjoy the break!
@JMG: Well, your election predictions were correct about one thing: Trump really did get a much higher percentage of the Black and non-Cuban Latino vote than anyone would have predicted, with ~15% of the Black vote (compared to the 6-8% that Republicans usually get) and over 40% of the Latino vote. (He also got the majority of the Cuban vote in Florida, but that’s less of a surprise, since it’s well-known that Cuban-Americans tend to overwhelmingly vote Republican.) It wasn’t enough to win him the election – thankfully, in my opinion – but it does show that Democrats won’t be able to keep taking minority votes for granted. It’s becoming very clear that appeals to identity politics are a losing gambit if they’re not paired with actual policies to make people’s lives materially better, and as a Democratic voter, I hope the party’s leaders take that lesson to heart.
You were also right about the riots hurting the Democratic Party and progressive causes in general. Support for the Black Lives Matter movement dropped from almost 75% back in the spring to just barely above 50% in the fall. I largely blame the (mostly White and middle-class) radical fringe activists who kept trying to hijack the movement and make it about every far-left cause under the sun other than police brutality against minorities (e.g. anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, communism, anarchism), much to the chagrin of the older African-American activists who didn’t particularly care about their pet ideologies and wanted to keep the movement more narrowly focused. The radical activists also rejected the tried-and-true strategy of disassociating themselves from the violent rioters (which is what protestors have typically been doing since the 60s: “most of us are peaceful, the people breaking windows and looting are a small minority of opportunists, we condemn them”), instead making bizarre arguments in defense of vandalism, arson, and looting. It was very frustrating seeing the movement squander so much of the goodwill that they’d originally had with the general public. Again, I hope activist leaders take some lessons from this.
I hate to say this, but I have a sinking feeling that the Democrats really won this election solely because independents saw them as a lesser evil compared to Trump, not because they have any real semblance of support from the general public. If there were an option that would cause Trump and Biden to both lose, I feel like the majority of Americans would’ve taken that instead.
Temporary Reality,
Large and in charge! Thanks for thinking about us.
Hope you and yours are in for a much better new year…
Coop Janitor,
If you’re around, I just saw your product order. Many thanks! And I hope things are going great in your neck of the woods.
Grover
Re: coronavirus, vaccine, and fertility. It seems that there’s only a tiny thread of logic to the idea that either the virus or the vaccine could impair female fertility (the ability to form a placenta), as mentioned earlier in the comments. OK, so the probability is very low. But the potential impact, if any, would be mind-boggling! And I don’t see any practical way to TEST a vaccine for its impact on fertility. Having faced “infertility of unknown cause” decades ago with my wife, I know how painful, frustrating, and mysterious conception is under ordinary circumstances.
Now, imagine that two or three years from now, the birth rate is observed to have plummeted. Will we say that “well, people just decided to stop making babies until life settles down”? Or will we say that “a natural immune response to the spike protein on COVID-19 makes pregnancy less likely”? Or will we hear people say “That damn vaccine killed my unborn grandchildren, and Somebody Must Pay!”?
To tie in another thread, we know that only ways to limit energy consumption are 1> to limit energy production (e.g., through exhaustion of energy resources) and/or 2> to reduce the population that’s consuming energy. If someone were to cold-bloodedly consider the problem, and propose that the most “humane” way to reduce the population is to design a virus and/or a vaccine that caused infertility (rather than, say, hand-to-hand combat (Rwandan-style), forced starvation (Holodomor-style), or gas chambers (Nazi-style)), do you suppose they could get the resources to make it happen?
Cliff – not internet reading, but even better – a print book. Hot Earth Dreams, by Frank Landis, a professional ecologist given to “lateral thinking” – full of charts, speculations, history, and a richness of scenarios worthy of a place among the books by Our Druid. Whom he quotes, but perhaps might by enriched by having read in further depth.
I wish everyone a happy new year. Let us hope that 2021 is good for us all. John Michael I hope you and Sara have a restful January.
John, et alia—
Among the many, many unknowns and possibilities I’ll be watching in 2021 is the much-vaunted Artemis program. IIRC the unmanned (uncrewed? unpeopled?) Artemis I mission is supposed to launch November next year, already delayed by a few years from the original timeline as I understand. It’ll be interesting to see if it does indeed launch next fall or if it gets pushed back yet again. (I’ll be watching also to note the noise-to-results ratio the whole program produces as the years unfold…)
@ Cliff
https://www.aldaily.com/ It leans a bit towards the literary world, but “articles of note” may be about almost any topic. It’s been around a long time so maybe you already iknow about it.
Also https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/12/larry-wilkerson-no-evidence-of-massive-russian-hack.html?fbclid=IwAR3CgcFIEJ7S0dtH3fn2GKBhuhNTHgcjP1PTCefyiZ8edGaGPZx5bV7UZLg
I’ve linked to a specific article, but there are lots of interesting things on this site.
For a Jewish perspective. https://www.tabletmag.com/
Hi John Michael,
Reading is one of my pleasures too. Enjoy your well deserved holiday. It’s a bit of a shame I can’t rely on the random noises emanating from the dogs – thought I was onto something there. Oh well, back to the drawing board. And my holiday involves moving rocks and soil and maintaining this farm. It gives my brain a much needed break – this year has been err, complicated.
You have raised an interesting point that I am also considering. History is a good guide as back in the day there used to be a sanatorium not too far from here, and if we as a society were serious about the health matter which dare not be named…
Of course, that does suggest that if you were to examine the actual outcomes based on what is actually going on, it suggests that we have flown further down the rabbit hole of financial abstractions. I mean, if the economy is tanking, then money printing should usually produce a result which means that money is worth less than what it once was worth.
It is very possible that what we are experiencing is a deliberate reduction of both demand and supply in order to support the abstract value of money and the status quo. That’s my best guess at this stage. Such policies do not bode well for the future. Especially as the pain is being disproportionately heaped upon the young. That should not be. Oh well.
Cheers
Chris
Re: COVID-19 vs. Influenza. Recent statistics show that this has been a remarkably mild season for influenza. The media explanation is that flu vaccination, and our efforts to prevent COVID-19 with vitamin-D, distance, masks, and washing our hands has knocked out the flu, too. But this doesn’t quite hold together, because flu vaccination rates haven’t been exceptionally high (189 million vs. 174 million last year, +8%), and COVID cases are soaring anyway. If masks, distance, and hand-washing were being used widely enough to suppress the flu, why aren’t they suppressing COVID-19, too? How can we resolve the discrepancy?
Maybe far fewer flu victims are seeking medical attention, so the diagnosed rate underestimates the infected rate this year.
Maybe actual flu victims are being mis-classified as COVID-19 victims, because hospitals get more compensation for COVID-19 cases, or maybe patients show up with concurrent infections but only get the COVID test.
Maybe prior-year “flu” statistics included undiagnosed victims of prior coronavirus outbreaks.
If masks and lockdowns save tens of thousands of lives that would otherwise be lost to the flu, will they become routine every winter?
Dear Lathechuck,
If I may, in response to your comment time-stamped at December 31, 2020 at 4:52 pm:
A data point: worldwide, randomized sterilization forms one of the plot points of Dan Brown’s enormously popular and frankly appalling novel _Inferno_ in which a manmade virus infects the entire human population, randomly sterilizing one out of every three people. The viewpoint characters then agree that actually this provides a net good for the world and likely a new Renaissance waits just around the corner. Then the curtain drops.
Your Kittenship, (1) yes, and (2) you probably want to talk to a Native American about that.
Anonymous, fascinating. I wonder what caused that.
Quinshi, I suspect the people down your way who think that are going to be bitterly disappointed. Both houses of our Congress just passed a bill that includes more money for building the wall on our southern border.
Mark, thanks for this. The story of big corporations thriving and small businesses being battered is of course a generalization, but I think you’re overgeneralizing in the other direction. Here in downscale East Providence, certainly, a lot of businesses that rely on bringing in customers are in bad shape. As for the vaccine, fair enough — many thanks for the clarification.
Mary, fascinating. Could you ask your daughter for more details? I heard the same thing from one of the staff at a local business I frequent back in May — he was very insistent that the way to survive the virus was bed rest and over-the-counter medication, and that going to the hospital was a good way to become a statistic. He didn’t explain the details, though, and that business has now shut its doors (one more casualty of the epidemic), so I can’t ask him.
Dudley, the question at the moment is the angle of the slope of decline. All hard times are not created equal; the near future could be a gradual decline or a plunge into serious crisis. As for emigration to Canada, I’m certainly not advocating it. If things fall apart here, though, expect a lot of refugees heading that way. Until you finish LRM, btw, it’s premature to add other things.
Ashara, thanks for this. I hope other Democrats are paying attention to those numbers! I can’t help but remember that one of the reasons Hitler was able to get enough popular support to take power in Germany is that none of the more (small-d) democratic parties would stand up to the incessant demands and street violence of the Communist Party. It’s not impossible that the Antifa movement and its associated extremist politicians, allowed to go unchecked, could cause a similar backlash here…
Lathechuck, I note a vast torrent of identical stories in the mass media, all assailing the claim that the Pfizer vaccine can cause an immune reaction to the syncytin-1 protein, which is essential for placenta formation and thus to pregnancy. I don’t have the medical knowledge to decide who’s telling the truth, but quite often in the past when there’s been this kind of saturation debunking, the debunkers turned out to be lying through their teeth. That’s the damnable thing about the collapse of credibility on the part of the media and the medical industry. At what point is it the better part of valor to decide that whenever the media says something about health care, no matter what, it’s a lie?
David BTL, it will indeed.
Chris, that makes a certain amount of sense!
Lathechuck, the almost complete disappearance of flu really strikes me as suspicious, as the coronavirus — which is not notably more infectious than flu — has spiked despite the masks, lockdowns, antisocial distancing, etc.
Brian (offlist), equating nationalism with racism across the board is the kind of cheap shot that gave Pravda its reputation. If that’s the best you can do, don’t bother trying to comment.
@Alvin?
I’ll second egghead:-) at ScorpioMartianus on YouTube. Not in to Latin? – how about Ancient Greek? Or just some Halloween or Christmas (Grinch) songs…
Quid Est – https://youtu.be/OPcy7u1eEmg
@Grover
Your post reminded me I needed to get an order in – and one of the empty tins was setting on the desk.
Coop Janitor
Dear Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat,
If I may:
While I’m not a Native American I do work with tobacco. While I don’t put the stuff inside my body in any form, I find that nature spirits get much more excited about tobacco offerings than anything else. One First Nations shaman I read — Medicine Grizzly Bear Lake — writes in his book _Native Healer_ encouraging folks to give offering of tobacco to plants, especially herbs, and especially after one digs a root up. Matthew Wood the master herbalist also employs this practice. For awhile I took a page from Lake’s book and offered his suggested oatmeal and cornmeal as cheaper substitutes. The thing is, the nature spirits really don’t get excited about oatmeal or corn. They appreciate it, but not too enthusiastically frankly. They get very happy with a pinch of tobacco, though. Honey too they adore, but I find tobacco much easier to work with and it’s easy enough to grow.
Personally I like being friendly and enjoy cultivating an open-handed attitude in my friendships. For this reason I gift many plants and nature spirits tobacco even when I don’t intend to take anything from them. For instance, I climbed a 50′ tall wild Holly tree today and while in the branches I tossed tobacco from my pouch downwards. Afterwards, the Holly tree insisted I pick up some of his beautiful leaves from the ground. Now we’re friends.
Being on good terms with nature spirits is something that really, seriously, and profoundly pays off. Besides the simple joy of relating to trees as friends, there’s also the reality that nature spirits will look after humans that treat them kindly. In a time with more and more crazed, tree-snapping weather, having some friends on the “inside” of the outside strikes me, personally, as plain common sense.
Kind Sir
Thank you for another year of excellent insights and i wish you and your wife all the best for 2021.
2020 was the year we burned down the house to get rid of a few cockroaches in the kitchen.
So i guess 2021 will be the year of telling ourselves how much better it is to live in a tent.
Perfect. Thanks for your patience and clarification.
Regarding tobacco, some of the traditional ways to use it in at least the Eastern US is to pray with it and use it as offerings, especially to plants when harvesting them. A very powerful plant, it makes a sense that growing it and using it in such a disrespectful way has caused a lot of harm. It seems like the way people are growing and using cannabis now is going to cause some long term problems too.
I’m also starting to worry about another unknown: how many people are going to look at the way the media portrays Nazis, how it portrays everything else, and decide they’re lying about everything else, so Nazis must be pretty good. The rapid increase in sales this year has me thinking this is a very real risk….
Lathechuck, JMG
One of the things which has me convinced that the vaccine will cause infertility in women is that there’s a statement going around about how a number of women in the study have gotten pregnant. This raises a number of questions though: the most obvious one being if there’s a variation between the control and test groups. I’ve yet to find anything on that, other than shrieking about how someone in the control group lost a child. Until I see that data, I have to assume the vaccine will cause infertility.
Regarding COVID vaccines and syncytin-1, as much as I love conspiracy theories, and as much as I am in the “unless you are at risk do not take the vaccine” camp, the reality is that syncytin-1 and the COVID spike protein the mRNA vaccines supposedly inoculate us against only share a short amino acid chain. Similar claims were floating around about 8 months ago based on a similar story about how COVID has a short amino acid sequence in common with HIV and therefore COVID is an airborne AIDS super bioweapon.
That being said, the COVID vaccine is completely untested in pregnant women, and nobody knows what happens if you get pregnant after taking the vaccine. There is also no data about male fertility and the vaccine, although that is less of a risk as it only takes one functional germ cell to, uh, find a way. Trial participants who could get pregnant were required to prove they weren’t pregnant and start hormonal or IUD birth control. Nearly all trial participants were therefore, effectively, adult men – neither children nor women in various stages of pregnancy. There are all sorts of cell lines that only exist in various phases of human life from when a sperm and egg join until around age 25 or so, and I bet they are mostly important.
That being said if I were a soulless billionaire technocrat, sterilizing the citizens of wealthy countries would be a good way to
fight climate changesecure more fuel for my jet.Thanks for your musings and wisdom this year JMG. Certainly is an air of untethering here in my English midlands town right now, never heard so many fireworks on a NYE evening. And already the vaccine use here is looking like it’s not going to follow the manufacturer recommendations to maximise reach. All going to continue being interesting. Jay
@JMG: Of course, I constantly see the cultural right (or at least the Very Online sects of it) making similar mistakes. While the radical left makes the mistake of not caring what ordinary people think, the radical right seems to increasingly be assuming that ordinary people are already on their side, when that’s not really the case. Whenever I visited any of the usual alt-right websites, they were always going on about how average Americans were fed up with “political correctness” (which is definitely true), and thus must actually support far-right traditionalist and ethno-nationalist policies instead (which is absolutely not true at all). There seems to be this mistaken impression that since most average Americans aren’t left-wing culture warrior, they must be right-wing culture warriors instead.
And I think that played a big role in why Trump lost, especially when you consider that the one demographic group he performed significantly worse with compared to 2020 was straight White males. “Owning the libs” might make for a good campaign slogan, but it makes for poor policy. I think a lot of working-class people who voted for Trump in 2016 were okay with his belligerence and outlandish behavior because they assumed it was a show he was putting on to win the election, and that he’d act differently once he was in office. And I think a lot of those same people grew very tired of the constant partisan hostility over the four years that followed, recognizing that right-wing “anti-virtue” signaling was ultimately just as hollow and meaningless as left-wing virtue signaling.
I recall you mentioning on your Dreamwidth page that both sides lost in this election, and I think part of the reason that happened is because both sides have become wildly out of touch with “normal” America. Obama managed to get the heartland on his side in 2008, and Trump managed to get them on his side in 2016, but at the end of the day, they both failed to understand what had made them appeal to heartland voters in the first place.
@JMG
I am probably overgeneralizing, and certainly the statistics bear out the trend that the wealth gap is continuing to balloon exponentially, with Bezos and ilk as prime beneficiaries.
At the same time, I can only report what I see, which is likely different in a rural area than in cities where more small businesses have an unavoidable reliance on bringing people into close proximity. Skilled trades are thriving, and everyone is booked out at least a month. Construction, arborists, plumbers, etc. Small farms are thriving, in many cases more than the big farms which rely on wholesale demand (i.e. restaurants, school cafeterias, etc.) that remains disrupted. Craftsfolk who sell their wares online seem to be doing well. Garden supply stores are running a brisk business. Therapists are busier than ever. These are, by and large, the people I know. Meanwhile Boeing is crashing, taking with it a number of mid-sized regional manufacturers that feed its supply chain. That got started well ahead of the pandemic with the 737 Max issues.
Overall, our town’s homeless population has at least quadrupled, and the mood is somber. Jobs are hard to come by if unemployed. Tensions are high, and virtue signallers abound. That said, I’m feeling hopeful for 2021 and the years beyond. 2020 may have succeeded in damaging the status quo beyond repair, and the sooner that happens and the sooner we can start exploring alternative possibilities, the better from my perspective – even if that does open the door to some less pleasant potentialities.
JMG, may you have a well deserved restful and peaceful vacation from posting! I will spend January catching up on reading previous Magic Monday comments, as I’ve fallen behind on those (so many great comments, so little time…)
Happy New Year Everyone!
Joy Marie
Hi JMG,
First, many thanks for hosting this blog and discussion list. I hope you will spend lots of time doing many things that do not require staring at a glowing screen ;-)). Also, thanks to all of my fellow commentariat–particularly those who do not share my own view of things! While sometimes perplexing, I continue to benefit greatly from the many points of view expressed politely here.
Many regular commenters have their own very interesting and informative blogs on a wide variety of topics– Some of them have posted links to their blogs and I hope that more of you will post a link with a brief description of your blog’s theme;
I have two blogs:
http://jackmanassas.blogspot.com/
This is the most boring blog on the internet. I use it mostly for curmudgeonly rants and as a convenient place to remember things like ‘How to install Linux as a second operating system.’ But if you are bored enough, it could be right for you…
https://emmanuelg.dreamwidth.org/
I use this one mostly to explore Geomancy and related topics.
https://conjunctio.dreamwidth.org is a very interesting discussion group about Geomancy. Highly recommended if you want to post a geomantic reading and discuss it with someone.
COVID Vaccine Comments
From within healthcare, I have to say that the speed of development and deployment of the numerous COVID vaccines is breath-taking, and worrisome. It usually takes 5 to 10 years to develop a new vaccine. Even at that cautiously slow pace, some of them are withdrawn from the market due to unexpected adverse effects or inadequate benefit.
The three-shot vaccine ‘Lymerix(R)’ for Lyme disease was, for example, withdrawn from the market when a number of early recipients developed arthritis [probably rheumatoid] after receiving the vaccine. However, if you google for the reason Lymerix was withdrawn, you get a company statement that it was pulled ‘due to inadequate customer demand,’ — and then you see a news bulletin that two other companies are currently developing new vaccines against Lyme disease. This sort of reporting does not fill me with confidence!
Since a part of my job is to give vaccines, I am in the process of putting together a handout on the COVID vaccines in plain english with a summary of risks and benefits. That way, my patients can have a chance of making an informed decision on whether or not to get the shot–If it becomes available in our area in 2021! One advantage of living in rural Canada; You will never be the first to try out a shiny new medical treatment!
Best wishes to all of us for the coming new year!
–Emmanuel G
@JMG
What I will miss about the internet is the memes. The video sharing and talking to people globally. Near instantaneously.
Lots of free anime from Japan too.
@Lathechuck
As far a viruses go Coronavirus is a pretty gentle plague. So long as it consistently causes excess mortality. That will keep the population down. Even the 1918 plague of flu caused a fertility crash:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/here-comes-the-covid-19-baby-bust/ar-BB1bj9e0
Of course other factors like the decline in childcare and govt subsidies for children in general. And other factors like the encouragement for both Men and Women to be more selective in their choice of marriage partners in terms of quality would also contribute.
But I think the decline of industrial civilization alone will increase the possibilities of death for everyone.
Oops, I must’ve been listening to Chris’s dogs too. I revise my good wishes to “have as productive a month as you wish, but mostly, enjoy your time off”
To you who provided tobacco info, thank you!
JMG,
Could you elaborate on your crackpot medicine of choice? Is that the biochemic salts thing? I’m looking to add to my repertoire. My HSA covers acupuncture, shockingly, and I always like to discover and try out other energy based methods of healing.
Re: shutdowns
Economic crashes are usually a prime opportunity for the cashed-up to acquire real assets on the cheap at bankruptcy sales. The Packer family, one of Australia’s media barons, got their start when Keith Packer travelled the country buying up bankrupt local newspapers during the Great Depression, and the family is still riding that ‘good’ fortune.
So it would be easy for the rich and clueless to assume that creating an economic crash would work for them, while failing to notice that what drives the whole thing is people actually having money to spend …
Thank you very much for your comments on niche self-employment. I’m noticing a number of high-value crops that could be grown where I live, if the imports became scarcer.
So, I just walked past CNN’s new-year special, and overheard someone (a celebrity, I assume), casually talking about how there is a ten PM curfew. This raises a tonne of red flags: are things really that bad in the US? I mean, I assume it’ll be justified with “COVID!”, but curfews seem more likely a sign people are expecting something big….
Anonymous, why should they bother? In Antifa, we’ve already got people in black uniforms marching through the streets, beating people, destroying property, and upholding an ideology that says that one particular ethnic group is responsible for everything that’s wrong with the world…
Jay, glad to hear it. Here in East Providence it’s been like a morgue, with a few distant fireworks going off but no voices, no horns, nothing else.
Ashara, I think that a lot of people were also just hoping that if Trump wasn’t in the White House any more, the left would lay off the constant shrieking two-year-old theatrics, at least for a little while. I know quite a few people, many of them not even Trump supporters, who had to walk away from lifelong friendships and relationships because the other person had turned into a 24/7 rage junkie unable to talk or think about anything but “Orange Man Bad!”
Mark, thanks for the data points.
Dennis, I discuss them in this essay.
Anonymous, that was my thought also. It’s not as though the virus is more transmissible at night…
I voted for Clinton in 2016, straight ticket democrat in 2018, Biden in 2020, and in point of fact have never voted Republican, and still had to cut three people out of my life because they were so consumed with hatred for Trump and his supporters….
Good list. There is one other rather exciting unknown sitting out there – and that’s the rebirth of psychedelics in medicine. Oregon has approved psilocybin in specific circumstances for therapy, along with a few other West Coast cities. Most nations are now underdoing trials of MDMA, LSD, DMT, ketamine, and even mescaline to treat depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and even personality disorders. I don’t think it’s a magic bullet, but the science looks promising, and if it can provide relief to the millions that suffer with intractable mental health, at the same time as opening up worlds of experience that the material worldview says is impossible, then that quiet revolution might just push us all in a new direction.
Does the chart for the start of the year have any meaning? If it does, well, there’s another quite malefic chart taking effect for this year…..
Glad to hear your continued voice of reasonespecially in regards to the vaccine. We are planning the roll out in.Australia mid 2021 so we will at least have about 6 months of observation of other countries to get a vaguely better idea. 2021 is going to be an interesting one and just like you, I really havent made any solid predictions. Normally there is a bit more of a solid footing to go off but at the moment there are too many moving variables to get a solid grip. Going to be fascinating to see.
Have a great break over January, well deserved as always.
@ John of Red Hook: I have been telling friends that I think your candidate for our Putin will actually be the next Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hawaii. As I like to boast, I received only 79 fewer votes in the primaries than our coming VP, when running as a delegate to the DNC for Major Gabbard.
To all who commented on tobacco: thanks for the prod to plant some this spring in the garden. Before the shutdowns happened, I had planned to consult with the Narragansetts on how I might best thank the river for her great blessings to me. I hope that their museum will soon be open again.
JMG: My best wishes for many books devoured in January!
It’s been a very quiet NYE. The past 4th was memorable for the tons of powder blown off.
Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat
thanks for the Dr Grumpy blog. Quite hilarious!
He’s not the only doctor unhappy about the state of medicine.
https://zdoggmd.com/health-3-point-0/
transcript below the video.
John Michael wrote, “For some years now, the comfortable classes in today’s America have lost track of the fact that control over the public narrative does not equal control over the facts underlying the narrative.”
That is so painfully true nowadays! Every time I look at the newsfeeds, something there reminds me just how disconnected our elites (and their chroniclers) have become from reality. Today it was the mayor of Austin’s last-minute attempt to shutter bars and restaurants during New Years’ festivities. That would be the same mayor who told his peasants to stay home over Thanksgiving while he went to a timeshare in Mexico. Why is it always those fools whose political careers are already doomed who then go on overreaching, as though they could somehow right their extravagant wrongs and erase everyone’s memories? Governors Newsom, Whitmer, and Cuomo come painfully to mind, as well as Speaker Pelosi. Once the fact of their hypocrisy slipped out, despite their flailing attempts at narrative control, that damage can’t be expunged by doubling down on their unrepentant arrogance. Even were they competent enough to effectively control the narrative, it wouldn’t change the ugly facts.
Likewise for the attempt to bailout a dying medical system by getting everyone to buy-in to endless vaccines for the ever-mutating viruses we all somehow used to deal with, without going into hysterical death panics. With the underlying facts of viral mutation remaining the same throughout the span of human history, what level of narrative control would be necessary to create the never-ending extractive dystopia our medical overlords are fantasizing about?
I think it’s the medical system itself that’s in a death panic, and is projecting its own fear out onto everyone else. I wonder if their universal-vaccine nostrum may be the equivalent of wielding a band-aid to stabilize a hemorrhaging patient, since government life-support is the only thing I can see keeping the Ponzi scheme of Western medical care afloat any more. If one of the rushed vaccines does end up causing disability in its hapless victims, perhaps we will finally be able to lay our failed sickcare system to rest and get on with the always risky prospect of living life, rather than merely hiding from death.
Where narrative control appears to have escaped its limits and successfully changed its underlying facts is America’s upcoming coronation. I wrote “appears” because I’m still not buying it. The silence coming from Trump’s camp is truly peculiar. None of his handlers could stop him from tweeting with abandon over the past four years, but I’m supposed to believe that he’s now humbled by his loss and cowed into passivity? An egomaniac that uncontrollable would not respond with restraint unless it seemed to be to his own strategic advantage. What advantage he is trying to exploit I have no idea, but I am not about to discount him yet.
Trump’s power is very hard to gauge — he probably has a hard time knowing where he holds influence himself. He certainly didn’t have the power to just toss out a veto to the budget and get it to survive an override. So, instead, he tossed out the golden apple of a $2,000 stimulus, leaving the congress critters to fight over who has the right to claim the flattering optics of that populist prize. And our modern-day Olympians have indeed started a war between their houses in the frenzy of their political vanities. Will that war lead to a contested election that gets decided in the house? I’m not gonna gamble my money on any particular outcome at the moment. Should Biden manage to get himself inaugurated, I expect the coup plotters to last no longer than their Bolivian counterparts did — hopefully, Biden and Harris have a better escape plan laid out than Jeanine Áñez did.
As for the mainstream BBC declaring that the well-to-do will have to change their lifestyles “for the children” or the environment, or whatever the cause-du-jour is, that’s definitely another attempt at narrative control through handwaving. The billionaire class may have decided to dump the comfortable classes with their profligate lifestyles before the comfortable classes could dump climate change. How could the billionaires hope to succeed in maintaining their own profligate lifestyles if the petty nobility were allowed to go on believing they deserve the same privileges? I think there is a nasty battle brewing between the real Gotrockses and the mere pretenders of the run-of-the-mill celebrity classes. Popcorn — everyone’s pantry should definitely be stocked with a healthy supply of popcorn to make it through 2021!
you would not need to reduce the population in a “commensurate” way
Scotlyn,
If you reduce energy consumption 90% you’re taking us back to 1850 levels when the world population was 1.25B, ~84% less than current . Back then 750M (60%) were employed in agriculture, and wood was *the* energy source.
Speaking of wood…
At current rates of deforestation, civilization will collapse in 20-40 years
@Anonymous
@JMG
The way that curfews were justified over here in the Czech Republic was that people were gathering in each others’ apartments (because bars etc. were closed) in the evenings, and that was helping spread the virus. Well. That’s what they said.
I believe we have a 9pm curfew now (again). I think. The rules are constantly changing, and I can’t keep up anymore.
Hi John Michael,
Mate, I do my best to ignore the words, whilst listening to them all the same and just float above it all and observe what is going on. It is a habit of mine to speak with as wide a variety of people as possible.
Thought you might be interested in the official advice down here: Scott Morrison and Paul Kelly have given their first coronavirus update for 2021.
Sensibly the official advice is: “On the vaccine, you don’t rush the [rollout],” he said. “That’s very dangerous for Australians. Those who suggest that, I think it’s a naive suggestion.”
It doesn’t get spelled out any plainer than that.
Cheers
Chris
@JMG
Do you still think that tourism will make a full recovery once COVID is declared over? See, 2020 was one big nightmare, but the one thing I actually did like about it was that tourists vanished from Prague (hehehe). I realize they’ll come back once restrictions are lifted, but I’m hoping not in quite such large numbers…
Happy New Year everyone!
John, what do you think of the whole “digital nomad” phenomenon? https://levels.io/future-of-digital-nomads ? Is it vaporware? What is wrong with that picture?
violet – Thanks for explaining the plot of “Inferno”. The first question that came to my mind upon reading it was “how would a virus sterilize ONLY 1/3 of the population?” For that to be even theoretically plausible, it would have to key on some genetic difference. Is THAT port of the plot, too? (I’m trying not to say that it’s “race” based, because race is too crude an oversimplification to apply, but I guess it would end up looking that way.)
>I think that a lot of people were also just hoping that if Trump wasn’t in the White House any more, the left would lay off the constant shrieking two-year-old theatrics, at least for a little while.
Chamberlain thought he could appease Hitler too. I wonder how that turned out.
Dear JMG, the problem in your piece is that Biden’s presidency is ALSO an unknown. As fa as I know, Trump at this time has the same probabilityas Biden to gain his second mandate.
Evidence and pressure is ganining tremendous momentum, demonstrating that the elections this time has ben rigged to an incredible amount.
There are more than a thousand testimonies under oath that are denouncing severe irregualrites, while there are several investigations underway. The people is now convinced that something terribly nasty has been done on 3th November. Where the votes have been investigated, even in counties that has officially had no particular problems, like in Coffee, the irregularities are unbelievable, especially concerning the Dominion voting system
https://rumble.com/vcc1gv-30-12-2020-senato-della-georgia-testimonianza-su-dominion.html
My personal opinion is that you shoul reconsider all the part of your post where Biden presidency is mentioned. Just try to immagine what could happen if Trump is in charge this year.
>At the same time, I can only report what I see, which is likely different in a rural area than in cities
This rural area here has never really seen true prosperity (as I reckon it) but it’s getting a tiny taste of it too, recently. There’s multiple ways to explain it but I like to tie it back to money printing and hyperinflation, which tend to invert a few things. And one of those things is money flows to the rural countryside and out of the cities, which is opposite of what it usually does. You saw that somewhat during the 70s too, IIRC and then farmers really hit tough times during the 80s (remember Farm Aid?) when they managed to restore confidence in the dollar.
It’s cyclical, and it’s about time. If I was a farmer, I’d make hay while the sun shines.
Dear Ashara,
If I may in response to your comment timestamped, December 31, 2020 at 7:33 pm:
I think you may be on to something. One friend of mine who is a working class Trump voter who got a lot of flack for it, would often express a lot of dismay at Trump’s behavior to me when we talked politics. It seemed to me that this person felt a measure of embarrassment at Trump’s twitter habit, and his generally provocative, flamboyant, and outrageous behavior. This person basically felt that Trump played the fool, and this playing the fool reflected poorly on Trump voters, which caused this friend rather obvious personal pain and distress.
Ironically, I who didn’t vote and am in a trans body would come to the defense of many of Trump’s policies because I never have paid much attention to the man himself, and viewed him as an abstraction who benefits my particular class. This person would agree with me about all of that, but that didn’t assuage the sense of horror this person had over Trump acting up. I found this all very surprising at the time. Certainly, I can’t imagine this person voting for Biden but I can imagine many millions of other 2016 Trump-voters who had the same emotional reaction and simply sat the 2020 election out, just as I — a lifelong democrat voter — sat out the 2016 election.
Total facepalm material: https://www.danablankenhorn.com/
The gist of it: physical resources are irrelevant because, TECH!
To Ashara’s last point, I think what “heartland” Americans want, what most Americans want, is right in our founding document: a basic opportunity for a meaningful existence (life), the basic freedom and respect due a human being (liberty), and the chance to find one’s own way (pursuit of happiness). Such simple things, and yet our leadership–such as it is–seems wholly unable to provide them. What we don’t need are more bureaucracies (whether government or corporate in nature) directing our lives and telling us where our happiness lies.
John–
Re unknowns for 2021, shifting terrain, and disturbing possibilities
Potential sabotage in Aspen:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/thousands-colorado-left-without-heat-172645955.html
If this is an indication of things to come, “interesting times” may indeed be upon us.
@Anonymous et al re: tobacco
It’s also been known for some time that nicotine is helpful for Parkinson’s disease– it may even be preventive– and that it alleviates some symptoms of OCD. I think we did a grave disservice to many people a couple decades ago with the campaign to demonize smoking. One of the side-effects was to nearly halt research into its benefits. That campaign was so very successful that now, when we have a way to get some of the benefits without anything like the harm– vaping– we must now keep marching ever forward and demonize vaping as well. I can’t help but wonder if that last wasn’t encouraged by the pharmaceutical industry. Still doesn’t solve the problem of mishandling sacred plants.
https://knowingneurons.com/2016/04/13/nicotine-parkinsons-disease/
Ashara,
That’s a spot on analysis. The other item that occurs to me is that the “both sidesism” that currently saturates our political discourse, misses the point that while both sides may be “evil,” both sides are not evil in the same way. I’m really unwilling to side with Trump and his supporters for the very same reason that I’m unwilling to side with the opposition. They have some decent ideas for reforming our stagnant political-economy, but dear gods do they go off into crazy town for everything else. The never ending justifications, obfuscations, or just plain denial of the bad behaviour on their respective sides is something that could drive a man to drink.
Peter,
I still owe you an analysis of Maj. Gabbard’s recent movements, don’t I?
All I want to mention here is that Bitcoin, now past its 10-year anniversary, continues its upward trend in price…surely an indicator of a lack of confidence with the current monetary system.
I’d be interested to hear what your take is regarding cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, which seem to point towards a new paradigm not just for networking and data, but also for the balance of power in economies and in societies.
@ Patricia Mathews
Re cornucopian nonsense
Rather makes me think of that (in)famous quote from 1929 about stocks having reached a “permanently high plateau”….
Re: medical treatments (new and old) for anxiety and depression… I know that these are serious conditions with clinical definitions, but in a more popular understanding of the terms, how can any rational person NOT be feeling some anxiety and/or depression after the year we’ve had?
And, if one is being treated medically for anxiety and/or depression, to what extent is one’s ability to accurately perceive risk affected? What other aspects of mental function might be affected, which might influence one to go out and march with a crowd, or put your “stimulus” money into stock-market gambling? (Now that Robinhood Financial (robinhood.com) has opened the doors to small-amount, commission-free trading, anyone can play.)
I keep asking “how crazy can people be?” and they keep responding as if it’s a challenge.
Maybe I might add just a small comment as well to the tobacco thread since I had mentioned it in my first comment and I have really been interested in all of the discussion about it. I haven’t been following the Dion Fortune readings, and I don’t know much about traditional occultism, and so don’t know how this traditional knowledge thinks about this, but I might suggest that tobacco contains what we might call ‘higher elements’ or ‘higher substances’. Tobacco would not be the only plant, or fungus, to contain these higher elements. And perhaps one of the reasons that it remains unknown and un-transubstantiated is that we cannot absorb, or otherwise make any use of the plants unless we are inwardly prepared, and ready to receive them. Or, alternately, prepared and administered by one who is, and can, work with these substances. In other words, the efficacies are ‘state-dependent’.
Perhaps this, at least in some way, could explain the beneficent, medicinal, and frankly, sometimes other-worldly aspects of some plants. And then why, without this knowledge, and ‘inner being’, these plants can sometimes have a very opposite, even dangerous effect people.
Peter,
As I said, that could only happen if the US held together. 😉
@ Isaac re: “Regarding tobacco, …A very powerful plant, it makes a sense that growing it and
using it in such a disrespectful way has caused a lot of harm. It seems like the way people are
growing and using cannabis now is going to cause some long term problems too.”
The misuse of cannabis among recreational users is already causing issues:
https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-conditions/c/cannabinoid-hyperemesis-syndrome.html
Cannabis, like tobacco, is a potent medicine, not meant to be casually used as if you were just
popping a package of gummy bears. Not everyone has these symptoms but enough do so that they should
take the hint and use it temporarily to treat ailments. Abusing it will result in its coming back
to bite you on the posterior when you least expect it.
JLfromNH
Dear Lathechuck,
Honestly I don’t remember the fine details of _Inferno_, let alone Dan Brown’s specific scientific mechanism for randomized mass-sterilization. I think there was a lot of hand-waving, but the details elude me now. More to the point, to paraphrase a colorful punk rocker, it wasn’t even worth hating.
To me, two examples below show that the crisis of legitimacy in the US is at a point in which reform is no longer possible.
The first example is the sudden (in less than a year) collapse in the legitimacy of the public health field, whose decay is very well described in this thread:
https://mobile.twitter.com/jonst0kes/status/1340703667473805312
The second example is from the media, those corrupt mouthpieces for the privileged classes: I haven’t voluntarily imbibed mainstream media for years, but the other day I found myself involuntarily listening to MSNBC in a friend’s car. The MSNBC drones were talking about “radicalized Republicans” (that is, working people) in the post-Trump era, how supposedly delusional and detached from reality said working people had become, and how urgent it was for the privileged classes to “fix” them.
Since I so rarely take in mainstream media I was stunned by the severity of MSNBC’s detachment. I had no idea it had gotten this bad! Marie Antoinette showed more sympathy and understanding, and to me these examples of the privileged classes’ utter unwillingness to humbly engage in self-reflection only show that we’re not going to have any kind of moderation or stabilization under Biden, or ever.
David, by the Lake – In addition to the gas supply sabotage you linked to, there were at least 41 incidents of railroad sabotage in Washington State in 2020. The attack consists of electrically connecting opposite rails, just as the axle and wheels of a train car would, which triggers a sensor to prevent collisions. But emergency stops to prevent collision have themselves caused derailment. All the hazardous materials safety precautions of the industry won’t do much good when you have malicious actors trying to circumvent them.
@JMG,
Thank you for sharing all this. Even though I haven’t commented these last three weeks, I’ve still been reading Ecosophia intently – it’s just that, knowing so little about either secret societies or mundane astrology, I haven’t had much to say, though I certainly appreciate the chance to hear a little about two subjects on which the mainstream thinkers have nothing to say!
I hope that you and Sara hace a wonderful new year, and I look forward to your return to blogging in February.
I know JMG wrote about the Great Reset some weeks ago, describing it as warmed over communism, repackaged for today, but in re: the bit above wondering why the governments have fallen over themselves to kill off their economies, I saw an interesting interview with Catherine Austin Fitts yesterday, part of a larger film called Planet Lockdown I think.
https://youtu.be/C1-0XKYAZII
No written transcript as yet to my knowledge. Setting aside for a moment whether the GloboCap super elites have the organizational capacity to pull it all off (or are just incredibly hubristic) she does offer a good framework to explain their motivations and how specific governmental policy choices in recent years help move them closer to their apparent goals, including such things as total social control of civilian populations and “transhumanism” for themselves.
A useful antidote for her dark views is James Howard Kunstler’s annual prediction piece. I don’t read him often anymore because his tone is so often universal contempt for all Americans, but he adopted a more evenhanded tone for this piece, so it was quite readable.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/01/01/forecast-2021-chinese-fire-drills-with-a-side-of-french-fries-jacobin-style-and-russian-dressing/
“As for the economics of the current epidemic, that’s one of the most astonishing things about all this — governments are using shutdowns instead of the proven methods of quarantine and contact tracing, and causing immense economic damage, which is going to whip around and bite them in the buttocks. Why? it makes very little sense.”
One thing you need to keep in mind is that among the comfortable classes, Covid is the Black Death. People are genuinely terrified of mass deaths; I know people who have spent hours crying because someone touched them. They are convinced any exposure to it will kill them, and that this is an utterly unprecedented disease. People are saying that compared to Covid, the Black Death looks likes the flu, and they have meant it. Once you remember these are the people making decisions, the insane overreaction makes sense. I just wish I knew how this weird panic got established, and how to dispel it….
Lathechuck,
Loved your comment at 1.50pm on 1st January.
Regarding tobacco bad health effects–
Long ago I read a piece (sorry, the link is long lost) whose author speculated that the reason tobacco causes cancer is because its growers fertilize it with potassium mined from the ground. A small percentage of potassium is radioactive (potassium-40, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium-40). This would wind up in the tobacco plants and the author theorized that over time, tobacco smokers concentrate enough of this radioactive potassium in their lungs to cause cancer via low-level radiation poisoning.
John Michael, interesting was not the first word that came to mind while reading the Naked Capitalism post you recommended to Bridge. Horrifying, appalling, and alarming all felt like more accurate descriptors to me. Yikes! The advanced corruption in the pharmaceutical industry was not any great surprise, but to have it so meticulously dissected and laid out for inspection was disturbingly illuminating. OK, so I guess that does qualify as interesting!
Why anyone in these avaricious, predatory times would put their trust in a profit-driven industry to care for their health is beyond me. We each care for and are dependent on our own health to an extent that no industry or bureaucracy could ever hope to imitate. My present distrust of allopathic treatment was hard earned through an ungodly number of botched surgeries and pain meds (and that was before the industry got this corrupted.) My health only started improving when I walked away from the pathologizing allopaths and finally began working with my body instead of against it. Outside of acute emergency care or useful diagnostics, I am far more confident relying on my body’s innate self-healing systems and applying alternative practices that can strengthen them.
We all have incredible, unrecognized healing resources within us. And, even so, we’re all going to die some day. Like everyone, I would love some mythical guarantee of health, but, similar to any mythical guarantee of wealth, I have to assume that whoever is peddling that mythology is doing so for their own betterment, not for mine.
@JMG That is not my definition of left/right but from Political Compass (www.politicalcompass.org), who uses a specific series of questions/policy positions to plot anyone along left/right and libertarian/authoritarian axes. Undoubtedly there is room to quibble with exactly how they score everything, but it does at least provide a framework meant to be universally applicable — anyone is free to label themselves however they choose of course, but I’m a big fan of having actual definitions behind labels. Their US election 2020 page plots 31 primary candidates, of which only four are even on the left side of center. Interestingly it is nearly as much of a monoculture along the libertarian/authoritarian axis, with only those four plus two others on the right on the libertarian side of center; 25 of 31 candidates are in a single quadrant.
@Jessica I didn’t mean literally nobody of course, but rather no such group with any remaining political clout. Their traditional vehicles have all been co-opted or destroyed.
I think it was J K Galbraith who quipped, “America is a third-world country. It exports agricultural products and imports finished goods.” That is even more true now than when he said it. And along with third-world status has come the typical co-morbidities, like an uncaring elite, contempt for the workers and the poor, and election jiggery-pokery.
I’m not anti-Trump, but the way the national debt has ballooned and the wealthy become even more staggeringly wealthy while the majority slowly lose ground is a huge black mark against his administration.
Perhaps Jack London in “The Iron Heel” was prescient, if a hundred years premature, when he wrote. “Out of the decay of self-seeking capitalism, it was held, would arise that flower of the ages, the Brotherhood of Man. Instead of which, appalling alike to us who look back and to those that lived at the time, capitalism, rotten-ripe, sent forth that monstrous offshoot, the Oligarchy.”
My personal opinion is that 2020 will become known to historians as “The Year The West Was Lost”.
It’s not just America. It’s all over the Western world that our leaders have failed to face up to the coronavirus, but have turned tail and run and hid themselves behind the skirts of “the science”. The damage they have done is enormous, while other nations forge ahead. We are at the tipping point, and from now on it’s a long slide downhill.
Dear JMG,
Just be aware of the growing science on sick buildings that partly resulted from more energy-efficient designs following the twin oil crises of the 1970s. Our extensive use of fungicides has evolved common moulds with the result being that water-damaged buildings with microbial amplification can cause serious illness in those who are genetically susceptible (estimated to be perhaps a quarter of the population).
Yes, mould illness is real despite the insurance industry’s attempts to quash the science on this (with the US government not exactly working hard to correct the public’s misassumption either).
Much of that particular patient group need an open design with high airflow. There is just as much of a push to healthy homes as to energy-efficient homes, and the design principles for both do not always overlap.
Please see the section on Innate Immune Activation below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mold_health_issues#Innate_Immune_Activation
Thanks.
RNA can most certainly be reverse transcribed into DNA and integrated into our chromosomes – that is what HIV does all the time. Coronavirus doesn’t usually do that, but it would be premature to conclude that it cannot ever happen – a retrovirus like HIV might be present in a cell at the same time as coronavirus-derived RNA, whether from a live virus or from the vaccine. Since the pseudo-uridine is recognized by the ribosome as if it were the natural nucleotide uridine, I don’t think it would be a hurdle for the reverse transcriptase, either.
However, I don’t think such a reverse transcription would be a noticeable problem for the organism. After integration, the virus-derived material would be mostly dormant and wouldn’t be expected to trigger an immune reaction. After all, that is probably how syncytin itself entered our DNA a long time ago!
The risk of adverse immune reactions (mentioned in the Scientific American article and dissected carefully in the Naked Capitalism link above) is probably much higher during the acute phase right after vaccination, when the adjuvants contribute to a “danger signal” that cranks up the immune system.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to measure the cross-reaction of the sera of three groups of people with syncytin: some who passed through a coronavirus infection, some who received a vaccine, and controls. That can be done in a tube (or on a slide) with a few drops of blood, a few weeks after infection resp. vaccination, and takes at most a few minutes to read out.
PS: If autoimmune antibodies were to be produced after infection or vaccination, then those might (but only might) indeed remain vigilant for decades afterwards. I don’t think this risk can be excluded a priori for any infection or vaccination – it is a matter of empirical evidence if such reactions will occur more frequently in the infected or vaccinated than in others.
Hello AD JMG,
I recently discovered you (believe I left a short comment a few weeks ago to that effect) and have been hungrily devouring every word I can find that you’ve published ever since. I feel incredibly fortunate that I was just able to nab copies of both Dolmen Arch books as signed first editions. What good fortune for me!
You’ve brought an excitement and richness to my spiritual life that I didn’t realize I was missing. Thank you for teaching those of us who wish to learn. I (and many others) will study quietly on our own paths – and collectively, you’ll have had a great positive influence on the astral muck we are wading through down here on Earth. Drain the swamp, indeed.
I’m so glad you’ll be resting this January and look forward eagerly to your well-rested return. Time for brooding, yes?
With utmost respect and kindest regards,
Erika
@ Lathechuck
Re sabotage
I was wondering, too, how the story I noted was or was not representative. Do you know to what degree those incidents you cited deviated from “usual” malicious activity (of which there is always some)? I’m trying to keep an eye on reports re power grid infrastructure, but I’m only on the periphery here at a modestly-sized municipal utility.
I hope stuff like this is sporadic and not a trend. We need to address our nation’s problems, not spite one another.
@dropBear: “2020 was the year we burned down the house to get rid of a few cockroaches in the kitchen. So i guess 2021 will be the year of telling ourselves how much better it is to live in a tent.”
Haha! That’s a good one. I wish it were merely a joke…
@Anonymous: “One thing you need to keep in mind is that among the comfortable classes, Covid is the Black Death. People are genuinely terrified of mass deaths; I know people who have spent hours crying because someone touched them. They are convinced any exposure to it will kill them, and that this is an utterly unprecedented disease. People are saying that compared to Covid, the Black Death looks likes the flu, and they have meant it.”
Okie-dokie, I realized we were in the middle of mass hysteria, but I didn’t realize it was quite that bad. I wonder how many people actually think this way. Hmm.
Re: Payback
You probably already know this, but the current energy cost of bitcoin mining per transaction is 680kwh or enough to power a US household for 23 days (https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption/)
The irony is, if everyone mining bitcoin cut their mining by 99%, they would all get the same amount, the same number of transactions would go through, and the energy costs would be cut by 99%. However because they’re all competing, the cost keeps going up and up. Its an engineered “tragedy of the commons” Its diabolical, and at present, is the most wasteful system of exchange I’ve ever heard of existing.
The “new paradigm” is to double down on the old one. Treating energy like its limitless, and any expenditure of it is justified so long as the numbers in your bank account keep going up.
Put another way, you could drive an electric car from New York City to Salt Lake City on the electricity spent to enable a single transaction in the bitcoin system.
With regard to the medical properties of tobacco, I wonder if readers of this blog are familiar with the origin of a popular phrase?
“When an ‘apparently dead from drowning’ person was pulled from the Thames, it was thought that two things needed to happen to successfully resuscitate them: warming of the body and stimulation. Tobacco was becoming popular in Europe thanks to its exportation from the Americas, and a well known stimulant thanks to the alkaloid nicotine. The nearly dead drowning victim can’t smoke themselves, and certainly can’t swallow anything. And since hypodermic needles weren’t to be fully-invented for another hundred years, the only logical way to administer tobacco was rectally. Plus, the warm smoke would warm the individual from the inside. Win-Win. Thus, the tobacco smoke enema was born, and devices placed all along the Thames river.” — https://naturespoisons.com/2014/07/29/the-exciting-history-of-blowing-smoke-up-ones-arse-tobacco-smoke-enema/
JMG: Many thanks, again, for everything you bring to my world, not least of which is this wonderful forum. I wish you and Sara blessings, good health, peace, and fortitude this coming new year. Enjoy your internet break. We will miss you
Fellow Ecosophians: thanks to all of you as well. It is a sanity saving joy to read and “listen” to all these fascinating conversations and ideas.
A few posts back JMG wrote something that struck me like a cold, hard slap across the face. As a result I have adopted “ incerta vadum somnum et somnia” as a personal motto. Something to help me remember from whence I come.
A topic that has been broached here is the devastating ennui, loneliness, and rootlessness that is the portion of so many people in our modern, western society.
In my own family, prior to my 18th birthday we moved 13 times living in 5 different states. Since my 18th birthday, I have moved an additional 9 times in three other states!
We weren’t military (as is often assumed) but simply a lower middle class family whose parents sought “greener grass” repeatedly.
Three years ago my husband and I relocated to far, upstate New York and I have been dumbfounded by the immense portion of locals who are at least 4th generation in the same village, hamlet or at least county. It has made me painfully aware of what my own hyper-transitory life has deprived me of in the way of family, friends, and trusted connection in and among a community.
I am wishing you all the best,
Courtney
@ JMG – Hahaha! I haven’t been shot down that hard since roaming the gin mills of my early twenties.
@ JMG and READERS…
It’s not just me seeing the advance of this. While curmudgeon Kunstler has done a fair job of laying out possibilities, as has JMG, this is the event that will drive the next generation into the new ways of doing things. In my industry, things rarely happen in a logical progression, yet all can be tied back to what is going on in the worlds of finance and resource depletion and resource positioning (3D position, as in what country and what depth we have to drill to get at it).
I would posit readers visit: https://www.artberman.com/2020/09/03/stop-expecting-oil-and-the-economy-to-recover/ over the coming JMG hiatus.
In my universe, the new normal is rolling in at warp speed. It’s never just ONE thing – not when humans are involved. And we have this new star conjunction JMG laid out for us, and there is a LOT going on we never see until it’s in the rear-view mirror. Government is going to devolve away from the centralist model – the corruption is too apparent to anyone who cares to look, and at ALL levels. “Withdrawing consent” is already building out in Cali, and likely to spread.
I might also suggest readers look at the latest from Kunstler – the former liberal-turned-populist who saw what we all saw when TOD (The Oil Drum) began years back. His article, “Chinese Fire Drills with a side of French Fries (Jacobin-style) and Russian Dressing”, lays out a lot of what I have envisioned based on my reading and within my industry. And then he brings in the rest for a pretty reasonable scenario of the coming changes that energy will force.
Most folks reading here are reasonably astute, and reasonable in general. We will all need to become more ‘reasonable’ while at the same time retaining our critical thinking and voices in the coming years. Mine are waning, but for many here, your new reality is approaching and there will be opportunity everywhere around you if you think smart and help others out.
I wish all a better year, and anything I can do to usher in a better climate for existence I will do. My offspring deserve it, as do we all.
My estimation of the chances of Biden being the next president keep dropping. The louder the media screams about how Biden has won, the more and more I think there’s a chance something will happen Wednesday that keeps Trump in office…
” However, only masks prevent the transfer of droplets from the nose or mouth from one person to another.”
Perhaps in some situations that might help slightly. But these viruses are spread by aerosols. The droplets will also contain virus, and the droplets quickly evaporate, and the virus can then travel. If that were not the case, the various studies done before 2020 on the problem of flu would have shown masks to be useful. But meanwhile, long-term mask use has never been done, and is thus a forced medical experiment.
Is it really likely that obstructing breathing is somehow going to be harmless to an organism?
Hi John
Great post. I share your concerns about these fast tracked vaccines.
Whilst you have covered the risks of Moderna and the Pilfer vaccines a lot, you haven’t talked so much about the Oxford vaccine.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-data-isnt-up-to-snuff/?fbclid=IwAR33IJaY2T66-6113vjnLnPQOUv1fWrLH2ttZPxdfYUV81ou1neQK4kcuAA
This article is quite alarming, to be frank, given that we in the UK will be pushed to take this vaccine this year.
Luckily, I’m a young and healthy, so will be at the back of the queue! I also covered this subject in my last FI blog post – https://forecastingintelligence.org/2020/12/06/the-cavalry-is-coming/
In regard to Biden and his plans, it is a mystery to me.
I sense that given the overwhelming pressure to deal with Covid, that much of Trump’s legacy will quietly be preserved by the Biden team, particularly in foreign affairs. Already, Biden’s inner circle are saying that they will keep Trump’s border and immigration controls in place as they are terrified of a huge surge of illegal immigration killing the Democrats in the 2022 House mid-term elections.
That tells me that the hammering the Democrats got in the state, governor and house elections has got through to the party elite and they will ditch the Left now that Biden has managed to squeak into the White House.
So, to summarize, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Biden do roll back elements of the Trump legacy but for much more, the legacy of Trump will be preserved, tweaked and even expanded in the years to come.
Hi Christophe:
Regarding “the ever-mutating viruses we all somehow used to deal with, without going into hysterical death panics. With the underlying facts of viral mutation remaining the same throughout the span of human history,…”
I agree with your point about our current medical dystopia and the controlled narrative. Your comment about the underlying facts of viral mutation inspires me to expand the thought a little.
Until very recently, with the discovery of the genetic code in the 1960s, we have not had to deal with viral mutations caused by human experimentation on viral replication and mutation. Stuff escapes from laboratories, accidents happen.
Like unintentional impacts on global climate caused by human activity, and our discovery of nuclear power, our own technologies may have overwhelmed our ability to manage them without causing more harm than good.
However did “Chinese fire drill” come to mean disorder and confusion? Among the most regimented nation on the planet? At least where official actions like fire drills are concerned! Of course, the totalitarian impulse to cover up the existence of any fire might come unto play
Scotlyn,
Thanks for that response re the vaccine. I was very skeptical when I read that and the only reason I considered it possible was the likelihood that it’s an engineered virus.
Happy 2021! Hope your January break is restful.
This post is nice summary of the various possible outcomes instead of straight predictions, and one of the most rational posts about 2021 I’ve seen on the interwebs. I have to say I was quite dismayed when Biden’s first cabinet picks all seems to be giddy at the thought of returning to the policies of Obama/Bush. They acted as if the last four years were a huge mistake and could just be swept away. It sounds like you’ve seen differently in later news and I sure hope that many of the Trump policies continue (tariffs, distancing from the Chinese, bringing back manufacturing, troop removals, and tighter borders).
We’ve been going through the list of what needs work around the house given the upcoming uncertainty. The one thing with working out of one’s own house and growing at least some of your own food, there is a never ending list of home projects. We realized our 20 year old refrigerator and stove should be replaced in case things completely seize up with China (assuming some of most of those appliances are made there). Well ha-ha on us, there is hardly any appliances in stock and it took 8 weeks to get them. We joked “Welcome to the Soviet Union!” Maybe if we were of a different social class, we would have had different results.
Ashara,
“I hate to say this, but I have a sinking feeling that the Democrats really won this election solely because independents saw them as a lesser evil compared to Trump,”
They most certainly did not win and I think if we ever get a real vote count, we will find that blacks voted for him at greater than 15%. A lot of the worst cheating took place in inner cities like Detroit.
Re: the crisis in confidence in establishment medicine
Based on anecdotal experience, I find that many people suffering from long-term health issues due to Covid, are also losing faith in the medical establishment and those who had never had much reason to prior are turning to alternative medicine for help.
While I certainly agree that Covid is no bubonic plague, the death rates are relatively low, and if you are younger and healthy you are unlikely to die of Covid and or end up in the ICU, I think Covid is a more serious concern than some commenters here regard it as. Dying of Covid is not the only concern, as many who have survived the virus and were never hospitalized are still dealing with long-term health issues.
I’m speaking from personal experience. I had a serious and mysterious illness last spring. While I tested negative for Covid, doctors are pretty convinced it was a false negative based on clinical information. For the last 8-plus months I have been dealing with health problems that have limited me. !t’s been the most serious thing to ever happen to me in my life. I had to take three months of medical leave from work, and while things have improved somewhat, I still have not fully “recovered,” and have physical limitations I never had before. (I considered myself a healthy individual pre-illness. I rarely got sick. I hadn’t seen a doctor for any health issue besides wellness check-ups in almost a decade. I walked 5 miles a day on average, went on long hikes weekly, ran and did yoga weekly, and ate a whole foods diet. In 2019 I had done a 600-mile long distance hike with a 20 lb pack, sometimes walking up to 22 miles a day. In contrast, eight months after my illness, I am still not able to hike.)
Many of Covid “long-haulers” I’ve either communicated with or read about have similar stories. Many of them were young and physically active prior (even a marathon runner) and had no known health issues prior to getting sick.
Since my illness I’ve had many medical appointments (with primary physicians, cardiologists, pulmonologists, etc.) and my experience with them has overall been discouraging. They do standard tests, they come back normal, and despite everything I tell them I’m still experiencing that is not normal, they dismiss my experience. The pulmonologist I saw over the summer told me I was overanalyzing things and told me that if I took some drug, he was certain that I’d be fine in 10 days. I was skeptical. I hear so many similar stories among other Covid long-haulers: doctors dismissing the patients’ experience just because the standard tests done are normal, and not having much helpful treatment to offer. On an online group for long-haulers, the negative experience we are having with doctors is something most of us share.
No treatment has been a magic pill for me, but the treatment I have found to be somewhat helpful has either been something I discovered on my own, was suggested by a non-medical person, or from an alternative practitioner. I haven’t really gotten any help from any allopathic doctor, besides their ordering tests that at least ruled out certain diagnoses. Herbal medicine, various nutritional supplements, nutritional changes, and acupuncture are what I have found helpful…. Even something so basic as Vitamin D my primary care physical refused to order a test for when I asked her if she could, saying it was unnecessary; I had to get a naturopath to order my Vitamin D test. On online groups, long-haulers are sharing what works for them; a lot of it considered “alternative”. I think that sharing tips amongst us is more helpful than what we are getting from many doctors, who are not good with dealing with complicated issues, or can’t prescribe anything not FDA-approved. On the plus side, this whole experience has given me reason to really delve into herbal medicine and acupuncture, which I had little experience with prior. Now I’m reading books about acupuncture and Chinese medicine and it’s been fascinating. (I have never tried biochemic salts though; I might read up on that.)
Anyway, I wanted to share this experience to suggest that in addition to the possibility of the vaccine rollout adversely affecting people’s faith in establishment medicine, the experience of thousands of Covid illness survivors who are dealing with long-term health issues and having discouraging experiences with doctors also may further push the crisis in confidence in establishment medicine.
I do very much believe that a much greater proportion of money, energy, and resources should be put towards prevention and treatment than towards vaccines. For example, there is a lot of evidence that those with higher Vitamin D levels have less serious Covid cases. But that is too simple to focus on and doesn’t benefit the pharmaceutical industry.
Anonymous:
Your comment about some people’s reactions to covid reminds me of something my son told me. He and his brother run a small business, internet based with a warehouse for shipping product, and was able to keep his doors open with basic staff all year. One of the employees who reports to work in person is a young woman in her late 20’s, no known health issues. My son says it’s sad and almost a little comical how she refuses to pass anyone in the hallway, won’t go into my son’s (huge) office – she’ll talk to him from outside the door – and she’s washed her hands so much that they’re red and peeling. She won’t eat lunch in the usually empty break room because she’d have to take her mask off to eat, which she will not do even if nobody else is there. My son has tried to tell her that she probably doesn’t need to be quite so diligent, especially as most of the two dozen employees are working from home and there’s hardly anyone at the warehouse, but she will not be convinced that her very life is not endangered by any and all contact with other humans.
I’ve got a few neighbors who are far too afraid of the virus and I saw some of them raking leaves – alone, outdoors – in the fall wearing a mask.
All—
For your entertainment, I found this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fwipS7-dXEg
Because we didn’t learn anything with Concorde, we have the (proposed) Concorde 2.0, which will revolutionize air travel ***cough***
I was particularly impressed by the notion that the “high density” configuration would seat 19(!!) passengers. Apparently, economics are not an issue…
JMG – my apologies for predicting economic mayhem next year – as a recovering meteorologist and broken down horseplayer, I’m used to making poor predictions – I just can’t help myself. In fact, back in 2006 to 2009 I was definitely in the camp of thinking massive collapse was just around the corner. Then from 2010 to a year ago, I saw the decline much more along the lines of your timeline – slow and steady.
But COVID has accelerated the pace of collapse now, much like Ethyl and Lucy in the chocolate factory when the conveyor belt speed was increased. Or, to be more accurate, it’s been the response to COVID and the lockdowns which have sped things up. The numbers don’t add up for maintaining the facade of normalcy any longer. That’s why I think the next step down begins in earnest this month, as everyone has taken stock of 2020 over the holidays, and what it all means going forward.
I believe many of these the following are baked in the cake over the next few years, and 2021 will be reckoning when many come to the conclusion the wheels have fallen off: collapses in the housing and commercial real estate markets, nationalized housing of underwater properties, bank holiday, collapse in the dollar, collapse in equities, collapse in bonds (which really triggers the dominoes), bank bail ins, confiscation of retirement accounts, pension defaults, far worse havoc in supply lines than we saw in 2020, increased energy costs coming home to roost, collapse in tax receipts, exponential increase in unemployment, well – you get the idea.
I hope I’m wrong – and the slow grind down occurs instead.
@David BTL – thanks for the update on your writing – I’ll keep my eyes peeled for your works getting published, and I’m slowly getting to Vintage Worlds III – lots of stuff in the hopper these days.
Beekeeper – Your description of a hyper-vigilant co-worker brings to mind something that I’ve been saying for a while: “some people are being only half as careful as they need to be, and your being twice as careful as you need to be won’t help them, or you”. Conversely “even if some people are being twice as careful as they need to be, that doesn’t excuse you for being half as careful as you need to be.”
Hi Patricia,
To me “Chinese fire drill” meant a game kids play. You pack as many teenagers into a car as you can and the driver sets out. When you come to a stoplight, everyone jumps out, runs around the car as fast as they can, and scrambles back in. Repeat until bored or threatened with citation by cop. I have never seen Amish kids play the game; maybe the hubbub would frighten the horse.
I never heard of the other meaning till I saw it on the Internet.
Okay, I just voiced my concerns about the vaccines to some family members. Apparently, if they kill 99% of people who get them, it’s all good: in their mind, Covid is a literal extinction event. Their logic is that someone supposedly got infected twice; so even if you survive the first time, you’ll just get it again and again until it finally does you in. This is terrifying on so many levels………
Irena,
I watched someone have a mental breakdown and literally start sobbing because he saw someone touch a mailbox near his. I’ve had someone lose it because I touched her cup giving it to her (I work at a fast food joint); plus what Beekeeper has to say, and my family experience above. It’s getting really bad out there
Beekeeper,
My personal favourite example of insanity is something my mother reported, which is that someone she knows who lives in a rural area, with closest person being some fifteen miles away, puts on a mask before going outside. To her mind, this is in fact necessary: you never know when you could have contact with the virus!
Something just clicked. I really hope I’m wrong, but one of the biggest changes the new Grand Mutation predicts is a collapse in the myth of progress. This will happen within the next twenty years, and probably within the next few years, since the Grand Mutation is also a Great Conjunction, and will last for the period of time they tend to do so.
What would be one of the simplest ways for that to happen, given the facts on the ground right now? Simply for the vaccines, which the Progressives (in the broad sense of all those who believe in Progress) have staked their entire reputation on, to fail catastrophically. So, this would seem to suggest that will be a major factor over the next year or so…….
@TJandtheBear
“Back then 750M (60%) were employed in agriculture, and wood was *the* energy source.”
The hot areas of the world have plenty of heat and sun. There is a lot of potential there to utilize the heat and the sun to power their civilizations.
A recommendation both for those who make an a priori attack upon ‘conspiracy theory’, but also for those who reflexively defend it :
The Ethical Skeptic (https://theethicalskeptic.com/2015/04/08/a-new-ethic/).
Good luck everyone.
beneaththesurface – Long Haulers,
Please check out the FLCCC doctors, I put message above about them and a link to a podcast. Or just check out FLCCC.NET (Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care alliance). They are a group of doctors who are trying to get the message out about treatments using existing supplements and pharmaceuticals. Their message is getting censored by the media, though they are highly respected in the field. EVMS.EDU also has a Covid treatment protocol from one of the doctor in the group.
I did see that Ivermectin does work with long haulers somewhere on their site and they have some links for having remote consultations with doctors who will prescribe it.
I came across the preventative protocol from EVMS.EDU early on and have been taking those supplements, have not been overly cautious and have not caught Covid-19 (at least to my knowledge). Were any of the long haulers following such a protocol before catching Covid-19?
Hope this info helps, best of luck!
Bob
Interesting to track your use of the “scientific establishment” idea. Here you tie it closely to the corporate media, which is a reasonable connection given the media’s role in promoting the vaccine approach to the pandemic as well as their role in spreading the expert’s message on how to respond to the pandemic.
A huge problem that this post gets to the heart of is that in our complex world it is really hard to get people to understand how knowledgable judgements relate to the uncertainties in the situation. You had a phrase something like “ringing cacophony of jumbled sensory experience” to describe the human condition and I think starting from that state rather than from the “we’ve got it figured out” state is the right approach. Then what does the consensus of the “scientific establishment” mean? Let me give an example: At the beginning of the pandemic, the debate about the value of wearing masks was heating up and the CDC was still saying healthy people didn’t need masks in public at the first of April. They were taking the “cautious” approach of not recommending actions without clear evidence of effectiveness. But any scientist who knows a bit about how infections are transmitted through droplets passed through turbulent air could tell you in March that masks almost certainly help minimize transmission and the main uncertainty is how much they help. So the more cautious approach would actually have been to use the bit that we do understand to guide the mask recommendation. The CDC came around to that opinion in early April, and later studies have confirmed that masks help quite a lot.
The vaccine situation is not all that different. There are good basic biology reasons to expect that mRNA vaccines are not likely to have side effects that are dramatically larger than other widely used vaccines. But the human immune system is extremely complicated and certainty is far off. mRNA vaccines have been in various stages of testing for rabies, flu, and a couple of other viruses. The tests on these specific COVID vaccines have been fast, but without major red flags. We are at a point where the best evidence in a complicated situation suggests that giving these vaccines to as many people as possible is the best path for minimizing death and suffering. Could they be wrong? sure. What are the chances that these vaccines are a disastrous mistake? Pretty tiny…I would guess tiny means a percent or less. Is it a good risk for society to choose to take? Here is the problem. We as a society have fractured to the point that we don’t have a trusted system for choosing which uncertain path we take. In situations like these two where expert knowledge is needed to choose a path, we are losing the ability to listen long enough to understand how a choice of a path is laden with uncertainty. A particularly common and insane response is to claim that since experts sometimes get it wrong we are going to start ignoring expertise. A sane response involves hard work to analyze uncertainties to allow reasoned debate about available options. The study of uncertainties is actually a major part of science. But in our public discourse we mostly do memes and sound bites. Thanks for your blog.
Ganv,
I’d like to quibble with your mask argument. I don’t think anyone knows what the effects of partial oxygen deprivation on the human body, for hours every day, are. Since that’s what these mask mandates require from many people, the cautious approach would be to refuse to mandate masks, even though it helps reduce the spread of the virus.
Another thing I think worth noting, building off your comment, is that many scientists, if the articles appearing in venues such as the BMJ and Scientific American are anything to go by, took a look at the new vaccines, and are saying something to the effect of “Good God this is going to end so badly!”
Sadly, the corporate media has managed to convince so many people, especially on the left, that scientists are all on board with this, and so if it goes sideways, their credibility will be shot. Oddly, the more radical right is filled with people who are gleefully citing these scientists! I already know someone in the anti-vax movement who has reassessed her older opinion (all vaccines are bad), since the fact you have so many scientists calling out the regulators suggests they have at least some integrity.
What this suggests is that if these vaccines end up going sideways, then it’s possible the preservation of science will become a goal of the far right, while people who are on the left may very well react with throwing it out altogether: considering that many of them are convinced every scientist is on board with this; while those on the right took a look at this and see science doing its job, with the media and regulators being corrupt. How this will play out is another of the great unknowns we face.
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/11/27/covid-19-vaccines-where-are-the-data/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-risks-of-rushing-a-covid-19-vaccine/
Hi Ganv,
You are so right. There was something I needed to look up the other day, and I realized that here in the U.S., there was no source of info I could trust. I couldn’t do what people have done for centuries, “Oh, here it is, on page 1,054 of the Britannica.” I had to look on several sites and sort of average out the info. “OK, this is U.S. ‘mainstream media,’ so this and this and this is probably lies…this is Vox, who doesn’t outright lie but twists his words like a lawyer so you must parse very carefully whatever he says…”and so on. It was exhausting. The Information Superhighway isn’t much good if it ends in a pileup!
For those who may be interested (assuming JMG allows this shameless book plug through), I have a new novel available. It seems like about the worst time possible to release a comedy but people looking for a literary escape from our current woes should enjoy it.
The title is “Narquinxa and Xandalus”. It’s the story of a couple of aliens who come down to investigate life on Earth only to end up falling in love and then having to save the planet from an evil AI. It’s a kind of sci-fi/action/romance/comedy.
Ebook available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PBCXB5S
Paperback here (and other online book stores): https://www.bookdepository.com/Narquinxa-and-Xandalus-Simon-Sheridan/9780648948629
@investingwithnature–I briefly visited the evms.edu website. I saw a link to an article on treatment protocol for patients in the ICU. I did not come across the preventative protocol you mention. I’d like to have a look at it. Could you give me a date range, title, search terms of some other way of finding it?
@gnav–it was suggested at the time that the main reason the CDC did not recommend mask wearing by the general population until after the first of April was that there was a shortage of masks and the CDC did not want ordinary people buying them up when the health care workers needed them more. Once instructions for making DIY cloth masks from bandanas started circulating on the Internet, and a few more companies started producing cloth masks, the CDC started recommending them. I remember that in mid March there were no masks to be had in the drugstores and hardware stores where I live, and hospitals were asking for donations of the (initials and a number) kind, so that seems plausible to me.
Goldenhawk wrote, “Until very recently, with the discovery of the genetic code in the 1960s, we have not had to deal with viral mutations caused by human experimentation on viral replication and mutation. Stuff escapes from laboratories, accidents happen. Like unintentional impacts on global climate caused by human activity, and our discovery of nuclear power, our own technologies may have overwhelmed our ability to manage them without causing more harm than good.”
Some of our technologies have certainly escaped our ability to manage them, and some are causing far more harm than good. Our tinkering with genes appears to have already fallen into both categories; however, trying to fix those problems by doubling down on the technology that created them is a recipe for even more problems, if not total disaster. The best way we could deal with viral mutations caused by human experimentation would be to simply stop causing them. Instead, we’re now creating as many new mutations as rapidly as we can to fix the problems our old mutations have caused. I really don’t think this is going to end well at all.
Nonetheless, I would maintain that the underlying facts of viral mutation do remain the same, no matter how ignorantly we dove into tinkering with them. Viruses mutate. Sometimes they use horseshoe bats to do so. Other times they use clueless geneticists. Rarely, the mutations end up killing off one of the virus’ host species. Unfortunately, our host species would be humans rather than just the clueless geneticists. Were it just the geneticists at risk, I would encourage them to experiment to their hearts’ content — there’s something quite noble about sacrificing oneself in the pursuit of one’s cherished dream, no matter how misguided.
There is a lot of potential there to utilize the heat and the sun to power their civilizations.
@info,
I’m a fan of solar energy, but… that potential has always been there and will continue to remain unrealized for the forseeeable future. It’s no more a viable replacement option now than ever before due to a whole host of issues.
But can they do a traveling shimmy?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw
Lady Cutekitten, I still have the World Books from the eighties I grew up with. They’re out of date now, but of course that is of minimal effect on many articles. You can often find encyclopedias at library sales around here, generally partial, but if you pick up enough partials I suppose that would make close enough to a whole equivalent.
This is really an election horoscope question, albeit a bit late, but . . . if we end up with, as seems likely, fifty percent or more of the country doubting who the president is, would that horoscope apply to both candidates simultaneously? (I say more than fifty percent because surely I’m not the only American looking at the current situation and saying there’s no way to tell who won the electors in several states, so the electoral college votes are invalid in all of those, and unless the House votes, there’s no path to a legitimate presidency for anyone at this point.) Or would it apply only to whoever the actual winner is? I could also see both continuing to claim victory and taking the Oath of Office . . . I’m rather glad to be a rural dwelling Deplorable this year, far distant from the capitol.
I suppose there are enough documented historical split claims on who is head of state that someone may have worked out the results at least so far as coronations of competing claimants of thrones are concerned, but if so, it’s probably in Latin if not lost, and would it apply?
Starting off with a “thanks-roll”:
JMG, thank you so much for keeping this comment thread going!
And many thanks for the Naked Capitalism article, you slipped that in there oh-so-cazh…
MCB, likewise, thanks for the berthub article about how the Pfizer vaccine is made; sent that to a PhD biochemist of my acquaintance and he loved it. He’s not touching the vaccine with a 10 foot pole, mind you…
And thanks to Forecasting Intelligence for the link on the AstraZeneca vaccine.
investingwithnature, thanks for the FLCCC.net video about coronavirus prevention/treatment. The video can also be found on the right-hand side of that website.
Lady Cutekitten, thanks for DrGrumpy’s blog, hilarious in a dark way. That mall… OMG… I thought such places only existed in JMG’s novels.
Thanks everyone for the tobacco info. Violet, I saved your post off into my Folder of Lore, it was that good.
Emanuel Goldstein, thanks for having such an educational avatar. I looked it up on DuckDuckGo, found the Big Online Encyclopedia’s article about ‘1984’, read that down to the theory about Goldstein being a proxy for Trotsky, read the Trotsky article, then read about Trotskyism.
Oh, and I liked your post, too. 😀
Thanks, mog for the ‘ethical sceptic’ site! A good description of “living a fact-based existence”.
Thanks, Oilman2 for the column by Art Berman. Ouch!
Thanks, KW, for the link to Kunstler’s piece on Burning Platform. It sounds like his own Christmas wish list, but still fun to read.
– – –
I join Irena in marveling at just how severe the coronafear is among some people. I wonder where they are getting their input from (too much TV and not enough independent research by themselves, probably).
“Partial oxygen deprivation due to wearing masks” — I wear a cotton mask made of bedsheet material folded over double, and can breathe through that just fine. However, I see people wearing the “fancy” masks made of obviously-impermeable material, and … yeah.
Anonymous, January 2, 2021 at 10:24 pm — if there was a tragedy with the vaccine causing the collapse of the myth of progress… it could also account for the US population decrease JMG noted in his US Grand Mutation chart (on the Patreon, spoiler, sorry).
David, by the lake, December 31, 2020 at 9:02 am — that reminds me, RT is short for Russia Times (they shortened their name a few years ago). Strategic Culture Foundation is also Russian, and so is the Saker. They still have interesting things to say, but it’s necessary to keep their probable biases in mind when reading them. There are other Russian proxies out there but I can’t think of their names right now… will mention them as they come up in the conversation.
Payback and Alex: Bitcoin and its crypto siblings are looking awfully bubblicious lately. A pro ball player just asked to be paid in bitcoin.
>Some of our technologies have certainly escaped our ability to manage them, and some are causing far more harm than good. Our tinkering with genes appears to have already fallen into both categories; however, trying to fix those problems by doubling down on the technology that created them is a recipe for even more problems, if not total disaster.
Again, I will say, one of the objectives of a corpgov bureaucracy is to increase the net misery of the world. And you give them a tool like genetic engineering. Not exactly sure what happens next but I can almost guarantee you the net misery in the world will skyrocket. They’ll try to make it look like and accident but it’s not, not really.
@John Michael Greer
Is is true that Psychopaths rule the current Western World. Looking at their Great Reset and how they really love to obsess over micromanaging our lives. Really gives me that impression.
What is the best way to deal with Psychopaths?
About vaccines:
1. Portuguese health worker, 41, dies two days after getting the Pfizer covid vaccine:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9111311/Portuguese-health-worker-41-dies-two-days-getting-Pfizer-covid-vaccine.html
2. 75-year-old Israeli man dies 2 hours after getting Covid-19 vaccine:
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/293865
3. Reuters rushes to defend the vaccine:
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-pfizer-health-concerns-idUSKBN28K2R6
and some politics of resentment to spice it up – Bill de Blasio dances as New York burns:
4. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/01/watch-bill-de-blasio-dances-in-times-square-while-keeping-new-yorkers-out/
WRT population reduction and mass sterilization (because it’s good for us in the long run!).
Quillette recently published an article about the rise in vasectomies in younger, vegan men in Australia.
Apparently, permanently curtailing your fertility is more acceptable than using a condom and the ladies really like it.
I suppose that means (if any of this story is true or it expands to a larger um, gene pool) that hardcore vegans will continue to remove themselves from the gene pool. Those gentlemen will be replaced by men who didn’t get snipped.
Here’s the link: https://quillette.com/2021/01/01/the-sexual-politics-of-vasectomies/
@ Patricia and Lady Cutekitten:
Chinese fire drill is a lovely substitute for its coarser equivalent: clusterf###.
I use it all the time, rather than sound like I’m still in the Navy.
@ Cutekitten,
It is so hard to find sources to simply trust. But part of the problem is that in earlier times the encyclopedias only gave answers on fairly simple questions but now the internet has answers of widely varying quality on a huge range of questions, many of which don’t have known answers. Few places like to publish and fewer people like to read the articles that clearly show what we do not yet understand.
@ Anonymous,
Your Scientific American article is from June, before we knew much of anything about these COVID mRNA vaccines. And the BMJ opinion piece is a normal part of evaluating what risks to take. Any evidence for your oxygen deprivation theory? You can measure it pretty easily. Humans with healthy lungs seem to adapt pretty easily to oxygen conditions varying quite a bit more than is caused by a mask. Surgeons and many factory workers have been using them for years without major trouble. Seems like a red herring.
In beautiful synchrony with your post on unknowns we can’t fully discern ahead of us, Alastair Crooke has helped to lay out the mythic boundary we are all suddenly confronted with in our mental landscapes. The quote that most sticks with me from his new article is “Inwardly, they knew; but suddenly, sharply – like the crack of a crystal breaking – it has become luminously conscious to all.”
Why on earth did we collectively choose to venture into this uncharted territory so woefully unprepared? It is surely high time to learn those new old skills we’ve been putting off for such a long time!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/01/04/america-epiphany-moment/
Quinshi,
As a Mexican and Peruvian I have seen the same idea about Biden being thrown around. Though probably for high skilled workers immigration will be a little more lax than under Trump I think both countries are going to start to pushback on illegal immigration and that is a good thing for the continent. If I may, every time I mention that I agree with strong policies against illegal immigration I get trashed and bullied. Are you on our side or ours they say. Oh a classic binary! I always like to point out that politics are not a football match —for as much as we like the sport— and identifying with an ideology so strongly has many dangers as it triggers the survival instinct when somebody challenges it (what we identify with, we protect) so I am not surprised they dismiss me as a lunatic, though I definitely am in some sense of that word.
What they seem to miss though is that we need more people in the country to do the hard work instead of sucking on the low hanging dollars, yes it is harder to stay and make a change but it is the only lasting result for both countries and we will need that —the strong and healthy relationship I mean— as the Long Descent continues, as once JMG pointed out to me. And more importantly, I don’t really understand why people leave Mexico that way, life is much harder in the USA than it is in Mexico at least that was the case for me. You can live with very little here which is why the art scene is booming strongly, attracting a lot of attention from art hubs that have lost their spark to the stifling end of Modern fArt. It is way easier to put your own business or do something on your own as the government has various support systems for that as well as a decent free healthcare system and an internationally renowned higher education system as well (for those willing to put in the hard work as there is no handholding at the national university (UNAM)). What I hope to see in the next decade or two is for sufficient social infrastructure to handle the surplus of hands and I think that is a real possibility as I see the rising middle class bring in a lot of enthusiasm and a fresh look contrasting the imposed foreign idiosyncrasies by ways of big corporations. For the ones that don’t fall pray to the other “easy” lifestyle of the Narcos (I think that avenue is getting narrower) I see some very interesting things happening for them. A lot of Mexicans are leaving the cubicle. I hope the people that get disappointed for not getting a free pass tap into that. Unfortunately, many people that leave the country are unaware of this as it is already common knowledge among that section of society that when you struggle, you just cross the Bravo but I also think they are starting to realize that it is not such a great idea after all.
The U.S. was once (perhaps long ago) considered a beacon to the world in the area of human rights.
Today a British judge denied the US extradition request for Julian Assange, citing horrific US prison conditions and the inhumane treatment to which he would almost certainly be subjected.
President Trump could still pardon Assange before he leaves office. Or the Justice Department under President-elect Biden could decline to prosecute, as in 2013 under the Obama administration.
More unknowns to add to this year’s zeitgeist of uncertainty.
Anonymous says:
January 2, 2021 at 9:55 pm
Do your family members not realize that if the virus does not confer immunity, that there is no possibility of a vaccine? That’s how vaccines work. They provoke the immune system with the virus. Like when you get measles, you’re then immune. Or, you get the vaccine, and then you are somewhat immune.
“My personal favourite example of insanity is something my mother reported, which is that someone she knows who lives in a rural area, with closest person being some fifteen miles away, puts on a mask before going outside. To her mind, this is in fact necessary: you never know when you could have contact with the virus!”
Umm…okay, but from where does she think the air in her home comes?
Beneaththesurface:
Thank you for sharing your story. i hope you are able to recover soon. I have had a similar experience with mystery symptoms that the medical system was unable to help me with, and people disbelieving that it was real, only it happened fifteen years ago, long before COVID. I had to slowly figure out what worked and didn’t for my body to mostly recover, although I still have to be careful and not abuse my body or things can get worse again. I certainly don’t deny yours or anyone else’s long haul COVID experiences, but I really have issues with how it’s been politicized, When I first heard people with establishment views talking about long-term COVID cases, I immediately looked at it cynically because these were often the same people who denied and ridiculed those with similar issues before COVID was a thing. In my mind, your experience confirms my cynical view, that the establishment only pretends to care about long-term COVID for political gain, while those feeling its effects get marginalized just the same as people in similar situations have before.
I do have a question for you, did most COVID long-haulers that you have contact with contract it in the spring like yourself? I ask because every story I’ve heard (which I’m sure is far less than you know about) had it start in March or April. I wonder if there’s very many that contracted it later, especially in the waves that have come since June. I ask because this spring was strange to me and some I know too, although in a much less extreme way than for you. I had unexplained inflammatory symptoms similar to some I’ve had before but different enough to perceive it as something different, in the spring. I’m almost sure it wasn’t COVID as I live in an area that had very few cases until June, and it didn’t feel like an infection. I even remember the day it came on, the evening of Wednesday March 4, about a week before COVID panic swept the nation. It slowly got worse for a couple of weeks until I drank a bunch of chaga mushroom tea, which mostly got rid of it, although it kept periodically coming back through May, although drinking more chaga would nip it in the bud. Something shifted at the end of spring/beginning of summer, and it didn’t come back.
I know some others who felt strange during that time too, and were unlikely to have had COVID, so I’ve been wondering if there was some underlying environmental factor during that time that affected a lot of people, made those who did contract COVID then more likely to have worse cases (the death rate of later waves has been significantly lower, although some of that is probably just more cases being counted), and possibly contributed to the sudden psychological changes that happened then too. I have no clue what that factor would be, however.
Ganv,
the timing isn’t the issue. The fact that it got attention at all raises red flags, given that vaccines usually take years to test. But, to a lot of people all that went away now that Biden has won the election, and if the scientists are getting caught up in that, that doesn’t look good either.
As for the oxygen deprivation, there’s a world of difference from a surgeon who uses a mask and making people wear them all the time. It’s the all the time part that I think raises red flags, and frankly, until I see the research, I don’t think anyone can know the effects. Which raises questions, since depending on how much masks help, it might still be worth taking this risk, but it cannot be ignored.
Onething,
I’m worried if I ask that question my mother will just start wearing the mask inside, and frankly, given her medical issues, I don’t want to run that risk, although that is one of a dozen questions that has occurred to me around her reaction to the virus. As for my family, they have no idea how anything works, if I’m being honest. It’s enough for an expert to tell them something and they believe it, no matter how absurd it is; “the expert is always right” might as well be their motto….
@Lathechuck
About the novel Inferno, it’s been several years since I last read it, so take this with a bit of salt. If I recall correctly, it is not that 1/3 of the population would be sterilized, but that 100% of the global population would retain only 1/3 of their fertility. The way I interpreted this, the virus would cause chronic damage women’s uterus, leaving them much more prone to miscarriage even after the infection receded.
It certainly did not mention anything about targeting specific ethnic groups. The antagonist was a left-leaning transhumanist polymath whose goal was to buy humanity another century for science to fix the Malthusian quagmire we are already in.
Kashtan, interesting! And best of luck with your condition. Last spring certainly had a different ‘vibe’; lots of commenters here noticed it.
Christophe, thanks for the Crooke article!
These Are The Days Of Our Times:
Yesterday I went back to YouTube to revisit one of my favorite trance-electronic pieces, Recondite’s ‘Tie In’. This link has a video which goes with the music. It’s beautiful, hypnotic, and oh-so-tech.
I decided I wanted to buy this album, so I went looking around online. No matter where I hunted, I found that it is only available on vinyl.
😀
This might be useful news:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/pharmacist-sabotaged-vaccines-thought-unsafe-police/story?id=75019776&cid=clicksource_4380645_4_three_posts_card_hed
I think it likely that the harder They come down on this guy, the more dangerous They think the vaccine is. Right now They aren’t too worried, he’s free on a piddling $10K bond. Unless of course he “commits suicide…”. 😧
Dear JMG,
I was pleased to read your balanced response to Biden’s victory. I am one of your followers from the Archdruid Report days, and have to say that despite this, I cannot stand Trump. And it’s not snobbery – I totally get what you say about what neoliberalism has done to the living standards and job prospects of ordinary people, and if a populist politician comes along to work against the status quo, I’m all for it. But just not him…
I’m British and my opinion of him was formed in the 2000’s when he destroyed part of a precious coastal ecosystem to build his golf course. He then tried to moralise with the Scottish government against building an offshore windfarm – but it was self-serving – he was opposed because it would spoil his view (and money-making potential). And he has not treated the locals well. I remember visiting the area before all this happened, and it was a special, beautiful place.
To me this story sums up the character of the man, and I’m thankful he’s now been voted out. To those who are incredulous that he lost, I think it’s entirely credible that over 50% of Americans shared my view of him. Like you, I’m cautiously hopeful that Biden “gets” it, that Trump was a wake-up call. And it would be great if politicians and world leaders everywhere got it too.
As for the vaccine, well, contracting the virus “only” has a 1% risk of death but also 10% (ish) risk of long term damage to the organs and immune system (aka long covid). These are *known* risks, and I feel quite frighteningly high. The vaccine risks, though not known with certainty, are likely much lower than this. I know what I’m doing…
@info: the best way to deal with psychopaths is to back away slowly smiling, and stay out of their way.
@Goldenhawk – Strauss & Howe pointed out that Woodward & Bernstein were considered heroes for blowing the lid off Watergate during the ’60s-’70s Great Awakening, but their counterparts in a Fourth Turning would not be so considered. And so it proved. As witness Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, treated as traitors who should be strung up and/or sent to Supermax or Guantanamo Bay. Reason #365 for Millennials to study history!
“office fauna”?? Nice coinage. Have a good break and please come back.
On Christmas Day, the Prince Hall Masonic Temple in Providence burned. A fundraising campaign has begun to help them to rebuild.
Serious question from me: Is anyone in the US actually asking “How do vaccines work?” Think flu vaccine, smallpox vaccine, polio vaccine, corona-virus vaccine.
What will history show about Google searches, encyclopedia look-ups, and other methods of seeking How To information.
I’d like to share a little food for thought, as it were, with everyone here – especially those in the “wear your mask, DAMMIT!” camp.
This study from 2019: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/ analyzed historical mortality statistics for seasonal flu, and came to the conclusion that on average 389,000 people die each year because of it. (Like everything else on the internet, every source has its own data and draws its own conclusions – but in this instance most of them are not far off from this number.) This number is important because it can be used as a control group: measures taken, apart from the vaccine, to curb the spread of Covid-19 will also curb the spread of seasonal flu, given the similarity of the viruses. By comparing the number of seasonal flu deaths for 2020 with the long-term average, we can measure how effective the travel restrictions, commerce restrictions, and sanitation regulations have been.
Given the widespread application of the regulations, the enthusiasm with which they were enacted and enforced, and the high rate of public compliance, we could reasonably expect that they would have driven down the rate of seasonal flu infection in proportion to the effectiveness of the methods themselves. The final tally of NON-COVID seasonal flu deaths for 2020 (available here: https://www.worldometers.info/ ) is 491,000. That’s a whopping 26% ABOVE the average of 389,000!
There’s no doubt at all in my mind that the experts studying the covid situation have noticed this. After all, they have just as much access to this information as I do. What is troubling me – and should be troubling everyone else, too – is this: the government regulations are obviously doing more harm than good, so why are they still being enforced? Can anyone answer that?
Sara,
Where are you getting the claim 10% of people who get Covid have long term damage? I’m genuinely curious, since if that’s true, it does rather significantly change the question of vaccine safety, but I can’t find anything I find reputable which says anything like that: there are definitely some people who have long term issues, but I’m not seeing it rising to 10% of infections.
@Patricia Mathews
“the best way to deal with psychopaths is to back away slowly smiling, and stay out of their way.”
Personally practical on a person to person basis. But they are very good at ending up in positions of Authority and Influence. That would make backing away far more difficult.
Steve- I was unable to verify your “Worldometer” figures for 2020, because I could only find 2021 data, so I looked here: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm, which seems likely to have higher-quality data in any case. According to CDC, seasonal influenza in the US is WAY DOWN in the 2020-2021 season, contrary to your claims. The chart for pediatric fatalities, for example, was between 100 and 200 in each of the three prior seasons, but there’s been just one this season. The number of “influenza-coded deaths” is practically invisible, relative to all causes, and especially COVID-19.
Now, this raises some questions in my mind. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid19-is-surging-but-flu-cases-are-down#Flu-vaccination-rates-this-year says that the flu is down because more people got the vaccine, and because the safety precautions we take for COVID are also crushing the flu. But we’re still only getting 53% of white people vaccinated, and overall only about 10% more than last year. So it’s hard to accept the vaccination rate. Is it masks, distance, and hand-washing? They can’t have it both ways: COVID is soaring, even if flu has been crushed. Maybe masks, distance, and hand-washing work against the flu, but not against COVID? On the other hand, maybe we’ve been fighting coronavirus infections for years, and just assumed that it was the flu, and now that there’s widespread testing, flu isn’t the threat we thought it was?
In the winter of 2019, I spent three days in bed with a flu followed by about 2 months of persistent coughing, which nothing seemed to be able to stop. The coughing was so bad it was giving me a headache. (If the same thing happened to me now I wouldn’t be able to go out in public as I’d be a pariah).
I had ‘long flu’. It turns out that ‘long flu’ is a well known phenomenon – https://swprs.org/post-acute-covid-long-covid/
So, it’s not surprising that a ‘new’ respiratory illness would have long-term symptoms.
FWIW, The Large Online Encyclopedia says 10% of people who test positive have symptoms for more than 3 weeks, and 2% of them are “long haulers”. But this last claim in the article is tagged “unreliable medical source”.
Per Scientific American, the percentage you get depends on how long it’s been after the initial infection.
Personally I wonder if some part of the virus is similar enough to a protein in our own bodies (as hinted at by the placenta discussion above) to trigger a kind of auto-immune syndrome after the virus itself is knocked out. Our immune system jumping at shadows, as it were, and hitting parts of our own body thinking they are the virus.
I asked my daughter to elaborate about hospital conditions. She works in a nursing home, but what she is hearing is that hospitals are full, supplies are inadequate, and nurses and Drs. are performing what amounts to wartime triage.
IDK if the Democrats stole the general election, but I doubt it because, as was said above, they would surely have also worked their alleged chicanery on behalf of down ballot candidates. A slew of Democratic challengers hand picked by Minority Leader Schumer, Israel’s man in DC, nearly all lost. If there had been a plot, Schumer would have been in on it, and would have demanded that his amen corner also benefit.
Anonymous, not sure if this reply will get put through so late in the week, but here is one source:
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-ons-release-on-estimating-the-prevalence-of-long-covid-symptoms-and-covid-19-complications/
“… The ONS data released today suggest that 1 in 10 people infected may have symptoms lasting for more than 12 weeks, i.e. long COVID…”
Actually, I should probably change my wording of “known risk” to “likely risk based on what we know so far”. Of ourse one really big unknown is when, or even if, these effects will eventually clear up.
I dunno about the vaccines being the biggest crack in consensus brewing – how’s this front elsewhere?
In Canada the storm breaking is about all the politicians and health authorities who took tropical vacations or traveled out of the country for family reasons over Christmas (which the rest of us are not allowed to do – not even a local funeral or visiting dying relative is allowed, so you certainly can’t go to another country for one. Single household only for Christmas).
This is typical: Ontario hospital CEO who vacationed in Dominican Republic resigns from health panels http://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5862449
Niki Ashton was the first to be outed, which is particularly salacious, since when she’d run her boosters tried to make her out like the Canadian AOC.
My husband just read me the headline “Tory MP currently out of the country resigns from ethics committee” oh man…
Bloodbath:
Alberta Make-A-Wish family who had to cancel Hawaii trip infuriated by UCP travel controversy http://www.google.com/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/7554239/alberta-make-a-wish-hawaii-trip-cancellation/amp/
(UCP are the governing social conservative, lower taxes for the rich, party).
The first local politician in Victoria to be outed was one of the explicitly social justice slate members. In his case, I wouldn’t call it hypocrisy, so much as he genuinely didn’t understand that there was a political angle to any of this. He followed the medical requirements for travel!
Tomorrow morning at the latest, the admitted travel records of every local, provincial and federal politician (and probably some tribal, as well as high ranking health authorities and civil servants) for the last year will be in the news. And the true records within a few days for anyone dumb enough to lie or not respond to the requests for info everyone got from a dozen papers in their inbox today.
>The U.S. was once (perhaps long ago) considered a beacon to the world in the area of human rights.
The next world power will be whoever markets themselves as a haven to flee to. And if nobody’s willing to do that, we may be looking at a Late Bronze Age type collapse.
>the government regulations are obviously doing more harm than good, so why are they still being enforced? Can anyone answer that?
Maybe the government hates the people they govern?
Anonymous and others re: masks,
I avoid masks as much as possible, because wearing one gives me hot flashes and makes me feel faint, something I had never, ever experienced before the mask craze.
There are plenty of well-done studies showing minimal benefits to mask wearing by the general public and a few that show negative health effects. One interesting article I stumbled across (can’t access the entire thing, probably available only to professionals who subscribe to that journal) is “The Effect of Wearing the Veil by Saudi Ladies on the Occurrence of Respiratory Diseases” in the Journal of Asthma from 2001. According to the abstract, “Veil wearing was practiced by 58% of the sample. Respiratory infections and asthma were significantly more common in veils users.” This, even though women who wear burquas and niqabs are warned that neither is effective as protection against Covid, because they are not fitted like masks and do not sufficiently restrict breath entering and exiting. It would be fair to examine whether or not people who must wear masks day after day for many hours at work also show increased incidence of respiratory issues, but if such a study were done and the results were politically incorrect, would the mainstream media report it? My bet is no.
In other news, our state health director, a real doctor, was asked at a recent press conference about the incidence of seasonal flu in Vermont this year. To paraphrase Dr. Levine, it is a mystery to him why there is so little flu. Most of us normal people would figure that flu is being reclassified as Covid this year, either because it’s hard to distinguish the two or it serves some political purpose, but he appeared to believe that all the mask wearing had prevented an outbreak of flu. That seems pretty miraculous, since the masks don’t appear to be doing all that good a job of preventing the surge in positive coronavirus tests. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not, but it all sounds like a lot of BS to me – and I raised three teen-age boys so I consider myself to be well practiced in the art of BS detection.
@steve on higher influenza worldwide:
That’s an interesting comparison you make. Unfortunately, following the link you gave to worldometers.info, the only number on flu I could find was 7227 seasonal flu deaths this year, which is obviously wrong. Assuming your number of 491 000 is correct, what intrigues me is that earlier on this thread Lathechuck and JMG were discussing the _lower_ numbers for influenza (in the USA, I presume). Total number of deaths in Europe also suggest that at least in Jan-Feb 2020, flu season was particularly mild. How to reconcile the two sets of numbers? Might a higher number of flu deaths be coming from countries with less social distancing?
I don’t know, but a breakdown by country would be essential for understanding what is going on.
Since the thread is continuing, and just to change the subject a bit, another commenter, Brian Kaller, has recently had a fascinating article published by the Front Porch Republic, where he highlights the wholesale disappearance of unsupervised and self-organised groups of playing children from our city streets and country byways in the space of a single generation. He draws on the insight of some scholarly works demonstrating the cultural riches which have thereby been lost. He does have one or two suggestions for “guerilla” rearguard actions, but, well, I recommend having a read yourselves…
https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2021/01/the-end-of-childhood-play/
Sara,
Thank you for the link! I’ll read it over once I have a little more time for it, but it does look like this could be a major issue.
Pixelated,
One of my friends who works in Parliament is furious over the fact it’s being reported Trudeau remained in the National Capital Region. Apparently, it’s an open secret his family went on vacation. When that breaks, it’ll very likely bring down a lot of things which we took for granted.
As for Nikki Ashton, I’m particularly incensed at that, since I have several elderly relatives who I’d like to visit, but have been unable to for months now, because they live in a different province. So for her to go to Greece to visit family, while we peasants are unable to travel between provinces, is particularly galling. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over the weeks and months ahead….
@Matthias Gralle
I’m not sure how you would think that worldometer’s numbers are “obviously” wrong. Are you comparing them to news reports in the mainstream media? Perhaps worldometer could share their sources with you – but you may need to belong to a university or government department before they’ll talk to you, especially if they’re to share accurate data.
As for the 7227 death count – that’s for only the first 5 1/2 days of this year. Extrapolating it to 365 days gives a figure of 479,600; not far off from last year’s total, which was around 490,600 when I checked it around mid-day on Dec. 31st.
And the flu season in Jan-Feb 2020 may very well have been a mild one: the lockdown nonsense didn’t get started until the end of March.
And don’t forget that reports in the mainstream media can no longer be trusted, especially about a hot-button issue like the “pandemic”. Remember the images of all those coffins in Italy last spring? They weren’t from covid or even from 2020 at all, they were archived footage from a shipwreck near Malta in 2013. But when the whistle blew about that bit of deception, there was no screaming match about fake news – the images just quietly disappeared from the newscasts.
I just did a count: about 46 mentions of “mask” as of 9:17. So I guess it’s not off-topic at this point. I think the 50% compliance, more or less, that we’ve achieved as a nation has given us the worst of both worlds: economic damage and a raging pandemic.
Onething,
According to my family, the fact that exposure to Covid does not result in immunity is why we need these fancy new vaccines: standard ones are limited if exposure to the infectious agent fails to give immunity, but not these new fancy MRA vaccines: they can overcome it!
It’s really weird realizing just how delusional my family has become…..
Re fewer cases of flu: one comment made was who would have thought that washing hands more often and going to bed when you are sick would decrease the spread of disease?
Re psychopaths: backing away while smiling is great advice and why would one not do that when leaving a boss? A psychopath boss would not regard that as odd behavior.
Steve – Is it possible that the Worldometer figures you saw showing increased flu were for the entire calendar year, 2020? The flu is most prevalent in mid-winter, so the Jan-Mar 2020 part of the 2019-2020 “flu season” (including those whose illness began in late 2019 but developed serious complications in early 2020) might have provided the big numbers you cite.
A while back, someone outlined a scenario much like what it appears we face: “Say it’s a close election, but then a bunch of D-party mail-in ballots are ‘discovered’ and Google and Facebook ban all complaints.”
Your response: “If that happens I think we’re probably in for civil war.”
Given what’s happening in DC right now, I think you were, once more, prophetic. I really, really hope I’m wrong, but it really looks like that’s where things are headed right now…..
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/102089.html?thread=11016905#cmt11016905
Hi JMG,
I haven’t had a chance to read through the comments yet, so apologies if this is already being mentioned to you, but you might find it amusing that the big story in Canada this week is government officials being publicly forced to resign after taking overseas Christmas vacations this year. The list keeps growing and growing! This is after most people cancelled even meeting up with their immediate families, thanks to government statements suggesting strongly to do so, due to 2nd wave concerns.
Also hope you enjoy your break!
Thanks,
Johnny
@Goldenhawk “The U.S. was once (perhaps long ago) considered a beacon to the world in the area of human rights”.
Only in their domestic PR, and inflated imagination of their own citizenry or in the third world / behind the iron curtain (which had a point, since they compared it to Stalinism).
Western Europeans in most of the 20th century, especially young ones, considered the US one of the worst human rights offenders, domestically (from slavery, McCarthyism, seggregation, E.J. Hoover, rampant police shootings, etc.) and globally (from Mosaddegh to Allende, and from the Vietnam war to J.W.Bush).
Not sure if the rest of JMG’s time off has a topic, so this may be off-topic, but…
events at the US Capitol today were very dramatic, and I’m wondering what people on here make of them.
pygmycory,
It’s one of the many many unknowns at this point: what it was, and what happens next….
@steve: my error for not realizing you were talking about 2020 and I saw the 2021 number. I am not at all saying the 490 000 number for 2020 is off, to the contrary, I am very interested in it. However, I do think the euromomo and CDC numbers are at least as reliable than worldometer, and that’s why I am thinking about possible explanations.
@Pygmycory re: the Capitol
I’m sympathetic, and it warms the cockles of my heart to think the electorate may still be able to strike fear into the hearts of the elected. But… so far it looks poorly organized and probably futile. I don’t think there was ever a real plan, there.
On the other hand, the Boston Tea Party was a bunch of colonial yokels dressing up as indians and tossing tea off of boats. They got organized later. So I’m not willing to write it off as insignificant just yet.
Info is still patchy, I’d like to know if any actual organized groups were involved. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess: could be the last gasp of the pro-Trump crowd and it all fizzles out now… could be we find out in ten years that this is where the upcoming revolutionary leaders all met each other and started bonding and corresponding.
re: long-term respiratory illness discussion: Things have improved for me in the last decade, but I used to get a killer flu once or twice a year. I’d catch it when everyone else did, everyone else would be over it in a week, and I’d get bronchitis and spend 6-8 weeks trying to hack up my lungs. On three occasions I fractured ribs, which tacked more weeks onto recovery. After all that, I’d be a wrung-out wreck. It took a while to get back up to normal physical capacity. Every dang year.
Clearly this was a case of the terrain, not the germ. I take better care of my diet and general health now, and the last couple of “flus” only took me down for a week or two.
One suspects at least a portion of the long-lasting covid sequelae may fall into the same category.
Anonymous at January 6, 2021 at 7:06 pm:
Wow…. I just re-read that comment thread. That conversation happened in September. The scenario described then looks more likely than ever now. Prescient even.
Those people at the Capitol were not your usual run-of-the-mill fringies– the woman who was shot to death was a 14-year Air Force veteran.
Wondering what small part I can play to help us all get through this.
@RaggenJRay:
Yes, I’m just beginning to understand that.
“I don’t know a soul that’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t have a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees…
But it’s all right, it’s all right
For we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
Road we’re traveling on
I wonder what’s gone wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong.”
Pixelated,
Here’s another one, this time a former US president. I wonder how messy it will get…..
https://people.com/politics/obamas-vacation-in-hawaii-for-the-holiday/
@Lady Cutekitten of LOLCat–
Re: reliability of books/printed information.
If memory serves, you can assess the reliability of a book (or website) with a Geomancy reading, using section V of the house chart for your assessment. Worth a try!
@TJ and the Bear–
re: Solar Power–
It _does_ have its limitations, but could be very useful in equatorial desert countries where sunlight is plentiful and strong, and fuel is scarce. Even if a solar oven or water distiller (for example) could only be used every other day, in a country where all the trees are rapidly being removed for fuel, low-tech solar can make a huge difference.
Augustin Mouchot, a French engineer in the 1860s to 1880s, surveyed the previous 2000 years of solar engineering and worked out most of the bugs for practical solar devices. If your French is good, you can read his 1869 first edition free, here:
https://archive.org/details/lachaleursolair00moucgoog/page/n9/mode/2up
The 1879 second edition has recently been translated into English, and is available in print, here:
https://www.amazon.com/Steampunk-Solar-Engineering-Age-Steam/dp/B088GKF31G
For the rest of us, orienting new houses and engineering them with the aim to make use of passive solar energy goes a long way towards reducing our use of all types of fuels. Not a complete energy solution, but possibly a piece of the puzzle for many of us.
@Ganv
re: Masks and oxygenation
I worked full-time for 15 years in industrial medical clean rooms where we made sterile IV medications for use in hospitals. All of us wore masks all day long, and we did not get brain damage. And, BTW, these same blue 3-ply masks were standard medical equipment in such places precisely because they are very effective at interrupting the stream of particles and contaminated moisture that humans emit while breathing.
It is easy to test whether your mask is lowering your oxygen intake though– Most pharmacies sell fairly cheap Pulse Oximeters. You put a finger into this small device, and it uses light to measure the oxygen saturation in your blood. Last time I checked, they were about $35.00, so if you and 6 friends want to check your blood oxygen, $5 each. I have a pulse ox that is working fine 10 years after I bought it.
@Steve
re: Flu Deaths vs. COVID deaths.
I did an analysis of flu death data in Quebec recently, compared it to COVID, and drew some conclusions. If anyone is interested, you can find it on my Very Boring Blog, here:
http://jackmanassas.blogspot.com/2020/10/to-expect-from-covid-lot-of-numbers-are.html
@Cicada Grove
re: Emmanuel Goldstein and Trotsky
Yep, Goldstein is an interesting sub-plot within 1984!. Within that story, there are hints that he worked hard to establish Big Brother in power, realized that he had helped to create a monster, and was powerless to prevent Big Brother from using Goldstein’s opposition to further Big Brother’s monstrosity. As you pointed out, this was pretty close to Trotsky’s life experience–a well-meaning if violent fellow who turned out to be wrong about almost all of the things he deeply believed.
Oddly, I have found myself playing the Goldstein role two or three times in my real life so far, so it was a natural avatar for me.
Soren Kierkegaard (a theologian) used to create personas with their own names that each held a consistent set of views about one issue or another. He would then let these personas interact with each other (and sometimes the public in journals or the papers) to see where they took him. Selecting an online avatar can serve the same purpose, if you are looking into something new and are not sure how you feel about it. I think that JMG does this with characters in his stories–and sometimes they surprise him!
On avatar-selection generally–
I would advise anyone to choose an avatar with the same name as a minor literary or historical figure. This is a mechanism to help guard your privacy: If anyone tries to Google ‘Emmanuel Goldstein,’for example, they will get some results that relate to me, but most of them will be about the Emmanuel Goldstein character in Orwell’s ‘1984.’ Not a perfect solution but helpful.
@Pygmycory: I thought Mitt Romney’s statement about it was eloquent, quoted in part here: “We gather today due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of his supporters whom he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning,” Romney said. “What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States.”
@ pygmycory
Re DC
As a constitutionalist, I am profoundly disturbed. This is yet one more chink in the foundation, one more severed thread of our badly-fraying social fabric. I fear that, once again, people will mistake Trump for a cause, rather than a symptom, and the underlying issues which brought us to this point will remain unaddressed and will continue to fester. I voted for Trump because his policies, such as they were, were better for the future of the nation than those Biden offers, which are only going to worsen our situation in this imperial decline. But the Constitution is more important than any election, for without it we have no country. The protesters stopped nothing but caused considerable damage to what remains of this republic. I fear that the response to these events will miss their true meaning and will likely further exacerbate the situation. We need the likes of George Washington–who valued the Republic to such a degree that he dissuaded the Army from marching on Congress and who voluntarily surrendered his commission at the height of his power–and all we have are the present crop of useless politicos and their hangers-on. Ce n’est pas bon.
@Lathechuck
Those figures were indeed for the entire year. But since we spent about 80% of the year under curfew, the tally – even if it wasn’t the lowest ever on record – should at very least been below average, but it wasn’t. It was way up on the high end of the scale.
The big red flag with this statistic though, isn’t so much the magnitude of the number as the fact that nobody is talking about it. The silence on that matter is deafening.
Re: Events at the Capitol.
I pray for peace.
May there be peace.
Among friends and neighbours, may there be peace.
In families, communities, neighbourhoods, towns, cities, may there be peace.
In hearts, minds, spirits, may there be peace.
In the country that gave me birth and among those of its people who know me and claim me, may there be peace.
@pygmycory I’ve been holding onto this quote for just this day:
“Without arguing the point as to whether a state can survive without compelling its subjects to accept as Absolute Truth whatever system of belief the dominant elite may have decided to put forth as divine revelation…where once allowed to prevail, it only grows in force and terror as the violated, coerced factors become increasingly intractable through the operation of a second natural law, namely, that gods suppressed become demons; which is to say, that psychological and sociological factors neither assimilated nor recognized by the consciously controlled system become autonomous and must ultimately break the approved system apart. ”
-Joseph Campbell, p.405 Occidental Mythology
Well Archdruid, it looks like Biden will get the star forecast you had on your other site. Should be interesting to see how he handles it. Odds on Kamala being president by April?
Some proposals, together with the supporting peer-reviewed evidence basis for each, for protocols aimed at preventing and/or pre-emptively treating Covid-19, especially for those who are highly vulnerable and/or highly exposed. From a website titled “Swiss Policy Research”. On an initial review, it looks soundly evidenced, and might provide a good starting basis for discussions with one’s doctor, perhaps…
https://swprs.org/on-the-treatment-of-covid-19/
Cicada Grove, without more information on what you can do, no one can say what you can do to help get through this.
I suggest that 2021 will look much like 2020 for most of us, only more. Money will be worth less than it was, finished goods and raw materials will be scarcer unless you can supply them yourself. If you’ve a remaining Great Depression or WWII relative or any re-enactors, or third world immigrants, in your circle, they can teach you something useful. Brush up on your first aid, particularly that which needs no purchased supplies, and be prepared for the official safety net to not be there for you and yours, whether hospital, courthouse, police, power grid, or welfare office.
*is kicking herself for not buying that loom two years ago*
@Phutatorious
Mitt Romney is a shill. First off, what elegant statement did he make when the Antifa/BLM goons make when they were tussling with the secret service in front of the White House? Did that amount to an insurrection? I guarantee you most Trump voters didn’t need him to tell them that the election was getting stolen on the night of November 4th. I just want to know what you think a stolen election would look like if that wasn’t it? Or do you think that’s simply impossible here or anywhere else — Note: our own **** government supported the overturning an election in Bolivia in 2018 because of returns that came one day later, not three and a half. I am sure you were reading something in Latin at the time.
Let me spell it out for you, oh learned scholar. This was a successful Color Revolution, and now the country is merely the first colony of the Empire it has birthed in Washington. The Unpredictable Demagogue has been banished but the Imperial Treasury is nearly empty — we will be hailing Caesar soon enough. I can only hope that by then Romney receives that fate which he deserves and those like you are learning the real life lessons that come with calluses.
Whatever Trump’s followers decide to do, whatever the frustrated mobs decide to do, what we’ve seen is the ignominious exit of a charismatic tyrant who fell apart when things got real, and whose very Vice President and his untra-conservative new Justice have drawn a hard line under what he wants and have said “No way.” Because in the end, there was a lot less to him than met the eye. A competent tyrant has to also be an able ruler, and alas, this guy was no such thing.
To new Dr. Grumpy readers: his posts are but a shadow of his former glory. He’s been blogging for many years, he may be running out of topics. Go back and read his old stuff. You’ll love it.
A propos the Capitol breach, yes, it seems we just entered “into the unknown region”…
I think the 50% compliance, more or less, that we’ve achieved as a nation has given us the worst of both worlds: economic damage and a raging pandemic.
Yes, if we’d have had either no lockdown and/or 0% compliance we’d be in much better shape per the data that’s been available since the beginning, but that’s not the PC position.
—
@Emmanuel Goldstein
I’m working on acquiring an off-grid property and solar definitely figures into it — it’s definitely a micro or local solution. Long-term macro-wise it simply doesn’t pencil out, just like wind doesn’t.
Hi JMG and all,
Seems that Orange Julius at the end, yesterday, “Crossed the Potomac”, but at the same time had to say “Tu quoque Pence fili mi!” when he thought was “stabbed in the back” by the VP. I think it was not the “right” time and Trump was not the “right” man that could change the outcome, 10 years later I think a more tough bonapartist figure may be would act more like the 18 Brumaire.
I think this will be the wave of the future because if you read all the MSM in the western countries, they say the recipe for the future is to “crush” any form of populism, to censor it, in all media and social platforms, any kind of populism, so any social movement that go against the TINA will be banned, as in some kind of global new Congress of Vienna, and to double down in the same “right” policies, cause they think they can stop/control History….
People around me are betting how many years the orange man will wear an orange suit, and I think may be they are not very wrong, at the end. …Vae Victis!
Cheers
David
Pixelated,
The mainstream media is now attacking those of us who are irritated by Obama’s Hawaii vacation, because he grew up there. What’s amazing is that I think people genuinely believe that; likewise, in the Canadian context, the CBC radio aired a segment this morning criticizing people for attacking Nikki Ashton, since “she was showing compassion to her family.”
The fact that I know people who’s family members are dying in another town and are being told by our provincial government they are not allowed to visit just makes this even more volatile and explosive……
First time poster, long time reader. I just saw this on Yahoo: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/astrology-inauguration-day-tell-us-194555840.html.
I know this should be on the previous week’s post (The Grand Mutation), but this one is more active at the moment. Here are the last 2 paragraphs:
“Yet Biden seems uniquely astrologically positioned to take on this conflict. He was born with a Saturn-Uranus conjunction, which translates to having a powerful will and being ambitious and creative. It’s in Gemini, too, which could speak to his ability to deftly communicate in order to achieve his aims. And because Biden’s Saturn and Uranus are conjunct Harris’ rising in Gemini, they’ll work together to champion individuality, open-mindedness, and powerful change.
That said, it appears as though this volatile, albeit powerful, Inauguration Day is setting the stage for an intense, game-changing presidency. But by looking at the new POTUS and VPOTUS’ natal charts, it’s apparent that if anyone is up for the challenges the next four years will present, it’s Biden and Harris.”
We’re saved! We’re saved!!
Everybody, Thanks for the comments. The USA isn’t my country and the mainstream media has it’s limitations, so I can’t always trust that I’m getting the full picture even if I can see into the US from my living room window. I do care about what is happening, and yesterday was impossible not to notice.
More locally, a tiny protest of Trump supporters happened last night in Vancouver, and a CBC photographer got punched for filming it. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/violence-protest-vancouver-photographer-assaulted-1.5864160
@Scotlyn, yeah, I’ve been praying about this too.
@DavidbytheLake. That is pretty similar to what I was thinking. Trump is a symptom of decline, not a primary cause of decline. I was reminded of the late roman republic and how Julius Caesar in particular would egg his street-level followers on, with resulting violence. Not that I can really see Trump doing a Caesar at this point.
I am really sad to see democracy in the USA has deteriorated so badly that the USA is experiencing this level of division and rage. I keep hoping things will improve, and they keep getting worse.
re. Canada’s political class travelling in 2020
Yes. “Do as I say, not as I do,” in action.
The BC provincial-level politicians seem fairly clear of this so far (I heard that premier Horgan had been planning to travel, then thought better of the idea and cancelled it, and told others to do likewise, good for him if so). Unfortunately we had travellers in local municipal politicians, and the national ones, and the provincial ones in Alberta, and other provinces I know less about.
This includes the director of UBC’s school of population and public health.https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/peter-berman-ubc-travel-pandemic-1.5864330 Headdesk. Seriously, didn’t any of these people think?
Doesn’t mean that the restrictions aren’t necessary, but if you’re going to ask the entire population to make sacrifices, you need to make them too. I am very tired of the attitude that this sort of thing is ok, and I think it is endemic in the political class.
Re: riot in DC. As far as I have heard, the mob only did damage to the Capitol Building, and the riot did not spill over into local businesses. There were some smoke-producing devices, but nothing burned. There are reports of two pipe-bombs having been found, near the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee, but no word on whether they caused damage, whether they exploded, or whether they were even capable of explosion. Some participants had a few firearms, but the only story I’ve heard about shots being fired were by a police officer, killing a protester in the Capitol Building. I would like to know what fraction of the crowd entered the Capitol, or engaged with police, vs. how many were content to wave their flags from the surrounding area.
One of the things I’ve learned, though this election process, is that each state is responsible for the integrity (or lack thereof) of its election. When people from Texas, among others, appealed to the Supreme Court regarding irregularities in Pennsylvania, the Court dismissed the complaint as “lacking standing”. That is, Texans could not have been injured by fraud in Pennsylvania, so whether it was fair or fraud, so it was up to the political leaders in PA to investigate whether or not fraud was committed (to the alleged benefit of their candidate). Nobody seems to have had much interest in doing that, for some reason.
Regarding events at the capital, I’m strongly reminded of the ‘unite the right’ rally for a number of reasons. Both reek of astroturf.
I remember a post on here a while back entitled ‘the flight to the fringes’ in which Grampa Greer suggested that Trump’s base was adopting a more mainstream and reasonable set of policies, fashions and beliefs than were present among the Kek-worshipping weirdos who meme’d him into office. I think that’s true – incidentally, I think it’s the major reason Trump lost this time around. The mainstream, after all, already knows how it’s voting, to be willing to change one’s vote at all pretty much consigns a person to the fringes these days.
Where I see a parallel to today is my perception that this shift didn’t happen entirely organically. In regards to Trump cutting ties with the more fringe elements of his own coalition, someone here speculated whether there might be a ‘night of long tweets’ in which he told the Kek-worshippers where to go. I’m fairly sure that to the degree that there was a watershed moment, the unite the right rally was it. Some of you may remember that around that time there were multiple very public street battles between the Populist Right and the Radical Left. Prior to the unite the right rally, the Populist Right was noteworthy for its strange costumes – people clearly put work into looking unique, and the effect was about as different from Antifa/Black Block’s uniforms as it’s possible to be. After the Unite the right rally, the only thing remarkable piece of clothing worn by any Trump supporter caught on video was the omnipresent red cap. The bison headdress the photogenic participant in last night’s activities wore is the first time since then I’ve seen something truly weird being worn at one of these events.
The shift goes beyond what photographs make it into the press though. Since at least late 2016, the Chans have had an element of people trying to game their status as leading cultural indicators by influencing what gets airtime there. While it’s impossible to be sure whether any given post there has an organized agenda behind it, seen in aggregate on can make educated guesses. When there’s an astroturf campaign in progress, a lot of people suddenly sound the same. That happened to an extreme degree after Charlottesville, the message was fairly clear – no more fringe behaviour, if you’re going to be a militia be well-kept, no brawling in the street without looking middle-class. I remember the snobbery of the tone in particular, small wonder there were fewer meme magicians interfering with the Biden campaign.
And that slightly eerie sameness of tone was present again last night. The people who all sounded like they were reading variants of the same script were clearly in favour of violent (but unarmed!) insurrection, while the posters who came across as thoughtful and creative were clearly not buying it. So while I’d be hesitant to say what exactly it was, I’m pretty confident it was not a grassroots movement.
Well, while our gracious host is taking this season off from reviewing and making predictions, I’m not yet accomplished enough at divination to do that, so here are my ‘five tensions’ predictions from last year:
-Fungi will continue to rise in prominence in the biosphere. Some humans will notice, but communication will be slow
I”ll call this one a miss, Colerado’s steps towards legalizing Psylocin therapy notwithstanding. While it’s possible I was simply one of the humans who didn’t notice, I was keeping an eye out for it and saw less fungus-related news this year than last. I think my error was not foreseeing how much 2020’s themes would be around a shift from earth to air, or how that would affect the prospects of an organism that exists mostly underground.
-The Abrahamic religions will have a quiet year, dominated by internal work and contemplation more than any overt show of action.
I’ll call this a hit – the only news related to the Abrahamic religions I recall from this year is Iran’s early and intense trouble with Covid and the ongoing war in Yemen, neither of which are really all that religious.
-The great debate between ‘more moderation’ and ‘more free speech’ in public forums will see a swing in public sentiment towards the ‘more moderation’ side, which will happen hand-in-hand with a rise in analogue, curated communities as an alternative to the ‘public square’ model offered by the tech monopolies. Alternative voices like Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin will grapple with technical issues as they try to create their own analogue alternatives to the big markets. Progress in this area will be slower when working against than working with the big players, but there’ll be enough pull that alternative media will be a net importer of talent.
I’ll call this one a hit as well – mostly because Gordon White’s eleventh-hour fully-encrypted messenger app for his premium members is so spot-on in my prediction of alternative voices grappling with tech, albeit successfully in his case.
-Team Red will make gains against Team Blue, what defines the two will be more confusing than ever. Existing territory will be the biggest predictor of who shakes out where, but momentum will be reversed in key areas. It will still be unfashionable to be a woman on Team Red, but there will be more early adopters.
This one was so spot-on I’m tempted to call it a miss for underestimating the scope of things. The influx of capital and talent to rural areas from urban in the wake of lockdowns in big cities has been immense. Then there’s news of California losing some very popular figures to Texas, Elon Musk and Joe Rogan probably being the most high-profile. As for girls and women defecting to Team Red, I’d say the continued growth of Cottagecore is decent evidence that these trends are continuing.
-Globalist Environmentalists will agree more closely than ever that something must be done about the ecology, but find themselves unable to enforce any of the legislation they could pass. Ray Dalio will call them all idiots again and tell them they need to find a populist to sell their message. They’ll quietly agree, but their search for talent will be frustrated by the need for consensus.
This one’s another miss. The Crowned Corvid proved far more charismatic than Swedish Jeanne D’arc could have hoped to be, and now we’re all shouting ‘How dare you!?’ whenever a public figure takes a plane.
-Also one prediction close to home – the advent of peak oil in Canada will play havoc with the economy and make Alberta and the rest of Canada even more toxically codependent. The level of vitriol will surprise Canadians East of the Prairies and West of the Rockies. The Liberal government will appoint a committee.
This one’s a miss, though the advent of peak oil seems to have arrived on schedule – negative prices for crude were one of the stranger things we got to witness last year. However, the politicians who would have normally ginned up that codependence to lap at spilled blood seem distracted by eating their own. Albertans, in a show of practicality that I feel I owe an apology for not foreseeing, are doing what the rest of Canada has been doing for decades and heading for greener pastures. My condolences to those selling their houses at a loss, but the other provinces will certainly benefit from the influx of work ethic.
Well, that’s it for my 2020 predictions! 3/6 isn’t great, but that’s why we practise. I’m less excited about the five tensions model than I was a year ago, but I’ll give it another go for 2021.
-Death. This is a little disturbing to get so clearly right off the bat, but a real feast for crows moment. Life in retreat. Glad I live near the oceans already. Also glad that my hit rate is only about 50% with this method.
-But also hope. The light of Erendil in a dark place. A password whispered when the hearer feels most alone. A guiding light. Between this and the last prediction, it’s as though Cthulhu rises from the oceans and starts strangling, but King Arthur also walks out of a barrow, asking for a drink of water.
-And speaking of water, it will be a dryer year than we’ve had in a while – one leading to famine that leads to the death on the first path maybe? Not enough for combustion, but a few more like that and a spark anywhere will be all it takes.
-By year’s end Team Red will be completely unrecognizable by traditional political analysts. It won’t be pushed to violence, but it will have nowhere left to retreat to. There will still be too much water to produce any spice worth the name.
-Life will take over the oceans – not really sure how that’s possible but… maybe it refers to a reversal or displacement of the oceanic die-offs we’ve seen for a while. The ‘Cthulhu rises from the depths’ imagery does almost imply that death was in the oceans and is coming to land. Or perhaps the oceans are metaphorical, and we will all be treating the subconscious mind as the living things that it is? That makes more sense really. Disturbed as I am by the first image I’m reminded of Shakespear’s immortal lines, ‘To sleep, to dream perchance’.
Well, many thanks for the forum. Hope to see you all here again next year.
Pygmycory,
I wonder if that event won’t be our equivalent to the Storming the Bastille…..
Emmanuel Goldstein:
Re avatar selection– That’s a neat suggestion, never thought of that, thank you!
I enjoyed your Jack Manassas post about coronavirus vs flu numbers. But I must point out that in the early part of the year, test kits were scarce, so only the worst cases got tested for coronavirus. Thus the death rate looked higher in those months. I have noticed the same effect in my own county (the Health Department has a very good, informative site) as I track my local numbers over time.
Graham, thanks for the link to the January 20 astrology reading!
I liked comparing her take to JMG’s reading. The ‘Moon void of course’ remarks were interesting, as were those comparing Biden’s and Harris’ natal charts to the Inauguration chart. I still don’t want to be anywhere near DC on that day, though.
Greencoat: I agree about the strangeness around the January 6 mess.
This post
features photos of “Bison Headdress Guy” being at an Arizona BLM rally in June, and at a climate activism event in 2019. Pictures of the people inside the Capitol show one with a hammer-and-sickle tattoo on one hand, and another being ID’d as a member of Philly Antifa. The poster believes that Antifa were allowed to enter the Capitol (and even guided around inside) in order to put paid to the Republicans’ planned protest of the election… which is exactly what happened.
Has anyone else given thought of the weird way in which one of the reasons Coronavirus vaccines are hard to make, that they risk inducing cytokine storms where the immune system goes haywire and overreacts in an attempt to eradicate a virus, oddly mirrors the way we’ve destroyed so much in the past year in the name of fighting a virus?
It would be a perverse way for the micro and macrocosms to mirror each other, if the vaccine which plays such a large part in our efforts, induced cytokine storms in large numbers…..
This is how the world will probably end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnNO78Y4QqU
As Karl Marx said, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, and then as farce.
Events in the US seem to be proving Herr Marx right. First, there was the Stalinism on the supposed left, primarily on college campuses, only without any firing squads or labor camps. And this business at the Capitol: was that supposed to be the storming of the Bastille? Only no guillotines seem to be popping up.
History is long, of course, and the US may yet have its tragedy. For the time being, though, the whole thing looks rather farcical.
For us to have a president like Washington, we would have to be willing to vote for someone like Washington. I doubt he was someone you would want to have a beer with, nor did he have a beautiful wife. And, I believe, he spoke his mind, when he spoke at all, and did not concern himself about whom he might offend.
I am no fan of DT, but it has been painful to watch the progressive deterioration of a formerly clever and wily man. Over the past 3-4 months there have been a series of missteps and poor decisions. It began with the election in Bolivia. This administration has not one single successful coup to its’ credit. No wonder the military industrial complex decided he had to go. Biden doubtless gave the required assurances. DT was counting on the Supreme Court, in case the voters were unimpressed this time around, so what did he do but send over a charming but unqualified Associate Justice, essentially a grad student whom Roberts is going to have to mentor. From the terseness of the SC’s refusal to take up alleged election fraud cases, I gather that the Chief Justice is not a happy camper. Not to mention DT ignored the Georgia runoffs, even though he must have been told that the Georgians were restless, having cookouts, and talking to the neighbors and registering voters. Not to mention insulting the Gov. and Sec State of that same state, forgetting that those two officials will someday have to face Georgia voters, who have made it known that they won’t stand for their votes not being counted.
Steve – Extrapolating the number of influenza cases reported in the first five days of 2021 to the whole year while assuming that every day is the same ignores the seasonal nature of, ahem, “seasonal influenza”. Here in the northern hemisphere, flu peaks in January and disappears in March, only to re-appear in December. COVID restrictions were imposed in March, too late to have any impact on the 2019-2020 flu season.
The reason “nobody’s talking about” the widespread severity of the flu right now is simply because the official figures don’t indicate widespread severe flu. (As I said before, though, I’m not sure that it’s being diagnosed and/or reported accurately, but we’re both talking about the interpretation of reported figures, not personal experience or alternative data.)
A friend i worked with in the past sent a text yesterday gloating essentially about the women who was shot and killed at the washington….whatever it was. “lets ask ashli how well her tweet has aged. Oh wait we can’t…..” to which i replied you’re messed up dude. He didn’t respond for a few moments and then said “yes the one sitting quietly in his home not the terrorists breaking into our govt buildings, to which i replied “So what is different then what went on the rest of this year? Cheering for people dying, not what normal people do” and here is where his thinking is “Um protesting unjustified killings is a lot diff then rioting bc your president lost. I don’t condone vandalizing business establishments but breaking into govt buildings is a whole other level. Also sad that you don’t see the difference but also not surprised”
I left him with “yeah i guess so, everyone has god on their side.” Sigh, this is going to end poorly. If you do not concede to all the left believes to be true and right they automatically lump you in with the enemy. Even if you never voted for trump. Dangerous times dead ahead.
This mask report is quite thorough and informative
https://themodelhealthshow.com/maskfacts/
Cleric of progress,
I’m not sure it was a quiet year for Abrahamic religion. We saw a pretty open suppression of Christianity this year with a rather disappointing lack of resistance from the churches. Also some good fight among some Jews in NY city.
Patricia Matthews,
I sadly agree that Trump appears not to have been an able ruler, but in what way have you seen him as a tyrant?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P5b-s5hs7Q
You want a perfect prefab world
Where the boy always gets the girl
But the world’s not really like that
Where knights in armor slay the beast
And every peasant gets a feast
But I don’t want a world that’s like that
Cause if the beast has a heart and the peasant has none
Your equalizer’s come undone
Now what’s left to do when every wish always comes true?
And what’s great to me won’t seem so great to you
There’d be no saints if every heart was overflowing
There’d be nothing to learn if everyone was all-knowing
Well it’s a worthy crusade but I won’t cheer the parade of the equalizer
100 smiles make a frown mean more
There’s no equalizer
Off the lines in factory
Cookie cutter mentality
Well the world’s already like that
And I’m sorry if you disagree but that’s the point
It takes a bit of piss to put the spice in victory
Greencoat, the “the major reason Trump lost this time around” was not the “mainstream” turning against him, but industrial scale voter fraud in the key counties in the key states. I am frankly amazed at Americans who are more than willing to turn a blind eye to this! It seems to me that Americans think voter fraud is ok as long as their preferred candidate wins. That is why they proudly announced they voted for Biden 30 times and encourage others to do so (to quote some anecdotal evidence by the commentators here). I guess it’s a cultural thing (I’m not American). It reminds me of the Bowie lyrics – he would have been 74 the other day.
I’m afraid of Americans
I’m afraid of the world
I’m afraid I can’t help it
I’m afraid I can’t
Mary Bennett, you say “This administration has not one single successful coup to its’ credit” as if it’s a bad thing!? Gotta keep the Empire going at all costs, right?
I’m afraid of Americans
I’m afraid of the world
I’m afraid I can’t help it
I’m afraid I can’t
PS. I wonder if JMG is popping his popcorn now?
From “The King in Orange” to “The Emperor has no Clothes” in a single day. With the Titanic sinking and the ratlines crowded with fugitives from the hold getting off the ship as fast as possible.
@ Graham (1/7/2021, 4:34 pm) – Did the article say saved from what?
@ JMG – Thank you for your thought provoking essays and for being a wonderful host.
To All – Best wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2021 – and may every challenge and difficulty become a stepping stone rather than a stumbling block.
@Anonymous , Pygmycory: not the Bastille. Possibly the Reichstag fire.
Normally I agree with your take on pretty much everything, JMG, but I think you are in error in suggesting that there was “even more than the usual evidence of election irregularities.” I’m actually kind of surprised that you would suggest this, as no one has been able to come up with any evidence that would convince even the conservative judges that Trump himself put in place. I’m under no illusions that Biden will be able to fix everything, or even anything, especially after the Far right has been emboldened by Wednesday’s activities. But let’s at least keep it all real.
Commentariat + vacationing Druids,
Today someone told me about how asymptomatic spread caused 60% of all cases. I looked up the study cited by the countless news articles https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774707?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=010721 . It screams noosophy (sp?). It’s not actually a study at all, just some model. In the write up of it in the methods section, they describe exactly how they just come up with assumptions for various figures without any reasoning for it. In another section, they outright say the study had no quantitative meaning. Just “ctrl/cmd f” the word “assumption” and “quantitative” if you don’t want to read the whole thing.
Sorry for the somewhat low effort write up, but I think my point is clear.
Doesn’t mean that the restrictions aren’t necessary, but if you’re going to ask the entire population to make sacrifices, you need to make them too. I am very tired of the attitude that this sort of thing is ok, and I think it is endemic in the political class.
They know the restrictions aren’t necessary. Actions speak far louder than words.
—
The DC commotion is the very definition of making a mountain of a molehill. The BLM/Antifa riots earlier in the year were far more threatening & destructive yet were summarily downplayed. The fact that some folks ventured into the halls of Congress was more illustrative of the Durkan/Lightfoot hypocrisy wherein leftist politicians only care about law & order when their own premises are the subject of protests.
—
By year’s end Team Red will be completely unrecognizable by traditional political analysts.
They’ll for sure be struggling to find a central unifying figure, but Team Blue will be fractured entirely. Now that the WH, HoR & Senate are all Dem the progressives will demand that their entire agenda be shoved down America’s throats. That won’t happen — note already Manchin’s objection to a paltry $2K stimulus — and the riots will restart with renewed vigor. Meanwhile, the depression that’s been papered over since 2009 will hit with full force and Biden will bear the blame. Should they manage full-on MMT that’ll only accelerate the decline. Team Blue pandered themselves into a **** sandwich that’ll mortally wound them for a generation.
Personally I want to see an entirely new team, and perhaps one will rise above this year’s ashes. The donkeys and elephants are FUBAR.
I tried posting this earlier but didnt seem to take. My apologies if it shows up twice…
@ Cicada Grove re “Pictures of the people inside the Capitol show one with a hammer-and-sickle tattoo
on one hand, and another being ID’d as a member of Philly Antifa.”
Actually the alleged tattoo was really a symbol from the video game series Dishonored. If you
scroll down far enough on the link below, there’s an enlargement of the protesters hand showing
what the tattoo actually looks like.
https://www.bbc.com/news/55572805
The same article also mentions there was no evidence of antifa supporters. The whole thing
looks like a mainly disorganized group of rowdies bent on intimidation. There was no real
organization and a number of the rioters seemed more interested in putting on a show than
actually trying to take over the Capitol and occupy it. The guy with the horned headdress
looked he watched Braveheart a million times and another just paraded around with a confederate
flag. Nobody seemed to have any real purpose and so nothing was accomplished except to get
several people killed.
If their goal was to get Trump to stay in the White House, they failed miserably, hardening the
attitudes of the Senate and giving Mitt Romney et al chances to give impressive sounding speeches.
I suspect the majority of people who came to DC hoping to keep Trump in office demonstrated peacefully
and are probably bitterly disappointed their efforts got crushed by a small but violent group.
Nothing was solved and nobody’s happy.
Arthur Vibert – You need to parse the responses of the various judges who have rejected the fraud claims carefully. The Supreme Court said that the possibility of fraud in Pennsylvania was not something that the plaintiffs had legal standing to dispute (regardless of the evidence). The Attorney General said that there was no evidence of widespread fraud at a level sufficient to change the result, which leaves room for more fraud than usual. And why would a well-designed fraud leave proof to be discovered? What we know, is that “health precautions” prevented the usual oversight of poll watchers from being effective, and that even so, poll watchers were sent away when the counting was suspended… then the counting resumed. This does not prove fraud, but it certainly doesn’t prove accuracy. We also know that ballot “correction” procedures varied from one district to another, in ways that were biased toward Biden/Harris. (These corrections prevented ballots from being discarded in some areas that would have been rejected elsewhere, regardless of the way the vote was cast.) And a computer security expert demonstrated “hacking in” to a voting machine which was thought to be securely isolated from the Internet. Again, not proof of fraud, but problematic.
CNN is now giving airtime to people advocating for the expulsion of all members of Congress who voted in favour of the electoral college challenges. I can’t see it working, but if it’s attempted, this would make an already volatile situation that much worse; as would any effort to impeach Donald Trump at this point, which is another one being brandied about…..
Patricia Mathews,
This was a narrow miss, next time we’re not going to be so lucky.
Since oil and other fossils are finite and emit carbon, the plan is to electrify society with batteries. But doh! Minerals used in batteries are finite too. And dependent on fossil-fueled transportation and manufacturing from mining trucks, to smelter, to fabrication, to delivery.
Batteries use many rare, declining, single-source country, and expensive metals. They consume more energy over their life cycle, from extraction to discharging stored energy, than they deliver. Batteries are an energy sink with negative EROI, which makes wind, solar, and other intermittent sources of electricity energy sinks as well.
http://energyskeptic.com/2021/battery-minerals-rare-declining/
No, Bridge, I don’t hold with coups, but am a true believer in minding one’s own business. I guess I am not so good at sarcasm. It did seem like DT began to come unraveled right around the time of the Bolivia election.
I think he lost for two reasons ( or lost enough ground to make theft possible, as some insist), one being the virus and the other being what I would call death by a thousand cuts. Americans expect a president to be on top of a natural disaster, both in terms of moral leadership and of appointing the right people to the right jobs. Maria wiping out Puerto Rico was bad enough, and after that came the virus, and the President seemed to be MIA for both. Also, enough persons had enough reasons, or thought they did, to dislike him, that the combined total of their votes tipped the scales for the other side. Add to that the serious organizing and voter registration by some of the left organizations, like DSA, and DT lost an election he ought to have been able to win. I truly thought he would pull out a win, and that the Dems would take the Senate.
The recent Wuhan study in Nature couldn’t find any asymptomatic transmission at all:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19802-w
After DT was pushed off Twitter, it was reported that he opened an account on the smaller social media Parler system. I’ve woken today to the news that Parler has been removed from the Google Play store and Apple is also threatening removal from the iPhone.
@Bridge Despite this there is some insight in the PMC part of the population as to where this leads. The Hacker News site surely represents the darkest part of the jungle where office fauna (JMGs phrase – I’m a proud example) lurk. Here is one comment quoting another on today’s news….
“Great and relevant comment from nicbou in the other thread:[0]
Someone brought an interesting perspective in another thread and I can’t shake it off. The other side keeps deplatforming them. Their legal cases are rejected. The mainstream media refuses to take them seriously. We’re not even listening to them, because it’s science and they’re *ists if they disagree. We’re not debating anymore. We just assume we’re right.”
And
“We are slowly squeezing a significant segment of the population out of public debate, and they are powerless to stop it. Is it surprising that they are furious about it, and explode in unpredictable ways? Wouldn’t you do the same?”
Such attitudes are vanishingly rare though. What happens when a large part of a country completely loses faith in ordinary politics. I think the West is close to finding out.
Andy
@Arthur Vibert
You wrote “…no one has been able to come up with any evidence that would convince even the conservative judges that Trump himself put in place…”, no doubt in reference to the recent Supreme Court decision.
But the Court ruled that the State of Texas had “no standing” to object to allegations of voting fraud in other states, and dismissed the case without reviewing the evidence that was submitted.
I think JMG predicted that Donald Trump was on the path from Hod to Tiphareth. Well, here’s how his followers are responding to his banishment from Twitter:
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1347677541042171908
https://twitter.com/WhlteHovse/status/1347731368734715906
Mary Bennett: “This administration has not one single successful coup to its’ credit.”
Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
It seems to me that the Capitol issue is more close to the Munich Putsch of 1923 than to the 1789 Bastille, it was much closer to a charade than a coup, and it gave a good opportunity to the establishment to get rid of trumpism, but the over-reaction will make things much worse, as in 1923; they are censoring all the trumpism accounts and pushing for impeachment of the POTUS and probably will try to push for a new tough “domestic terrorism” law, all of this is giving new live to the trumpism, that was really finished after Trump fatal error on wednesday inciting the riots.
The next move will be, probably, a cyber civil war, where the angry alt-right hackers will attack the social platforms that are trying to silence “the movement”.
Not an easy time for your country.
Cheers
David
I have been seeing people wishing painful deaths on others (because politics).
Was asked an old question the other day and didn’t have a clear answer to give. Still thinking about it and thought it worth throwing it out to everyone here on this island of sanity – in some ways it is a mundane question but what about esoteric/occult views?
Anyway – here is the question (I paraphrase):
“If you are faced with someone who is threatening to kill you unless you do what they want, is there any point in trying to defend your life or should you just suck it up?”
Seems simple but also tricky – if one is unable to escape or defend oneself without killing the person who is going to kill you, and, assuming one defends oneself from a place of emotional equilibrium (i.e. no hate or fear, just the recognition that you have to make a choice between continued existence or a forced departure from this material plane) – what factors are there to consider?
I am minded of Krishna and Arjuna speaking of war in the Bhagavad Gita, but what I am wondering about is factors that might be of importance.
On the one hand:
“Know That, by which all this (universe) is pervaded, to be indestructible. No one can destroy the indestructible (Atma).” (2.17)
“If you will not fight this righteous war, then you will fail in your duty, lose your reputation, and incur sin.” (2.33)
Thought the ‘lose reputation’ bit smacks of guilt-tripping, but incurring ‘sin’?
“The great warriors will think that you have retreated from the battle out of fear. Those who have greatly esteemed you will lose respect for you.” (2.35)
What should it matter what anyone else thinks of one’s decision.
But then there is:
“You will go to heaven if killed, or you will enjoy the earth if victorious. Therefore, get up with a determination to fight, O Arjuna. (2.37)
“Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat alike, engage yourself in your duty. By doing your duty this way you will not incur sin.”
To fight is either righteous or it is not. But deciding that is another thing. As JMG has noted – the opposite of one bad idea can often be another bad idea.
Doing nothing and letting another kill you seems like a lazy way out; and yet… A deer in the jaws of a lion will go limp before being killed – for a human does it just come down to preference in the moment – go out fighting or not. Perhaps it depends on the nature of the individual or that a warrior may need to behave differently than, say, a herbalist for instance; but also that there is a lot of romantic ‘field truffle’ on the subject and whilst a warrior might be full of themselves, the herbalist could turn out to be the steelier character.
The scenario was presented like this (and again I paraphrase):
“An evil person gives orders to a fearful person to kill, the fearful person attempts to follow these orders.
The target of the orders knows that killing the fearful person will have no immediate impact on the evil person, and that a multitude of other fearful people have also been told to kill by the evil person.
“And so, even though the target knows they have the capacity to kill the first fearful one and perhaps the second and third, the other fearful ones will eventually succeed in killing the target.”
I saw an interview of a trench war survivor and he said something like this:
“We two young men faced each other, strangers with no reason to kill each other except that we had been told by others not on the battlefield that we must each kill the enemy.
“The only reason I survived was because I was faster – I stabbed him with my bayonet and blood started coming out of his mouth – now, 70 years later his face is still in my dreams.”
To take another life (whether indestructible atma or not) is not, to my mind something to be taken lightly.
Thoughts much appreciated.
JMG I used thoughtstopper in a sentence. Thank you for the word.
Part of a journal/essay entry for January 9th at my place: https://chasingthesquirrel.com/
Part of a hobby horse on a democracy theme I’m doing.
Recent events remind me more and more of the latter part of JMG’s novel “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” where Russia and China are both formulating plans to cause Americans to fight against each other. I know many people who post here have read it, but saying more would be a spoiler, I suppose.
@Youngelephant:
Thank you for the link to the JAMA study. It is indeed purely a modeling exercise, and those 60% are not particularly reliable. However, they based their modeling on existing experimental studies (their references 2-16). In my opinion, the crucial parameter they used is that asymptomatic people with COVID would be 75% as infectious as symptomatic ones. This number derives from references 9, 15, which analyse local transfection events in South Korea and Brunei, and reference 16, which was already a review. So you can certainly criticize those original studies, but the hypothesis that transmission occurs to some considerable fraction from asymptomatic patients is not just mathematical speculation.
In fact, it is uncontroversial that transmission of the common flu, measles etc occurs from those who haven’t yet developed symptoms. It is just a question of deciding whether this kind of transmission is important enough to warrant all the restrictions placed on the population as a whole, and that is why the JAMA paper you cited calls itself a “decision analytical study”.
@pygmycory I hope that the mob is not successful at unseating either of the local politicians. He has a good heart, gifted orator, but naive about human nature, clearly, while she… I’ll let her “defense” in her own words showcase what kind of a person she is…but she’s a good politician, whipsmart and incisive. The public will have cut off their noses to spite their faces to lose them.
I saw that the Cranbrook mayor was bullied out for driving two hours to his isolated cabin in the Okanagan. The bar for committing Travelcrime will be lowering for us all, I imagine.
Facebook has wiped the #walkaway account and all content (people’s videos),and Ravelry is back to enforcing political sameness, having removed the “GOP knitters” group that had adhered to the rule “do not mention Trump”. People are casting about for new venues.
Basically we’re being herded apart along the lines of (in some cases merely perceived- and guilt by association with-) political sentiment because ” I don’t feel safe” and a claim to moral authority.
Blacklists, no-fly-list threats for those returning from DC… Now that ghettoization is underway, do those “terrible people” have to sew a bright cloth symbol to their clothes?
How long until there is danger in being a “sympathizer” for pointing out how wrong this all is? Do I dare sign my name to a letter to my Congress critter who has jumped on the topple trump bandwagon?
@earthworm
I can’t answer that question, but it reminds me of a story I heard: In Cambodia, a new leader was trying to clean up the budget. He gave his honest aide the unenviable task of sorting out the water utility, so that it could meet budget shortfalls and still get water run to the poor. In an audit, it turned out the biggest offender was the military. They had never paid a water bill, ever. Our trusty aide went to the head of the military and told him they’d have to pay their water bill like everyone else. The military fellow held a gun to his head and said “We don’t pay for water.” The aide said: “I’m a good Buddhist. Do what you must.” The aide survived, and the military paid its water bill.
I don’t think this is a template for every such encounter, but I do think at least part of the answer lies in being spiritually grounded enough not to fear death, wise enough to read the situation accurately, and self-disciplined enough to do the right thing when the situation calls for it.
Which is a good goal for everyone.
Lunar Apprentice,
Well, the court does get to decide whether a plantiff has locus standi or not, and since elections are handled by states according to their local regulations then it could be argued that Texas didn’t have locus standi. If the courts had accepted the case, it would essentially create a legal presidence where any state could sue any other state over election results, thus essentially negating local jurisdiction.
earthworm,
The word “sin” used in that context is a bad translation. The correct term is “karma.”
Earthworm, I don’t understand the question – in this scenario is the alternative to killing doing what you’re told or allowing yourself to be killed? That makes a pretty big difference.
In moral questions of self defence (which may differ from the legal) I think of it in terms of ‘implied consent’. If someone shoots at you, they’ve implicitly consented to you shooting back. They have no right to expect asymmetric use of force. If they’ve said “Shall we dance?” there’s no blame on you for replying “Yes”.
With the more complex scenario of the frightened person, you could see it as executing them for cowardice. They were too spineless to defy an unjust order (while still being willing to kill you), and now they’re going to pay the price. You just have to keep killing until the cowards are more frightened of you than they are of their own commander.
@ Cicada Grove
I don’t buy the idea that Antifa was single-handedly responsible for the disaster at the Capitol. The narrative doesn’t add up. Assuming that the people who got into the capitol were all Antifa members, and that they worked in concert with the police as I’ve seen some people claim, why would the police shoot one of the “false protestors” they were supposedly in cahoots with?
If Antifa was there at all, it’s unlikely they were present as anything more than a small minority of protestors. By all appearances, the vast majority were genuine Trump supporters, much like the woman who was shot by police. If that’s so, then what need would there be to lead Antifa members around for a photoshoot when they can take pictures of the genuine Trump supporters who were out there doing the exact same things that the supposed Antifa plants would have been doing?
I can’t see how the claim makes any sense, and the evidence I’ve seen given in support of it is flimsy at best.
No, Irena, it is no bad thing, but it does explain why various parts of the military industrial complex have turned against Trump. A party with a genuine, practical peace wind down the overseas bases plan and whose leadership could refrain from behaving like (insert undruidly word here) could do very well in American politics. Add a full employment plan, reasonable restrictions on immigration, and regulation for the public good of predatory capitalism, including enforcement of antitrust laws, and I think that party would have a winning platform.
Mary,
Trump lost for one reason. His votes were stolen. The evidence for that is sufficiently overwheming. So the few posts here trying to analyze other reasons are simply not part of reality. But to say that he was MIA on covid! What other national leader did more?
A conversation with a good friend of mine earlier today re recent events has brought to mind something one of my professors told me when I was a young undergrad studying history some thirty years ago: “It is not what is true, but what people believe to be true, that drives the forces of human history.” He was at the time discussing the consequences of WWI on Europe, and Germany in particular.
The truth of the DC riot—right-wing fanatics, misguided mob, or Antifa false-flag—is less relevant to the future of this nation than the stories that will ferment around that and similar events among the various subcultures and fragmented elements of our society. And those stories can become myths which, as our host reminds us, carry meaning far beyond the simple narratives. What the consequences of those myths and meanings will be in terms of the fate of this republic is yet another great unknown.
Where is this overwhelming evidence? Every news story I’ve heard or read has said there isn’t any and that all of the many legal challenges were thrown out due to lack of evidence.
I don’t think this was a planned coup. The participants didn’t even bother to disguise their faces as Antifa does. I think it was a worked-up mob, no more, no less.
Hey, look! A white supremooseist!
https://mymodernmet.com/roger-brendhagen-white-moose/
@Onething
I have looked for hard, unimpeachable evidence–not rumors, anonymous sources, second-hand reports or theoretical arguments from preconceptions–that vote-stealing did happen in sufficient amounts to steal the election from Trump, while allowing other republican candidates to win their races for other offices. I have not found it. Can you tell me where I can find it, if you know?
When I ask this I am certainly not denying that a certain measure of fraud has occurred in this election, as it has in every election since the days of George Washington, but this sort of fraud is carried now more or less equally by partisans of each major party. Human nature being what it is, to hold an large-scale election without any voter fraud is simply impossible.
But the folk who talk about the election being stolen seem to me to be talking about something than this, and far more one-sided. It is the one-sidedness of their claims that particularly sets off warning bells for me, and makes me wish for hard, first-hand evidence. When I look for evidence of this, all I find are rumors, possibilities, and extremely stupid arguments from baseless statistical assumptions.
After all, many politicians of all political parties are devoted to securing their advantage at the ballot box by any skillful means whatever. Why should one party suddenly achieve such a spectacular success over the other, when all parties are skilled at cheating?
Varun, consider a hypothetical situation of a passenger boat, say a ferry: Imagine a passenger drilling a hole under his seat, causing a leak. Another passenger witnesses this and notifies the captain, who responds: “He’s not drilling the hole under YOUR seat, so you have no standing to complain”. It’s clear the SCOTUS abdicated.
@hermitalex, cicada grove, re: the Capitol thing:
I’ve looked at some of the photos, videos, eyewitness accounts, and I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing. Internet sleuths have of course been on the case, and identified a couple of people who were also photographed at antifa/blm events in the previous year or two. There were also a bunch of people who were clearly actual Trump supporters, swarming in with the crowd, taking selfies, wandering about, and generally loitering. If that’s a coup attempt, I’m Minnie Mouse. There are a couple of people in the photos in tactical gear running around with ziptie handcuffs. The media and Twittier have, of course, been all over those, gasping about how these guys must have been plotting to hogtie and kidnap some elected officials, or something equally nefarious. And that, of course, means the whole crowd must be evil, seditious, etc. etc. and must be exterminated post haste.
As information trickles out, I don’t think there’s any one single narrative that fits everything, and there are some things that don’t smell right. Capitol police were told 24 hours ahead to stand down, apparently. Why?
In the videos of the initial rush, with people breaking windows, there’s one of a guy hitting a window with something like a police baton, and a couple of other guys trying to stop him, like “hey! WTF? What are you antifa or something?!”
Probably a lot of the crowd were actual Trump supporters riding the wave of excitement, in the way that crowds do, thinking perhaps that showing up and heckling would stop the EC vote counting. Almost certainly some opportunists who show up at every available protest, because protests are fun!
Then, there are the zip-tie guys. I don’t know anything about them, but the photos reminded me of some of the photog work coming out of the Colorado demonstration where the biker was shot dead last year. The pictures are so clear, so well-positioned, so well-composed! See the man with the helmet and the zip-ties leaping heroically over the railing! What a perfect shot! What are the odds? That photog was so lucky! I don’t have any inside info on that. Maybe the photog lucked out. It happens. But the cynical side of me looks at that photo series and says… that dude is there to be photographed. There’s no reason for him to leap that railing, except that the photog is right there, and it’s a good composition. A captivating image. The light is so perfect. The focus is wonderful. Do you know how hard it is to get a clear shot like that, with indoor light and a moving subject? What *is* that camera rig? Plus, he’s such a contrast to all the old, overweight dudes in their jeans and Carhartts in the background taking souvenir pics of each other with their phones.
These are, of course, the pics that the media is using now to call for the “cleansing” of Trump supporters (for real, an ABC news bigwig used that word!) and to justify the Big Purge that deleted over sixty thousand users from Twittier on Friday, coordinated with a massive booting of conservative groups and user accounts from FacePlant, YouToob, WordsPress, and possibly other platforms as well, along with (scr)Apple and Goggle booting the Parler app from their platforms in an attempt to stem the flood of refugees fleeing there after being purged from the Big Tech sites. Nearly all the alt-tech sites this weekend seem to be groaning and glitching under either the crushing influx of new users, or malicious DDOS-type action. The word that comes to mind is: Gleichschaltung.
So… I withhold judgement on what happened at the Capitol, pending more and better information. Right now, it seems like there were several parallel and/or conflicting things going on. Some people with deliberate intentions (possibly a variety of intentions), perhaps some people doing a paid gig, and a lot just along for the ride. There are some parts of the story that don’t quite add up, and will not let me settle on any of the narratives currently going around, whether it’s “it was all a setup to give them an excuse to depose Trump” or “Trump’s pet terrorists trying to violently overthrow the government” or “harmless fluffy protesters touring the Capitol building” or any of the variations thereon I have seen .
At a glance, the shooting seems accidental: exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from nervous LEOs with guns, an excited mob, and gallons of adrenaline. But again: not enough info.
For those who say “where is the evidence of stolen votes” did you really expect the corporate media to give you the information? The same ones who russiagated for 4 years (the fact free conspiracy theory)?
Follow Patrick Byrne on Twitter (before he gets banned probably).
https://got-freedom.org/evidence/
https://creativedestructionmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Reclaiming_a_Superpower.pdf
Still though Trump was cheated I think Biden / Dems may have scored an own goal given the horrific inauguration chart. The next few years are going to be a trainwreck for America, sadly.
@Loren:
Thank you for the link to the Nat. Communications article from Wuhan – I haven’t accompanied the literature recently and found it very interesting.
First of all, among the almost 10 million people tested, only 300 had positive PCR test results. That means they managed an almost incredibly low false positive rate – at most 0.03%! I am not sure if their test parameters are different from those used in other countries, but if true, this would mean that very few people with positive test results are flukes.
Second, in this very special situation where, according to their data, no transmission at all was happening after the draconic lockdown, all their positive cases seem to have been either completely false positives or at the very tail-end of an infection cycle, where the PCR test still takes up some fragments of viral genetic material, but the immune system has already mopped up all infectious particles. This is clear from the fact that virus could not be cultured from any of the 300 PCR-positive cases. In a situation where transmission is still occurring, some percentage of presymptomatic and asymptomatic people do have intact virus particles that can be cultured, see e.g. this paper from Washington state (Fig. 3).
To conclude, in order to evaluate the necessity of placing the entire population unter distancing measures, lockdown or curfew, it would be important to have empirical data on how many among the asymptomatic, PCR-positive cases have virus particles that can be cultured in vitro, and how many do in fact transmit the virus to other people. I would be thankful for such data.
PS1: Fig. 2, not Fig 3
PS2: …empirical data from a country with stable or increasing numbers of Covid-19 cases on how many…
I am looking forward to our host’s take on the events at the Capitol. Mr Greer, I hope you will address the symbolism angle.
In the meantime, I would love to read other’s take on that same angle. I was struck by how weak it made the US government seem, like they got “pantsed”
There is something fishy about this whole thing that is being denounced in such big terms with loud voices and hyperventilation. By the standards set by other events back in summer, this is a garden party. No cone-tipped cylindrical projectiles were flying (not from the people who were not supposed to be there). No glass bottles with gasoline and a burning cloth stuffed were thrown. No materials combusted. All that was remaining were a few strewn papers and upturned furniture (which could have been done by the inhabitants themselves), some graffiti and some broken glass (And a noose). The reaction was pure hyperbole, calling for all but the guillotines.
Two things are very clear. One, people are not fools. They know and understand what is happening despite all the memory-holing that is frantically going on.
Second, the more the overreaction is, the more extreme the backlash will be. There is zero recognition of that reality on the powerful side. They are trying to deny even an honorable exit to him, instead trying to tar and feather him. I saw the rallies, I saw the frenzied enthusiasm. These are not people you mess with. I expect things to get nasty in fairly quick order.
Rose Red Loon, while allowing the Capitol to be stormed could be an act of gross incompetence, it feels more like it was allowed to happen. No actors necessary – there’s no shortage of angry right-wingers. It’s very clever psychology. Storming the palace is supposed to be the culminating point of a revolution. To let it happen before anything has even got going, and for it to have no effect, is a really sneaky way to deflate a movement. Plus the propaganda victory for believers in law and order and the excuse to start a crackdown. Imagine the disheartening effect if in Russia 1917 if they’d stormed the Winter Palace and Kerensky and the Provisional Government had been back in there later the same day. If that is the strategy, then if Trump supporters try anything similar again, the response will look more like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx4osljrMkA.
@Bridge:
To the extent that your last comment was addressed to me, why do you assume that I pay much attention to mainstream media? I don’t. (I haven’t watched any TV since about 1985. The print media that I do read, in a couple of languages, I take with huge spoonfuls of salt.)
I have looked through the links you provided, and I see very little hard evidence there at all, just claim after claim, assertion after assertion, assumption after assumption, and affadavit after affadavit. Affadavits are not very useful as evidence. Anyone can claim, assert, assume, or swear to anything, whether it actually is true or not–it’s all just word-spinning withiout hard evidence to back it up. What evidence there is in the links you provide seems consistent with the usual level of deceit and fraud in every election since the founding of the Republic.
Do you seriously think that a wholly fraud-free election is really possible, even in theory, anywhere in the world? Wholly honorable, honest people are nearly as rare as white crows. When you find them, they are quite often too naive, or too ignorant of the dark arts of deception, to detect fraud even when it is right under their noses, for they tend to suppose that everyone else is as honorable and honest as they are.
The hope of a wholly honest election is a fool’s hope; the best we can ever realistically hope for is that all major parties are more or less equally competent in the frauds they always prepetrate.
Nor is the common citizenry of any nation any better. The default setting of a large majority of humanity is outright contempt for truth, honesty and fairness. Machiavelli at his most cynical took much too rosy a view of humanity.
Witnessing the US Capitol get transformed in one day from a cherished symbol of stable continuity into an archtypal symbol of a dying banana republic was a bit unnerving for me. Whenever the weather was obliging, my grade school, located in the basement of a church across East Capitol Street from the Folger Shakespeare library, took us out for recess to play on the Capitol grounds, which continually enticed us just a block down the street. I sprained my ankle jumping out of a tree in the northeast teardrop of the park, and Jenny and I got married six times in second grade under a tree in the southeast teardrop. At that age, it was very important to us that we also got divorced seven times under that same Capitol tree — the last time just to make sure it really stuck! Since it was the seventies, we second graders knew that absolutely every adult really wanted to get a divorce — it was the cool thing to do.
In seventh grade, I used to play intrepid explorer with my rambunctious, incorrigible friends in the mini evergreen forest tucked in the southwest corner of the main steps to the Capitol. One time after school, my partner in crime Amanda and I went there to camp out like Lewis & Clark. One of us, with perfect seventh-grade clarity of thought, even remembered to bring matches! Surprisingly, setting dried pine needles alight against the Capitol’s foundations in order to survive the freezing passes through the Rockies didn’t turn out to be the best idea we had ever had. Who could have guessed that the fire in our little pile of dried needles might be able to spread to the carpet of dried needles all around us? Certainly not our two intrepid, twelve-year-old explorers! We did manage to get the brewing inferno put out before the trees went up like Roman candles and smoke began really pouring out of our tiny terrorist hideout, but not without frightening ourselves half to death. Our muddled, pre-pubescent minds were utterly terrified in their adrenaline-fueled panic that we would manage to burn down the US Capitol. Just imagine having to go home and face your parents after that!
So maybe I didn’t always show the nation’s monumental teat all the reverence it was due, but I always felt a familiar fondness for our gleaming white Capitol building. Ever since the interminable Civil War drove President Lincoln to commission a ridiculously oversized dome for the new United States Capitol, a huge effort has been expended to project and preserve an air of stately (though ill-proportioned) grandeur about the place. Outside of disaster movies and the cover art on punk albums, images of the cherished symbol of the Capitol have been deftly curated and monitored in the nation’s and world’s imaginations. So much effort, expended by so many, laid to waste in the blink of an eye, as images that cannot ever be unseen seared themselves into our minds. Commoners scaling the walls of the US Capitol to lay siege to the seat of power is not an image any politician should have been foolish enough to imagine could be played to his advantage in the long run.
Whichever faction of the elite (or both of them, for opposing reasons) underwrote this disastrous power grab must have completely forgotten where their power actually comes from — the magical images and symbols of state. Allowing such a secure talismanic image to be replaced with an equally powerful, but utterly unstable talismanic image is a mistake they will come to seriously regret.
I can’t decide if the new image is more reminiscent of when the first two estates of the États Généraux, the clergy and the nobles, lulled into smug complacency by the myth of their own indisputable superiority and entitlement, were taken all unaware by the third estate of the commoners declaring themselves to be the National Assembly. Louis XVI defensively locked them out of the halls of power in Versailles, so they simply moved to a nearby tennis court to write up a French constitution protecting the commoners. Our two power-drunk houses of Congress, while meeting in private to decide the commoners’ hapless fate, found themselves forced to flee from those unhappy deplorables and then lock them out —that sure sounds like a pretty close fit. I wonder if the commoners will go find a tennis court somewhere?
Or is the meticulously stage-managed image of the Capitol’s siege more reminiscent of the sans-culottes marching on Versailles to storm that stately palace and drag their befuddled leader back to Paris, where it was hoped he would be more responsive to the citizens’ needs? We all know how that chapter ended! The current images captured of commoners scaling the walls, breaking the doors, and running amuk were clearly designed to evoke this parallel, and the media have been milking it breathlessly for all its worth with their impassioned ejaculations of “coup,” “riot,” and “traitor!” So, if this is the script, then the question that I’m left with is “Which befuddled, tone-deaf leader did the commoners believe was indifferent to their suffering, and therefore desire to extract from those gilded halls to make him more responsive to the citizens’ needs?” Did the directors and producers of this spectacle give any thought to the lasting images it would implant in the global imagination, or the obvious associations those images would conjure up? They’re playing with forces so far beyond their control or understanding — but, hey, Louis thought he knew what he was doing too, when he first called up the États Généraux…
True to type, our imperiled elites ended by being willing to forfeit a mind-boggling amount of the influence and control they once wielded just to ensure that only they get to be the ones left wielding whatever thin scraps remain. They lost so much more than they gained! By dividing the political landscape into simple binaries and fomenting those divides to generate fast, easy results, our elites ended up backing themselves into a double bind where they would eventually have to relinquish half of their support just to keep the other Pavlovian half satisfied. When the divide was Democrat vs. Republican, that somewhat worked. When the divide switched to populist vs. elitist, they panicked and brought the whole thing crashing down. No one forced them to trash the sacred symbols of their own authority (plural because elections are a sacred symbol conferring authority as well), leading half the populace to withdraw all its loyalty and allegiance, while causing the other half to doubt the nation’s stability. This ill-considered overreach will be their undoing, for no amount of narrative control will be able to unseat the deep myths that now reign amuk in our psyches.
Our leaders had delusional fantasies of getting their own Reichstag fire by which they could manipulate Americans into clamoring to grant them the despotic powers necessary to protect the nation from scary terrorist arsons (certainly not the first time they have lusted for that particular wet dream.) But this time, rather than orchestrate any images of a Reichstag fire, they instead delivered images of a populace pushed so far beyond its limits that it preferred chaos to the intolerable regime being inflicted upon it. That is what is called a serious tactical failure, the kind that leads to winning a battle by losing the war. Once the seductive binary lure of our overlords’ contrived “approved narrative” loses its chastening influence due to mind-numbing oversaturation, what will remain will be the images. Magical images of the symbols of state being striped of their mythic power.
Our oligarchic politicians have invited the nation to doubt and ridicule the very symbols that conveyed them their power. We really ought to take them up on the invitation. Until then, try to steer clear of the purging mobs reveling in their fifteen minutes of fame. I’m sure they’ll be particularly thrilled to finally have the needed ammunition to cancel me, now that I have confessed to trying to roast all the congresscritters alive back in the early eighties. How this nation could have survived all that time with a treacherous, fugitive, tween terrorist on the loose is a total mystery. Who among you had even guessed how close our traitorous pre-pubescent putsch came to actually toppling the free world and seizing the reigns of power? Had Amanda and I succeeded in our nefarious plans, at least it would have spared the world having to witness our feckless politicians incompetently attempting the same feat today.
@ methylethyl
Thank you – yes that is the kind of thing
@ Varun
Thank you – I sort of guessed that – what I was wondering about was the intimation that karma is not what most people think, that sometimes extreme actions (killing) might be an acceptable action but the ‘energy space’ one needs to be in for that not to have a negative effect on one’s path (as opposed to fear, anger driven action) is something to contemplate.
@ Darkest Yorkshire
Indeed the question is not clear – superficially it might be considered straightforward (‘shall we dance’), but there is actually a lot to unwrap.
“you could see it as executing them for cowardice. They were too spineless to defy an unjust order”
Yes that may be one way of viewing it; the issue I see is that having some idea in mind is not necessarily the same as having the energy state where the action does not affect one karmically.
Very easy to fall into the mind-state of ‘kill them all and let god sort them out’ – an illusory mind-state that justifies killing is not the same as an energy state where an action can be performed without repercussions.
For the trench war survivor, one could imagine that both young men were suddenly in a situation that was frightening enough to make one kack in one’s pants – survival was not about philosophy or lofty thinking or having a mental justification, but base level ‘thinking’ (if it can be called that) from the animal brain? The person who pauses to wonder what to do dies – the person who unleashes unrestrained violence lives but 70 years later still sees the face of the person they killed.
What I am thinking about are the differences between Arjuna a seasoned warrior and a young man thrust into ‘hell on earth’ where one kills or is killed but they are not prepared for that.
A person can have created a mental state where they think they are justified and that actions are righteous and therefore they are correct in their actions. Just because they think they are ‘in the right’ does not make it so.
@ all
Granted one cannot trust much of anything online just now, but if the online frothing is indicative of what people are doing, there seems to be an unraveling taking place – JMG talks about humans developing the rudimentary mental sheath, the online narrative of the media seems to be pushing for a cut-off of higher plane thinking and a reversion to only the base emotional levels.
What prompted my thinking on this is suddenly seeing people’s online accounts (that we have followed for some years) where they have appeared rational suddenly switching to call for people with different worldviews to be locked up and or killed, or for people seen not wearing masks to be barred from all healthcare or locked in a dark dungeon with other people who don’t wear masks and that ‘disease’ should be introduced to the dungeon so that they all ‘die gasping in darkness’. This is unhinged.
Most people never really face truly abominable situations of the real dark underbelly of existence (a fact for which I am thankful), but looking at some of the things going on just now, my feeling is it could be time to get one’s head right.
I hope not, but it seems like the madness of crowds may nearly be upon us.
In the Washington Post, I read an eyewitness account of the tragic fatal shooting of the California woman in the Capitol Building. The witness was described, in passing, as “a liberal activist”. But there was no follow up to a question that seems obvious to me: what was a “liberal activist” doing in the Capitol at the leading edge of the wave of invaders? There is a second question implicit in the first: why isn’t the Washington Post curious about answer to my first question? But it’s at least four years too late to expect objectivity from the Post, since they updated their masthead motto to “Democracy Dies In Darkness” as soon as Trump got elected.
The accounts I hear on NPR and read elsewhere refer to “an insurrection in which five people died”, without mentioning that the only person killed with an actual weapon was a protester shot by police (at least one of the other three was a heart attack; two others being unspecified medical issues). The police officer who died the next day, according to one account, was struck with a fire extinguisher, but the identity of the murderer has not been released (if known).
Similarly, we read that four people “were stabbed” during clashes in DC on Dec. 12, but the only detail I can find on that is that a local man was arrested for assault with a dangerous weapon. Who got stabbed? Which side do they represent? Maybe there’s a tacit agreement that release of these details would further provoke the conflict, whoever was involved, but who gets to decide how much truth we can handle?
A large part of the journalistic reaction to the Jan 6 event at the Capitol was summed up as “desecration” of this temple of Democracy. It’s as if a mob had stormed through a cathedral, someone remarked. It seems to me that, since the most recent legislative action was the passage of a 5000-page spending bill (which obviously no one had time to read before voting on it), at least three months overdue, the “sacred” had left the building a long time ago. The impeachment was a fiasco for both sides: if you believe the prosecution, the acquittal was a partisan fraud, but if you believe the defense, the prosecution was just as fraudulent. The sacred struggle for truth and justice was not on the list of priorities.
Historian David Kaiser on Trump, McCarthy, and (though he does not pursue the matter), the people they both spoke for and the problem that is still with us.
@ Onething, who asked why I see Trump as a tyrant – it’s from watching him in action, from his behavior on his reality shows, to his treatment of his underlings and everybody else around him. His behavior as President including this latest stunt of inciting the Capitol riot is straight out of a hundred historical biographies of tyrants.
A quick note for our non-US readers. The country is assembled from states, states are divided into counties, and elections are managed at the county level. Thus, the rules and procedures for voting are different from one state to another, and the database of registered voters is maintained at the county level. Applications for mail-in ballots are processed at the county level, and the criteria for accepting ballots vary from county to county. Thus, we can have some states mailing a legal ballot to every registered voter, while other counties provide them on request, while other counties require a specific justification to obtain one. The rules for registering to vote also vary. In some counties, you’re offered voter registration when you obtain (or renew) a driver’s license (which are managed at the state level). Some states require advance registration, but some allow registration on the same day as voting.
A recent investigation found that in 252 counties, in the only 29 states for which data were available, voter registration exceeded 100% of the Census-derived estimate of the eligible population. Put another way, there were 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible citizens. (Data were not available from some large states, such as California, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois. When you hear “Illinois”, think “Chicago”, with a long-standing reputation for political corruption). Records are kept on who actually voted, so a potential scheme for ballot stuffing might be to screen the database for registered voters who have not voted recently (perhaps due to relocating, or dying), and submit ballots in their names. This could not be the action of a single rogue poll-worker. (That’s been tried, though, without success.) In routine elections, the process is monitored by having poll watchers, of both parties, present as votes are counted. However, the pandemic prompted changes to these procedures in 2020.
Re my previous comment on truth, mythology, and meaning
Take, for example, the Boston Massacre (Mar 5, 1770) and the Boston Tea Party (Dec 16, 1773). In US lore, these are closely tied to the Revolution and indeed they served as significant symbols for those pushing for independence. The first may have been an accident or the result of high tensions (the soldiers being pelted with snowballs and heckled by a mob) and the second was most definitely an act of vandalism. Both occurred years before Lexington and were used as propaganda before and during (and after) the Revolution.
The friend of mine I mentioned is thoroughly convinced that the election was stolen based on videos circulating in certain social networks that show ballots being “discovered” and poll workers “rerunning” ballots through the counting machines. While he doesn’t condone the riots, he believes Biden’s win illegitimate. He’s also an Iraq veteran and an unabashed conservative. (There are any number of areas where he and I agree to disagree.)
I think Trump lost a very close election that was held under abnormal conditions (Covid). Personally, I think he lost b/c a sufficient portion of the Republican establishment decided that an Establishment Biden was a better choice than a Populist Trump. (I also think this is borne out in the loss of Democratic House seats coupled with Biden’s win.). The Dems symbolically control everything now for the next two years after the GA results, but that control is extremely tenuous as any one Dem senator (and there are several conservative Dem senators) has an effective veto on legislation: remember that Harris only gets a vote if the Senate is tied.
So there’s going to be a lot of symbolism developing in these next years, something that is fertile ground for magic-work. I pray that whatever the future holds, we choose a peaceful path rather than a violent one.
Just a quick follow-up on my last comment.
I don’t think that the videos to which my friend referred–the one’s showing Democratic operatives effectively stuffing ballot the ballot box–are any more accurate than Paul Revere’s engraving that depicted the Boston Massacre. But that’s the point: they don’t have to be factually accurate for people to attach meaning to them.
And if Biden’s presidency *does* go terribly sideways in the coming years, there’ll be these symbolic images laying around for people to latch on to.
Above all things, we must retain the ability to pause, take a deep breath, and step back from the immediate to get some perspective.
@earthworm
At the age of 14 I came within a millimetre of murder. My violent schizophrenic mother had physically and mentally abused and tormented me since I was four and one day, full of pain, rage and teenage hormones, I snapped. After a furious chase I had her cornered in the bathroom and held a carving knife to her throat, about to end her life in a hideous manner. She pleaded with me to stop and suddenly the rage left me. I wilted, turned away, put the knife back in the kitchen and hid myself in my bedroom. Two good things came from day – my mother never bothered me again and, most importantly, I did not become a killer. It’s something I’ve reminded myself of many times over the years, I did not become a killer.
Now, 45 years later, the events of that ugly day still haunt me, I can still see it all so clearly. A bit like that old soldier, I can still see her face and hear her voice as she begged me not to kill her. What if I’d done it? What would have happened to me and the rest of my family? Would I have had a future? What of my soul?
Regarding those people on social media fantasising about the violent deaths of others, one cannot help wondering if they’ve ever come close to killing someone themselves. It isn’t easy, it doesn’t feel good and the memory will never leave you.
Lathechuck:
I’ve seen news today that the officer in DC was not murdered by a protester, that he died of a medical condition, possibly a stroke. If this is true I doubt that the MSM will report it; doing so would surely be seen as a capitulation to the Right and the MSM cannot afford to do that.
@ Miranda
I can’t think of anything else worth saying except thank you for having the strength and grace to share that
@onething, I for one would never call Trump MIA on Covid! On the contrary, he was quite proactive (via FEMA) in seizing personal protective equipment being delivered to Massachusetts and other blue states that were experiencing the earliest major US outbreaks and trying to protect their vulnerable populations, back in April. The equipment was redirected to “loyal” (Trump-voting) red states that didn’t need it then but wanted to have it on hand just in case (however little good it did them in the long run). Meanwhile front-line health care providers and nursing home nurses here in MA were reusing their single-use PPE items for days. How much this contributed to the high April death toll here will never be known. Actually, it’s known quite well, it’ll just never be proven. But it won’t be forgotten either.
Hi everyone,
JMG, thank you for hosting us, and I hope you ultimately have a nice break.
Everyone else, thank you for providing generally grounded commentary on current events, or as earthworm’s comment stated, an “island of sanity”.
RE: Onething @ Jan 9th 2:56 PM
Do you have any evidence?
I mean that sincerely.
I watched the entire Jan 6th congressional debate over objections to certifying the vote and Mitch McConnell opened by saying that the objectors were hoping to overturn the elections on the basis of mere allegations of voter fraud. It was reiterated numerous times by Republicans and Democrats alike throughout the night that the allegations lacked any evidence.
So, do you have any evidence that the election was stolen. If you don’t have any evidence then how do you know it was stolen?
Again, I mean this sincerely. What is the most egregious case, or the most compelling one, or the most well documented one? I’ve followed this fairly closely and I’ve seen a lot of unsubstantiated allegations, but I haven’t seen any actual evidence.
If there is really a case to be made, please make it now. And, to be clear, I would like the best case that you have. Not a list of all of the allegations, but the most defensible and clear cut example that you know of. I don’t, for example, mean a case where 1 dead person voted, I mean a case where 1,000’s of dead people voted and it can be verified.
Thanks,
Tim
P.S. I’ve enjoyed your comments over the years and I don’t mean to imply any ill will. I’m asking in good faith and I am looking forward to a respectful and civil discussion on the matter. Or, if you feel that I’ve put you on the spot please refer me to a case that you feel is well substantiated.
Robert Mathiesen re “Wholly honorable, honest people are nearly as rare as white crows. ”
“I have never found a perfect man. If you find one, let me know. But I will always love and honor one who dies nothing dishonorable of his own free will. Against necessity, even the gods strive in vain.”
Simonides of Keos, who could put more common sense into a few lines than most media pundits can in an entire speech or editorial.
But, yes, we should always be on the lookout for the white crows among those in power. Another quote from Steve Stirling, in the mouth of a very successful leader in his 1632 series: “Anyone who runs for office for any other reason than to get his program across is either a fool or a scoundrel.” That’s the same man who said in a later book “The secret to a successful economy is very simple – just keep people working.” [As nobody since F.D.R. seems to either remember or believe.]
Oh, blast it all. Did I not include the link to David Kaiser’s post? Here it is:
http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/
I lived in China for many years. The Communist Party of China maintains a very strict internet censorship policy. Facebook is blocked. Twitter is blocked. WhatsApp is blocked. Every other non-Chinese social media platform is blocked. You are not allowed to use them. Use of a VPN to bypass the blocks is a crime (albeit foreigners are generally left alone to do this).
From this weekend forward, the US has abdicated all moral right to criticise China, or any other government, for internet censorship. I wonder whether the Righteous care about what they have so carelessly thrown away?
@Onething
“Trump lost for one reason. His votes were stolen. The evidence for that is sufficiently overwheming. So the few posts here trying to analyze other reasons are simply not part of reality.”
That sounds exactly like the Democrat position on HIllary’s loss last time around; “She only lost because the election was stolen (by Russia), therefore we don’t need to reflect on our own failings (because there were none).”
@ Christophe
Your reflections reminded me of a events that happened here (Melbourne, Australia) last year as part of the corona business. One specific incident was a pregnant mother being arrested in front of her young children in her home. She had apparently posted some Wrongspeak on faceplant. The cops decided not just to arrest her but to handcuff her as well. In a phone conversation with my father he used the phrase “is nothing sacred anymore?”. Whatever happens from here, when I think back on corona my primary images are going to be of cops arresting pregnant women and running around in storm trooper outfits bashing citizens.
I recall one of the main anti-globalisation arguments back in the 90s was that globalisation would destroy the nation state. I think we’re now seeing all that come to a head. Trump ran on a campaign of saving the nation. I’m sure the globalist exponents are quite happy on some level to see a powerful symbol of the nation desecrated.
Hi all
A question of a foreigner: how is it possible that a quite big city as is Detroit gave 95% of all the votes to Biden an only 3,5% to Trump?
I have consulted the data and this is not only the case only of the past election the difference was even bigger in past presidential election: in 2016 Hillary won with 95% vs 3,1% Trump, in 2012 Obama won with 97,51% vs Romney 2,08%, in 2008 Obama won with 97% vs 2,65% McCain.
For me, an spaniard, is hard to undestand how such a big city, that should be full of a very diverse population, could vote so overwhelmingly or the same party election after election, decade after decade. It is that normal in your country? are there many more cities like Detroit? how do you explain that?
May be someone from Detroit could explain this to me
Cheers
David
@anna m, that’s a fair critique, but I think the problem was with my wording more than my prediction. I would consider a loud year for the Abrahamic religions if they responded in kind to what was being done. The New York Jews affair was interesting, but if we’re thinking of the same story I believe it boils down to ceremoniously cutting a chain on a gate and pointing out their mayor’s hypocrisy given the activities of the local colour revolution. I’d say the Abrahamic religions could almost be described as a zone of calm in a very loud year.
Lathechuck
I realise the states manage the US elections but I don’t really understand why voter fraud isn’t illegal, with severe penalities, especially when you consider how harshly the law in the US is applied in general. Same with Antifa violence which is basically celebrated in the US by Pelosi, AOC etc, and the media, and doesn’t seem to have any real penalities either. It’s almost like the PMC wants voter fraud and Antifa street fighters?? Wonder why…
There is no chain of custody with your ballots. There are ‘votes’ put on USB sticks that ‘go missing’. There are mystery trucks arriving at 4am with thousands of ballots when only a few staff and no poll watchers are on site. Poll watchers are told to leave because of ‘water leaks’ in key counties. But the ‘counting’ still continues, strangely Biden leaps ahead… Poll watchers are allowed to “watch” the count from 35ft away. People counting votes are allowed wear masks that say Biden / Harris, so no bias there. People are allowed to vote after the polls close as long as it’s postmarked on the day of the election! The FBI shredded disputed votes so no audit was possible. Hackable Dominion voting machines are used who are owned by people affiliated by the Clinton Foundation – I could go on.
You clearly don’t have a democracy. In contrast, when I worked as a Poll Clerk, we weren’t even allowed wear party political colours in case it was thought we were trying to influence voters subliminally, to give but one example. So why are Americans so blasé about what happened, even Trump voters like David BTL?
I think it might be constant propaganda that Americans tell themselves. We have the best democracy in the world! We rescue people in dictatorships and bring them democracy! [and take their oil] If a lie is repeated enough, people believe it. It is also because your judges are basically politicians who have to run for election, so no partisanship there at all. At this stage, I think the US will fall apart quicker than expected. It will probably be for the best.
Re: vote fraud and down ballot losses
When the US goes to topple the leader of another government do we worry about who else wins or loses or do we focus on the top race. I really don’t know, but the question comes to my mind when I h at that rebuttal.
I’m not happy about the a idea of some other foreign government interfering in our election. And of course the Department of Honeland security has assured us that 2020 was a secure election. So it’s probably nothing
I hope we have a more peaceful and healthful year for everyone’s sake.
Hope JMG is enjoying his vacation. Thanks for hosting this site.
Candace.
Lunar Apprentice,
That’s a pretty loaded metaphor.
I don’t feel like they abdicated their responsibility. I think they didn’t want to set the presidence of allowing states to challenge each others electoral conduct. After all, the moment they allow that it would set the stage for every local decision that could potentially effect the outcome of federal elections to be challenged. I would like to point out that the Republicans were also try to tip the scales in their favour through various shenanigans, one example being the district in, I think it was AZ, that had a population of 500k but only one voting station.
Of course we can go back and forth on this topic endlessly. Sufficient to say I don’t really think there was sufficient evidence indicating fraud on a scale that could tip the election in Biden’s favour. Not to say that there wasn’t any fraud, just not as much as the Trumpist-wing is suggesting.
I will say one thing though, we really need a single standard for federal elections to avoid this level of confusion.
earthworm,
There in lies one of the major themes of the Gita and it goes to the concept of Swadharma, that is to say ones individual Dharma in each life. Since ever action creates or destroys Karma, even inaction, then one has to take the action they feel is best fit for any given circumstances. Sitting around thinking about the Karmic consequences is all well and good, but if it renders you unable to take any action, then inevitably you create a Karmic bond that you’ll eventually have to deal with anyway. If you are a king, then your swadharma is Rajdharma, and all your actions are judged according to those circumstances.
Bridge,
With respect, just because the legacy media outlets are biased and factional, does not mean that new media or freelance journalists are any less biased or factional.
Regards,
Varun
JMG: “I’m open to the possibility that Biden will exceed my expectations—it’s quite literally impossible for him to fall below them.”
Joe Biden: “Hold my beer, man.”
Ecosophian: “Hold my beet, man…”
…and keep an eye on that dog. 😄
To be fair, I had no problem believing Biden broke his foot playing with the dog. I’ve tripped over a dog or two in my time.
Bridge—
Re the election
I can only speak for myself, but to me the Constitution and it’s processes are more important than anything else. If we discard those, the US ceases as a nation. In our electoral process, there are legal avenues for disputing contested results—states have rules for recounts, etc. Once those are exhausted, however, the results stand. To my mind, particularly, once the Electoral College has voted, it is over. Right or wrong, a majority in the EC gets you the presidency. I’d rather have a candidate I opposed as president and keep the Constitution than chuck the Constitution to have the candidate I supported. There’s always next time. If we lose the Constitution though, there may be no next time. I said it earlier and I’ll say it again: the Constitution is more important than any election. It’s really as simple as that.
Thank you @christophe and @yorkshire for your thoughts on the symbolism. So much to chew on, especially as I’m watching the narrative management play out, and the story change by the hour. Thanks also to everyone else for such thoughtful comments. I have been doing my best to stay objective by reading a wide variety of opinions and ignore the hysteria on all sides. I am very concerned though, that, irreversible changes in civil rights will be enacted amidst the hysteria. I suppose this is inevitable, but I very much don’t want to it to happen.
@Beekeeper, it someone is struck on the head, and a few hours later suffers a stroke, and later still, dies of it, expect a murder or manslaughter charge. Countless “MSM” sources have reported that a stroke was the cause of death, but that’s irrelevant to questions of culpability. That’s true even if there happened to be some pre-existing medical condition that the blow(s) merely worsened or triggered. (Look up the “eggshell skull rule” as applied to criminal law.) Of course it’s very unlikely for there to have been any such pre-existing condition. I’d be interested to see any evidence of one, but it makes no difference in the end. N.B.: I am not a lawyer and nothing in this comment should be construed as legal advice.
Re killing or being killed
This question raised memories for me of an old post by JMG on a previous blog (with further discussion in the comments) about how ideas about violence between groups changes as part of the cycle of civilisations. In war band/dark age society personal loyalty to the survival of the ingroup leads to a very different ethical calculus than we have today (could you perhaps even say that it would be immoral to allow yourself to be killed without a fight because that leaves your group more vulnerable?)
Then, a movement in later feudal society to a more abstract concept of violence to protect personal honour for the elite but with peasants seen as lacking both honour and the moral and legal ‘right’ to use violence (especially against the elite of course).
Gradually this idea of personal honour supported by violence being broadened to cover most of male society with any pretensions to gentility and also increasingly formalised into dueling codes (which seems partly to have been an attempt to minimise the actual death rate).
Eventually the state comes to monopolise violence and honour is now seen in resisting the urge to violence or (potentially) in exercising it as an automaton of the state in wars. Until of course the big collapse occurs to restart the cycle.
Simon S wrote, “I recall one of the main anti-globalisation arguments back in the 90s was that globalisation would destroy the nation state. I think we’re now seeing all that come to a head. Trump ran on a campaign of saving the nation. I’m sure the globalist exponents are quite happy on some level to see a powerful symbol of the nation desecrated.”
Those globalist exponents better gather up all the happy they can while the getting is good. They’ll probably want to keep an extra reserve on hand for when the nation state comes roaring back with a unstoppable vengeance, sped on by their foolish desecration this week of those powerful national symbols.
In a truly bizarre way Trump did save the nation — as in, the recently threatened idea of the nation state. He brought nationalism back into vogue (albeit with quite a bit of help from the bungling globalist puppeteers.) Our particular nation may not come out of this reversal in one piece, but it will certainly come out in the form of nations rather than as member-states of a globalist wet dream. Like I said above, hope they got their happy on while they still could. If they were edging, waiting to enjoy the big one, they’re gonna find themselves rather deflated.
By revealing just how toxic and destructive the political class is, Trump caused more and more citizens to begin withdrawing their support from the oligarchs. That process is not only continuing, but accelerating rapidly now. Hence the panicked purging taking over oligarchic minds at the moment and leaving them too distracted to pay any attention to the actual gaping cracks opening up beneath their feet. They can go on playing their futile games of whack-a-mole to their hearts’ content, as their Rome burns — their citizens will appreciate their efforts no more than Nero’s did. If they get tired of playing whack-a-mole, maybe the oligarchs can graduate to skeeball. In fact, there’s a whole world of common(er’s) entertainments awaiting their elite discovery. My, how the mighty are falling off their pedestals!
@ Varun
Thanks Varun – the Gita was the first thing to pop into mind and I just took that as one potential point of departure for thinking.
being in a trench with a bayonet facing the ‘enemy’ I wonder how one decides about duty – certainly too late for thinking once in the situation.
“Since ever action creates or destroys Karma, even inaction, then one has to take the action they feel is best fit for any given circumstances.”
Yes – although for two young conscripts (or volunteers) being used as cannon fodder for empire, when you’ve kacked your pants and are surrounded by blood and guts those niceties are toast.
And as you say, it is a matter for each individual in the moment and circumstances – yet I cannot shake the feeling that the energy state of the individual at that moment is of great importance.
@ all
Found this:
“In recent years revisionist historians have offered a new and potentially disturbing reason why most soldiers survived the experience of trench warfare without becoming psychiatric casualties. In The Pity of War, Niall Ferguson argued that for many combat was not a devastating experience but exciting, adventurous and fun, precisely because of the danger. Furthermore, he suggested, ‘many men simply took pleasure in killing’ and proposed that Freud’s death instinct might be revived ‘to explain the readiness of millions of men to spend four and a quarter years killing and being killed’.1”
and
“Happiness is doubtless the wrong word for the satisfaction that men experience when they are possessed by the lust to destroy and kill their kind. . . . Thousands of youths who never suspected the presence of such an impulse in themselves have learned in military life the madexcitement of destroying.6”
But:
The ‘joy of war’ case stands in contrast to S.L.A. Marshall’s observations of US forces engaged in north-west Europe and the Pacific. He estimated that only 25 per cent of infantry fired to good purpose during combat.8 Roy Grinker and John Spiegel, two American psychiatrists who treated US troops in North Africa, also concluded that few soldiers ‘anticipate pleasure from destruction or killing, and, although some chronically hostile, aggressive individuals may be fascinated by the prospect of getting all the fighting they want, they frequently find it impossible to adapt their habitually irascible personalities to the controlled environment of teamwork and coordination necessary in battle’.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/publications/assetfiles/historical/Jones2006-thepsychologyofkilling.pdf
It’s a big subject and Yorkshire was also right in saying he didn’t understand the question – I am trying to work out the question(s) myself!
That said I have things to do so this is perhaps a rabbit hole I shall back away from. practice is more important than armchair philosophy just now.
Maybe it just comes down to how many times one has been around the cycle.
After countless cycles of birth and death maybe stuff just gets old – like Groundhog day – eventually a soul chooses to do something different.
Souls get to choose upward or downward spirals and then experience the consequences of that.
Perhaps unravelling was not the correct word and unveiling might be better.
Maybe it’s as simple as the universe giving individualities the opportunity to choose and that is what determines what happens.
We seem to be seeing a bifurcation and polarisation in so many areas and perhaps it is just a case of this reality being like Grand Central Station – with so many budding humans in incarnation there could be souls moving in all sorts of directions and we’re just at an inflection point.
Seeing people online so casually wishing death on others has been a surprising turn and I guess I’m exploring that because it is so at odds with my own thoughts – in the 45 years I have studied and practiced martial arts, the more I have done the more I have tried to avoid having to use it unless absolutely necessary.
I have never in my years here seen the world as weird as it is just now.
Emotions are running so hot that minds appear to have short-circuited and I wonder if the emotional energy acts like a scream of interference that swamps out higher thought.
If the astral is really cruddy, could the madness of crowds be that earthing out?
In the five elemental processes there can be a creation cycle and a destructive cycle
Fear gives birth to anger, anger gives birth to hatred etc
or
Gentleness gives birth to kindness, kindness gives birth to joy and compassion etc
I’ve also seen a destruction cycle put like this:
A man has a weakness, a flaw, that flaw leads him to guilt, the guilt leads him to shame, the shame he compensates with pride and vanity, and when pride fails despair takes over and they all lead to his destruction…
The emotions flying around at the moment could easily become a destruction cycle.
My working conclusion: It is a time of danger and opportunity and I’d better be careful what ‘energy’ I latch onto just now.
Just now the myth that is coming strongly to mind is that of the Tower of Babel…
A project of overweening megalo-techno-ambition, that is followed by (punished by, or simple karmic consequences?) a failure of the common language in which everyone can make meaning in common and remain in the same “world”, resulting in small groups of people splintering off into different “worlds” of meaning (languages), thoroughly unable to comprehend the meanings that make up the “worlds” of all the others. The megalo-techno-ambition fails…
A few re-readings and meditations coming up.
Varun – Re: one polling place for 500K registered voters? If I recall correctly, the actual situation was “one EARLY voting place for 500K voters”. One of the responses to the pandemic was to expand the use of “early voting”, where people could go to vote at least a week prior to the actual “election day”. These votes would not be counted (or at least, totals kept secret) until Election Day. A lawsuit was filed regarding the low number of early voting locations, but a judge ruled that even if there was only one location, it was an improvement over the past practice of having zero early voting locations. “Early voting” (like voting by mail) is claimed to be important for hourly workers who cannot afford to take time off on the official election day. Whether or not it is also more vulnerable to fraud, I don’t know, but it seems so to me.
DFC–
Your point regarding the 95%+ totals from big cities for Democrats is one of the key reasons why I don’t believe in the results of this or any other US election. 95% is third world dictator levels of support. When Americans were told that Saddam Hussein received 95% of the vote, they laughed. The only reason they believe these sorts of results in this country is that they’ve been hypnotized. The feeling is, “Of course our elections are legitimate, this is America.” They’re so legitimate, in fact, that we now have to be banned from questioning their legitimacy. The sound you hear now is the sound of an iron curtain descending across the North American continent.
Among the people I know in the US, all of the non-voters bothered to vote last November. Literally all of them. They are generally working class people who feel the political establishment has forgotten them and so they don’t bother to vote. From the ones I talked to before the election, the trend of thought tended to be: we’ve seen how this president and administration plans to handle covid and the resulting depression, pros and cons, now let’s see how the other administration tries to handle covid and the depression, pros and cons. It appeared to me to be a very practical choice.
Trump absolutely had the enthusiasm factor. There are millions of people who genuinely like him, as opposed to the other side, where I’ve never met someone who actually liked Joe Biden. That is my explanation for why JMG’s materials and comments sections made it seem like Trump would win in a landslide and in the end Biden won the popular vote by some seven million or so. It was an emergency triage decision by voters “We’re in a bad situation; let’s see if the other side can handle it a bit better.”
The absurdity I can’t help but point out, as someone not living in the US and observing things as an outsider, is that even JMG’s readers have subscribed to the culture war. There is the potential for a shift or realignment of populist verses elite, or the bottom 80% verses the top 20%, domestic production verses globalism, or relocalization verses hyper-centralization, but instead even the commenters here (and sometimes JMG himself) prefer right verses left. For all the good it does you, you mimic your supposed opposites exactly: focusing on how the other side is so crazy and ridiculous, when from an outsider’s perspective, both sides have gone coo-coo for Coco Puffs. I certainly hope I’m wrong.
To sum up: it seems prudent for Americans to look for allies rather than enemies among their own social class. Right-wing working class people looking for allies among left-wing working class people, same for the lower middle classes, in other words, the bottom 80% or so.
As a non-US citizen and non-US resident, I have refrained from commenting on the election and post-election. I do want to say it surprises me that US citizens would feel any satisfaction about the events of Jan 6, in the sense of “people against Congress”. For people watching from outside the US, the effect of the invasion of the Capitol is exactly like Christophe described above (January 10, 2021 at 5:44 am, though I don’t share Christophe’s assurance about who the actual planners of the invasion were): The image of American strength, stability and rule of law has been destroyed, or at least severely damaged.
The evidence that I accept for vote fraud is as follows.
Premise 1. People who are willing to act unfairly and in violation of the spirit of a law or agreement are usually willing to violate its letter as well.
Premise 2. The Republicans under Nixon launched the “war on drugs,” which began the mass incarceration of likely Democratic voters– hippies and blacks, in this case. Felons are not able to vote in the Untied States, so the “War on Drugs” always had the effect of disenfranchising Democratic voters. The same campaign of disenfranchisement was greatly intensified under Reagan. Democrats, meanwhile, push policies intended to flood the country with immigrants, who happen to vote Democrat. And it’s well known that both parties engage in “gerrymandering”– the organization of congressional districts in such a way as to prevent the other party from attaining power. All these are examples of technically legal, but deeply immoral, violations of the spirit of the law. And there are many more besides.
Conclusion: Cheating is likely in every presidential election.
Premise 1. Those who are corrupt in some matters are likely to be corrupt in other matters.
Premise 2. The corruption of our political class is well known enough to need no documentation; the Hunter Biden scandal is well known. Premise 2 assumes that Hunter Bidens are common enough as to be ubiquitous on both sides of the aisle.
Conclusion: Corruption and cheating are likely in every presidential election.
Premise 1. Given similar outcomes, similar starting conditions are likely.
Premise 2. The percentage of the vote which Democrats receive from certain population groups are similar to those received in fraudulent elections in third world and Communist dictatorships.
Conclusion: Our elections are probably as fraudulent as those in third world and Communist dictatorships.
Premise 1. People who are willing to cheat in a primary election are willing to cheat in a general election.
Premise 2. The Democratic Party was willing to cheat in 2016, in order to secure Hillary’s nomination.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Democrats probably cheated in the 2020 general election.
Premise 1. Systems which are simple and transparent are hard to rig, but systems which are complex and opaque are easy to rig.
Premise 2. The US presidential election system is very complex and very opaque.
Conclusion: Therefore, the US presidential election is very easy to rig.
Premise 1. Given means, opportunity, and sufficient motive, people will engage in criminal behavior.
Premise 2. The Democrats had means, opportunity, and the very strong motive of “preventing another Hitler” in the 2020 elections.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Democrats probably engaged in criminal in the 2020 elections.
Premise 1. Winning an election requires active campaigning and a candidate who inspires voters.
Premise 2. Biden did essentially no active campaigning and inspired nobody.
Conclusion: Therefore, Biden did not win the election.
Premise 1. Those who are willing to engage in campaigns of mass violence and repression are probably also willing to cheat in elections.
Premise 2. The Democrats and their allies in the media and tech companies have spent the last seven months fomenting and encouraging political violence and are now engaged in a mass campaign of repression against conservatives.
Conclusion: The Democrats were probably also willing to cheat in the election.
Premise 1. Organizations with a history of criminal behavior are likely to continue in that kind of behavior.
Premise 2. The CIA and other American intelligence agencies have a history of overthrowing hostile governments around the world.
Conclusion: The CIA and other American intelligence agencies, which very obviously viewed Trump as a hostile government, likely participated in overthrowing him.
Premise 1. If I am hesitant to post all of this out of fear of retaliation, then we live in a tyranny.
Premise 2. I am afraid to post this.
Conclusion: I’m sure you can reason it out yourself at this point.
Now, you’ll notice that all of this is logical inference; none of it is the sort of evidence that would hold up in a court of law. In many cases, other explanations are possible. If it rained last night, then this morning the streets will be wet. But if the streets are wet and no one checked the weather forecast last night, it may have rained, or else the streetsweeper may have come through, or else someone may have sprayed the streets with a hose, or else all three may have happened. Similarly, the populations of our urban centers may indeed favor the Democrats by a ratio of nearly 20 to 1. (If that’s the case, our elections are even less legitimate, since now we’re clearly talking about two completely separate peoples, neither of which has the right to rule the other). Whatever fraud did take place may not have been sufficient to tilt the election in Biden’s favor, though I suspect it was.
Also, none of this says that the election should have been overturned. I’m not sure that it should have been. You could make the case that Trump lost the election fair and square, by not planning and preparing to counter Democratic voter fraud ahead of time. His after-the-fact complaints about voter fraud, on this view, are like a hockey team complaining that it lost the Stanley Cup because of a shoulder-check. Sorry, that’s the game. I saw an interview with a former Trump official– I can’t ever remember his name– who outlined a detailed plan that he and Jared Kushner had come up with intended to do just that. Apparently he was fired and Kushner was sidelined, while Trump hatched a new plan with the RNC. The official described Trump as “surrounded by Yes Men.” I suspect that what happened was that Trump finally out-smarted himself. I think that he thought he could allow the Democrats to engage in fraud and then catch them in the act, thus making himself a hero by exposing election corruption once and for all. But then his plan failed, and he was caught in his own trap. The march on the Capitol was a last, desperate hail-mary; the Hollywood quality of it is indicative of the thinking that went into it. As I said the other day, in stupid TV shows you can just kill the enemy’s king, and then all of his followers make you the king, for some reason. Real life doesn’t work that way.
What it does all say is that there are indeed very good reasons to believe that our elections are fraudulent– and that they always have been.
I’ve spent some time looking at the link Bridge provided, and I’d like to address some of the evidence piece by piece.
1. Polling evidence that large numbers of people were sent mail-in ballots who never requested them and subsequently never returned them. Some did return them but were still listed as never having done so. — This could be fraud, or it could be mistakes. Did this happen disproportionately to republicans or was it even across the board? We don’t know because the people doing the polling only called registered republicans.
2. A GOP observer, Gregory Stenstrom, in Delaware was given very poor access to a vote counting station and treated with hostility — It does seem that this was possible illegal, however I’m more inclined to blame incompetence and annoyance than fraud. This guy shows up asking questions people don’t have the answers to, complaining about everything, calling judges, etc. His own lawyer got sick of him and stopped paying attention to him halfway through the night. My guess is that the workers decided he was crazy and tried to keep him out of the way.
3. Non-profit organizations gave grants to help fund election infrastructure and did so mostly in urban areas — You can argue that this wasn’t fair, and that non-public organizations have no place in funding elections, but it isn’t fraud. Unless the claim is that the city of Racine was willing to fraudulently change their election results in exchange for a $100,000 grant?
4. A USPS worker observed co-workers backdating postmarks on 7 or 8 ballots that were picked up in the early morning of November 4th. — Changing the postmarks was technically fraud, yes, but by the person’s own testimony the post office people thought the ballots had been missed on an earlier pickup and seemed to be trying to avoid getting in trouble.
5. A truck driver carrying mail-in ballots wasn’t allowed to unload where he was told to go, had to wait a while and was sent off somewhere else without proper paperwork. — I have a hard time parsing this affidavit, so perhaps I’m missing the implication. It sounds like he had a strange day. I’m not sure what to make of the claim that someone tried to bug his truck afterwards.
So that’s what I’ve read through so far. In my own opinion it falls well short of overwhelming evidence.
@ Tamhob and Earthworm. It’s fascinating to pair the two of you.
It’s easy to philosophize about what you would do in extreme circumstances when you’re safe and well-fed and your culture encourages you to philosophize about events that probably won’t happen.
If your culture encourages you to act (without hesitating) to defend yourself and your culture, you will. As a species, we didn’t populate every habitable speck of ground by being diffident and concerned about ‘feelings’.
I don’t have much to add to the discussion about the storming of the Capitol, but I’m sure, that the symbolic character of it can scarcely be overestimated. i believe that it is an inflection point for the United States, at which things and problems which were formerly more or less hidden due to the bias of mainstream media and the self-image of Americans, suddenly came out in the open, in a brutal way. In his predictions for 2020 JMG wrote that it would become impossible to paper over the conflicts in US society. So, probably 2021 already has shown itself to be a watershed year.
As Earthworm proposed, by the way, what we see now happening in the United States may be the earthing-out of all the muck on the astral plane about which JMG wrote, as least regarding local conditions in the United States.
@Steve T:
I entirely agree, provided that the same premises also lead you and me to conclude that the Republicans cheated in this election, too, though this time less effectively. (Also, every minority party surely cheated, though these parties lacked the resources for cheating to good effect.)
“the 2010 midterms taught (Obama) that catering to the far left was a recipe for political disaster. ” Really? I have been appreciating your insights, and occasionally disagreeing with your analysis, for a long time, but this comment seems way off base. It has always seemed to me that the Democrats’ failure in the 2010 midterms, and the overall switch of around 900 elected positions from D to R was because Obama pandered to the right wing of his party by bailing out the bankers and leaving the working class to sink or swim, and by refusing to even consider universal health coverage, opting instead for “Obamacare,” which originated with The American Enterprise Institute, hardly a left-wing bastion. Whether you call those moves left or right, however, they both fit into your overall thesis of the Dems betraying their base and bringing forth Trump.
Have a great break! I look forward to catching up with you in the new year.
The fairly rapid push to deplatform the right is eerie, in light of the fact the Grand Mutation seems to say there will be a massive move away from advanced technologies. I wonder now if this is how it gets started, as the right begins to build the alternatives to the internet so as to be able to communicate effectively even without it….
@ Miranda Thank you for sharing that situation and its lasting impact.
Similarly are folks that have been in battle/war situations. A lot of them will come back as peace loving pacifists because they have seen and felt what it is like to be in the presence of deadly violence. All the glory of war and violence fades away and what remains is but a lingering shadow.
The brightest light casts the darkest shadow.
PatriciaT: The comment “We’re saved”, we’re saved” was my poor attempt at humourous sarcasm.
I’ve been watching Game of Thrones these past couple of weeks, so here’s a mashup quote from GoT and Biden:
“A Dark Winter is Coming…….”
Scotlyn-Yes. Poet D.H. Lawrence wrote about how civilization *is* the tower. Specialization leads to mutual incomprehension. Definitely meditate-able…
Walt:
I agree with your assessment.
This evening, CBS “News” (I know, I know) reported the incident with the fire extinguisher during the protest, but admitted that it’s not yet been established whether the deceased officer was actually hit, or whether any one specific action that day led to his demise. Investigations are ongoing.
I still think that if his cause of death turns out not to be useful to the elites, the story will be dropped quietly. I never used to be this cynical, but I feel that current conditions warrant it.
@ David BTL I will take what you said and swap around one part.
“If we lose the Constitution though, there may be no next time. I said it earlier and I’ll say it again: the Constitution is more important than any election. It’s really as simple as that.”
“”There’s always next time.”
This is the main point that folks have to remember. This is not a permanent situation. I suspect what we will see over the next 4 years is a significant amount of push back towards the majority elected. I suspect this will be a major issue that will ensure that, as you said, Bidens term will go sideways.
Every time someone is defeated but not extinguished, they learn a lesson on how to win the next time around.
This will probably produce a lot of solidarity from the losing party. It will clarify their strategy in a way that will probably hold up the constitution rather than trying to destroy it. Folks are blowing off a lot of steam right now, it is expected, but it is when these folks go quiet and start working together on real achievable strategy – that is when change will happen. We are already seeing a lot of people who are working together, they have been for a long time now, but the goal is much better defined.
I’ve said it before. I’m on the opposite side of the planet and as such I don’t have a horse in this race. But it is fascinating to see where it is all going. It doesn’t feel like people are trying to rip up the constitution, it is more a case of demonstration to those in power that they ‘the people’ can still push back if needed and a reminder of who they should be serving. I’m in Australia, our parliament house in Canberra has a public grass walk way across the top of the building. It is meant to be symbolic, that the people are above the politicians and to remind those in power of who they serve… of course it was blocked off in 2017 over “security concerns”.
earthworm,
I have, throughout my entire life .. up to this point, been one to let things pass over me .. in that I always felt that any sleights due to perceived wrongs to me weren’t worth the aggravation of pursuit!
But … as things have progressed these last 5+ years of OMB, Omg!!!! ….. in fact, back since 2006 .. when Cold bowl Nancy took impeachment of ‘Cough-Drop George the 2nd’ off the gilded table .. I knew the jig was up, eventually to be pulled from semi-rouch waters, with the lowerMokestanis attached firmly to the hook. So, at this point in time, I have absolutely NO faith in authority whatsoever! … because THEY have no faith in me! They want their ricebowls to remind ‘whole’ .. at ALL COSTS, leaving everyone else to writh and twist.
I no longer care.
So, the whirlwind spins ever tighter, but to what end?
@ Steve T.
I like how you reason. I would say that my major premise is that Biden actually, in one of his few public appearances, bragged about thaing he most “diverse” voting fraud campaign in American history. In this case the word diverse being used accurately rather than as jsut empty rhetoric: they probably did cheat in many ways. The fact that he could make such a outrageous statement just shows how much in the tank the MSM was, which is by far the most important reason he got away with it.
I recommend reading “Means of Accent” by Robert Caro. The book is essentially about the 1948 Senatorial election LBJ stole against a legendary former governor in a Democratic primary (the only election that mattered in Texas back then.) It’s a first class lesson in the simple mechanics of voting fraud and why I knew that when they had suspended counting in the Swing States election night Biden was going to win even though Trump was far ahead at the time in almost all of them.
Also, many of the voting rules that came in with the Progressive era, like requiring pre-registering and secret ballots, have been dismantled by the Democrats anytime they got a chance because they control the big population areas where they could get the 95% vote, 80%plus turnout result. Trump actually made this point rather well in the January 6th speech that has since gone down techno-oligarchic memory hole.
I wish for anonymous s***posting and global communications that the internet of the 2000’s until the tech giants crushed it.
I will miss it if the internet goes away.
CS2:
even JMG’s readers have subscribed to the culture war… you mimic your supposed opposites exactly: focusing on how the other side is so crazy and ridiculous, when from an outsider’s perspective, both sides have gone coo-coo for Coco Puffs.
Hopefully not all of us.
I spent most of my life on the liberal side of things, and finally realized that the Democratic party does not and will never support my values, despite the protestations of the Democratic faithful. At the same time, I remember the conservative Bush administration plunging us into the monstrous war in Iraq, so I can never buy what the Republicans are selling either. And I flat-out detest libertarianism.
So I don’t know where I fit into the political spectrum. Probably not anywhere.
It does seem like Dems and Repubs both are mirroring one another, becoming angrier and more brittle, and completely refusing to see that there could even be an argument against them. I can’t see any good coming of any of this.
Jeanne at
January 8, 2021 at 9:14 pm —
Re BBC article on who it was in the Capitol– thank you for this!
I’ve been gradually gathering more info, especially pictures, and the clear closeup of the guy’s hand is especially helpful. (First one I’ve seen yet.) I compared it to the smaller, blurry pic of his hand from the original article I saw claiming it was a hammer and sickle– and yup– same ‘Dishonored’ symbol. And so, my opinion of the matter rotates under the impetus of more data…
There have also been several opinion columns from various people saying basically, ‘that was no coup, it was far too lame’.
It appears the King In Orange has been disrobed. The restless masses ain’t going away, though– this little shindy taught them something very dangerous to the oligarchy. Which is probably why the pretty people in Capitol City are panicking.
One reminder for the non-Americans, a lot of Americans still believe we are the rulers. Whether it’s the people protesting the Kavanagh confirmation or the electoral college vote, we believe we own that building, we have a right to be in there, (I’ve been there, years ago) and those we elect are supposed to do our bidding. L’etat c’est nous, if you like, and we get grumpy when we don’t get our ways.
Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. And every single person who was at that rally signed with their presence on camera and video, just as much as our ancestors signed with their pens.
As a rallying point, as a symbol, that many people and that much belief also have power. I won’t say if it’s healthy or not to have that focus, but it will resonate. I do expect that the name Ashli will become quite popular for baby girls this year.
Another reminder, remember how far it is to the capitol for most of us. For the Europeans, my home, which is still two days drive from the west coast, is as far from DC as London is from Moscow. For driving it, which I’ve done twice in my life, it’s a five day drive one way if you want be reasonably functional on arrival. The number of people who make any given rally or other event is a fraction of those who would like to but are prohibited from doing so by distance and finance, or who are generally supportive but crowd-adverse.
Heck, it’s a half-day drive to my own state capitol in good driving conditions, which January is not. It’s not something one does after work or whatever. Apply for time off in advance.
@ TamHob
“ violence between groups changes as part of the cycle of civilisations”
I think I recall that discussion. What gets me here is that this looks like a bifurcation/polarisation where communication has virtually become impossible. I have seen numerous examples of people merely suggesting that a subject should be discussed in an analytical manner only to get dog-piled.
I can see the sense in what you said, but this seems on a different level. Maybe it isn’t, and this is what happens to decaying societies (i.e. that one part of a population decides to hate another part?).
Is there any movement on an actual ecosophia mailing list if digital comms become interrupted?
I know folks in the US have had meet-ups, has anyone in the UK done that?
@ teresa from hershey
For sure – what I’m wondering about here is more from an occult/esoteric level, while in the material society it looks like a cultural implosion that could all too easily degenerate harshly.
@ polecat
“So, the whirlwind spins ever tighter, but to what end?”
Good question. I’ve cut my access to the few media news sites I glance at by 90% over the last 10 days as it seems like an exercise in futility – thing that really gets me is that this is not just gov and tech, looks like a good number of people are with the programme. Just rereading this from 1941:
“Sometimes I think there are direct biological factors at work—a type of education, feeding, and physical training which has produced a new kind of human being with an imbalance in his nature. He has been fed vitamins and filled with energies that are beyond the capacity of his intellect to discipline. He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected.”
https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/
Is mokestani a US slang term? (sorry I’m in the UK and you lost me on the first bit)
Cicada Grove, I never got what a ‘crisis actor’ was supposed to be until I looked into that guy. At one of those Antifa rallies he was photographed with a sign saying ‘Q sent me’ which is as good an example of Poe’s law as any. But one place that purported to doxx him identified him as an out-of-work actor. If that’s really the case I can finally see how a crisis actor might appear – were I trying to promote myself for that kind of work I might go to areas where a lot of excitement and cameras are present and look like an interesting background character. In any case, I find it interesting that someone like that made it into the big papers.
Bridge, for all I know you may be right! If I had to bet I’d offer good odds that the election had widespread fraud, good odds that it wasn’t centrally orchestrated, and even odds that it didn’t affect the outcome. But without a clear way to prove what happened, it would be foolish to bet. Regardless therefore, I would urge you to consider the parallels between your beliefs in this moment and the beliefs of HRC voters in early 2017. They also thought there was election interference leading to the wrong president being inaugurated, and I’m sure you had an opinion at the time as to what they should do about that.
Believing that the election was interfered with doesn’t prevent the soul-searching necessary to figure out why it was close in the first place, but it certainly provides an excuse not to if you don’t want to! And on that subject, I’ll note that the way you described my thesis – that the mainstream turned against Trump – was the exact opposite of what my thesis actually was. I proposed that the fringes turned against him. Bit of a tell IMHO.
Just as a general note to both Americans still trying to make up their minds about stolen elections etc: I should point out that any foreign actor hostile to you (plenty of those) or fearful of you (literally all of us) would care much less about who sits in the oval office than whether the electorate thinks they belong there.
Robert, of course. I really think the main issue this time around is that Trump convinced himself he could win without properly preparing to counter the Democrats’ fraud operation, and then tried to change it after the fact. I think Giuliani might have been involved, as the 11th hour lawsuits remind me of his primary campaign in 2008, in which he tried to ignore every race and then swoop in and win everything on Super Tuesday. Again, it reminds me of a team complaining about losing the Stanley Cup because of a shoulder check. Sorry, that’s hockey.
I said the foregoing to a group of Democrat family members, and they just ignored my actual words and started shrieking media talking points about “60 court cases” at me. That bothers me more than anything else. I don’t mind people disagreeing with me. I greatly mind the fact that most of my fellow citizens seem to have replaced their brains with their TVs and “smart” devices.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump himself almost certainly needs to be included in that category. The march on the Capitol was the perfect ending to an idiotic Hollywood movie.
I have contemplated answering two posters here, but I think it is no longer safe to discuss anything political publicly.
Cleric,
There were several altercations with New York Jews, but that was marginal. My main point was the fairly open suppression of Christianity.
Earthworm – there is a UK & Ireland “Ecosophia Isles” grouping. I took part in (but did not organise) a lovely quick Zoom meet up last night. Perhaps you might send a message to ecosophia-uk@eeecourse.org and whoever approves people will get you signed up.
@Cliff,
Thanks for your response, and yes, hopefully not everyone. Your political story is likely more common than people think. I guess you could register as an Independent?
@ Cliff
I think there are many of us who don’t fit in any of the current political categories. I know I don’t. One of the challenges those like us face, of course, is how to engage the present system without a party organization that represents our values. Does that mean voting for someone you dislike but who’s better than the opposition on certain key issues? Does it mean not voting? I think it depends on the circumstances, the choices we have, and our individual priorities and assessments.
I, too, have generally been on the liberal side on things and have come to a similar conclusion re the current Democratic Party. And while I’m a civil libertarian, I’m not an economic one. I have voted for individual Republicans on a case by case basis, but never before for president. I’d argue that I still haven’t, as Trump is no Republican–I voted for Trump as a populist and anti-globalist, but I’d never vote for Jeb, for example.
@ Michael Gray
I’d agree with the emphasis implied by your revision of my statement!
@ Anonymous, et. al.
The de-platforming is reflexive and short-sighted. Again, those folks are mistaking symptoms for causes and missing the underlying issues. And expelling dissenting voices from public discourse doesn’t silence them, it merely drives that dissent underground. There it has much more potential to radicalize, while the root causes of that dissent remain unaddressed and likely worsen, as now there’s no one bringing attention to them.
Moreover, weaponization of politics is always poor choice, as what goes around comes around. Or, as we might say here in this forum, karma’s a thing. The actual violent protestors aside–who are properly subject to criminal charges–if we punish people for merely expressing an unpopular opinion, fire them for merely being present at a rally, seek to bar the opposition from office for expressing concerns raised by their constituents, then we should not be surprised when, later on, those same weapons are turned on us. None of which is helpful to the discourse needed for a functional democracy. Unfortunately, passions are high right now and the willingness to consider the long-term consequences of these (re)actions is rather lacking
Earthworm, the Harper’s Nazi sorting algorithm could be a personality test. It’s probably better than the MBTI. I’m a combination of C and G. 🙂
earthworm,
‘Mokestanis’ is MY personal slang for what’s become of an ever greater demographic of desperate muricans .. both deplorable AND the blu non-glitterati/wokerati – basically, the down-trodden who ain’t in that glorious Club, as per the musings of one G. Carlin .. but receive it smartly, nontheless!
Use it liberally (Ha!) if it suits you.
Onething,
“I have contemplated answering two posters here, but I think it is no longer safe to discuss anything political publicly.”
Agreed.
One shaman in the center of world power!. Inside the “Omphalos”!,
I know is a fake shaman but, what a symbolism!
After a year that a virus from the “wild nature” have been wreaking havoc in our almighty techno-scientific civilization, a half naked shaman appears as a symbol also of how fragile the political power really is, and in fact, this is now, firstly inside the minds of the terrified politicians in DC, so the over-reaction.
What a synchronicity!
From now on a see peak Big-Tech, peak globalization, peak techno-science, peak MSM, peak internet, peak smart-phones, peak oil, peak transport, peak travel, peak financialization, peak cars, peak garbage, peak consumption, peak desires, peak comfort, peak cities, peak planes, peak tourism…
It is really a “phase change” in the system, and it is even hard to say how much has changed the world, or at least our perception of the changes in the world, in only one year.
Good luck
David
For what it might be worth:
The MAGA folks can shout, riot and wave guns around all they want. The rock bottom reality is that Easy Street is closed for business, and permanently so, I would guess. There is no more easy money and no more easy life sitting at the end of a 10,000 mile supply chain, playing golf and being a VIP in one’s own town or county.
After subjecting us to four years of the Trump Family Reality Show, no Republican has any business lecturing the rest of us about Family Values. Men, if you want to marry a series of trophies, that is your own affair, but do be aware that your children won’t have a functioning Mom in their home. The only one of the Trump adult offspring who appears to resemble an actual. normal human being is the one he didn’t raise. He did provide generous support and was and is part of her life and that is very much to his credit.
I don’t think Trump is a bad person at all. I think he is a clever and talented guy with some good ideas who was out of his depth in the presidency because a government is not a business. Mi hija the LPN thinks he might be suffering the delayed effects of his bout with the virus, which apparently was pretty bad. Maybe he literally could not walk from the WH to the capitol building because of post disease weakness.
The point being that Trump could have won elections to the governorship or senate, and learned the art of governance, but those positions require patience and work. The reason Andy Cuomo never seems to have effective opposition is that very few persons of sense want his job. The tactics of making deals, not paying suppliers and employees, and bluff are effective until they aren’t.
What else isn’t working as advertised is the Republican tactic of throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Of course they are going to make outrageous claims about the election: that is what they always do. See the 2000 election, and the Iraq war, for examples.
Which is not to say that the Democrats don’t have their own problems, but that is another topic.
In the spirit of asking questions that wouldn’t have been asked before:
Why are elections held on weekdays in the US and the UK? It seems like a considerable part of the arguments for massive early voting, mail-in voting etc. would disappear if elections were held on a day when few people need to work. All other countries I know of vote on Sundays. If there were religious reasons to avoid Sundays, then the election day (every two or four years) could be made a holiday.
Holding elections on weekdays, putting polling stations out of reach of public transport etc. reeks of voter exclusion. On the other hand, pre-registration and the necessity to show valid photo IDs are part of the voting process in most country.
Some (thousands of) Chassidic Jews showed some chutzpah in New York City. After the authorities caught wind of a planned 10,000-attendee wedding, it had to be severely scaled back to take place. The next wedding was advertised solely by word of mouth; 7000 people attended. Finally there was a funeral for a 90-something holocaust survivor who was highly revered in the community. The five police officers in the vicinity did nothing to interfere. I share these with you not to condone civil disobedience but simply in the spirit of a civil sharing of information.
NYC City Hall failed to stop massive Satmar funeral
@ Graham (January 11, 2021 – 6:42 pm) – To be clearer, I should have reviewed & tweaked what I wrote before submitting my comment. I think that your “We’re saved! We’re saved!!” was a brilliant assessment of the breathy enthusiasm in article you referenced – it certainly implied that sentiment without stating it directly. In the article it noted Biden’s “…ability to deftly communicate in order to achieve his aims.” and “they’ll work together to champion…powerful change.” Um. Right. Saved indeed.
With reference to previous discussions about retro trends and people choosing to go back to other times in one way or another, a relevant Guardian article:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jan/12/modern-life-is-rubbish-the-people-whose-homes-are-portals-to-the-past
Enjoy!
I wonder if Jan 6, 2021 will be consider by future historians as the day of peak internet. Wow, That Was Fast…</a
I have contemplated answering two posters here, but I think it is no longer safe to discuss anything political publicly.
Chilling, isn’t it? Winter is coming…
Matthias,
Thanks for correcting me. I found that study at work, skimmed it, and wrote a quick write up because it didn’t smell right to my first impressions and wanted to let off some steam. Happy to change my mind.
Tbh, I’m not really at risk of serious case of covid, and don’t spend much time thinking about it. Reflecting on it now, I think I was caught up in the abhorrent (even for the last year’s standards) astral conditions following the storming of the Capitol. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have cared about skimming that study!
Onething, I agree it’s no longer safe to discuss anything political. One problem is lots of culture has been made political over this last year. I find myself second guessing 75% of what I say outside of “safe” settings. I switched to this silly moniker in this blogosphere for a reason lol.
Hi Onething,
How are you doing? Better, I hope.
I also adopted a no-political-discussions rule. Which at the moment is like taking a vow of silence…
Well, I am still working my way through the comments/trying to catch up.
hermitalex, yes, I’ve been seeing more input (including nice clear photos of the participants on several webpages) that lead me to believe the original article I read about “an Antifa op” was incorrect. (Sigh. Life in a hall of mirrors.)
Alan White– the blue bosses are really freaking out, or pretending to… I can’t quite tell which. Is it possible that they believe their own rhetoric about scruffy NASCAR “deplorables”? Is it still ‘propaganda’ if you believe it yourself?
Methylethyl at January 9, 2021 at 5:57 pm, I think you are the closest to the truth of anyone. It was a ball of confusion up there and it will take time to sort out what-all happened.
Christophe at January 10, 2021 at 5:44 am, that is an awesome essay. I think it deserves to be a guest post on the Dreamwidth blog in fact. Do I hear a second?
Whether the “Capitol Hill Riot” was staged, permitted to happen, or just an unexpected spontaneous event, it has resulted in a meme that I think will reverberate deeply. And that is, that a bunch of commoners literally climbed the walls of the Capitol Building and put all of Congress to flight. Whether it’s really true, a lot of red-staters now think it is. I’m not sure that any amount of flapping and banning is going to be enough to erase that idea now.
Thank you JMG for continuing to read and put through comments even while in your month off. I didn’t realize until today you’d been doing that. Just kept coming to your sites forlornly looking for the haven from the storms I thought would be missing until February, and clicking away when I remembered you were on break . It’s still stormy here, but the winds howl a little less fiercely, and that may make all the difference for some of us in trying to navigate through.
No nation can have a lasting government of any form unless each citizen is willing to compromise at least in cases of grave necessity, with what he or she regards as supremely evil.
I regard slavery as a very, very great evil. Yet had I been a member of the convention that drafted the US Constitution, I would have supported the infamous Three-Fifths Compromise with that evil simply–and only!–because without it there could have been no United States. (I would have tried to find the courage to do so even if I was personally at great risk of being enslaved myself.) For without that compromise, there would still have been only thirteen independent Colonies, which Britain could have picked off one by one at its leisure over the next few decades, once it was no longer distracted by pressing concerns elsewhere (as it was during our War for Independence).
If some foreign power wants to destroy any nation from inside, and is patient enough to play a very long game, all it has to do is continually propagandize the citizenry of that nation to treat every major political disagreement as a stark choice between good and evil. The inherent inability of any citizenry to agree among itself on which choices are good and which are evil, will then slowly complete the work of destruction without that foreign power’s needing to do much else.
To follow up on Pygmycory’s link to the Guardian article on retro living, here’s another one they ran in May 2020:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/may/31/living-in-the-past-the-nostalgia-fans-who-feel-happiest-dwelling-in-a-bygone-era
Ok so here’s a question. It seems forgotten now but in the run-up to the election, every poll on Five-Thirty-Eight was consistently showing the Democrats in the lead, for several months, by good margins of 5 – 15%. They were expected to win, even if the polls were out by as much as they were in 2016 (and looks like they were). As long as turnout was good, and everyone who wanted to vote was able to do so. Given that, why risk cheating?
Well, the polls could have been rigged against Trump, but
a) *all* the polls were pointing the same way, including ones commissioned by Fox News, and
b) deliberately exaggerating your own support risks backfiring on you – your supporters could become complacent and stay at home.
They did *less* well than expected, not more. In fact what has happened was a feared scenario, that Biden would win but only just – making it easier for Trump to contest the result. That being the case, and if the Democrats have no scruples about cheating, why not cheat good and proper and engineer a landslide?
The vaccinations against COVID seems to run into their first problems with unintended consequences, like Covid-like symptoms, some of which resemble bubonic plague – view the comments section of this Naked Capitalism article: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/01/200pm-water-cooler-1-12-2021.html. So we and JMG can already “enjoy” the first colorful events of 2021 (the Capitol storming, undesired vaccination effects).
Thanks Scotlyn.
eeecourses.org led me to fses.org which led me to ecosophic-isles.org etc
It’a an interesting conundrum that the ‘prisonification’ of societies is looking to herd people into an ever greater virtual existence, and although I can see the usefulness of an online presence whilst that is viable – it’s almost like homes being repurposed into caves of hermits and to interface with other humans one must now insert tech intermediaries… and if those intermediaries decide they don’t like what one is talking about, they reckon they can just turn off one’s access.
Tricky.
Like tech is pushing the beach ball of consciousness deeper and deeper into an ocean.
On the plus side, if the hands that bind lose grip for a moment, that ball is going to be rocketing in the opposite direction.
Need to think on this a while.
Fascinating Darkest Yorkshire… Perhaps it could also be a useful vehicle for an exploration of The Mastering of Opposites.
Polecat – Funny.
We just refer to ourselves as peasants – though we have noticed that a peasant diet based on real ingredients and working outside fuels us well, and while the ‘glorious club’ holds no attraction, I’ve got to wonder how long it will take before more people clock on to the idea that when they say ‘we’re all in it together’ they are telling the truth from their view – THEY are all in it together, but that club (as per Carlin) does not and has no plans to include the likes of ‘thee and me’.
That said, the last year has seen more bubbles of ideas percolating through the wetware in my skull than for quite a while – and what people refer to as ‘lockdown’ in terms of not seeing people much or at all, well, that has been our existence for quite a while… my partner and I think of ourselves as two companionable hermits – we live in seclusion together.
What has surprised me is how many people seem to to be all in – but perhaps that has more to do with their previous work- lives being abominable – and some quiet time on hold has been a mercy for some but sadly a nightmare for others.
If this carries on much longer, how long before small and independent companies are totally crushed and the corporates vacuum up the wreckage for pennies… “Now all restaurants are Taco Bell” (Demolition Man).
Perhaps Great Cthulhu is planning on having a stern word with the wannabee corporate Vampire Squid!
Dana Blankenhorn makes sense for once. He occasionally does. topic: free speech.
https://www.danablankenhorn.com/
@Onething – You said you no longer feel it’s safe to express your political opinions – I hope you didn’t mean on this forum! Where I, from the opposite end of the spectrum, sometimes feel reluctant to express mine; and also, when among “my own” people, stay silent for fear of touching off another round of Leftish thought-stoppers and several rounds of Ain’t It Awful.
However, it helped me to remember “Among the things you cannot control are your parents, siblings, children, *nation* [emphasis mine]…..”* The impeachment process is coming down the road like an avalanche, sweeping all before it, driven by over 4 years of the simple-minded belief that “Trump is the Root of All Evil.” Whether is sweeps the road clean, or leaves behind a Hurricane Katrina-level of wreckage, or both, it’s out of everybody’s hands except our Congresspeople now. Pass the popcorn and enjoy the disaster movie? One of the more realistic ones, in which there is no Dick Daring to save the day; just people picking up the pieces and rebuilding.
*Epictetus’ Discourses, 1.22.10. And times like ours were ancient history to him.
Totally random question here, but this feels like it is now a “talk among yourselves” thread, so, here goes…
I decided to clean down my wee corner altar today, and an item for cleaning was the candlestick holding three candles which I light each day and then snuff out when I finish my devotions. The stubs were quite short and I decided to remove them and put in new candles, but then I felt a reluctance. The dribbles and stubs felt “still attached” to the purposes of the altar. In the end up I did remove them and prayerfully offer them to the generous embrace of my compost heap, and put in the new ones.
But, I’m curious. What do other people do with the wax dribbles and drippings of candles used for blessing, prayer and ritual? Does anyone who helps clean a church (say) know if there is there an etiquette around this subject? Is this even a thing?
Thanks a million!
@Robert Mathiesen: “I would have tried to find the courage to do so even if I was personally at great risk of being enslaved myself.”
But… why?? If you consider the founding of the United States to be axiomatically good, then sure, I get it. But why would it be axiomatic? As I see it, it was good for some and bad for others, and I fail to see how it could possibly have made sense for anyone enslaved or at risk of enslavement to actively support the rebel cause.
Matthias Gralle:
Here’s a good article about why US elections are always on a Tuesday –
https://www.history.com/news/why-is-election-day-a-tuesday-in-november
@ Cicada Grove
You wrote (my emphasis):
Whether the “Capitol Hill Riot” was staged, permitted to happen, or just an unexpected spontaneous event, it has resulted in a meme that I think will reverberate deeply. And that is, that a bunch of commoners literally climbed the walls of the Capitol Building and put all of Congress to flight. Whether it’s really true, a lot of red-staters now think it is. I’m not sure that any amount of flapping and banning is going to be enough to erase that idea now.
I think you are spot on with this. The symbolism of the event is very real and equally potent. As I mentioned up-thread, the Boston Tea Party was, by any objective measure, a cowardly act of vandalism. Yet its power as an 18th-century meme proved quite strong. I would not be surprised at all to see Jan 6th develop as something similar for select segments of the US as the years progress.
@ Robert Mathiesen
Re compromises
I agree with you and your example is a classic one (with which I’d also agree for the reasons you give). However, it should also be noted that those compromises can (and often do) have a limited lifespan: again, the example of the three-fifths compromise is apropos. At the time of Framers, it was necessary. By the end of the Ante Bellum period, significant portions of the population, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, valued the relative components (the Union, the institution of slavery) quite differently than the men in Philadelphia those generations earlier.
This is why I see, in the end, some degree of fragmentation of the US as inevitable in the long-run. We are so very different economically and culturally across these fifty states and our empire has been the glue holding us together. In its absence, and despite any (very much needed) reforms that might occur to make our federal system more decentralized, there are going to be those segments who will conclude that the club membership isn’t worth the cost and decide to chart their own course. (A contemporary analogy might be the probable future course of Scotland post-Brexit.) I don’t see this happening tomorrow, of course. But in my lifetime (first half to three-quarters of the century)? Quite possibly.
I am honestly worried about the potential violence we could see on the day of the inauguration.
Sara, all the polls showed Mrs. Clinton ahead by miles in 2016. Do you have reason to think they improved? I know in 2016 my household still answered polls. Our policy now is: We don’t answer polls *click*. We still have two employed household members at this time.
Matthias, the day of the presidential elections is set by the Constitution. To change it merely requires amending the document, which no one has ever bothered to even propose, so far as I know. It’s after harvest and before too much snow in most years through most of the country, and not on Sunday, which would have been absolutely unacceptable at the time it was put into place, and considering how most businesses still close on Sundays, I suspect it would still be unacceptable to a good portion of the country.
Public transportation, outside of large urban areas, pretty well doesn’t exist. I live five miles from the end of the transit near one of three urban areas in my entire state that have any system of public transit. Ours is a six route system, with one bus per route, each an hour loop, runs 7 am-6 pm IIRC, last time I looked it was “well, that closes before the kid’s done with activity, so guess I can’t have him take it to the library after.” I know there are areas where it’s better, but an awful lot of Americans just aren’t interested in public transit at all: it’s inconvenient and you still have to hire an uber or walk miles from the route to your destination. And outside of very dense urban areas, everyone has cars. Most people are never going to care about public transportation to the polls, and if someone does, they probably should be involved in their precinct. We vote about three miles from home by road, at the county dump. Inconvenient? Only when the dump workers screwed up and closed the gate when the dump closed, three hours before the polls closed. Public transit doesn’t go there from anywhere, and never has, and likely never will.
Hi All
Well, “Joint Chiefs Remind U.S. Forces That They Defend The Constitution”.
https://www.npr.org/sections/congress-electoral-college-tally-live-updates/2021/01/12/956170188/joint-chiefs-remind-u-s-forces-that-they-defend-the constitution#:~:text=The%20Joint%20Chiefs%20of%20Staff%20is%20made%20up%20of%20the,and%20the%20National%20Guard%20Bureau.
Is this not obvious?, what kind of paranoia are they suffering?. Well I suppose they fear what happened to the Volhynsky regiment of the Imperial Guard february 1917.
Unbelievable.
What I see is that every single step the establishment is taking from the 6th is in the wrong direction, it is like a reenactment of the Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” play:
1) The cross of the Rubicon (Potomac) by the Deplorables
2) The stabbing in the back in the Senate, “Tu quoque Pence filli mi!”
3) The Mark Anthony funeral prayer beside the Caesar’s body in the stairs if the Senate, this is now being represented by MSM, Big Tech, academia, banks, “tank-thinkers”, etc…converting a narcissistic, oportunistic, liar, thirsty of power, unable to accept a defeat, that made yuuuge mistake in the weeks before and in the 6th; in a victim, and for many, probably, in an hero.
Sad
Cheers
David
I had this long-winded, analytical comment on my whipsaw thoughts on our present situation worked out in my head, but I think I’ll ditch all that and run with a few lines I remember from my sophomore English class in high school:
The evil men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
So let it be with Caesar.
Well, I think it’s fairly obvious which of Dorothy Thompson’s “Who’s a Nazi?” characters I am! Mr G – the one with a caveat for everything, who will never swallow anybody’s platform down whole. BTW, I did notice all her intellectuals were male! You could say “That’s 1941 for you,” except that she was certainly one herself!
(Signed) Ms. G.
@Irena:
I don’t consider the founding of the United States to be “axiomatically good” ) or axiomatically evil), biut it was far and away the best choice for the people who lived there in the circumstances of that particular time. In part this was due to the specific policies of King George III and his ministers, but in part due to something else that had been a-brewing for a century and a half.
One of the things that many European commentors find it hard to grasp is just how heavily the territories of British North America were settled by immigrants who loathed, feared or hated Europe, their own European heritage, and generally everything that Europe had stood for historically. This changed, I think, only with immigration from Europe right before and after the Second World War
My own immigrant ancestors felt this way strongly in the 1600s, the 1700s and the 1800s. They passionately hated and loathed the England of Queen Elizabeth and King Charles I (and its established Church); they rejected the conditions of life in the Rhineland during the early 1700s; and they utterly despised what Denmark had become under King Christian IX and then in the immediate aftermath of the Second Schleswig War.
It is a convenient modern myth that immigration to British North America was motivated by the search for economic advantage. That was a factor, but anti-European sentiment was a much greater factor–or so it seems to me from my reading in the primary sources. (Ideologies and prejudices seem generally to outweigh economic considerations whenever the two clash.)
The War for Independence was simply the inevitable culmination of all this.
And it was definitely a touch-and-go, very narrow victory for the United States. They would have lost that war decisively if Britain had not had other, more pressing concerns during those war years. Nor had Britain given up all hope of recovering the territory it had lost; the War of 1812 may be seen as a resumption of the same conflict.
If the United States had decisively lost their battle for Independence from Europe, I suspect they would have become a set of angry, failed, ungovernable colonies, spiraling down into disaster after disaster.
@David BTL:
The break-up of the United States seems unavoidable to me, too. It may even happen within my own remaining decade or two of life, and I thionk it is certain to happen within my children’s lifetime. We never have been, and never can be, a unified nation where (almost) all the citizenry share a common ideology and a common history.
I have always liked the thesis of Joel Garreau and subsequently of Colin Woodward that North America contains nine (or eleven) major nations, plus a good number of micronations. We were never more than a federation of all these disparate nations, protected from the world by our moat of two oceans. But the moat has become merely a pair of ponds; and federations as such are no longer esteemed, only nations that have shared identities and ideologies. But any possible road to lasting nationhood, for the United States, is a road to rage and madness.
Dear Scotlyn,
There are several traditional ways of disposing of candles one works with in ritual. In Hoodoo one buries ritual remains including candles in the back yard to keep the influence around. Of course, this only applies to benevolent workings, like blessing and healing. With candles burnt in curse-work one buries them at the crossroads, or in some place to cause specific harm to the target. Candles burnt in devotion I imagine are well within the category of influences one might wish to keep around!
If the candles are petroleum-based or you feel uncomfortable burying them, you might consider burning them in a fire. Every time I’ve divined about burning devotional candles in a fire, I’ve gotten a clear “Fine with us!” As I think of it, burning in a fire completes the job of the candle.
Something that I would love to do, but have not yet been able to on account of my circumstances, is to save candle stubs burnt in devotion and then make a giant fire with them on a holy day. So on a solstice, equinox, or cross-quarter day appropriate to the deity or deities you work with, you might also consider burning the accumulated wax in a fire made of fragrant wood, throwing in some incense, singing devotional songs, pouring libations, etc.
Of course, prayer and divination are the best methods of discerning a specific course of action in regards to religious questions.
At least part of the American Left seems to have a problem with democracy (see comments): https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/01/near-term-covid-analyses-point-to-risk-of-medical-system-breakdown-other-severe-dislocations.html
They should be careful what they wish for, repressive measures are easily installed; it is much more difficult to dismantle them. afterwards
Hello,
(JMG, if this is too off-topic and deleted, I understand)
I have seen discussion on the topic of the vaccine in the comments and this post keeps going… so am posting this.
I am looking for help finding sources to make the case for not being forced to get a vaccine at work.
My partner, through work, has been moved up the vaccine priority list and is allowed to get the shot in a few weeks. They are not a first-responder, essential worker or have much contact with the public, it’s a bureaucratic quirk. I am cautious of this due to the speed of development, lack of testing, and overwhelming campaign to convince people to get it.
My partner has asked me to make a case they can take to management for waiting for more data and not being an early recipient of the shot. HR has already strongly come out in favor of everyone receiving it and said so in writing. People not getting it will have to explain why. Consequences haven’t been spelled out yet, I think HR can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t be first in line with a smile on their face (under a mask, of course.)
I am putting together a document, sources with as many scientists and doctors as I can to make a case for waiting, to find a way that my partner won’t be labeled as ‘difficult’, or frankly, as a ‘non-believer’ at work, which could be detrimental to our family.
I’ve done my homework on the search engines but, perhaps, don’t know what I don’t know. I also am leery of pointing to what would be considered as unsafe or non-trusted sources by true believers. There are plenty of those sources out there. I just need to shift the Overton Window enough at their work to take the urgency out of this, introduce some reasonable doubt, and let them let my partner wait.
Question. ***I know this community has been tracking the issue and wondered if you have saved any scientific and/or reliable sources on constructive criticism of the vaccine that I could use in my write up?
I’m also willing to share what I put together if it is useful to other people.
Thank you.
Thank you for answering my question about election day, Beekeeper and Boysmom. I gather that it is determined by a 19th century federal law, not the constitution, so it is less difficult to change. I also understand now that Tuesday, the eve of market day, was considered, at the time, the best possible day for farmers (the segment of the population for whom it was most burdensome to vote). Today it isn’t the best day for anybody so, maintaining the spirit of that 19th century law, election could be moved to a Sunday, a Saturday, or made a federal civic holiday. I think all of those would be better than multi-day or massive mail-in voting.
More generally, as I think I have said here before, Bolivia, Chile and the USA all had a crisis of legitimacy and hoped to solve them through a vote in Oct-Nov 2020. Bolivia and Chile solved their crises (the stolen election and military coup of 2019 in Bolivia; the heritage of the dictatorship-era constitution in Chile), while the USA hasn’t. If there is a sizable group of representatives interested in returning stability to the USA, election reform should be near the top of their list: pre-registration of voters, valid photo IDs (making it at the same time very easy to obtain those IDs), no encouragement of mail-in voting, but double envelops for those who do opt for it, polling stations for every couple of thousand voters, and maybe changing election day or making it a holiday.
I think I have overstayed my welcome as a clueless foreigner commenting on your election system. Let me just repeat that while each American may feel whatever way they want about the last few months, and specifically about Jan 6th, the world outside the US will still consider it a weakening and a loss of prestige for that whole nation, not only for its congress. Comparing Jan 6th to the Boston Tea Party, the Tennis Court Oath or the storming of the Bastille only makes sense if you want to overthrow the constitution or break away from the union…
I have read maybe 3 such articles and all were a lot of fun, but this one was ruined by the infestation of the politics of anger, resentment, condemnation and negativity.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/may/31/living-in-the-past-the-nostalgia-fans-who-feel-happiest-dwelling-in-a-bygone-era
Patricia Matthews,
I most certainly did mean this forum. Is it not public? That doesn’t mean that I fear most posters here, it means that things are looking very dark and dangerous. I have long time friends and a relative or two who now seem to be idealogues. Can I trust each of them not to turn on me or turn me in?
An interesting “Dark Age America” article:
https://css.cua.edu/humanitas_journal/church-of-woke/
to fill the time while JMG is on break.
Hope you are having a very enjoyable January.
@ Matthias Gralle
Comparing Jan 6th to the Boston Tea Party, the Tennis Court Oath or the storming of the Bastille only makes sense if you want to overthrow the constitution or break away from the union…
I would have to disagree. Understanding the parallels of Jan 6th to those events is key to assessing the state of nation at the present time, the underlying forces at play, and the possible trajectories branching into the future. If we ignore what is going on, fail to conduct a solid root-cause analysis and then act to alleviate the pressures that are continuing to build, then we may very well get 1789 or 1775. It doesn’t have to go that way, but we must do something to alter the direction we’re heading. Making the parallel doesn’t imply that one condones the act (I certainly don’t), but it does give insight into the state of affairs–something absolutely vital to making the desperately-needed changes necessary to avoid a more calamitous outcome.
As I mentioned to a coworker just recently, the National Guard troops being deployed in DC and various state capitals in the run-up to Jan 21 makes me think of the stationing of the King’s soldiers in the more troublesome colonies in the years prior to the American Revolution. I’m less worried about next Thursday than I am about the coming decade. If 2020-2030 plays out like 1765-1775, then things could get quite ugly. It doesn’t have to go that way, however, if we have the awareness to acknowledge what is happening and the courage to act to change it.
Oh, my! I hope you never have to be afraid of the people here. But yes, when people turn ideologue, there is no reasoning with them. I don’t advertise my political opinions or religion, since I come out of a time when discussing politics or religion in a social context was not done, but if anyone started crusading at me,I’d say – as some of the people back home who were hosting gatherings had to say – “No politics, please.” And cut the connection if they were so rude as to continue. Anyone who would turn on you is not your friend.
As for turning you in – to whom? Spreading the word that, as someone with an opinion not theirs, you were to be shunned? Or actually getting you cut from social media, jobs, etc by spreading nasty rumors. I do know that’s possible. Especially if your opponent is convinced that, for example. “all conservatives are white supremacists and that’s all they are.” Or that “all liberals are communists, end of story.”
Pat, trying to think of some magical protection other than, say, calling on St. Michael the Archangel for protection. Mundane protection? That’s a tough one.
Anyone reading this have any practical ideas?
Anonymous (about avoiding the vaccine): you might state that your partner has or is in danger of having an autoimmune disease and/or strong allergies, in which case the vaccine is not considered safe. The contrary would be hard to prove, especially in the latter case.
Scotlyn – I burn the candles down to a nubbin and have never had any problem disposing of the nubbins or the wax on the candle holders. But another solution might be to to read up on how to make candles out of used wax and do that.
The USA may be dissolving. The splits are there, the divisions have grown deeper. One day, the fractures will break off. Who knows how soon that may be. There are a ton of people feeling grievances which are not being addressed.
Johnny Appleseed has given us an image though, one which is a great example to consider. From the fruit of a tree, the seeds are brought forth, and that is the stage we are at now. We have plenty of seeds to start preparing for planting, and that is, without a doubt, an important work.
@Robert Mathiesen
Thank you for your reply. Okay, so many European immigrants loathed and/or feared Europe. But those immigrants were neither enslaved nor at risk of being enslaved. I still think that slaves and those at risk of enslavement had precisely nothing to gain from independence. If anything, they lost: Britain abolished slavery decades before the United States did. (Of course, that was still decades after the American Revolution, and if the American Revolution had failed, that would have changed the course of history, and who knows what would have happened with slavery then.)
I do get your broader point, about sometimes needing to compromise with things you loathe. Still, it only goes so far. It’s one thing to compromise on slavery when it’s those other people who are being enslaved. It’s another thing entirely if it’s you and yours.
I think that the storming of the Capitol will become very similar to the storming of the Bastille. When the mob got into the Bastille, instead of the hundreds of imprisoned they expected to find, there were only half a dozen elderly prisoners, although the 250 barrels of gunpowder were useful. Despite the hype of the media, the storming of the Capitol had little real effect. The actual result is much less important than the symbol it will become, for instance, the sainthood of Ashlii Babbit is already happening.
On the election fraud: in Georgia, the Dominion machines are touchscreen machines. A vote is recorded by the machine, and a receipt is printed by the machine to confirm what you entered. There is no way for you to independently confirm that what you entered is the same as what the machine recorded. We have to trust the system, designed by a company based in Canada, and owned by a New York private equity firm. Was there fraud in Georgia? There is no way to tell.
@ Scotlyn: in our Unitarian Church, we had been throwing out the stubs of the candles lit in memory. I’ve starting collecting them for use in the art installation WaterFire.
I love that both David DFC and David D,BTL should decide to quote from Julius Caesar. I will add, from Hamlet: “Where the offence is, let the great axe fall”. Like Claudius, our betters know where the offence is, and I cannot help but think that they too, like Claudius, will be subject to the great axe.
To Anonymous with the Vaccine info requests.
This link will get you to the pdf copy of a submission made the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in December. https://corona-transition.org/IMG/pdf/wodarg_yeadon_ema_petition_pfizer_trial_final_01dec2020_signed_with_exhibits_geschwa_rzt.pdf
The submission was (then) aimed at halting vaccine TRIALS on the basis that volunteers could not possibly be sufficiently informed of the risks as to participate. Events have moved on, but even though the submission received 80,000 supporting emails from around the EU, it is not clear whether the information it documents has been taken on board.
The people who made this submission include:
Dr Michael Yeadon, who once worked for Pfizer in their respiratory diseases section.
Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, a former provincial public health department head in Germany. He was at this former post during the 2009 Swine Flu Pandemic, and succeeded in raising questions within the European Parliament about the changes to the WHO’s definition of pandemic (removing references to a burden of disease and death), within the years after it “flopped” leaving behind a residue of people injured by the Pandemrix vaccine.
Unfortunately, I see both are being actively listed as heretics on various heresy-hunting (AKA “debunking” or “fact-checking”) websites, which means anyone who consults the heresy lists before considering the evidence will see their names there. Still they have significant background experience and knowledge, raise a number of issues in their submission, and include a number of references which are worth checking.
Peter Doshi has written several interesting commentaries on the “state of Covid Vaccine research” in the BMJ, where he is also an editor. I think most of these are open access, so just google him. His “competing interest” statement is to die for.
“Competing interests: I have been pursuing the public release of vaccine trial protocols, and have co-signed open letters calling for independence and transparency in covid-19 vaccine related decision making.”
Here is a scientific blog post describing the state of research on the subject of mRNA research, with a comment thread populated by people who are familiar with this research. Nevertheless some of these highly scientifically literate commenters raise serious doubts about the safety. Also worth perusing for links and points to follow up. https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/01/11/rna-vaccines-and-their-lipids
Now, as to myself, if I am ever offered one (I’m not on any priority list at present, thank gods!)… My considered reply will be to ask to be put on the waiting list for the next vaccine product whose manufacturers are so confident in their product’s safety that they are willing to indemnify users against any loss or damage arising from its use. When that turns up, by all means, come and find me.
@Anonymous
I frankly do not see how your partner could make an objector’s case based on scientific arguments alone. Even trained immunologists are having a hard time to make sense of the conflicting scientific literature published these days (though the consensus is that it is safe enough). Given both the urgency and the inherent uncertainty of the decision, conformance to the group will be valued higher than personal independence. You must keep in mind that you will be assuming one set of risks or another in any case.
If avoiding the Covid19 vaccine was a terminal value for mine, I would probably try to convert to a well established religion that forbids vaccination in general. You’d burn a lot of social capital by that decision and you’d still be seen as a traitor in the War Against the Virus, but the anti-discrimination provisions already in place may end up being enough to save your job (though not necessarily your career, if you know what I mean).
In my case, I take my religion seriously enough for this to be a non-option. The Roman Catholic Church was plenty of reasons for people to walk away, but being afraid of the unknown side effects of some new medical treatment is not one of them. My forefathers were eaten by lions (I know, I know… It’s a myth OK: never happened but always been true) for their Faith; it would be unbecoming to chicken out in the face of a measly needle. My current plan is to drag my feet while it’s cost-less to do so, and then take the shot like everybody else. But of course, if I was truly afraid of the vaccine, I’d just pigheadedly refuse and let the pieces fall where they may.
@ Anonymous January 14, 2021 at 8:33 am
Here I send you the link to a patition sent by the doctors Wolfang Wodarg and Mike Yeadon to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in early December, requesting they do not approve the mass use of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine inside the UE:
https://es.scribd.com/document/487135032/Wodarg-Yeadon-EMA-Petition-Pfizer-Trial-FINAL-01DEC2020-en-Unsigned-With-Exhibits
One of the things It struck me is that Dr. Michael Yeadon was, before retiring, responsible, for several years, of R&D unit in Respiratory Diseases and Allergies of Pfizer, although now it is claimed that he is a lunatic, despite the fact that Pfizer has not retired from the market the drugs that were put on the market thanks to the work of the “lunatic” Yeadon.
In addition to Dr. Yeadon, the request is also signed by Dr. Wolfang Wodarg, a renowned epidemiologist who is also the president of the Health Council of the European Parliament.
They are not two ignorant nuts who do not know what they are talking about.
The main concerns of their petition are:
a) The formation of so-called “non-neutralizing antibodies” can lead to an exaggerated immune reaction, especially when the test person is confronted with the real, “wild” virus after vaccination. This so-called Antibody-Dependent Amplification, ADE, has long been known from experiments with corona vaccines in cats, for example. In the course of these studies all cats that initially tolerated the vaccination well died after catching the wild virus.
b) The vaccinations are expected to produce antibodies against spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2. However, spike proteins also contain syncytin-homologous proteins, which are essential for the formation of the placenta in mammals such as humans. It must be absolutely ruled out that a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 could trigger an immune reaction against syncytin-1, as otherwise infertility of indefinite duration could result in vaccinated women.
c) The mRNA vaccines from BioNTech/Pfizer contain polyethylene glycol (PEG). 70% of people develop antibodies against this substance – this means that many people can develop allergic, potentially fatal reactions to the vaccination.
d) The much too short duration of the study does not allow a realistic estimation of the late effects. As in the narcolepsy cases after the swine flu vaccination, millions of healthy people would be exposed to an unacceptable risk if an emergency approval were to be granted and the possibility of observing the late effects of the vaccination were to follow. Nevertheless, BioNTech/Pfizer apparently submitted an application for emergency approval on December 1, 2020.
If you read carefully the report of the FDA for the approval of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, ANY, None of the last four points were addressed in all the previous trials (phases) of this vaccine, nor in the case of that of Moderna.
This is the link:
https://www.fda.gov/media/144245/download
The last nail in the coffin is that Pfizer&BioNtech will not be responsible for any damage made by the vaccine to the people inside USA, and I think nor in the UE (I have not found a link for the UE but I am quite sure):
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/covid-vaccine-side-effects-compensation-lawsuit.html.
In fact the governments of Argentina and Peru are fighting with these corporations to remove this conditions to use their vaccines in their countries, of course that is not a problem in USA or UE, they are more than glad to not harm Big Pharma for any mistake they made:
Argentinian case In spanish):
https://www.latimes.com/espanol/internacional/articulo/2020-12-15/argentina-exigencias-de-pfizer-para-vacuna-son-inaceptables
Peruvian case:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-peru-vaccines/peruvian-minister-raises-controversy-over-pfizer-vaccine-liability-clause-idUSKBN29A2J7
It is even more crazy in my country, Spain, the first country (government) in the world that will register the people who refuse to be vaccinated and their reasons for that, AND the database will be shared accross Europe, I guess demanding the same from the rest of Europe:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/29/spain-to-keep-registry-of-people-who-refuse-covid-vaccine
We are a country very (too much) dependent on the tourism and it seems that our politicians think
about the brand new vaccines as a kind of Deus Ex Machina that will solve all the problems of Covid-19 and will allow the return to the “normallity” before the next summer, and I think they will try to enforce (with sticks and carrots) the entire population to take the vaccine.
Warp Speed vaccination.
Cheers
David
@Onething
You can be reasonably certain that we all have been on a watch list or another for several years now. Such thing happens when you put together thousands of deviants in a single place, virtual or otherwise. That’s why it is important to maintain civility and advocacy for the rule of law as instrumental values of this community.
That said, the Internet’s security is a sad joke. Plenty of actors that are small fry all things considered have access to “data science” technology that gather people’s information, even that of the non-particularly targeted. Then there is the utter contempt of basic privacy by both tech companies and users alike, which may divulge your data to random strangers for no good reason. If you want something untold, don’t say it online.
@Anonymous @ Jan 14, 8:33
On justifying refusal to accept the Covid vaccine:
It is a fact that Covid vaccines are experimental; Full stop, End of Sentence. You can skip to the bottom line at the end of this comment for what to say to an employer’s face. Of course some details for those interested…
Their use is allowed under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) without animal trials, and only 8 weeks of human trials. Customarily, it takes around 10 years for a vaccine to be established as both safe (meaning safer than the disease it’s intended to prevent) and effective. Note that he mRNA technology is novel, and has NEVER been used in humans before.
As for effectiveness, what evidence there is only shows reduction of symptom severity, and it is on this basis alone that the EUA was granted. There is no evidence that the vaccines prevent infection from, transmission of, or death from, Covid.
Known risk includes anaphylactic shock, which has occurred, and is life-threatening. There have been several deaths reported (including a nurse and physician) within days of of vaccination. See-
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-miami-doctor-vaccine-death-20210107-afzysvqqjbgwnetcy5v6ec62py-story.html
https://www.thehealthsite.com/news/portuguese-nurse-dies-two-days-after-taking-pfizer-biontechs-covid-19-vaccine-789631/
https://www.wionews.com/world/norway-investigating-death-of-two-people-who-received-pfizers-coronavirus-vaccine-354716
https://www.samaa.tv/news/2020/12/switzerland-reports-first-death-after-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine-shot/
What I haven’t seen in any of these reports, is that given that these vaccines are experimental, these deaths are, BY DEFINITION, attributable to said vaccines. Had these deaths occurred in the context of a study, they would be chalked up to the vaccine.
Health risks include permanent induced auto-immune disease (i.e. ADE Antibody-Dependent- Enhanced disease), as happened to some people who received the swine flu vaccine, becoming disabled by narcolepsy: See
https://www.livescience.com/51411-flu-vaccine-narcolepsy-immune-response.html
More formal objections from mainstream institutions or insiders include-
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-risks-of-rushing-a-covid-19-vaccine/
https://principia-scientific.com/top-pfizer-whistleblower-trashes-companys-vaccine-breakthrough-spin/
https://principia-scientific.com/doctors-see-red-flags-in-suspicious-pfizer-vaccine-study/
https://www.altermidya.net/covid-19-vaccine-concerns/
BOTTOM LINE: It is reasonable to decline an experimental vaccine. There is no evidence they are safer than the disease. No one has any right to demand that I subject myself to an unknown risk of death or disabling disease.
Anonymous,
As I see it, you have two options: quit or take the vaccine. I got accused of being an anti-vaxxer for citing the BMJ(!), in early December. The article in question was published November 27, but my family insisted that the vaccines are perfectly safe, all the data we need is clear, and there are no risks to it at all. My mother even went so far as to question the legitimacy of the journal, citing a fraud case from 1974 as proof the BMJ is utterly unreliable as a source.
For the true believers in the vaccine, anything which says its safe becomes reliable, anything which says it’s not is unreliable.
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/11/27/covid-19-vaccines-where-are-the-data/
@ Violet – thanks a million – some lovely ideas, especially the ceremonial fire. 🙂
Anonymous,
Regarding the overton window, Check out videos by dolores cahill molecular biologist/immunologist
PLK
@Robert Mathiesen – “One of the things that many European commentors find it hard to grasp is just how heavily the territories of British North America were settled by immigrants who loathed, feared or hated Europe, their own European heritage, and generally everything that Europe had stood for historically.”
I think you are very much on spot here. An example that comes to my mind is that here in Europe many think that insisting on the right to own guns is paranoia. I used to think the same way, but now I’ve come to believe that Europeans who think this way do not know or understand their own history. Many left that part of Germany where I live during the 18th century. We know a little bit about those times and I very much doubt everybody left just for fun. They left a land under unsteady political conditions, hard winters, high infant mortality, stripped bare of almost every acre of forest. Everyone who went for the new world left family, friends and a whole life – there home – forever behind and took on a high risk by walking straight into the unknown. Maybe this clinging on the right to own guns among other “strange” behavioral patterns the average European attests the average North-American is a remnant of the powerless feeling that many of their ancestors who left Europe to never come back must have felt. While the widespread ownership of guns is not unproblematic by itself and surely there’s a lot of money, lobbying and other stupid reasons involved – but I’d encourage anybody who despises this out of hand to imagine in bright colors and full detail what having to leave behind everything would mean and if this would generate the longing for power and self-protection. (It’s an irony, however, that the US is the leading country in creating such conditions for millions of people in large parts of the world – with their (more or less) trusted allies, the Europeans. Forcing so many of those who feel powerless today to flee straight into… Europe)
Today, despite the steady invocation of the trans-Atlantic partnership and the common values of western societies, the US and Europe seem to be on different trajectory. The US seems to have decide to blow up and duke it out to whatever end. I don’t think this is a likely outcome for Europe. Right now it seems more likely for Europe to, well, freeze in or wither away. We’ll see. Interesting times – although I wonder how many of those who witnessed interesting times before us were like “Yeah, it’s interesting times! How lucky we are!” and how many would have preferred boring times…
Cheers,
Nachtgurke
Anonymous-
Regarding your post fromJanuary 14, 2021 at 8:33 am.
I’d much appreciate you posting whatever you do compile. I expect lots of us would. Sorry I don’t have anything to contribute (that wouldn’t raise alarm bells among any normie HR dept’s).
Thank you-
@Irena:
We will have to agree to disagree, then, when you write, “Still, it only goes so far.”
What compromises are workable in this or that given set of cicumstances varies from one case to the next, and also depend on what your long-range goals are. But none are absolutely off the table under every conceivable cricumstance.
At least, that’s how I see it. I will not concede that there are any moral or ethical absolutes that must never be transgressed by anyone under any circumstances whatever. Neither do I believe that there is any arc of inevitable moral or ethical progress throughout human history, however slowly that arc might be imagined to bend.
I second admin’s solution to the vaccine problem. You can cite scientific papers til you’re blue in the face. It won’t make any difference. We’re dealing with religious/political convictions here, not actual science. HR Managers, and corporations/governments in general, are going with the vaccine route as it’s the politically easiest solution to what’s essentially a political problem.
Make yourself a problem and chances are they will forget about you. Pretend to have an allergy and show them a paper/news report about the problems with anaphylactic shock. That should be enough for them to put you in the too hard basket. If not, ask for the decision to be reviewed by management. Make it so that the path of least resistance for them is to forget about you.
Anonymous, January 14, 2021 at 8:33 am, re asking for solid arguments against being forced to get the vaccine– Here you go:
– For starters, this vaccine is experimental and released under emergency use authorization. It has NOT been through the official, full FDA approval process.
– An internal medicine doctor and his peers see plenty of red flags with Pfizer’s rollout paper about their vaccine.
– How the Pfizer vaccine is engineered
– The AstraZeneca vaccine is iffy too.
– Scientific American cautioned against rushing into a vaccine.
Most of these data points were provided above in this very same comment thread by this commentariat; one by JMG himself. Thank you!
And see also above in this thread:
teresa from hershey says:
December 30, 2020 at 5:26 pm
John Michael Greer says:
December 30, 2020 at 7:33 pm
Per a comment in the 12 Jan “watercooler” page on Naked Capitalism linked above, the GSK-Sanofi vaccine may be the closest to a “traditional” vaccine.. whenever it comes out. I will be watching for more information on that.
@Anonymous
I would say you need to make a personal excuse, arguing will only work if you have enough weight (support) to subdue them. It doesn’t matter how much reason you use their will is already set in rock by the power of greater good, you can probably get excused simply by law but unlikely by them agreeing to your points.
So take the humble route, find some way to say I am so sorry you are indeed doing the good deed but I am not capable of receiving this as it stands in the way of my creed or health. Sometimes you have to fight for things and some times you smile and agree with all their points except for the one thing you need to obtain and its only because of misfortune that you cannot comply.
@DFC
On the COVID vaccine:
“spike proteins also contain syncytin-homologous proteins”
– Actually the spike protein and the syncytin protein aren’t in any way homologous, rather one is about 5 times bigger than the other, and has a very different structure.
https://www.rcsb.org/structure/5HA6
https://www.rcsb.org/structure/6ZB5
And if the protein of one of the vaccines were to trigger an auto immune reaction, so would the disease itself.
I am not the expert but at least a contact of mine is a molecular biologist, and we have reviewed many of the arguments against the COVID vaccine.
Many of those arguments are outdated, or as in the case of the homology of protein, seemingly baseless.
Pfizer studies have been updated to vulnerable groups, long term effe3cts of vaccines previously are weeks to a few months after a vaccination, for vulnerable people, but not really in any longer term.
The RNA in one of the vaccines will – like all RNA in cells – be decomposed in due time, as cells are always balancing the concentration of RNA and adjusting it up and down.
I am far from a great believer in modern medicine and the religion of progress, but it DOES seem that many of the arguments against the vaccine aren’t really that warranted.
regards,
Curt
re avoiding vaccines
At least for the mRNA vaccines, provided you are sure your employer has no access to your medical records, I would lie and say that you had an allergy panel screening as a teenager due to exzema and polyethylene glycol came up. It is one of the ingredients in the mRNA vaccines (ie Pfizer and Moderna) and around 7% of USians are allergic to it due to casual exposure from toothpaste, shampoo, skin lotions, food etc.
Pfizer refers potential vaccine candidates to the CDC for guidance for people with allergies: https://www.pfizer.com/news/hot-topics/the_facts_about_pfizer_and_biontech_s_covid_19_vaccine. The CDC strongly recommends (in bold type) that people with allergies to any of the ingredients, in particular polysorbate or polyethylene glycol, should not get the mRNA vaccines (as in, they might die or suffer severe symptoms of anaphylaxis). https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/allergic-reaction.html. Given this clear recommendation, it would be medical negligence to vaccinate someone with a polyethylene glycol allergy.
Then, just make sure you don’t get caught eating anything with polyethylene glycol by a work colleague.
The other vaccines also have various safety issues (in that they have not been shown to be safe, in the long term and given a number of known potential issues such as what happens with antibody dependent enhanced immune response once neutralising antibody levels fade). However, I have not yet seen an obvious and difficult-to-rebutt way to justify avoidance of the other ones yet. With flu shots, I would just tell my doctor I’d had it through work and work that I’d got it from my doctor. Harder to do if they’re strictly controlling the roll-out or implement tracking recipients (so stupid in terms of actually doing anything useful, given the likely short duration of protection and lack of evidence that the shots will reduce transmission as opposed to merely symptoms).
@earthworm
I guess I misunderstood what you were driving at. The following is my musings about what I see as an outsider from overseas (acknowledging that I have limited knowledge of US society etc etc).
I think resource depletion (especially oil) and diminishing marginal returns to capital investment underlies all this. People are facing a future in which its becoming increasingly obvious that they will need to work incredibly hard in order to have a life half as prosperous as their parents, and that unless things somehow change, their children will face the same. That’s very emotionally challenging and also triggers the ‘famine’ switch in human brains (a sudden actual or threatened decline in access to the perceived necessities of life) which sends people absolutely nuts. Add the various stressors of Covid times and the failures of the elites to cope….
All the elite memes represented by the various threads of US politics are so very conspicuously failing – no matter what governments try it’s increasingly obvious that the progress and prosperity vending machine is broken. But, there’s no new memes widespread enough yet to replace the old ones. So, people are deciding to double down on the old ones. Also, they aren’t thinking straight since they’re feeling so existentially threatened. Resulting in truly spectacular grief responses, shadow projection and general ‘othering’ behaviour.
The political parties just seem to be a convenient organisational tool so people know which memes they’re doubling down on and who to ‘other’. No one can rationally discuss anything with either side because the argument is not actually about normal politics – instead it’s groups of people who are feeling existentially threatened trying to gauge who and how many people they can rely on to support their group and thus access to essential resources when the chips are down.
I think it’s more useful to try to diffuse the underlying conditions rather than ‘win’ the political arguments – start working on spreading useful alternative memes – ‘happiness with LESS’, ‘collapse early to beat the rush’, ‘Johnny Appleseed’, etc etc. Start rebuilding broad local resilience so everyone feels and is less threatened by economic decline.
Eh, I don’t know. Things are different here for the moment but the US situation is poisoning our discourse as well. People have spent 9 months indignantly telling me everyday about every real and imagined evil committed by Trump but look totally blank when I mention Australia’s China woes.
>Right now it seems more likely for Europe to, well, freeze in or wither away.
I go back and forth on whether Europe will become a Wahhabist theocracy or a neo-Ottoman hegemony. Ironic that of all the attempts to reunify Europe, it does it under Islam.
As far as Murica goes, it’s sliding into an ungovernable mess. CA likely to become a client state of China, NY becomes its own Marxist paradise, TX becomes a nucleus of what’s left of the old 20th c Murica.
Hello,
This is Anonymous with the vaccine info source question.
Thank you very much – Yves, Punky, Another Anon., Lunar Apprentice, DFC, CR Patino, Scotlyn, Admin – for your comments and links. I’m going through them over the next few days and assembling talking points for my partner.
In discussion, we realized that every year we get the same flu vaccine at the same time. And every year, I continue on as normal and they go down for 24 hours with a mini-flu about 4 hours after the shot. Without fail.
I had forgotten about that so now this has gone from an inconvenient academic exercise to something I’m actually concerned about noting the allergy reactions in what there is for a vaccine literature. Although, their previous vaccine history also provides some medical reasoning and cover to delay…hopefully.
I’m also happy to share my talking points compilation but realized it will likely come out to about 10+ pages since I’m pulling out quotes and info from links and will be much to long to post here.
Does anyone know where/how I could share it – anonymously?
@ Peter Van Erp and Patricia Matthews, and any others who add answers later on, on the candle issue, my thanks. I will read and take notes and also consult at the altar. Thanks.
@David by the lake:
I am sincerely sorry for writing as if I assumed you (and others) condoned the events of Jan 6. You have made it clear very frequently that you want to maintain the constitution and the union if at all possible.
What I actually meant is that comparing the storming of the Capitol to events from the 18th-century American or French Revolution might take on a life of its own, and the metaphor might hasten on an actual revolution. It might be wiser to compare the event to some (limited) violent action which in the end led to a peaceful transition. Examples are, however, hard to come by, which is worrying on its own…The best I can think of is the various forms of unrest in British North American in the middle of the 19th century, which in the end led to more autonomy and confederation in 1867. Or maybe the Hungarian uprising of 1848, which also led to confederation in 1867.
To cite a much less illustrious poet than you did (Taliessin speaking to Kay):
Sir, if you made verse you would doubt symbols.
I am afraid of the little loosed dragons.
When the means are autonomous, they are deadly; when words
escape from verse they hurry to rape souls…
On its current trajectory, the covid scare should die the same death as the Soviet Union, the War On Drugs, Prohibition, and the Third Reich: its proponents will still love their pet, they just can’t afford to keep it anymore.
Companies in the consumer retail market typically have their fiscal year-end on January 31st. This allows them to use whopping 4th-quarter earnings to offset any setbacks or cost overruns that may have been incurred through the year. This year would have been a tough one, even for the big guns, so there will likely be a rash of bankruptcies in the next couple of months as the more marginal ones cease to be viable. The resulting layoffs and debt defaults will likely overload the already burdened social-welfare system in most districts, and could threaten some banks.
Those looking to the government for compensation and relief will not likely get much; the government, having spent the past 5 decades racking up a debt load beyond their ability to pay, has only two options to source the necessary funds for a compensation program: A. Levy taxes against the very people they have promised to give the money to; or: B. Increase the money supply by printing currency. (Neither option will fly for very long.) Rising taxes, falling revenues, and devaluation of currency that result from such a program could then combine to create a cascade of failures in other sectors of the economy – and by autumn it’ll be 1929 all over again.
With any luck, this will all go down well in advance of any universal-vaccination requirement, and we’ll all be off the hook from that as well as from the ridiculous “containment measures” that will then be too expensive to enforce. As for the ensuing financial crisis? You might try looking around to see can you make friends with some Amish people….
@Robert Mathiesen
It’s not a matter of moral absolutes. It’s a matter of self-preservation. Why would you side with people who are out to enslave you? Surely, it makes more sense to either stay out of whatever war they got themselves into, or to side with their enemies.
Correction of my Jan 14, 3:01 comment:
This paragraph must be struck:
“As for effectiveness, what evidence there is only shows reduction of symptom severity, and it is on this basis alone that the EUA was granted. There is no evidence that the vaccines prevent infection from, transmission of, or death from, Covid,” as my source is not valid. My apologies.
The validity of the BOTTOM LINE stands; the reason to refuse the vaccine is risk, not effectiveness. One must not let arguments over effectiveness call into question, or distract from, our concerns regarding risk.
@TamHob
“I guess I misunderstood what you were driving at.”
Sorry that was probably me not being clear – ’twas a bit stream of consciousness on my part and incorporated too many things and i wasn’t clear in my own head either.
Boiling it down and apologies if this is no clearer…
What I was interested in hearing were occult/esoteric views on the the action of taking a life to defend one’s own life and the energy state that would be required to be in for the action not to have deleterious karmic effects.
Since I asked that, I got to wondering about the four stoic virtues:
Courage (to do what needs to be done)
Temperance (in the form of self control)
Justice (not the modern punishment and retribution fixation but the stoic idea of right relationship and right behaviour towards all beings)
wisdom (knowing and understanding enough to act in harmony with the ‘world’)
And that courage, temperance and justice might fail if there is no wisdom to guide actions.
The question I am asking myself is if someone finds themselves in a situation where they have to make such a weighty decision (to kill or not to kill), does the esoteric and occult literature have anything to say on such matters?
TamHob said:
“I think it’s more useful to try to diffuse the underlying conditions rather than ‘win’ the political arguments – start working on spreading useful alternative memes – ‘happiness with LESS’, ‘collapse early to beat the rush’, ‘Johnny Appleseed’, etc etc. Start rebuilding broad local resilience so everyone feels and is less threatened by economic decline.”
“it’s groups of people who are feeling existentially threatened”
Here in the UK rational discourse seems to be struggling – but if people feel existentially threatened and are just running on emotions, would such memes need to also target the base level emotions?
Like was said upthread, you can show people all sorts of papers discussing things, but it won’t make cut through the fog of emotion.
An existential threat is effectively a life or death situation – fear can lead to anger and anger can lead to violence, violence leads to hatred and so the destructive cycle forms a loop.
With the level of fear we are seeing, it could burst out of control easily… and it was the social media posts calling for people to be killed for non-mask wearing that eventually got me thinking of the decisions that might need to be made if the madness of crowds falls upon us.
@ Matthias–
No apology necessary. I had read your statement as a universal (perhaps inaccurately) and was merely offering a counterexample perspective.
The consequences of these events are a sea of unknowns at this point. As we’ve all been discussing, the symbolic potential is significant. Peter, for example, has alluded to the in-process canonization of the Air Force veteran who was killed , something that I suspected would happen (though not necessarily this quickly). I fear that far too many are underestimating the implications of the 6th. The fact that such an event even occurred is itself telling of the condition of the Union. I can only hope that the leadership in DC (such as it is) has the ability to see and understand. I fear, however, that the imperial capital has become too embubbled to comprehend what is going on elsewhere in the country.
Hi All
Norway does not recommend vaccination with Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine in the case of people above 80, and terminally ill:
https://thehill.com/policy/international/europe/534395-norway-warns-patients-over-80-of-vaccine-risks-after-deaths
23 deaths after the first dose (that cause less secondary effects than the second one), 13 have concluded, for sure, was because the vaccine.
In my area are 3 nursing home with a lot of positive cases AFTER the 1 dose, of course not due to the vaccine, but seems is not very effective at all only the first, and the question is: should be people take the second dose if had Covid-19 after the first dose?, what will be the effect of the vaccine in them?, I suppose it is better let nature to solve it, I have not seem this evaluation in the trials of the vaccine.
Cheers
David
@ Curt
Nope, the m-RNA vaccines are made to produce antibodies to an especific part (subunit) of the protein S, not even the whole S protein of the virus, so it is not identical to the effect of the wild virus (or mutation of the virus from January 2020 in China) related to risks of infertility, what docs Yeadon and Wodarg says is that there is an homology with syncitin-1, and need to be tested especifically.
If you read the FDA report assessing the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, the say in page 42: “Pregnancy outcomes are otherwise unknown at this time”.
https://www.fda.gov/media/144245/download
They do not test the vaccine looking for effects on human fertility.
For me the doctors Yeadon and Wodarg are spot on in the case of allergic responses to the components of the vaccine, we have to see the longterm effects and the effects on mortality for old age people; and probably about the duration of the antibodies of this vaccines, because they are very different approach than the normal systemic inmunity response of the organism when confronted to the “complete” virus, where the human body produce especific T and B immune cells to the nucleocapside proteins that not is the case with the m-RNA vaccines
It is also unknown the risks of ADE of the m-RNA vaccines, as is clearly written in the FDA report, and for many people is more probable that the m-RNA vaccines could trigger an ADE than other approachs (with deactivated virus) due to reliance only in antibody response in some very especific proteins (sub-units), not based on a more general antibodies bui-d-up and in T and B cells response. It is well known that the antibody levels decrease quite quickly (in some months) in the case of SARS-Cov-2, but what remains is the T and B cells response, but this response will be lost in the case of the m-RNA vaccines.
No, ANY of the concerns arised by the doctors Yeadon and Wodarg have been “debunked”, and the effect of PEG allergic is spot-on for the moment
Nor ADE risks, nor long term risks, nor the effect on fertility have been “debunked” at all.
Cheers
David
@ Anonymous with the vaccine issue
It is relatively easy to set up a free dreamwidth account and make blog posts there. A number of regular commenters have done so, while I have also done so, but only used the facility for one or two postings altogether. So that is an option, and many of us will be interested in what you put together.
Still, while in terms of overall strategy, it is essential for you both to be fully informed for your own sakes, so as to be clear that the decision you are making is well founded, in terms of tactics it may be more useful to plan NOT to actually use this material in your negotiations, but instead to do your best to stall and gain time. You could start with a minimal excuse – allergy or such – which, as one poster above suggests, will put your partner in the “awkward, deal with later” category (and given the current logistical nightmare of actually administering vaccines to everybody, later may never come…) which wins time. Then, if necessary, follow it up with the moral argument – not feeling well enough informed to be able to ethically consent to an experimental pharmaceutical… or, perhaps some other stalling tactic that falls short of an outright refusal. Meanwhile, in the intervening time that this kind of stalling buys you, do make serious preparations that will ensure that if the employment has to be given up due to your partner having to bite the bullet and make that final, outright refusal, you can still survive without it.
In any case, best wishes to all your investigations and negotiations. Would you welcome people like myself lighting candles, or saying prayers?
Look here, preparations for a Covid vaccine passport are underway:
https://summit.news/2021/01/15/microsoft-big-tech-coalition-developing-rockefeller-funded-covid-passports/
And what with the ongoing lockdown, the “Reset” agenda, the clueless absence of concern for the general welfare in DC, corporate censorship, the recent Capitol protests being framed as insurrection and the iron fist going after the protest dupes, 20,000 soldiers deployed in DC to provide security (or optics or what?) for the inauguration, further draconian measures being enacted to counter “domestic terrorism”, the looming crisis of legitimacy, politization of English grammar, the bizarre crowing exaltation of the socially marginal and the demonization of the historically normative, doxxing and Cancel Culture, months of rioting (oops, make that Mostly Peaceful protests) across the land, open talk of secession and civil war; I never would have dreamed that I’d wish to see collapse hurry itself along and put an end to all this… but I do now. I feel that apprehensive.
Oh, wait, I get it.., this IS what collapse looks like, and it IS hurrying itself along…
I just read over at RT that Putin has ordered a immense roll-out of the Russian version of the Covid vaccine, Sputnik V. The ultimate goal is the inoculation of the entire population, and is set to start January 18. Apparently, it’s all voluntary, as no mandatory vaccinations are mentioned. Also, 1,500,000 people have already been vaccinated.
Were I to live in Russia, I still would not want to be the guinea pig for the vaccine, and would wait to see if there were any negative effects among those who get the vaccine.
On the other hand, I have far more trust and confidence in Putin than I do for the pathetic corporate shills that pass for “leadership” in the West. If the US or state governments attempt to mandate taking the vaccine, I would definitely opt for the Sputnik V treatment. Unfortunately, I expect it will be unavailable here in the West.
Antoinetta III
@Irena:
Ah, I misunderstood your question.
For me, it’s simply that a person may well choose to put his own life or his liberty at terrifying risk for the sake of some perceived greater benefit to his loved ones and his posterity. I simply expressed the hope that, had I been a member of the Convention that drafted the US Constitution, I would have found the courage to choose taking such a risk.
Many of my ancestors over the last 400 years have taken similar risks with their own lives and liberty. It is just a thing we have always done in my family … (But it is never an easy thing to do.)
Actually, all the members of the Constitutional Convention had placed themselves at a different, equally horrific risk by their work there. They all became traitors to the Crown of England. Had the United States lost its War of Independence, they would all have been hunted down and condemned to death for treason, and the method of their execution would have been a slow, hideous death by Drawing, Hanging and Quartering.
John I just got the Pfizer shot one now this
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/norway-sounds-alarm-over-vaccine-risks-elderly-frail-after-23-deaths
Nachtgurke and others, I think you mean ‘Americans’, rather than ‘North Americans’. The attitude towards gun ownership, and towards Britain and Europe has never been same in Canada as it is in the USA, and I believe it is also different in Mexico.
The impact of the British Empire Loyalists (people who supported the British during the US war of Independence and decamped to Canada afterwards or during the war) on Canadian history and attitudes towards Britain and Europe is pretty major, and I think there’s a lot more pro-European/British feeling and less anti than in the USA.
There’s also a pretty big divide between rural and urban on gun ownership in both Canada and the USA. I live in Canada, and was raised in the city to think objections to gun control were crazy, and that the USA was crazy on this subject. Once I grew up, met more people, and spent time in small towns in both Canada and the USA I got a lot more used to the idea of using guns to hunt for food, and this being normal for many people.
I still didn’t really get the US-specific attitude towards guns until I spent time learning about the US War of Independence and finally figured out where the whole ‘they’re coming for our guns!’ thing comes from. Because the British troops did come – for the community powder magazine rather than people’s guns, but same idea. I saw that, and went, ‘oh so THAT’S where that particular thing comes from! I get it now.’ Of course, I was about 35 by then. This incident isn’t something that’s covered in Canadian schools.
Please don’t dump Canada and the USA in the same box on this. They aren’t the same.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, Demolition Man (with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipe) is a terrific and wildly subversive movie.
It’s a kind of Brave New World future as desired by our corporate, therapeutic overlords and it is scary to envision. It’s also a surprisingly funny movie. It’s amazing how much of it you can sing along to.
I expect this movie to be cast down the memory hole so if you’re a movie buff, see it now.
@ Robert Mathiesen and Irena
My great-grandfather fled Northern Germany (Prussia?) in about 1875. He refused to talk about why he left other than a vague story of being the only surviving brother fighting for the Kaiser. His response to anyone speaking German to him was “Now I am an American. I will speak English.”
We know nothing else about his background or where he came from or how much family he left behind. How many brothers? Home village? Family name? Nothing.
He had reasons to flee, I’d guess.
The willing immigrant is a scarce breed of cat.
I think the majority of humans are happy to stay home and stay put as long as the situation is even close to tenable. It’s easy to look at outliers and think they are the norm. They are not.
teresa from hershey says: For those of you who haven’t seen it, Demolition Man (with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipe) is a terrific and wildly subversive movie
“Mellow greetings Warden William Smithers”
Next time I get questioned about anything I must remember “What is your boggle” 🙂
and for those who can handle video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=uOUBKbd-M9M
@pygmycory,
Urbanites see police everywhere and thus incorrectly assume they’re safe, which is incredibly ironic since most crime occurs in urban areas and officers almost never show up until after the damage is done. Rural types correctly know they’re on their own against whatever may come and prepare accordingly.
Otherwise, the lack of uniform apprecation of *all* facets of America’s foundational documents stems from decades of declining education. It’s stunning how it’s become fashionable these days to promote exactly those conditions which led to the formation of this country. The “arrogance of modernity” may be our downfall.
John Adams:
“Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.”
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.”
When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny.
Benjamin Franklin:
Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.
It is the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.
Does anyone else find the media obsession with Kamala Harris strange? I can’t figure out if it means anything, but it seems fairly weird…..
@Edgar David Grana re Pfizer vaccine.
I wouldn’t worry, unless you’re about to die of old age anyway.
Did you read the actual source documents from Norway?
What the Norwegian health folks actually said:
https://legemiddelverket.no/nyheter/covid-19-vaccination-associated-with-deaths-in-elderly-people-who-are-frail
“23 deaths associated with covid-19 vaccination of which 13 have been assessed. Common adverse reactions may have contributed to a severe course in elderly people who are frail. ”
does NOT say “caused” – it says “associated”, as in: happened around the same time.
it says “may have contributed” – as in: we’re looking into it.
does NOT say “autopsied”/”proven”/”confirmed” – it says “assessed”. as in: we started investigating.
“In Norway we are now vaccinating the elderly and people in nursing homes with serious underlying diseases, therefore it is expected that deaths close to the time vaccination may occur. In Norway, an average of 400 people die each week in nursing homes and long-term care facilities. ”
EXPECTED that deaths close to the time [of] vaccination may occur – these people are in their 70s, 80s and 90s – they’re dropping like flies anyway.
https://legemiddelverket.no/Documents/English/Covid-19/Adverse%20drug%20reactions%20covid-19%20vaccines%20as%20of%20January%2014%202021.pdf
The update to the vaccination guide mentioned?
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n149
“Doctors in Norway have been told to conduct more thorough evaluations of very frail elderly patients in line to receive the Pfizer BioNTec vaccine against covid-19, following the deaths of 23 patients shortly after receiving the vaccine.”
“It may be a coincidence, but we aren’t sure,” Steinar Madsen, medical director of the Norwegian Medicines Agency (NOMA), told The BMJ. “There is no certain connection between these deaths and the vaccine.”
Unless you’re already at death’s door – “very frail elderly” – nobody but alarmists making money off clickbait is concerned. You do know that websites can get paid when people click on links on their pages?
@DFC – re Dr. Yeadon
Do you know this guy claimed the “pandemic is effectively over” in October?
If he got that so wrong, why do you believe anything he says?
https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-9788407587
He left Pfizer 9 years ago, when they closed out some research and development in Sandwich U.K.
Hmmm – would somebody made redundant (laid off in U.S. parlance), have any grudge against a past employer?
Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine operations are in the U.S. and Germany, not the U.K.
Yeadon worked in allergy and respiratory research.
He, like a lot of people, are looking for their 15 minutes of fame, for a bit of relevance and agency (personal power) in an overwhelming world. Overwhelming because the old spirituality of old-time religion lost much its mojo post Galileo/Darwin/etc., the new religion of money worship doesn’t have a spirituality worth mentioning so essentially none of its adherents have any serenity, and few have bothered to investigate other spiritualities that would provide comfort/guidance in troubled times.
>Oh, wait, I get it.., this IS what collapse looks like, and it IS hurrying itself along
It’s a process, not an event. Who cares how many soldiers they’ve got patrolling DC, that’s not what’s going to matter. Those bare shelves last year was just the start. It was only cleaning products and toilet paper last year. Everyone told themselves, it’s only going to be temporary. This year, it’ll be the food. Not all of it, not all at once. Process, not an event.
At some point count on every online retailer to have your order and be busy processing it. Check back 3 weeks later and they’ll still be processing it. You’ll give up after they’ve got your order and are still processing it 6 months later.
Maybe it’s for the best that the status quo gets to take credit for the buzzsaw that’s about to hit them in the face? They wanted it so bad, they were willing to do anything to get it back. Ok, here you go.
@teresa from hershey:
Thank you for the story of your great-grandfather. Very likely in 1875 it was Otto von Bismark’s Prussia and its wretched domestic policies (for example, the so-called Kulturkampf, on which there is a wikipedia article) from which he fled. But Prussia controlled most of the German-speaking lands at that time, so he could have lived in almost any part of what is now Germany before he emigrated.
Do you have any idea what his surname was (in German) and whether his family had been Protestant or Catholic? (As a bonus, do you have any idea whether he could speak Polish as well as German?) With even that little to go on, it might be possible to learn a little more about him from various online genealogy websites. I’d be happy to poke around there a little for you, if you’re really curious about his story.
Hi everyone,
I was wondering if anyone knew where to get a small, red bag to fill with kosher salt and a bent, iron or steel nail to be used as John recommends. I am not skilled in sewing. I imagine there must be a shop online, maybe on Etsy that sells these? I’ve looked around and can’t find anything. The best I’ve found are small, velvet bags.
Thanks for any help.
@Owen
“Maybe it’s for the best that the status quo gets to take credit for the buzzsaw that’s about to hit them in the face? They wanted it so bad, they were willing to do anything to get it back. Ok, here you go.”
My thoughts exactly.
@Anonymous
“Does anyone else find the media obsession with Kamala Harris strange? I can’t figure out if it means anything, but it seems fairly weird…..”
Nah. With Biden, the only things that might pique the public interest are the things they’re trying to keep a lid on. And since the rest is phony… it’s also suffocatingly boring. At least Harris is… hot? What irks me is that men who run for that office are so consistently called by last name, like military officers, but women doing so tend to be firstnames. Why is that?
@sunnnv – your respomses to Edgar and to David fail to raise any points of evidence.
TJamdtheBear – you raise excellent points in your response to Pygmycory.
Nice quote about political power following economic power, too!
Jon Goddard, I couldn’t get usable bags either. I’ve got a big sheet of red cotton and cut a piece 5cm x 10cm and fold it in half so it’s square. Then use one of those easy-thread needles where you push the thread in side on, and don’t have to get it through the eye end on. Sew up two sides, add the contents (which next time I try will include cayenne pepper too), and sew up the third side. Then go back the other way so it’s double stitched on all three sides, aiming to close any gaps. It requires very little skill and can be comfortably done within a planetary hour.
@sunnnv re: Yeadon
The form much of his attention, and the attention given to other lockdown skeptics, has taken is death threats and reputational smears. In my experience, people who persist in making their points publicly despite those painful social punishments tend to be motivated by something more morally compelling than a desire for internet traffic and revenge against an employer. Such as a concern for the rigor or lack thereof of scientific evidence for unprecedented human rights-violating public health measures, and an interest in examining closely the risk-benefit profile of measures promoted by authoritarians and causing immense collateral damage socially, economically, psychologically and medically.
As for making wrong predictions, many skeptics believe the diagnostically useless RT-PCR tests and financial incentives through reimbursement policies are causing many seasonal winter deaths and other deaths to be misclassified as Covid. If true, Yeadon’s view that the pandemic ended most places in May, after which it became endemic, may turn out to be correct when the dust settles, and if a retrospective analysis occurs.
Further, Neil Ferguson, whose computer modelling of catastrophic deaths turned out to be catastrophically incorrect by overstating the severity of the disease, yet still drove global lockdown policy, was a member of the SAGE advisory committee early on and has since joined a successor committee, NERVTAG.
Yeadon and other skeptics can’t get anywhere near those committees because they dissent from orthodoxy and insist on examining the collateral harms and weak evidence of benefits from lockdowns. This virtually guarantees groupthink and ensures the devastating lockdowns will continue.
Sunnnv criticizes Dr. Yeadon’s assessment from last autumn that the “pandemic is effectively over”. It’s not clear that Dr. Yeadon is wrong. The figures for Covid-19 “cases” and fatalities are suspect.
Consider the high false positive rate of the PCR test. There is no gold standard for diagnosing Covid-19 infection, meaning there’s no way to tell if a false positive test is in fact false. We do know that CT’s (cycle threshold) above 33 or so, are especially prone to yield false positives; as CT is increased, the false positive rate increases. Many labs use a CT of 40, but won’t report this critical number with the test result. The FDA does not regulate CT, or require its reporting. So if I were to claim that positive PCR tests are 95% false in asymptomatic people, you would not be able to disprove me.
Then there is the truly janky definition of a Covid-19 death. Basically, anybody who dies within 30 days of a positive PCR test is classified as a Covid-19 death. There are cases of traffic accident and gunshot deaths being reported as Covid deaths, e.g. –
https://www.westernjournal.com/people-reportedly-died-gunshot-wounds-look-deaths-classified/
But of course for anyone who days within 2 days of receiving an experimental Covid vaccine, the cause of death has to be investigated!
Now consider the effect of all those false positive tests: when someone happens to die from cancer, stroke, heart attack, gunshot. etc… that false positive makes it a Covid death statistic.
Influenza deaths were 61,000 in 2017-2018, 34,000 in 2018-2019, but only about 1000 for 2020, per the CDC. It may be that the measures to limit the spread of Covid (masks, distancing) really have decreased the incidence of Influenza. If so, you’d expect these measures would have been similarly effective for Covid. Or could it be that testing for influenza is down because there is a no prospect of financial gain from reporting such? We’ve all heard how hospital’s are specifically, and uniquely, paid for reporting deaths as Covid-caused.
All cause mortality in 2020 is statistically unchanged from prior years, so either the Covid mortality rate is statistically insignificant, or other deaths are being classified as Covid.
Sunnnv evidently attacked Dr. Yeadon on his claim of declining Covid incidence to discredit his opinion of the Covid vaccine.
@Jon Goddard
Just get red felt, cut it into a square, and tie it up real good.
Hi Jon Goddard,
If you can’t find a bag online, just get a hand-needle and thread. Take out the seams from one of those velvet bags, use it for a pattern, then sew with a simple back-stitch the fabric of your choice. You don’t need a sewing machine:
https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/backstitch-for-strong-durable-hand-sewing-2978450
Women get quite amused at how helpless grown men appear when confronted with a needle and thread.
TJandTheBear
I am Canadian, was born and raised in Canada, and went through the Canadian educational system, not the US one, back in the 1990s. Comments on current education standards in the USA don’t apply to me.
My point is that conflating Canada and the USA on attitudes to guns and Europe/UK is incorrect. They are not the same.
The whole guns thing is further complicated by the rural/urban divide we’ve both noted, but there’s a real difference in attitude on both issues between the two countries that shouldn’t get ignored.
For your historical reading pleasure: Insurrections ancient and modern. Courtesy of Jean Lamb in Oregon. (Also, for Lady C 0f LOLC, the bloggers two, new, very handsome sons of Bast. He has good taste in companions!)
https://acoup.blog/2021/01/15/miscellanea-insurrections-ancient-and-modern-and-also-meet-the-academicats/
@Jon re: small red bag. You don’t need to be able to sew in order to make a small bag similar to what Natives use to make tobacco offerings.
Check out these links, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL_atnOaPgw and https://carleton.ca/indigenous/policies-procedures/tobacco-offering-protocol/ (middle of the page) They use 4″ square pieces of red cloth, I would make the dimensions 5″x5″ or 6″x6,” if you need more room for your nail. Quilting, hobby stores or Etsy.com should have the type of fabric you want, I would get a sturdy yarn or cord to tie it off.
@JMG, please delete if deemed inappropriate.
@ Robert. We think his last name *may* have been something like Balthroovish with a long o. The first syllable is probably Bal. We think.
No religion or anything else. It’s a blank wall.
@ Owen and everyone else.
Empty shelves are already showing up in Hershey. Some of them (canned pasta products and Mac ‘n Cheese boxed dinners) have been hit or miss since late March.
Two weeks ago, there was no half and half or rather, there was no store brand 2 quart containers but I could spend twice as much to buy Land O Lakes. Shelf-stable jars of bacon bits. The entire four-foot shelf empty. Soy sauce gone for months. It’s sort of back now as long as you don’t care about brand.
Shopping has been very weird and intermittent.
The only suggestion is to buy it when you see it and keep your pantry full.
@ Jon Goddard
Go to the fabric store and buy 1/4 yard of tightly woven red cloth. Fold it in half. You now have one finished edge (the folded side). Fold over the bottom and left side in small, overlapping folds, about 1/2 inch wide. You may do two or three folds. Safety pin these two folds closed with staggered safety pins so there are no gaps.
Pour in your salt, leaving several inches of space at the top of the safety pinned bag. Fold over the top multiple times and safety pin that closed too.
Since you are not swinging the bag around, merely laying it flat, the folded over hems, safety pinned together, should hold themselves closed and retain the salt.
Or, you can buy a needle, spool of thread, thimble (test fit them, they come in sizes), watch a YouTube video on how to thread a needle and sew a running stitch and sew the bag closed on two (folded over) sides. Finish the top opening the same way. Multiple rows of staggered running stitches closely spaced should hold the salt in place well enough.
Or ask in your community, starting at the tailor or dry cleaner. They’ve got someone who can take your 1/4 yard of red cloth and make it into a bag.
1/4 yard should give you enough cloth to experiment with. Cut it smaller if you need to.
Patricia Matthews,
Things have taken an ominous turn very rapidly. Turn me in to whom? Well maybe to those who are threatening to take away the children of conservatives?
Small red bags – one quick and easy way to get a small red bag is to buy a pair of small red cotton socks. Put your kosher salt etc in the toe of the sock and tie a bit of household string around it tightly. Cut off the top of the sock, leaving plenty of extra fabric after the tie. This won’t hold like sewing it up will. So for a quick and easy way to finish it off –
Get a needle and some cotton thread. A big needle is easier to thread. Thread the needle with twice enough thread to make a rough circle around the sock just above the tie-off and plenty left over. Bring both ends of the thread that’s in the needle together and tie a knot at the end to keep them together.
Now stick the needle in the sock fabric. I find it looks neater to start it from the inside of the little tie-bag – just stick the needle down between inside the little bag, poke it through the fabric right near the string and just a little bit above it, and bring it back up. But don’t bring the thread up all the way, you’re going to want to use it to tie more knots later.
Now move the needle maybe 1/4″ along the fabric maybe 1/4″ and poke the needle back down, move it along another 1/4″ along, bring it back through the fabric, repeat until you get back to where you started.
When you’ve gotten clear around the circle, you can tie the thread left in the end by the knot together with what’s left in the needle. Make a good tight knot right up against the fabric, maybe make two knots to hold it well. Put in a couple more stitches to hold it tight. Then cut the thread that’s in the needle somewhere close to the needle and make another knot down close to the fabric. Then you can cut the thread however you like, or make it into a loop.
If you need drawings to help you out, I’m not much at drawing, but drop me a like and I’ll fo my best.
Pat
@ sunnnv
I fixed that quote for you:
“In Norway we are now giving a sars-cov-2 PCR test to the elderly and people in nursing homes with serious underlying diseases, therefore it is expected that deaths close to the time of seasonal respiratory illness may occur.”
Earthworm,
On the karmic consequences of taking a life in self defense: There is little reason to think it would be treated by the gods of karma as some kind of bad action. I think the right to self defense is natural law. Also, I sometimes note a kind of confusion in these types of spiritual questions between the need to do what has to be done and the idea of love and respect for all beings. The Bible, for example, tells us to love our enemies and to return good for evil. But this does not mean that to love others means letting evil run amok with no resistance. Loving your enemies is an achievement of spiritual understanding, seeing the extreme beauty and jewel-like value of every soul and its deep purity.
As to the emotionalism going on now and people’s imperviousness to reason, you are correct to suspect that the best strategy right now is to fight memes with memes, using emotion. Don’t allow the control freaks the moral high ground. Add our own.
If ending lockdown saves even one life, it will be worth it!
That sort of thing. I’m working on it.
@sunnnv: I agree with you that Dr. Yeadon was utterly premature when he declared no second wave was coming. However, the rest of your comment on him reads a bit like ad hominem…
On your point “the old spirituality of old-time religion lost much its mojo post Galileo/Darwin/etc” I would like to recommend as counter-examples Bishop Nicholas of Cusa, a deeply mystic writer who proposed a non-geocentric and non-heliocentric view two centuries before Galileo; Johannes Kepler, whose system was considerably better than the one Galileo defended and who continued deeply religious to his death; and Theodosius Dobzhansky, a Christian and one of the architects of the evolutionary synthesis in biology. It is true that the churches lost much power from the 17th to the 18th century, and again from the 19th to the 20th century, but the reasons have little do with scientific discoveries. The best treatment I know is Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age”, though reading JMG has taught me there is a lot missing from Taylor’s account.
It was events in Europe, esp the St. Bartholomew’S Day massacre that led to our second amendment. Guns are not about hunting. They are about when government goes rogue, as they are now. Take Australia. A police state. Weren’t they recently disarmed? If Europeans don’t understand this, that is to their shame. Ignorance.
If govt can decree that you do not have the right of self defense, you are a slave.
In case someone is still interested in the question how much Covid-19 transmission occurs from asymptomatic people, the most relevant research I have been able to find was conducted in Singapore and Vietnam. In both countries at the time of the studies, work places, restaurants and bars were open, so they are the best models available for how Covid would be transmitted (initially) if all anti-Covid measures were immediately lifted in Western countries. Vietnam does prescribe masks, and Singapore now does, too (I am not sure if it did at the time of the study). Both countries do extensive tracing and testing of all contacts of Covid patients. More interestingly, in Singapore all workers in certain industries are tested weekly or biweekly, so there is no bias of detection.
In the study from Singapore, the chance of persons without symptoms at the time of contact transmitting the virus was 3.85 times lower than the chance of persons with symptoms transmitting it. It is a pity that the study does not differentiate between presymptomatic and completely asymptomatic carriers, which information is surely available in Singapore.
In Vietnam, the number of cases is so incredibly low that no statistics can be estimated, but this study does show that transmission occurs from both symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers.
I found this study from Italy, with somewhat similar results, less relevant because the town of Vo was already in quarantine during the study period.
It is always good to remember that Taiwan kept workplaces, schools and restaurants open all year and maintained economic growth, while having not a single case of home-grown Covid-19 for several months. This of course means they could perform no study on Covid-19 transmission!
John Goddard: a pair of red cotton socks cut in halves gives me material for 4 red bags. I use hair elastics to tie them up at the open side – or bind them with thread.
Hi all
It seems that Norway now rise the body count of the Pfizer vaccine (after about 42.000 jabs and only first dose) from 23 to 29, and decrease the “safe” age to vaccinate the elderly at below 75 years (from 80 recently)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-16/norway-vaccine-fatalities-among-people-75-and-older-rise-to-29?sref=ZMFHsM5Z
In the VAERS system of the CDC (Vaccine Adverse Events Recording System) there are recorded in USA (last data as of 8th of january), for the Covid-19 vaccines:
a) 55 death associated to the vaccine
b) 24 permanent disabilities
c) 96 life-trhreatening events
d) 225 hospitalization
e) 1388 emergency room visits
This is the link, where you can play with the “request form” to follow-up all what is recorded in VAERS
https://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html
Is seems some discrepancies with the much higher norwegian death numbers, may be the quality of the reporting is different, but seems the reactions to the vaccines are not so “mild” as said, and we have to see the full effects of the second dose, that, in the trials, produce more severe symptoms than the first one.
Yeah!, I know, doctors Yeadon and Wodarg are two nuts!
This is not the more dangerous, not tested effect that the vaccines could produce, the more frightening is the ADE, and it will not be assessed before the losing of inmunity of the vaccines (decrease in the antibody concentration) or new mutation of the virus with different Spike proteins where the only-Spike-protein-oriented vaccines could produce non-neutralizing antibodies.
Now we can see the ethical dilemma when a state (or many) decide that the death of X people due to a “not-so-safe” drug is worth in order to save the lifes of 5X or 500X. Some people would say it is worth and someone that is not the role of the state make this judgment, I am not sure, but in any case it is a risky territory, especially if you make the drug mandatory or pressure the population to take it.
Cheers
David
Hi Jon,
Try “occult supplies” or “voodoo supplies,” but be aware that they’ll charge you up to $25 for something you can make yourself in 15 minutes. So before you order, see if you can find someone in your area who can teach you basic sewing.
pygmycory – I was just speculating, of course. I know little about the US and even less about Canada – though I have to say that from my encounters with US and Canadian citizens I got the impression that Canada might feel a bit more familiar to an European than the US. I’ve heard some bits about the different attitudes towards gun ownership and did not mean to dump the US and Canada in one basket. It’s an interesting bit of history that you have provided here, thanks!
Nachtgurke
Folks,
First essay and podcast about India are up.
oops forgot to share a link https://bonesoftheempire.blogspot.com/2021/01/gods-of-small-changes.html
Jon, you don’t need to be able to sew. Get some red fabric, either from a shop, or cut up some item you already have like a napkin, t-shirt or the like. Cut a circle 4-5 inches in diameter, put items in the center, and then gather the edges together and tie tightly with red thread or cord. Voila!
@ Anonymous
Re Harris
Admittedly, her inauguration will be a historic event, regardless of where one stands politically. As a student of history, I plan to watch the event live for that reason, though I did not vote for her ticket. And I suppose I could cut the media a bit of slack, for the moment at least.
@ Teresa from Hershey
Re German ancestors
My maternal grandmother came over from Germany with her parents and older brother when she was two years old in 1922, in the aftermath of WWI. My mother inherited some of my grandmother’s memorabilia when my grandmother passed, including some fascinating pictures of my great grandfather and his bother in WWI army uniforms. (Apparently my great grandfather fought on the eastern front against the Tsar’s forces, which I have to admit is rather cool.) I have vague memories of meeting my great grandparents when I was very young and they were very old. My understanding is that they came from around Dresden (Bavaria?) and the decision to come to America was very much an economic one.
@ All
Re nothing whatsoever to do with politics
I was just wondering if anyone is picking up any new skills or making any specific resolutions to expand current skills with this new year. I started crocheting a few years ago, but had not ventured beyond basic scarves and hats until a few weeks ago. Starting my first throw blanket as I type this. I’ve also resolved to pick up the banjo again, which as been sitting dormant in the corner of my living room for far to long, and get back to work on my basic lessons.
Glad to hear you recovered from Covid. I had it and didn’t have much of a problem with it. Five others in my immediate family had it too without much problems. I’m in a local hotspot that’s had quite a few deaths and quite a few grave illnesses that are long lasting. Its a rural area whose populace scoffed as suggested preventative measures but that’s been changing lately as most everyone in the area knew well at least a couple of people that died or have had long lasting debilitating illness. Its finally sinking in that the local health department is a better source of information with respect to Covid-19 than the gifs and jpegs percolating out the echo chambers on Social Media.
As for the vaccine I planned to take it before I caught the bug and fully understood there are unknowns. I still may get it, but I can kick that can down the road for at least five months now and I can wait and see what happens in the meantime.
I started on vitamin D and selenium supplements last May. Not giving advice, not qualified, but that’s what I did and I didn’t have much problem with the bug.
Hey everyone,
Thank you for your advice on the red bags. It is very much appreciated.
Jon
@Jon Goddard,
If you are unable to thread a needle, some variety stores sell little kits with
a bunch of pre-threaded needles, over in the notions part, next to the shoelaces
and shoe polish.
If you can’t manage to do a running stitch* with a needle, below is one no-sew
way to make a small red bag.
*(A running stitch looks like this – – – – – . The blanks are where you stuck the needle
through the fabric to the other side and the dashes are where you stuck the
needle back up through the fabric to make a stitch on top. Make a knot at
the end of the thread before you start sewing.)
Tied red bag
1) Go to a fabric store or a hobby store that carries some fabric, such as
the Joanne’s chain.
2) Buy a quarter yard of red cotton fabric.
3) Fold it over.
3) Cut a double layer squarish piece about the size of a handkerchief.
The reason for doubling it is to prevent the point of the nail from
poking through.
4) Put the nail and salt in the center of the doubled over cloth.
5) Lift the corners up, bunch them together, and tie a string around them
to hold everything in.
If you happen to have a pair of white cotton baby socks around and something
to dye them red, you could put one red sock over the other one, stuff the
toe with the nail and salt, tie it above the toe, cut and fold over the top, and
secure it with a safety pin.
@Varun
I just read your first blog article and found it pretty good! It reminds me of Sri Aurobindo’s analysis in his book ‘The Renaissance in India’. Hope to see more articles from you.
Mary Bennett I voted for Trump in 2016 and was on track to vote for him until about April when the pandemic started picking up. Endless streams of jpegs and gifs popped up on social media with witty catchphrases surrounding some “factoid” that would get lots of likes and go viral. Any questioning of anything in the “factoid” be it a number or an alleged event was not well received at all, and eventually met with hostility. The last two times I questioned a “factoid” I was berated for pointing there were 213 million registered voters instead of the 133 million claimed in a jpeg being passed around like a doobie. Another claimed that Biden’s transition team was kicked out of the Pentagon for leaking intel to China. I pointed out that there’s no reports from the Pentagon, the Administration, the transition team or any of the news shops about this, I was berated again.
The antics of his base on Social Media was looking frighteningly similar to radicalization, and Trump was fanning the political polarization flames so I was spooked away. I know quite a few others that would have voted for him but were spooked by the political polarization and the behavior of his base on Social Media.
@LunarApprentice, when you say that all-cause mortality is not significantly higher than in previous years, I suppose you are referring to the USA. I have been looking for such a comparison for a while and couldn’t find an official one – would you mind linking to your source? NomadicBeer above linked to a report showing 12% higher mortality in 2020 than in 2019. Of course, in several (not all) European countries all-cause mortality in 2020 is quite a bit, and significantly, higher than in the last years, see https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/#z-scores-by-country.
@ David BTL —-
I worked on letterpress skills during 2020 and am continuing with that this year. Did my first typesetting by hand (10-pt cast lead type) for a one-page summary of foods that can be produced in central Appalachia climate and printed 15 editions on my homemade press; carved 96-pt font and 72-pt font for notecards, t-shirts and dishtowels; designed and carved a prototype local currency; currently carving a set of 192-pt font for posters and such; and just about to get my first antique tabletop press: a chandler & price pilot from early 1900s.
Participated in a craft market for a few weeks pre-Christmas until I lost my ability to tolerate the mask-mandates and fearmongering. Finally put an ad in my local weekly free paper last week, offering “vintage social media…offline and non-electric.” (Prompted in part by trying to respond constructively to the Twitter/Facebook/Apple/Amazon purge of dissenters and crushing of free speech that took a sudden sharp escalation with the Trump and Parler disappearances.)
KW:
I second your comment– thank you so much, JMG, for keeping this comment thread going!
TamHob:
I thought your short essay on why the U.S. is going berserk was extremely insightful. It is a crystalline summary of things JMG has been saying for awhile. A keeper.
John Goddard:
You can just do the following:
1. Get a small piece of red cloth. I got a red handkerchief from a nearby crafts store.
2. Cut out a circular-ish piece of the cloth, about 4 inches in diameter.
3. Get the nail, bend it, pour a little (about 1/2 teaspoon) pile of the salt in the middle of the circular piece of cloth, and set the nail in the pile of salt.
4. Get a roll of string– cotton twine should be good.
5. Gather the circular piece of cloth up around the pile of salt and nail, first so it looks like the paper encasing a cupcake, then pull the upper part completely together. It will be all pleated on top with the round bulge of salt + nail in the bottom.
6. Pull a length of the string off the roll — don’t cut it yet– and tie the top of the cloth up with the end of it. Leave a long loose end left over. You now have a little roundish bundle, all gathered at the top, and tied shut with the string, like this: https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/1163773/shop_icon .
7. Take the roll of string and pay out more of the string, with the little bag on one end, around your neck to measure how much you should have to hang it comfortably from your neck. (Make sure to leave this loop long enough so you can get it over your head! Check this.)
Then cut this length off and tie its other end to the loose end you left from tying off the top of the bag.
Voila! You have an amulet– no sewing necessary!
All who posted vaccine articles:
Thank you very very much. The Yeadon petition and Sciencemag comments thread were real goldmines.
Sunnnv:
I’m not sure being laid off by Pfizer would necessarily make Yeadon bitter. If the lab was simply downsized they probably gave him a severance. Now, if he’d been kicked out due to a quarrel with them…
For those who have been looking for “proof” that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen… I’ve been gathering articles and info ever since then. I can post the links if you like, but there are a lot of them… lots and lots of reading.
They tend to boil down to a lot of different varieties of smoke, (as in “where there’s smoke there’s fire”). In some cases Trump’s lawyers weren’t allowed to get close enough to things before evidence could have been destroyed. For example, they sued to stop Georgia from deleting the memories of the Dominion voting machines after the election, but they lost the suit, so that evidence is all gone now. OTOH the sources in some of my links indeed seem to show skulduggery.
One item that was odd to me was that at 2 am on the 4th, Trump was leading in all of the swing states except Nevada; and by a day later >all< of the swing states had swung to Biden. (I personally watched this on 3 different websites and screencapped the numbers at intervals.) I thought the definition of a "swing" state was that there is a 50-50 chance it can go either way, like a coin? What are the odds of 6 coins all landing heads?
Probably the most important thing is not whether the election was actually stolen, but that a significant percentage of Americans believe it was and think they are being gaslighted about it. Not happy times.
Antoinetta III,
You could try writing to the Russian embassy about getting the Sputnik V vaccine, either at the embassy itself or at one of its consulates. Write about your concerns regarding the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines, and your greater confidence in Sputnik V.
@Teresa from Hershey:
Aha!!! I strongly suspected as much, though I’m not entirely sure why. I just had a very, very strong hunch as I was reading your first post about him.
The “oovish” ending (with a long “o”) clearly points to a Slavic surname, and at that time and place, probably to a Polish one. The most likely candidate for his surname, so far as I know, would be spelled “Paltrowicz” in Polish, but American-English ears would normally hear the initial Polish “P” as “B.” (In the technical terminology of linguistics, English “P” at the beginning of a word is aspirated, but Slavic “P” is not, and thus it resembles English “B” more than English “P.”)
Maybe it was the fact that your great-grandfather showed strong general hostility to any use of the German language that led me unconsciously to suspect that his mother tongue wasn’t German at all. If so, then Polish was the most likely other candidate for the mother tongue of an emigrant from Prussia at that time. Prussia was carrying out a strong campaign then to Germanize all its subjects whose first language wasn’t German, and it also had both a military draft and a propensity to go to war with weaker European nations. See the wikipedia articles on Kulturkampf and on the various Prussian wars for a first take of your great-grandfather’s probable background and the likely reasons for his dislike of Prussia and German.
For whatever it may be worth, his ancestry may also have been Jewish, which would have given him one more good reason to flee Prussia around 1875. A google search on “Paltrowicz” turns up a dynasty of once-famous rabbis. (If so, he and you may be very distant kin to Gwyneth Paltrow. 😀 )
Teresa, the name Balthroovich sounds like a garbling of a Polish name like Baltrowicz. But I don’t really know. By the way, Dresden lies in Saxony, east from Bavaria.
Sunnnv wrote, “EXPECTED that deaths close to the time [of] vaccination may occur – these people are in their 70s, 80s and 90s – they’re dropping like flies anyway.” and “Unless you’re already at death’s door – ‘very frail elderly’ – nobody but alarmists making money off clickbait is concerned.”
I hate to appear desperately obtuse, but I’m confused by your writing. In the first sentence above, did you use the elderly “dropping like flies anyway” to excuse only their deaths close to the time of vaccination, and not to excuse their deaths from any other causes — such as Covid-19? Given how many people have used exactly your argument to suggest that Covid-19 may not be responsible for most of the deaths attributed to it, I’m finding it hard to know how exclusively to read your dismissal of nursing-home deaths. I don’t want to read your argument too broadly if you intended an exemption limited only to vaccination.
Then, in the second sentence above, you didn’t restate vaccination to delimit what would be of concern only to profiteering alarmists. In this case, am I correct in reading that, other than “very frail elderly,” nobody but profiteering alarmists would be concerned about an uptick in nursing-home deaths from any causes, including Covid-19? Plenty of people have in fact come by considerable profit exploiting the current pandemic, whether from clickbait or otherwise. Are they included in the self-serving alarmists you were referring to? You can see how muddled I’ve become trying to figure out where I’m supposed to notice the obvious parallels, and where I’m supposed to overlook them.
Onething
Yes I see what you are saying – same thing with compassion where people think it is all huggy huggy when it can be done in a quite a different way and still be an expression of compassion.
There just seem to be so many areas where proposing violence (physical and other) appears so ‘casual’:
Different political view?
“Kill them”
Eat a meat?
“Die you murderer”
Women suggesting that sex based equality rights are important too?
“Kill a terf”
No mask?
“Let them die gasping in darkness”
Then of course the routine violence employed by governments and bureaucratic systems towards ‘the people’.
Physical violence is just one aspect, but I’m really wondering what is actually going on in people’s heads – just extreme cognitive dissonance and doubling down for a sense of control or something else?
A fascinating time to be alive.
And on fascination – from page 97 of a book called ‘Spells, Charms and Incantations’
“To win a maiden’s love, get a hair and a pin off her unperceived, twist the hair around the pin, and then throw them backwards into a river.”
There is more than one way of reading that! Do I have the wisdom to discern the truth or will my choice have unfortunate consequences and the love of my life drifts away from the bank and along the river?
And this one is still boggling my mind:
“You may fascinate a woman by giving her a piece of cheese.”
‘Spells, Charms and Incantations’
Actually i don’t know if that was the book title – it was just the title on the page head of the image I saw
@David by the Lake re “I was just wondering if anyone is picking up any new skills or making any specific resolutions to expand current skills with this new year”.
I have just bought some books teaching beginning Latin and begun teaching myself. A number of the books I have will quote Latin passages but provide no translation. So rather than curse in the dark, I’ve lit a few candles. Declensions are killing me though……
JLfromNH
Hi everyone,
I found this site to have some great information concerning prevention of COVID with a vitamin protocol and a prophylaxis protocol with Ivermectin if you are exposed or have it. Check out their I-Mask Protocol.
If you move down the home page there is a press release about the NIH approving the use of Ivermectin in the treatment of COVID. Maybe we can get by without experimental vaccines.
Opps, Here is the link: https://covid19criticalcare.com/
@ Varun – thanks for the blog link. Also, to other commenters who are blogging. This “fallow” time may be a good time to interest this commentariat. I would love to develop a list of places (oases???) to go for a read… far from the polarised debating arenas that everything else has become.
Saw an article quoting from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment today…interesting parallels to our times:
He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen.
Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible.
Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify.
Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other.
The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world
@Onething , Patricia Matthews
re: talking politics in public
Anyone with eyes can see what’s coming. But I don’t worry about it too much because I’ve already said so many potentially cancel-able, un-delete-able things in public that there is really no point beginning to self-censor *now*. If they want me, they’ll get me.
Patricia, in case it hasn’t crossed your radar yet, we are already seeing the first wave of real-world consequences for people being honest about their political views on the internet. If it were limited to simply being booted by FacePlant or Twittier, I’d be inclined to say “good riddance!” and not worry about it. But it goes further than that, and with the DNC in charge of basically everything in the federal government after this election, what’s to stop it? There have already been many reports of people being fired from their jobs because they expressed support for Trump on social media platforms. The guy who runs the alternative platform “gab” is currently in hiding with his family due to credible threats. For the True Believers, booting over 60,000 people from their social media accounts in one weekend (and more since!) isn’t enough! Those people mustn’t be able to use another platform, either: Parler is down for the count after Amazoon kicked it off its servers, and Gab has suffered at least two massive DDOS attacks in the last week, in addition to groaning under the sudden influx of millions of new users fleeing the major platforms.
Curt Schilling, retired baseball star and current opinionated internet conservative, recently had AIG cancel his family’s insurance because of his social media profile. For real. This is a really big deal. Schilling will be OK, but what about the rest of regular Joe Americans with mortgages and insurance to worry about? Do you realize that if you have a mortgage, and your homeowners’ insurance yanks your policy because you expressed the wrong opinion in a public forum, your bank can now foreclose on your home, because hey, you don’t have insurance! You will not, of course, be reading about that in the Gainesville Sun.
If your employer can fire you or your insurance can boot you because of your politics, why not your bank? I don’t know how far that will go, but I think we’re about to find out.There’s good reason to be concerned.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/aig-cancels-insurance-of-former-mlb-great-and-trump-supporter-curt-schilling?utm_source=featured&utm_campaign=standard
Oops! I got two things turned around in my head. It is the Parler CEO who’s in hiding:
https://disrn.com/news/parler-ceo-flees-home-goes-into-hiding-with-family-after-death-threats/
Just getting around to responding to the couple commenters who responded to my comment and asked me questions…
@investingwithnature
Thanks for the information from Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance. I may have come across that before. I have seen similar recommendations on other sites. I check out Chris Martensen’s site from time to time and it seems similar to some of the information he has shared. I was not taking most of those supplements prior to getting sick (in terms of what other long-haulers where taking prior, I don’t have too much information; I think it varies), except I think I had been taking a low dose (1000 IU) of Vitamin D. When I did get sick I did megadose on Vitamin C, and later did take some zinc, and I have since increased my Vitamin D intake to 5000 IU a day after October. (When I had my Vitamin D checked in October…when I had been taking 1000 IU for a half a year, it was still only 36 ng/ML, the very low end of normal range. Based on the research she’s read, my naturopath thinks optimal Vitamin D levels are much higher, at least over 50 ng/ML.)
With lots of attention to eating super-nutritiously, additional nutritional supplements, herbs, acupuncture, and rest, I have improved a lot since this summer when I was wondering many times if I would be permanently impaired. My sleep and energy levels have really improved since the summer. The main issue I’m still dealing with is some unexplained tension in my chest that limits the intensity and amount of exercise I can comfortably do. It seems like it’s from some damage to blood vessels there that are still healing (I’m not sure it’s the reason, but that’s my theory, as I know Covid is known to cause damage to endothelial cells, which take a matter of months to heal). While this has been the most serious thing to ever happen to me, I’m able to find lots of blessings amidst this long ordeal. When/if I ever get back to my pre-illness physical capabilities, I’ll appreciate my physical abilities all the more! Also, because I’m trying to do everything I can to nourish my body and support its healing, I’m find that apart from my upper torso, the rest of my body is oftentimes feeling better than it did pre-illness, apart from want to vigorously exercise more. Plus, it’s been an impetus to form relationships with new practitioners like an herbalist and acupuncturist, and switch to a different doctor; for which I’m happy for the long-term. Sometimes it takes a crisis to initiate some positive changes in my life.
@kashtan
Thanks for your comment. I agree that Covid long haulers’ experiences may now be getting more media attention (& funding) than other types of chronic illnesses (chronic fatigue syndrome, MS, POTS, Chronic Lyme, etc.) that many people have suffered from throughout non-pandemic times. That doesn’t mean that the experience of many Covid long haulers aren’t real and important to address, but that the media is selective in what if focuses on though. I know I read in comment sections on news articles about Covid long-haulers from people who have suffered from Chronic Lyme or MS, and they say they can totally relate to the patients’ experience of not being heard and the struggles of dealing with an inept medical profession of addressing their health concerns. Some of them feel sidelined seeing Covid long-haulers getting the attention they never did, but also hope that maybe through the attention on Long Covid, some of their conditions may possibly get more attention and validation.
While many long-haulers I’ve communicated with did first contact it in the spring, there are plenty of others I’ve read about on the Body Politic Covid-19 Slack group (where a lot of us congregate and share information about what works for us) who got ill this summer or the fall. Many of us are relatively young (20-45 years old) and were very physically active prior.
As for whether there was some underlying environmental factor that also contributed to my and others’ illnesses in the spring, who knows? I myself have lots of ways I could have caught Covid in mid-March, as I had LOTS of public exposure (and one very obvious direct link to someone who was exposed inside for a day to someone who was infected with it). In mid-March I had a very mysterious but milder several-day period of being unwell, then I got better. After that I kept thinking that I may have had a mild case of Covid then. But I felt a little off for the next six weeks, and then I had a more serious illness which was the illness that really debilitated me (I was never hospitalized, but there was a period I was wondering if I should go to the hospital and one night I thought I might die). That was when I got tested for Covid and tested negative, but that may not have been the initial illness. It was right around the time a lot of mostly children in NYC were coming down with strange inflammatory illnesses, also about 6 weeks after having a mild or asymptomatic Covid case. So I often wonder if my more serious illness was something more along those lines, not the initial Covid infection, but some kind of post-Covid inflammatory illness.
While I don’t deny at all that many people have suffered from Covid-19 (me likely being one of them; I also know of a few people who’ve died from it), and it’s certainly not a hoax, I still think many narratives around it are possible, and I can agree that the mainstream media narrative may emphasize certain things while leaving out other perspectives.
Regardless of how one feels about the Covid vaccine, I still very much think that a lot more attention in our society should be put on preventative health and lower-cost treatments–this is important not just for Covid but for any other health threats that already exist or may later exist during the Long Descent.
Jeanne M Labonte,
I have been successful with beginning Latin by using Duolingo. It’s a wonderful way to learn a language. You begin at the most basic level and work your way up. Since you are doing the same exercises over and over, you will get quite good at it.
The course itself doesn’t go past say, the first year of a high school course (I could be wrong there), but it does emphasize the nominative, accusative, ablative and some dative cases. It also goes into the various noun declensions. I’m glad they did this because this is the hardest part of Latin from what I understand. And, looking into conjugating verbs, those seem easy compared to the nouns. I am hoping that they extend the course.
If you do sign up, look me up. Jon309761.
Jon
p.s. Extremely jealous that you are in NH — I’ve been trying to move there for ten years, but reality keeps me where I am.
@David BTL
In 2021, I am trying my hand at basic car maintenance. The car is old enough, and there are enough things that need to be replaced after, say, 30k miles, that aren’t *that* complicated (gaskets, wires, rotors, etc), that it seems worth the time and effort to learn to do them myself, rather than taking it to the shop for everything.
Have also taken on some little around-the-house projects I might once have left to others: in 2020 I learned to install doorknobs and hang doors. This year: maybe It’ll be windows. It’s on my list.
@ sunnnv
I suppose you did not read the full document made by the FDA for the emergency approval of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine, here is the link and I assess for you if what the “lunatics” doctors Yeadon and Wodarg argue have any sense or have been “debunked” (as Richard Dawking and his minions like to say):
https://www.fda.gov/media/144245/download
Yeadon & Wodarg only talk about RISKS not certainties of problems, but they talk about reasonable credible risks, and they should have been adressesed before a massive vaccination campaign of hundreds of millions of people take place. The burden of the proof is on the side of the vaccine manufacturer, nor in the side of the people who advise of credible risks, and this was the normal way the drugs have been tested before (not now where Big Pharma and the MSM ask the people who talk about risks that provide “solid evidences”).
As I said before, there are 4 risks that Yeadon & Wodarg mention in their petition to the EMA, and I describe, for you, what the FDA say about these risks, and because the FDA mention them in the approval report, well, clearly the FDA also recognize the existence of these risks:
• Yeadon & Wodarg arise the risks of Antibody-Dependent Amplification, ADE: in the FDA report, in page 49, in section of “risks”, in the paragraph titled “Vaccine-enhanced disease”, page 49, they say: “…However, risk of vaccine-enhanced disease over time, potentially associated with waning immunity, remains unknown and needs to be evaluated further in ongoing clinical trials and in observational studies that could be conducted following authorization and/or licensure.”
Nice, let’s see what happens when some hundreds millions people are vaccinated to see if something wrong happens with the ADE, knowing that it is a high risks in other coronaviruses diseases…
• Yeadon & Wodarg say: “It must be absolutely ruled out that a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 could trigger an immune reaction against syncytin-1, as otherwise infertility of indefinite duration could”. In the FDA report in section “Safety in certain subpopulation”, page 49, they say = “There are currently insufficient data to make conclusions about the safety of the vaccine in subpopulations such as children less than 16 years of age, pregnant and lactating individuals, and immunocompromised individuals.”. They do not mention the risks of infertility in woman.
OK, let’s see what happens again.
• Yeadon & Wodarg say: “The mRNA vaccines from BioNTech/Pfizer contain polyethylene glycol (PEG). 70% of people develop antibodies against this substance – this means that many people can develop allergic, potentially fatal reactions to the vaccination”. In this case we are seeing the effect of severe allergic reactions, and the physicians suspect it is due to the PEG, there are many severe cases and deaths due to this with the first dose, it is expected to be worse with the second one. Yeadon & Wodarg were spot on in this risk.
• Yeadon & Wodarg say: “The much too short duration of the study does not allow a realistic estimation of the late effects” (they put some well known examples of vaccines in the past). The FDA report in the section “Adverse reactions that are very uncommon or that require longer follow-up to be detected”, page 49, they say: “Following authorization of the vaccine, use in large numbers of individuals may reveal additional, potentially less frequent and/or more serious adverse events not detected in the trial safety population of nearly 44,000 participants over the period of follow up at this time. Active and passive safety surveillance will continue during the post authorization period to detect new safety signals”. This statement utterly false, they have not vaccinated “nearly 44.000 people”, but 18.801 (page 43 of the report), and again ALL the adverse effects that the vaccine could develope after 2-3 months (the duration of the phase 3 trials) are fully unknown; for example the narcolepsy of the swine flu vaccine developed after 8 months.
ANY of the risks mentioned by the “lunatics” doctors Yeadon & Wodarg have been addressed in the trials or “debunked”; may be all will be OK (well the allergic problems are not so OK), but it is very risky to make what they are making, and at the end what Yeadon & Wodarg have made I think is right and ethical.
Cheers
David
@ Booklover
Re my poor knowledge of German interior political geography
Ah. Saxony. All I knew for sure was “from around Dresden.”
@ KW
Re letterpress
I may have mentioned it before, but you might be interested in the museum here in my small town:
Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum
https://woodtype.org
@Earthworm. Re: cheese. I saw that too. Tried it. She was not fascinated.
Back to the drawing board.
@ KW
I meant to add that I loved “vintage social media” 🙂
Jeanne M Labonte I am relearning Latin also! “How cool” my daughter said, which surprised me. I thought I was in for a lecture about language of dead white men (the Romans weren’t, actually, or not entirely.) I made a chart of the declensions.
New skills: I am advancing from sewing to pattern drafting. Also bread baking, which is not nearly so difficult as I used to think.
methylethyl, Some folks never learn! Given what you describe combined with the return of clueless “humanitarian” interventionists at State, I wonder which Republican will be elected President in 2024.
Sorry, Varun, the Hindu diaspora will have to wait a bit longer for one of theirs to be elected president. I very much appreciate your blog effort and am looking forward to reading more. Am I mistaken in thinking that the various indigenous languages of India are still alive and well?
“You may fascinate a woman by giving her a piece of cheese 🧀.”
😳❗️❓
Are you a man or a mouse?
(I was wrong—there IS something stranger than smurfnapping out there on the Internet.)
https://www.quora.com/q/catmemes/What-are-the-most-unique-looking-cats?ch=99&share=3608f5ef&srid=1Pk3x
A couple of chimeras there. I suspect the eyes on some of the cats were Photoshopped, and maybe the owl-cat as well. Still worth seeing.
@Jon: if you have an iron, you can buy iron on seam tape at any local fabric supply store, and iron the seams of the bag in place of sewing.
RE: Covid19 statistics: The CDC publishes a weekly count of deaths by state. Final statistics tend to stabilize after about 8 to 10 weeks. For the first 3 quarters of 2020, deaths in Rhode Island are running about 15% ahead of the average of the previous 5 years. Our population has been pretty stable (total change about 0.6% from 2010 to 2019). I think that the 15% increase in the death rate is a pretty accurate representation of the toll taken by COVID-19. I don’t think that 15% is worth the destruction to small business, but it has been suggested by those close to me that this attitude proves I’m heartless swine. Regardless, those in charge aren’t listening to me anyhow.
RE: What we say here on politics: I think that what I say (here and everywhere) will only be used against me if I become a danger to the existing political order. If I do become a danger, almost anything I’ve said will be misquoted to show how evil I am (‘in a blog post, Van Erp boasted:”How evil I am!”.’) So, I post away, worrying only about errors of grammar or an infelicitous phrase which may be misunderstood by you, my tribe.
@David by the Lake – re new skills for a new year.
After years of having my eyes glaze over in these threads any time astrology was mentioned, I have begun getting acquainted with William Lilly’s “Christian Astrologer” as well as one of Nicolas Culpepper’s astrological works with more of a medical emphasis. I’m thinking medical horary astrology may be a useful aid in the clinic (doing a chart, say, for the moment a new patient maked their first call or sends their first message seeking an appt.) I’m only footling about just now, but would never have looked into it at all without the themes being covered here so often. It is a fascinating study!
Thanks for asking!
Ighy, thanks for the advice….But….Are there any Russian Embassies left in the U.S.? I thought they had all been closed down at the tail end of Obama”s administration after the 2016 election, when one of Trump’s future appointees was accused of talking to Russian officials at one of the embassies.
I recall the closure of the Russian Embassy here in SF California at the time and would imagine all the rest of them in the US would have also been shut down. And I don’t recall any being re-opened.
Please correct me if you have information to the contrary.
Antoinetta III
@ Jon Goddard
My aging eyeballs don’t handle staring at a computer screen as well as
they used to, so I’m learning the old fashioned way with some introductory
books by William Linney. I also found an old high school text book of first
year Latin which is the same one used way back in my high school days umpteen
years ago and also just downloaded a PDF copy of the Oxford Latin course for
beginners.
New Hampshire is a great place but then I’m biased. We have no sales or
income tax (yet) but a hefty property tax. Never having lived anywhere
else I’m not able to compare NH with any other states but am convinced
we’re better off than other places. Once this Covid craze starts fading
check us out again. 🙂
JLfromNH
Hello Matthias Grille,
My comments are generally US specific. So far, I have been unable to track down my source for all-cause mortality; I think it was from last summer or autumn, and was partial year data (e.g. 32-week data). Having said that, the data I can find, which is more current, does NOT appear to support my pertinent contentions, and unless I can recover my source (or someone discovers issues with the CDC data), it looks I’ll have to be force-fed crow on those points.
The vaccine risk-avoidance rationale is not affected.
–Lunar Apprentice
Lunar Apprentice, January 16, 2021 at 1:25 pm — THANK YOU for this sewing link. The whole site is a trove. I have rudimentary sewing skills my mother taught me– made my amulets with the “whip stitch”, for example– but now I have learned a bunch more useful ones. Speaking of learning new skills!!
Everyone who’s posting links about coronavirus and the vaccines, thank you!
Patricia Mathews, January 16, 2021 at 1:58 pm — Thanks for the link to the historian’s blog. The info about ancient Greek history is great, and bears out JMG’s observation that humans do the same things over and over. The historian’s bias is clear, however, and he makes no remarks on any possible provocations leading the “insurrectionists” to raid the Capitol. Such as, the steady whittling away of their jobs over the past 40 years, destruction of their livelihoods due to Coronavirus lockdowns, toppling of Founding Father monuments (like Washington!) over the summer, etc. His call for “reincorporating the insurrectionists into the society” are great, but there are a lot of people out there who want to do anything but.
The mass purges of people off social media platforms, the total destruction of the potential alternative chat platform Parler by several big corporations working in concert, the death threats against its CEO, and many many more stories like this both on and off this blog would be plenty to convince the 37% (cited in the historian’s first poll link) that they are under attack. I’m sure the people who stormed the Capitol, and the 19% who supported them believe that they are the ones trying to defend democracy and American society, and that they are under siege from the “Woke” and their allies in powerful places.
Many cops are getting fed up and some of them may have helped the raiders gain access to the Capitol, according to my (anti-Trump) dad. Frankly, US leaders/people in charge have been crapping all over the cops all last year, and in 2016 too, and that is extremely inadvisable for rulers as it is the cops and military who enforce their rule. I do not know how the military feel about things, having not done that research or seen much in the way of news, but the fact that there are 20,000 National Guard soldiers in the Capitol at this time could be significant in either direction, or very worst of all, in both directions at the same time.
(Deep breath)
On a lighter note, Lady Cutekitten, January 17, 2021 at 4:39 pm — Thank you for those pretty, pretty cats!! Yes, they are probably mostly fictional, but they sure are easy on the eyes. Is it the cat with the two-tone eyes who is a “chimera”?
Thank you all for being such an awesome commentariat.
@pygmycory,
I was only speaking from a US perspective, not Canadian, and was not attempting to conflate the two.
That said, please note that there are more hunters in Canada than people that play hockey.
Another sign of these anxious times: the FCC just put out a notice that Amateur and Personal radio communications devices are NOT to be used to facilitate illegal activities.
FCC_NOTICE_2021_OPERATORS_MAY_NOT_USE_RADIO_EQUIPMENT_TO_COMMIT_OR_FACILITATE_CRIMINAL_ACTS_DA_21_73A1
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-21-73A1.pdf
I guess this means that when would-be revolutionaries get out of jail, they should not be surprised to find that their radio equipment has been confiscated, and their license to operate it revoked (as well as their life insurance canceled, mortgage foreclosed or apartment re-leased, marriage terminated, children placed in foster care, guns and automobile impounded) . Should we expect to see parallel announcements from our Motor Vehicles Administrations (which issue driver’s licenses)? Maybe our dog and cat licenses, too, if they’re found to provide aid and comfort to The Resistance? (I may be jumping the starting gun on referring to the “stop the steal” participants as “The Resistance”. IIRC, that was a tag adopted by the Democratic partisans who refused to accept Hilary Clinton’s defeat. Now that the power has reversed, I assume that the labels will reverse as well.)
Somehow, I doubt that the status of their radio license is of any real concern. But if it is, perhaps this is the wake-up call some folks need to be reminded that violating the Constitution is not a live-action role-playing (LARP) game, which is over when you take off your costume.
Alastair Crooke has knocked it out of the park again in a new article identifying various fallout from the symbolic besieging of the US elite. He especially focuses on international fallout and the dilemma Europe now finds itself faced with.
His last sentence predicting a return to older, more local stories positively warmed my heart: “states [around the world] will look to build ‘public consent’ around quite different ‘poles’ – loose concerts of states, traditional culture and the historic narratives of their communities.” A great thaw is coming — long-frozen rivers will once more be able to flow through the lands.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/01/17/without-democracy-in-us-can-simulacra-democracy-survive-elsewhere/
Well, that was certainly fast — from police-resisting commoners defiantly sieging the US Capitol to police-resisting commoners defiantly sieging restaurants in Italy, Mexico, Switzerland, Poland, and counting, all in just a week and a half! My goodness, that may well be a new land record for revolutionary spread!
Get ready for profound changes to begin sweeping the globe, folks. The “I Am Open” movement is just the very beginning. The elites’ control is crumbling so quickly they can’t even respond. The smart ones will get in front of that riot and call it a parade, but most of them just aren’t that smart.
America’s elites are fighting over whatever crumbs remain at this point. Don’t expect their media to ever inform you that the age of the (corporate and Congressional) dinosaurs has truly passed, or that the nimble (perhaps even deplorable) proto-mammals will end up inheriting the earth — they wouldn’t want to give the whole plot away for fear you might just turn them off. Not a bad idea, that.
Our posturing elites will go on carrying the caduceus and wearing laurels to their dwindling clan gatherings long after the glory that was DC becomes but a passing memory. The great American empire, the one indispensable nation, went out with a whimper rather than the much expected bang. Who would ever have guessed? And they did it to themselves! The irony is delicious — bon appétit.
@ Earthworm: Can you cite the Dostoyevky article that you quoted? I’d like to look it up in the novel.
Thanks, commentariat, for keeping the conversations alive; you have certainly made January a lot less dreary!
@Varun – thanks for rising to the challenge of explaining modern Indian history to Westerners. Not an enviable task; you seem to have been good at walking on the “razor’s edge” of neither over-simplifying nor getting too deep into the political weeds that only Indians would understand. So far, all your points are solid and unarguable. I look forward to your future installments.
Phutatorius
Near the bottom on this:
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crime/full-text/part-vi-chapter-viii/
Saw it quoted in an article by someone called Edward Curtin called:
Raskolnikov’s Dream Come True
https://off-guardian.org/2021/01/17/raskolnikovs-dream-come-true/
About being fascinated by cheese: I am! I love cheese.
That said, if you’re going to try and fascinate me with cheese it better be Stinking Bishop or a nice Wensleydale with cranberries and not pasteurized processed American cheese food product slices or Velveeta.
My dear husband and I settle down to a dinner of cheese and crackers (three kinds!), with a heap of crudités and fresh, sliced fruit every Friday and Saturday night and watch a movie.
We try all kinds of cheese. Mmm. Shropshire with sage.
Scotlyn, David BTL, and all-
“…as well as one of Nicolas Culpepper’s astrological works with more of a medical emphasis.”
I just began reading Graeme Tobyn’s “Culpepper’s Medicine” this week! Like you, I am interested, yet struggle with astrology. My copy of the A-Z Horoscope came in at the same time, along with Violet’s recommendations from her blog of “American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy” by Finley Ellingwood and a Matthew Wood herbal repertory.
I have picked up crocheting again as well. I seem to have a lot more time now that I am not caretaking for my parents. If anyone would be willing to pray for my mother especially, she is at the end of her life and could use some peace about dying. Her name is Lisa, and she is 61, dying of cancer.
Thanks,
Nic
@RonM
Your comment reminded me of Mike Myers’ SNL character Linda Richman, of Coffee Talk, with JMG in the Linda Richman role. “I’m feeling a little verklemft. Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic: the progressive future is neither progress nor in the future. Discuss.”
I have “spilkus in my genectigizoid”
Hi Cicada,
A genetic chimera results from the abnormal fusion of 2 eggs in utero. Well known examples are hermaphrodites—there’s a picture of a hermaphroditic cardinal out there somewhere but I couldn’t find it today—and cats with one side black and one some other color, red or tortoiseshell. A good site to learn about genetic oopsies is http://www.messybeast.com . (Make sure you don’t have anything planned before getting on messybeast, as it’s a deep, fascinating rabbit hole.)
Aaaaaannnnd… Here’s Miss January! Isn’t she cute?
https://goodmorningkitten.com/kitten/4679/
Hi all,
A set of e-mails from the EMA (European Medicament Agency) have been hacked (or filtered?), and in them they appears clear doubts, from the scientific commitee, about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and also it appears the pressures from the states and Brussels burocrats to aprove the vaccines asap.
The web is in french (Le Monde) but for me google translate make enough good job to understand what they say:
https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2021/01/16/vaccins-ce-que-disent-les-documents-voles-a-l-agence-europeenne-des-medicaments_6066502_3244.html
One of the “unknowns” I didn’t know before, is what is mentioned in the e-mails exchanged about the “m-RNA chains shorter and/or larger” than the “right one”, and this means that about 40% of all the m-RNA they are injecting to the people has different length and then different compositions than the “right” one, and, possible, different unknown effects in the body; because;
a) What kind of proteins the ribosomes of the people will produce with these shorter or larger chains of m-RNA?
b) What kind of antibodies will be produced due to the proteins inside the cells made by those shorter and/or longer m-RNA? Some of then, in this lottery, could be homologous of syncitin-1 or another fundamental protein for the body?
c) If there is present the retro-transcriptase enzyme, could this anomalous m-RNA change, in a unknown way, the DNA of the people.
People have to know that the m-RNA vaccines are a complete new thing, never used before in humans, and as I learn more about then, less I want to be vaccinated with them.
Cheers
David
@Lathechuck re: radio
I have heard from other sources that along with the run on guns, ammo, and garden seeds, it is now getting difficult to buy CB radio equipment.
@ Lathechuck, et al.
Re revolution is not LARPing
The key, I think, is to encourage the consideration of the constitutional remedies to our difficulties, which will become more and more possible as DC continues to go sideways with respect to the rest of the nation. There’s a way to cull congressional power and rebalance the system, if at least 36 states can be brought on board to begin the process.
Constitutional convention, anyone? It’s right there in Article V…
A brief thought.
The siege on congress and the subsequent silencing of the means on communication for those even slightly involved, it is all reminiscent of the ‘Towel of Babble’ story.
Folks converge to build a tower to Heaven (government building) only to be scattered around the world (back to their homes) and then have their languages changed so they can no longer work together (have online communications revoked/hindered).
Any thoughts?
Anonymous and all, here is some more pertinent info regarding grounds to refuse Covid vaccines-
The Nuremberg Code of 1947 has some helpful things to say about obtaining consent from those subjected to medical experimentation:
http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/nuremberg/
A couple of excerpts –
1: “The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.”
…
6: “The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.”
Given that the Covid vaccines are experimental, it seems reasonable to regard those getting it as experimental subjects. Given the unknown or unquantified risks, I’d expect some credence and respect be extended to the “vaccine hesitant”; esp. considering duress or perceived tacit coercion on the part of employees.
Oh dear:
AOC Proposes Funding to Deprogram White Supremacists
https://nypost.com/2021/01/15/aoc-proposes-funding-to-deprogram-white-supremacists/?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fzen.yandex.com&utm_campaign=dbr
An excerpt:
**** “The federal government needs to fund the de-programming of white supremacists and conspiracy theorists”, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Friday night.
“The White supremacist cause is futile, it’s nihilist,” AOC, a Democrat who represents parts of The Bronx and Queens, said during a virtual town hall meeting Friday night.
“Their world will never exist. That’s why we’re seeing violence right now.,” she said, speaking in the wake of the violent siege on the US Capitol by radical supporters of President Trump.
“We have to pick up those pieces.” ****
End Excerpt
This seems even worse when one considers how cavalierly the “White supremacist” charge is thrown around. Last week, I saw a CNN report that describes the 1-06-2021 Capitol protestors as such, and of course we’ve all heard how Trump voters are often dismissed as White Supremacists. I can’t recall when I last heard this charge supported by any respectable evidence… And deprogram “conspiracy theorists” too…
This needs to be followed closely.
Hello all! Glad to see everyone still conversing and engaging with one another while JMG takes a break.
As for new skills, after many years, I finally unpacked my never-used Wonder Mill for grinding. This week, my 4 year old and I ground up acorns we gathered this fall and wheat berries. He was really into it! Planning to make acorn tortillas this week.
I also started making a few tinctures, so far usnea and yellow dock. Lots to learn there!
Varun, I went to read your blog post but had a hard time with the color scheme; any chance you can change it?
Ellen
Viduraawakened, That’s a very flattering comparison, thank you.
Scotlyn, That’s actually a pretty good idea.
Mary, I have a feeling that our community will be handling clean up after the Trump and Biden Administrations are a memory.
Ron, Let me know if I wade too far into the weeds.
@Lathechuck, et alia–
Re my sudden inability to do basic math
Thirty-four states, not thirty-six, for a convention. Thirty-eight, of course, to ratify any actual amendments. The point is, though, that DC could be cut out of the loop. If the locals got collectively annoyed enough with the denizens of the imperial capital, that is.
How does AOC intend to re-program “white supremacists”? In re-education camps? I’d love to hear her elaborate more on her ideas..
RE: Constitutional Convention
David by the lake, I really think that is likely to happen in the next four years. If anyone listens to their constituents, and realize it’s neigh impossible for fly-over country and the Coastal Elite to reconcile their differences, that’d be a great option compared with other options. Still, we’ll see!
@ Michael Gray
Tower of Babble wins typo of the day award. Perfect description of social media. I look forward to seeing the tower toppled over the next decade or so.
It would be nice if some global communications were retained. I’m just old enough to remember the days of the online ‘bulletin boards’. Those were decentralised and very low-fi by today’s standards. They were moderated but in a way that was responsive to the community of users rather than the Kafkaesque style of moderation employed by Big Tech where you just get de-platformed one day with no reason given.
——————————
As for new skills, I welcomed some chickens to my newly constructed backyard chicken coop recently. Have started making my own yoghurt and soft cheese. Will be trying my hand at sauerkraut this autumn and also conserving what’s looking to be an epic apple harvest (apple vinegar and dehydration are the two techniques up for the test).
David, by the lake, states for a convention:
At a very rough guesstimate there are about 24 states. Of course, federal results may not predict the leanings or actions of state assemblies (and I haven’t inventoried those).
Ellen in ME, January 18, 2021 at 8:47 pm, re grinding acorns for flour: A time-honored custom in many cultures. However, acorns contain tannic acid like the rest of the oak tree, meaning the raw acorn will be bitter. One technique, used for example by the Kumeyaay of southern California, is to grind the acorns, rinse the grindings thoroughly in fresh water, let it settle, then drain the rinsewater with the tannic acid off the top. You may need several rinses. This guy has the whole scoop.
If you have a lot of oaks where you live, that could come in real handy someday.
Another possibility is maple seeds. Yes, they are also edible when shucked. preparing maple seeds 1, preparing maple seeds 2. When I was a kid the silver maples in our neighborhood dropped millions of seeds in the spring, though I never tried eating them. I have noticed that Sugar Maple seeds are fat little guys, so I bet they’re a winner too.
@ Teresa from Hershey – Stilton. I love me my Stilton. Expensive, so, only an occasional treat. Hmmm. I wonder if Brexit will effect the supply and price? Lew
@ Earthworm: Thanks, and re the second link, Peter Lorre as Raskolnikov? Who would have dreamed that????
In a few more months Trump will be a memory, the Kardashians will be a memory, even Covid will be a memory, one way or another (everyone infected and/or everyone vaccinated). How on earth will the media hold our attention then? I guess they’ll fall back on Climate Catastrophe and Insect Apocalypse, unless Biden conveniently starts a new war.
Alastair Cooke said “What happens when a single nation splits, with one turning the ‘seditious’ elements into an ‘alien other’?
We do not know.”
I say “We do, so, know. The answer lies in a world history full of civil wars and their aftermaths.” From Joan Baez….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wanJQC5KAfo
Re the election:
It sure looks like a coup to me, but the other way around from the ‘insurrection’ narrative:
– An opaque election, with a contested outcome, and no real attempt to transparently investigate apparent irregularities;
– Media censoring one side and boosting the other;
– A massively militarized swearing in of the putative winner.
What am I missing?
for David BTL
Currently, delegations from the fifty states (and 3 territories) are assembled in the District of Columbia, and that 2000 trustees have been appointed (as US Marshals)
A strong case could be claimed that sufficient Article V applications exist
Perhaps we are just waiting for a proclamation of convention?
My fellow Ecosophians,
Nearly 3 weeks ago, Wednesday night the 30th of December, something really unexpected and even miraculous occurred. For about 2 months now I have been very weak. Get short of breath at the top of the stairs. We had planned a very small party for New Year, for which I took no responsibility to cook or clean.
However, around 10 pm I noticed I felt unusually well and strong. I thought, well, maybe I’ll clean the bathroom. So I did. Then, about midnight I went BOUNDING downstairs and told my husband how good I was feeling. I normally go very slowly up or down. After speaking with him, I went to the stairs and said, Look at this! And I proceeded to literally run up the stairs and had no shortness of breath.
I have no idea what happened. It hasn’t happened again. Did someone with clout pray for me?
If so, I want more!
Earthworm,
But the answer I gave you had common sense and natural law. What has that to do with silly, thoughtless people who can’t think? Of course casual violence and its rationalizations are a problem!
All–
Re science and science fiction
From NASA’s Artemis website, a nice marketing brochure:
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/artemis_plan-20200921.pdf
I don’t know about program viability in the context of the economic future we’re going to be getting, but hey, the graphics are inspirational enough (as are the budget requests).
Hi all
Close to 30.000 national guards deployed around and in the “Green Zone”, sorry, the Capitol…Now it seems the army have removed 12 soldiers from duty in the Capitol due to “concerns” with their ties with extremists groups (proto-terrorists groups):
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/national-guard-removed-inauguration-duty/index.html
The FBI is vetting all the national guards deployed, I suppose to avoid surprises à la Anwar el-Saddat, or could be the start of a more profound de-trumpification process inside the army and administration?(after all they have quite good experience in other countries in the ME with strong success as far as I know)
Cheers
David
Martin, if JMG’s mundane astrology report on the inauguration holds up, the media will have PLENTY to talk about!
And now reports of loyalty tests for the troops in DC.
@Teresa and Earthworm re: cheese fascination
If a fellow approached me with a wedge of Manchego, I’d certainly stick around to see what else he had to say 😉
I’m not sure what’s on the learning agenda for the full year, but this month I’m learning to make fermented preserved mustard-greens (mei gan cai (“may gaan tsai”) in Mandarin) that involves drying the leaves, fermenting them in salt, then steaming them. They’re used as a garnish or salty/umami-flavored addition to stir-fries and braised meats.
I’ve also returned to crochet after a long hiatus, and have begun to hand-sew clothes. At the end of summer I made a pair of leather sandals. In the fall, I figured out a crop rotation plan, hauled in compost, and planted the winter veggies (so the the meigancai is all homegrown!) with a second crop being sown this week. This week or next I’ll be making the first of several bookshelves so we can unpack a garage 1/4 full of inherited books.
Contenders for my attention include learning to draw, do mental math, and learn basic ancient Greek or brush up on my German. In addition, that is, to my spiritual practices and writing projects. It’s a pity I have to work for pay because I really rather prefer all my other interests!
I failed at chicken-keeping last year. We’d adopted two hens from someone who was moving, but lost one to extreme heat at the end of the bad fire season (horrid air quality); we had to send the one remaining hen to live on a farm when I couldn’t find anything but chicks (and I wasn’t in a position to set up a brooder) in August or so. Not sure I’ll try again just yet.
JMG, can you please make a continuation thread up top? This one is getting unwieldy. Not to mention our swiping thumbs and mouse-clicking fingers are getting sore. 🥺
To all those here who plan to risk getting covid, be advised:
https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/texas-surgeon-noticing-some-post-covid-lungs-have-more-scar-tissue-than-smokers-lungs
Ever more interesting times ahead.
JMG said on his Dreamwidth site (US Inauguration 2021 – Nov. 17th, 2020):
“Whoever is inaugurated this coming January will be walking face first into a buzzsaw.”
Tomorrow is inauguration day. In an all but empty armed camp. I hope I can avoid the media during this time – with the exception of this space. If comments are permitted to continue, I would love to hear what the commentariat has to say – from whatever point of view.
JMG – I hope all is going well with you this month.
Simon S – I’ve been making sauerkraut for a few years, and get better results with red cabbage than with green. Red cabbage provides its own “acidity indicator”: if it’s red, it’s still acid, but if it turns blue (due to, for example, yeast consuming lactic acid) it’s probably not good to eat any more. I’ve also tried both hand-cut and machine sliced cabbage, and prefer the hand cut. (It takes a little planning to hand-cut the concentric shells of leaves in a way that produces thin strips, by the way.) My sauerkraut is more salty and less sour than commercial products, for some reason, and I prefer it that way. I pack the fresh cabbage and brine into quart Mason jars, weight it down with a small “baby-food” jar containing well-washed stones, and cover with waxed paper held on with a canning ring. The waxed paper keeps contaminants out, but doesn’t allow pressure to build up.
Ellen in ME,
Thanks for the feedback, I keep forgetting I’m no longer in my angst teenage phase. XD
I’ve changed the background and font, hope it’s more legible.
David, by the lake and Cicada Grove:
The number of states who have passed the COS resolution is 15. 8 have passed it in one chamber, and four have active legislation this year. I’ve been involved with the group for a number of years now, as I see it to be the only way out of current dilemma. I have a strange feeling the number will drastically increase over the next couple of years… I don’t know why.
Lady Cutekitten: thank you for that ray of sunshine!
Peter Van Erp: thank you also for the tape suggestion. I have some at home to try.
JMG: your book on Cabalism is tremendously lucid. I thank you kindly for that.
Onething: Know that we still love you and pray for you, dear one, and couldn’t be happier to learn of your recent experience of much better health! Bless you!
@teresa from hershey: Vacherin
Hi Paradoctor,
I’m commenting on your Jan 19, 6:20 pm reference to the news item about post-covid lung scarring. Your reference describes an interview with Dr. Britanny Bankhead-Kendall, a trauma surgeon, who has seen covid patients only “for unrelated health issues”. I have several observations:
1. There is no prevalence data, i.e. we are not told how common this scarring is, which is key for determining risk.
2. She only describes x-ray findings (i.e. the “scarring”). Reading the article, I can’t discern, what, if any, symptoms are associated. If her patients are experiencing significant lung symptoms, why isn’t this mentioned? “She said she’s seen the scarring on post-COVID patients who were both symptomatic and asymptomatic.” Does symptomatic/asymptomatic refer to symptoms from Covid or the scarring?
3. A trauma surgeon is not the first physician you’d want to consult about Covid-19, especially if they do not manage the disease or its consequences. (Full disclosure: I’m a Physical Medicine and Rehab doc, and don’t manage these either).
4. Dr. Bankhead-Kendall’s bottom line is a recommendation to get the Covid vaccine. This story is out of Fox News, and it was at least partially sourced from the Associated Press. These are MSM outlets that have been toeing the Covid vaccine line.
5. Risks, known and unknown, from the vaccine(s) are not mentioned.
This article does not justify the unknown or unquantified risks of the vaccine in an otherwise healthy person as far as I can tell.
For those with tired fingers:
When I’ve reached the bottom of this thread for the day, I swipe/copy the name and date-time of the last poster, and save it in a Notepad file I keep on my desktop. (I am using a PC.)
When I reopen the thread the next day, I do a search in the webpage for that date-time stamp, and it takes me right to where I left off before.
For those with phones I imagine there’s some way to do a similar thing.
Lathechuck, thanks a lot for the sauerkraut techniques!
Varun, thanks for your blog entry about India!
The metaphorical story worked well for me.
I look forward to the next installments.
My in-the-trenches Covid-19 story:
Last year, a labor law firm asked me to open workers’ comp. claims for several hundred patients from a poultry processing plant (300 miles from me), who reportedly had all just tested positive for Covid-19. I asked if they were sick. “Well, no. They’re just all scared”. I asked if ANY of them were sick…”Not that we know of”. I said “If they do get sick, it doesn’t make sense to have them drive 300 miles past local clinics and two hospitals to see a rehab doc for acute care. Send them to me AFTER recovery; and then if and only if they have limiting symptoms. Not one ever wound up needing me, and I’ve had scores of other patients who drove 300 miles (from the same town) to see me, as I’m well known, and the first choice of many for care of chronic work injury in the region.
I hope this impresses upon people why I am so skeptical of Covid PCR testing on people who have NO SYMPTOMS. False positives are real and cause problems. Without symptoms, all positive PCR tests should be assumed to be false IMO, and accordingly it should not be used on asymptomatic people unless a low Ct (cycle threshold) is used to limit false positives, AND if there is some action you would take as a result of a positive test.
Unfortunately, the ordering physician cannot specify Ct (I understand), so you’re better off not testing asymptomatic people.
Onething said:
“But the answer I gave you had common sense and natural law. What has that to do with silly, thoughtless people who can’t think? Of course casual violence and its rationalizations are a problem!”
Indeed there is nothing wrong with the ideas of common sense and natural law; however, if natural law exists and is dependent on a functioning link to something above the astral, then humans, in a good part, are only on the cusp of that.
What if ‘being human’ is not the default state of bipeds born into this existence, but something that has to be learned and attained?
That virtues are not the pinnacle, merely the start-point down in the foothills.
What if human beings have to discover natural law by consistently making choices for good instead of evil – or the stoic view “conformity with the logos (reason) inherent in the human mind”.
Inherent potential but has to be activated?
If many are fully dependent on lower (emotional) level thinking because they do not yet have ready access to a functional mental body (or whatever you want to call it), they could think something and believe it to be true when it is only partially correct or just plain wrong and leads them into mistaken actions.
The result of this is that two people can look at the same thing and see totally different things, for example, the emotional level person looking across the street sees only the man run towards the woman and push her into the road and is outraged and runs over to hit him.
The person who is working above the purely emotional level sees the same thing, but in addition sees that if the man had not pushed the woman into the road she could have walked into the path of a falling piano.
Okay, maybe that is not such a good example because a falling piano would become apparent to even the most blinkered once it impacts.
Big picture thinking does not seem very widespread at the moment and is even being rolled back because the use of fear (wall to wall fear mongering over the last year is locking people out of higher level thinking).
My wondering is not primarily about the level of responding directly to someone else’s clear cut application of violence against me, but when, for argument’s sake the person really thinks they are in the right but they are not.
For a realistic scenario right now, imagine that someone really really believes that not wearing a mask means you are a granny killer and that refusing a gene therapy injection makes you the incarnation of evil on this earth. So, when they come to give you your mandatory injection there are decisions to be made.
I am not familiar with the contents of the bible, but wasn’t it Jesus who said something like “forgive them father for they know not what they do” ?
Now, if Jesus was all he was cracked-up to be, one could imagine that he could have gone full rambo style on them and provided them with numerous new orifices as a demonstration of the error of their thinking – yet he did not. He made himself sacred instead.
Sometimes the capacity for violence (even when it could be rationalised and justified at the human level) is not the path taken – continued material existence here is not important in the overall scheme, but having the wisdom to know, to understand and to choose well is of value.
Ha – now I think, after all the rambling I have done on this thread, I may have found the answer I was looking for:
Not to worry about it and just follow the process and pick what seems right when the time comes.
Thank you to everyone for providing ideas and things to consider! Much appreciated.
Well, at least USA Today is convinced, as is historian David Kaiser, who should know better, that the Biden administration will bring the end of the crisis and the beginning of the recovery. Which USA Today equates with “back to things as they were.” Well, I have never heard of any post-crisis recovery era which brought thinks back to the way they were before; and I sincerely doubt an aging Silent can preside over a recovery period to any good effect.
Now, his program, as reported in the Gainesville Sun (i.e. national newsfeeds) is to undo Trump’s rollback of our empire, on the grounds that otherwise, either China will step in and rule the world, or else, nobody will and that will mean chaos. Likewise he’s bringing back the experts in all the policy positions. No surprise, that latter, but can they handle the job any better now than before?
And I doubt the Elephant in the Room of the state of the heartland and working people will go away, either.
@Onething.
I’ve been adding you to my SoP since you requested it last December. I doubt I’m a heavy hitter, but I’m certainly pleased to have added what part I could to your healing.
So now I would like anyone who wants to, to please ask for healing for me so I can have the strength to run my homestead .
Thank you.
Annette
@ Varun, et al.
Re India and energy news
Saw this in my industry newsfeed and thought I’d pass it along:
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-debuts-largest-nuclear-reactor-with-more-planned-101611044513338.html
Biden successfully inaugurated at 11:50 AM, just ten minutes sooner than the mundane chart postulated by JMG. Not enough of a difference to show any changes compared to the initial chart so whoee, its gonna be a wild ride for the nation over the next few years.
Don’t you think that Biden’s inauguration crowd was smaller than Trump’s? Oh yes, it was non-existent, instead there was a ‘field of flowers’ – looked like a cemetery to be honest. These flowers by the way formed the Russian flag:
https://static.life.ru/publications/2021/0/19/464889320571.5075-1200x.jpeg
I guess it means that Biden is in a clandestine relationship with Putin and is sending him coded messages. 🙂
Baghdad on the Potomac: Welcome to the Blue Zone
http://thesaker.is/baghdad-on-the-potomac-welcome-to-the-blue-zone/
Of all the consequences of Biden’s presidency, the renewal of efforts to preserve and maintain the dying US empire–and the squandering of dollars, resources, and lives involved in that ultimately futile endeavor–will be the hardest for me to watch.
@Lunar Apprentice:
Thank you for your reasonable analysis of the Fox News “lung scarring” article, pointing out its limitations.
I noticed the x-ray images accompanying the article, purporting to compare a healthy set of lungs to a post-Covid patient’s scarred lungs. The scarred lung image looks very strange to my untrained eye. There are ghostly shapes in it that don’t appear to be natural. Also there is no comparison showing the same patient’s lungs before they got sick with Covid. The images don’t prove anything.
@earthworm:
“Sometimes the capacity for violence (even when it could be rationalised and justified at the human level) is not the path taken – continued material existence here is not important in the overall scheme, but having the wisdom to know, to understand and to choose well is of value.”
Beautifully put, thank you! I thought your entire comment was excellent.
To all:
Thank you for keeping these comments flowing while JMG is on vacation. In addition to checking in here daily, I’ve been reading his Well of Galabes articles over on Dreamwidth…a refreshing drink of water for a parched soul.
https://www.ecosophia.net/blogs-and-essays/the-well-of-galabes/
Tamanous,
The moment which matters astrologically for most things is the moment it started, which for the inauguration ceremony, was 11:20. This produces a truly terrifying chart: Ascendant in Aries, thus the chart is ruled by Mars; and the Mars-Uranus conjunction moves into the first house.
This promises, in other words, to be a truly horrific period…..
@ Lathechuck
Thanks for that. I’ve copied what you wrote for reference when I try my first batch. Red cabbage was going to be my first choice anyway but you’ve definitely convinced me. Apparently, there’s more Vitamin C in red cabbage than in oranges. Seems like there’s a lifetime of learning to be had just on sauerkraut preparation alone.
@ Lunar Apprentice
The mass use of the PCR test by governments and the blind faith in it by the public is truly amazing. But we have form on this score. For example, the guy who came up with GDP said it should never be used as a measure of economic performance. So, what did we do? We plastered the GDP results all over the news every other month and governments (apparently) make policy based on those results.
In our society, you come up with a measurement, tell people it’s ‘scientific’ and they’ll believe whatever you say.
I’m a long-time lurker, but this article by the Bee thinks that they might be lurking here as well and looking at the horoscope.
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-sees-shadow-predicting-six-weeks-of-being-president
Paradoctor – not picking on you specifically, but your wording made me reflect on the two, uncannily mirroring narratives that are dividing people along an interesting (to me) faultline.
When I laid it out I came up with
“Willing to risk Covid-19 infection” (your wording) vs “willing to risk Covid-19 vaccine”
From elsewhere online, I have some other neatly mirrored pairs that I see over and over again coalescing around the two poles of mutually mirroring narrative:
“Fears Covid-19 infection” vs “Fears Covid-19 vaccine”
“Cannot understand fear of a 99% safe vaccine” vs “cannot understand fear of a 99% safe infection”
“Believes people too cavalier about Covid-19 are selfishly dicing with death, including with the deaths of others” vs “Believes people too cavalier about Covid-19 vaccines are selfishly dicing with death including with the deaths of others”
“Believes ‘anti-maskers’ and ‘anti-vaxers’ are dumb and essentially brainwashed by conspiracy sites” vs “Believes ‘maskers’ and ‘vaxers’ are dumb and essentially brainwashed by mainstream media”.
I could go on…
But I suddenly realised that the two poles that have this “pole-arising” effect on discourse essentially boil down to:
Trust in technology vs trust in biology.
But the effects of this war of the narratives will be felt primarily by patients and their relatives and by the relatives of those who die.
Because much of what happens in response to every sickness and death will now hang on whether the person sickened or died of the “right” narrative – at the very least vis-a-vis their primary caregiver, and in the wider sense vis-a-vis their larger social circle.
@Onething – Oh, marvelous! I’m so glad to hear about your sudden return to good health and high energy. Long may it last!
@lLady Cutekitten – I just run the thing down to the bottom and scroll up until I find the last one read. That way I dont’ have to plow through more than a double handful of posts.
Apologies, my badly formatted post above was in reply to David by the lake’s query and not just a stream-of-italics report about “what I did last summer”. 🙂
@ yves vetter and Vacherin.
I’m fascinated! It looks delightful and there is an actual cheese shop in Gap, PA where the possibility of buying it exists. The owner visits Europe regularly to shop for fine cheese, imports them himself to Pennsylvania, and he even custom ages his cheeses as needed.
Thanks for the tip.
Scotlyn,
Okay, so your thinking made me realize a huge amount of the Covid-19 reaction makes a lot of sense as a form of biophobia: air is the stuff of life, so we need to mask up, keep ourselves clean from it (I’m mostly talking about people who wear the mask 24/7 here; or the order that masks must be worn outside which is now in effect here. There are cases where masks make sense, but alone in your car it’s absurd); the hand-washing until the skin is raw, getting rid of all microbes; the fear of touching people, of being contaminated; and so on and on.
Hmm…..
@ Scotlyn
That’s very well put, although I would use the phrases “Faith in technology” vs “Faith in biology” because we really are dealing with quasi-religious concepts here.
To add one more example to your list. One of the first ‘deaths from corona’ here in Melbourne was an 85 year old woman. Naturally, it was plastered all over the news. When you dug into the details, though, it turned out that woman had been battling cancer for some time. On the other hand, now that we are hearing about deaths from the vaccine, the news is very quick to highlight that ‘yes, they died, but they were an 85 year old frail person with existing co-morbidities.” So, the dominant narrative is all about Faith in Technology while Faith in Biology is relegated to conspiracy theorist status.
The thing about the technology is that it’s not just any technology but hi-tech that just happens to make billions of dollars for corporations. Has anybody run randomised control trials to see whether the vaccine is more effective than, say, Vitamin D treatments or a simple reduction in the lifestyle illnesses that so closely correlate with serious illness from ‘covid’? Of course not. We’re not interested in that kind of ‘technology’, only the one that can make lots of money.
So, there’s also a ‘faith in corporate capitalism’ involved or at least a willingness to completely ignore the motivations of the people. I think this is why the issue splits somewhat down political lines because it’s a classic tenet of the modern ‘left’ that humans are intrinsically good which leads to a blind faith in the scientists and ‘experts’ who are just pursuing ‘science’ with no ulterior motives and completely unhindered by political and social narratives.
The thing about the mRNA vaccine as a technology is that it doesn’t require any of that messy business of isolating a virus. All you need is a genetic code. So, they are now free to come up with all kinds of vaccines for whatever ‘new’ viruses are found. It’s a licence to print money which is, of course, exactly what our governments are doing to pay for all this.
It occurs to me (studiously avoiding looking in the mirror) that some of us might could remember how to wander over and converse at the Green Wizards’ Forum.
@Scotlyn oh my gosh – I am so sorry! It turns out you figured out the tower of Babel thing a good week ahead of me. I should have paid more attention to the other commenters.
Of interest to Druids. Do we have any Druids here?
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/clochoderick-stone?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=176da5a491-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_12_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f36db9c480-176da5a491-71244373&mc_cid=176da5a491&mc_eid=%5Bc2c0ceb492%5D
It was a truly interesting day. I woke up with my intuition telling me something big was happening. It may not have been that it was something dramatic happening today.. which nothing dramatic really happened. Partially that lens is based on my job, my main interaction with the rest of world, which is dealing with Medicare insured people. On January 6th, the phones pretty much stopped. Today, the phones rang non-stop. From that lens, what happened today meant nothing. It was business as usual. People were paying attention on January 6th.
David by the Lake mentioned this earlier. That day, even though it seemed like a minor thing, not a real attempt at insurrection, or coup, it did represent a turning point in our narrative.
When you listened to the mainstream media today, January 6th was mentioned. It was mentioned often. It was a day that the elite had their bubble pressed to the point of popping, yet they ran as deep as possible inside that bubble and when the “threat” was over, what happened? What happened after the Boston Tea Party? There was pushback. And there is pushback. The mainstream narrative is labeling the people who participated in the January 6th proceedings as “domestic terrorists”. What were the Founding Fathers labeled as?
We are in interesting territory.
As for a Constitutional Convention, already Texas is filing lawsuits with the Federal government. Many people are talking of succession. There is a large swath of people who want their voice heard and feel it is being ignored.
Again, we are in interesting territory.
Well, don’t everyone go over at the same time to see the Druid stone Lady Cutekitten put us on to. There is parking for only one car! And some charming little steps in a wall you can climb up to get in the field… nice. Thanks, L CK!
. . .
I sighed and got curious about the scarred-lungs story Paradoc shared, and found some more links. Actually, a whole lot more links.
here’s one that says “those who have had COVID-19 symptoms show a severe chest X-ray every time. And those who were asymptomatic show a severe chest X-ray 70 to 80% of the time.” This comes from “CNN Wire”. There are a jillion web-search hits on this story, most of which look like repeats of the same story. Here’s another uber-scary take.
That post-coronavirus patient’s X-ray looks like they are really wired for sound. Is that a catheter in the left side of the picture? And a lot of hazy artifacts that look like a couple of pop-can tabs and… cloth? Is this an X-ray of some poor old person who got really stomped on by the virus? I think I hear flapping blankets…
For those who have had it and feel pretty normal afterward… I’m sorry, I don’t buy that you would have that much lung damage. If you did, you would not feel normal! At the very least you would be horribly short of breath, right? “Asymptomatic”… I’m skeptical. (but then, I’m not an MD so whadda I know?)
Worst of all is this. You do not want to have this X-ray.
@ Michael Gray – Lol! your perspective was interesting, too! (And I would not have wanted to miss “Towel of Babble” for the world! A very winning typo, indeed!).
One could say that the Tower of Babel is a perfect mythological rendering of our host’s theory of the catabolic collapse of a civilisation, and certainly deserves detailed consideration. 🙂
https://www.ecosophia.net/civilizations-fall-theory-catabolic-collapse/
@Anonymous
Well, that is a most unwelcome astrological change (thanks for the correction). Plus mars in its detriment and uranus in its fall in taurus. No bueno!
This morning I learned of a business near my hometown that might prove inspirational to others here looking for skills for the future. “Logging with Horses” is the business name and that makes it pretty obvious what they do! They share photos and videos of their work online: https://www.facebook.com/Logging-With-Horses-1384118554973937/ and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFCWo5JkGpXmqssMZUVGYVg
An interesting persoective on coexistence between people who are in favor of the events of Jan 6, and the others: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/seditionists-need-path-back-society/617746/.
Simon S – yes “faith” is also a good word, although I think of “faith” as denoting articles of belief (ie contents of the mind) while “trust” denotes the underpinnings of a person’s action – where they feel it is safe to step.
In this case, as you say, the lines do not actually “line up” perfectly with current party lines… instead they line up more with the overall religion of progress, which has devoted adherents and doubters on both sides of that divide.
As I see it, anyone who has a stake in the current status quo – economic or political or careerwise – AND also, anyone who has a strong stake in the narrative of progress is going to prefer the risks of high-tech to the risks of a biological world (this whole civilisation’s project, after all, is to place itself above and “in control” of said biological world). The people who are becoming disenchanted with the status quo and/or with the overarching narrative of progress are beginning to wonder if there is a life for biological creatures (including ourselves) on the other side of these technologies made for us and given to us without necessarily having our interests at heart. Technologies which demand from us only learned helplessness, dependency and gratitude.
Incidentally, I really don’t think anyone’s intentions has a lot to do with this. Most people, including most people with some power or influence are well enough intentioned, it is just that none of us has sufficient wisdom to aspire to “control” of the whole ball of wax, and so one failure is compounded with another, all with the very best of intentions. These are really not moral problems in any way that resembles what most people assume, I think.
@Anonymous – as to biophobia… yes. I suppose one could also posit “biophobia” and “technophobia” as another mutually mirroring matched pair.
Actually, somewhere, I do believe there IS (there ARE??) a ternary to resolve this binary, but we may have to open ourselves up to real meditation and imagination in order to find it. 🙂
@Onething
I’m glad to hear you’re feeling better.
—
@Tamanous
“Well, that is a most unwelcome astrological change (thanks for the correction). Plus mars in its detriment and uranus in its fall in taurus. No bueno!”
Could you please explain this to the rest of us who are not well versed in astrology.
—
@Cicada Grove & @LadyCuteKitten
“Well, don’t everyone go over at the same time to see the Druid stone Lady Cutekitten put us on to.”
You know this reminded me of “I Got It from Agnes” song by Tom Lehrer, there are these lyrics there:
Giles got it from Daphne
She got it from Joan
Who picked it up in County Cork
A-kissin’ the Blarney Stone
If you think about it, this song *could* (mind you, I said “could”) be about COVID.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_XiItsOj-Q
P.S. If you think some of my comments are silly, it’s because I’m trying to keep the atmosphere light in these dark and uncertain times.
I just gotta ask – does this 12 minutes make any difference in your astrological prediction, JMG?
“Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was sworn in as president on Wednesday at 11:48 a.m. local time in Washington DC, on the steps of the convention hall.” https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2021-01-20—-biden-was-sworn-in-early—the-presidency-began–experts-say–12-minutes-later–.rkDocbmUyO.html
Nobody seems to know why he swore in early.
The adjective “baleful” you used in your reading kept coming to mind over the last week as I saw the photos of troops everywhere, DC in lockdown, the few chairs spread out on the lawn, and the flags everywhere to fill in the emptiness. The term fit perfectly.d
Saw my first “Impeach Biden” sign today.
[2nd submission to fix typo at end, “deep in the text”]
@Cicada Grove January 21, 2021 at 1:06 am
With respect to your link:
https://whdh.com/news/surgeon-post-covid-lungs-look-worse-than-any-awful-smokers-lungs/
This story jumped the shark; we are seriously getting into some extremely misleading territory.
First off, the Dr. being quoted, is Dr. Brittany Bankhead-Kendall, the same trauma surgeon referenced in the last story I commented on above. And her comment is merely a tweet.
The x-rays she cites appear as thumbnails, but looking at the “smoker’s lung”, I see dramatic hyperinflation and a flattened diaphragm, which is classic for severe COPD (chronic pulmonary obstructive disease, of which emphysema is the type smokers often get). Just because it looks clear does not mean it’s normal or healthy; You DO NOT WANT an x-ray like that! The underlying disease is not reversible, and it causes progressively severe shortness of breath, as in the sensation of suffocating. When it gets to end stage, you literally ARE suffocating. So Dr. Bankhead-Kendall’s comment “I don’t know who needs to hear this, but ‘post-Covid’ lungs look worse than ANY type of terrible smoker’s lungs we’ve ever seen.” is pure non-sense.
Now, looking at the “COVID LUNG”, I see patchy infiltrates, which commonly reflect edema (water-logged tissue) where there are patches of inflammation. This is commonly seen in pneumonia, AND IS TYPICALLY A REVERSIBLE finding. I would much rather have my lungs look like that than the “smoker’s lung”.
Again, she relates no symptoms with these x-rays.
She says “All the survivors and the people who have tested positive this is, it’s going to be a problem,” Bankhead-Kendall told KTVT-TV. Really? What science is she referring to? I don’t buy it.
The story goes on- “Bankhead-Kendall has treated thousands of symptomatic and asymptotic COVID-19 patients since March, when the pandemic started to rage across the country.” What is a trauma surgeon doing treating Covid patients? That’s normally the turf of Infectious Disease docs, or Internal Medicine Docs, or ICU docs. And Dr. Bankhead-Kendall was treating asymptomatic patients? For what? A lab value? (with a 90% probability of being false; see below) Every medical student learns “Treat the condition, not a lab value” literally.
The story goes on: “People with severe symptoms always show a severe chest X-ray, Bankhead-Kendall told the news outlet. People who are asymptotic show severe X-rays about 70 to 80 percent of the time.” What is a “Severe x-ray”? That is not medical language. Only x-ray FINDINGS are severe, and she does not describe any findings. And “asymptomatic” means “no symptoms”, which be definition includes no breathing difficulty. People without disease, ahem, are asymptomatic. So what the frack is she trying to say?
I am simply aghast at this story. I have never seen such medically false/misleading material as this garbage. It’s the most florid propaganda I’ve ever seen.
This just in: “…WHO Admits High-Cycle PCR Tests Produce COVID False Positives”
source: https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/right-cue-biden-who-admits-high-cycle-pcr-tests-produce-massive-covid-false-positives I have yet to locate a source for this story in the MSM.
even the NYT, uncharacteristically mentioned this last September:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html, which, deep in the text, concedes a false positive rate of 90% for at least one data series.
This is damning of the practice of diagnosing asymptomatic people with Covid based upon the PCR test.
Hi all
Today at 21h will be the 21h of the day 21 of january of the year 21 in the 21 century, some people guess is the number 21 has any symbolic or magic meaning?
I remember the 11h of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the time when WWI ended
Cheers
David
Alex
I have been following Patrick Byrne on twitter and he had his own team of IT experts work out how the fraud occurred. And it was not just the relatively minor fraud you outlined. This was systematic, strategic and large in scale. BTW, he is not a Qtard – he was the CEO of Overstock and he took on Wall St and won. He said he will be posting evidence on his site http://www.deepcapture.com.
Greencoat
Russiagate was proven to be a lie, despite the huge investment the MSM had in regurgitating it for 3.5 years and the millions spent trying to prove it happened. This election fraud is completely different – the MSM refuse to talk about it and smear anyone who wants to and no government resources have been used to investigate it. So what “parallels” are you talking about?
I also think it’s bizarre that you don’t think that rising superpower China would prefer someone like Biden to Trump. You said “I should point out that any foreign actor hostile to you or fearful of you would care much less about who sits in the oval office than whether the electorate thinks they belong there.” Huh?
ADwelly
Interesting quotes from the PMC / The Hacker News. The deplorables will “explode in unpredictable ways”, it’s not a question of if, but when. This could have been avoided, but the PMC doesn’t give a rat’s ass about 80% of the USA.
Robert Mathiesen
You said “Do you seriously think that a wholly fraud-free election is really possible, even in theory, anywhere in the world?” Why yes, I do. In most of Europe, it’s the norm. The reason for this is because the elections have been set up so that it’s very hard to cheat and if you do you are highly likely to be caught and punished. It’s not that everyone is an angel here. Obviously not, and the system recognises that, which is why officials have made it very hard to cheat in elections, and the law is vigorously enforced, in case anyone is tempted.
You said, “the best we can ever realistically hope for is that all major parties are more or less equally competent in the frauds they always perpetrate”. I think fair and free elections are better and it CAN be and is done, if the public demand it, and officials and the justice system enforce it. Many countries manage it, but not America apparently. As JMG said, the US is a third world country and the blasé attitude to election fraud is just another manifestation of that.
Varun
You said “just because the legacy media outlets are biased and factional, does not mean that new media or freelance journalists are any less biased or factional”. So there is no truth in journalism, at all? I beg to differ but you need to know what the biases of the outlet are and who funds them. For example, the TYT is funded by the Clinton Foundation so they are bought and paid for. Independent media is less likely to be funded by oligarchs like Bezos, Gates etc so they are freer to take a more objective view of many things.
David, by the lake
I don’t understand your view that the Constitution is more important than fair and free elections. Surely, you can have both? You mentioned recounts but you never mentioned auditing the votes, the key issue. A recount of fraudulent votes is a waste of time. BTW, your government officials ensured that the votes could not be audited by shredding ballots and wiping Dominion voting machines. But move along now, nothing to see here…
“There’s always next time.” For what, another illegitimate election?
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
If you don’t have [electoral] justice, you won’t have domestic tranquillity or liberty either.
Just in time for the vaccine rollout, the WHO finally learns about cycle times. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/who-admits-covid-pcr-test-has-a-problem/?itm_term=home
Hmm I think they are starting to catch up, kinda.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/american-empire-decline/
@Bridge:
You wrote, “I think fair and free elections are better and it CAN be and is done, if the public demand it, and officials and the justice system enforce it. Many countries manage it, but not America apparently.”
What I probably should have said, more explicitly, is that in the USA a very large fraction of the citizenry do not actually want “fair and free elections,” though they give lip service to the concept. They actually want elections that can be gamed, and they want to be the ones who succeed at gaming them. Very many Americans, who hate to be cheated themselves, at the same time love, love, love to cheat others. For them, everything always comes down to “whose ox is being gored.”
I think the rest of the Western World finds that very hard to grasp about us.
Whether the same is true in European nations, I would not presume to say. The United States, however, is not actually a European nation, and most of its citizens–some of the East-Coast elites excepted–would strongly resist any serious attempt to make it more like a European nation.
Tonight’s anal-ytical project was:
I decided to bear down hard on the claim that the Pfizer mRNA vaccine ‘may’ cause the immune system to attack the placenta later on.
Specifically, the claim is that the vaccine could trigger an immune response to Syncytin-1, a protein which the human body uses to stick the placenta to the uterus. (Ironically, Wikipedia tells us, syncytin-1 is derived from a retrovirus infection that hit our ancestors 25 million years ago.) Yeadon and Wodarg state: “Syncytin-1… is also found in homologous form in the spike proteins of SARS viruses.” [Yeadon and Wodarg petition section XI] (Thank you, DFC, for that link.)
So then I made very good use of Curt’s two links, from January 15, 2021 at 5:26 am:
https://www.rcsb.org/structure/5HA6
https://www.rcsb.org/structure/6ZB5
(This site is a real trove!!)
I dug out the structure of syncytin-1 and the coronavirus spike protein, specifically the sequence of amino acids in each. Curt, you weren’t kidding– covid-spike is a monster sized molecule compared to syncytin-1!
I took, not even the whole syncytin-1 sequence, but small bits of it, 4 and 5 and 6 amino acids long, and searched for those sequences in the coronavirus-spike amino acid sequence. I did this with multiple different bits of the syncytin-1 sequence, from different parts of the molecule, about 9 or 10 different searches.
NOTHING MATCHED. No matches whatsoever!! If even small pieces of the syncytin-1 molecule have no matches within the coronavirus spike protein molecule, how can we possibly say that syncytin-1 “is found in the protein” of this particular SARS virus?
I was receptive to Yeadon and Wodarg’s claim, but the facts I’ve found lead me in a much different direction.
Lunar Apprentice, January 21, 2021 at 3:28 pm — your vigorous smackdown of the “coronavirus X-ray” story was a joy to read. I was thinking along those lines but you put it even more clearly. The whole thing smacks of a mass-propaganda push. My next anal-ytical project is to do a census of a bunch of those stories. Lord knows I noticed a lot of hits on them while discovering my sneeze X-ray.
Matthias Gralle, January 21, 2021 at 10:39 am — thanks for the ‘Atlantic’ column. The thing still reeks of “eek those people” but at least now the author is admitting that ‘hey, we are going to have to live together’. If she could just start coming to a realization of the economic carnage those so-called “seditionists” have sustained, she might actually start to understand how ‘deplorable’ they aren’t.
@ Bridge
Re the Constitution being more important than any election
The Constitution only has force because people accept it as having force. Yes, an illegitimate election erodes that belief. However, dispensing with the constitutional process altogether destroys it. Given the choice between accepting a loss in a tight, questionable election but preserving the process for another day or upending the constitutional order to install the victor I’d prefer, I’ll take the first option. If there were a revolution to overturn the Electoral College result, the Constitution would cease to mean anything whatever. Not a place I want to go. There are constitutional remedies for our dilemma. We need to use them.
Thanks to our esteemed host, astrology-based investigation has a certain popularity here
Was January 6 ‘interesting’, astrologically?
Regarding proclamation, admittedly civil convention appears premature. Popular appeal has lead to the deed done often enough. I was compelled by the (Uranian?) notion when I awoke that morning.
>This promises, in other words, to be a truly horrific period…..
The 2020s will be a decade nobody will forget. You will want to forget it but you won’t be able to.
All–
Re energy news and a peek behind the curtain
Hopefully this won’t be too much to post here, but I wanted to share a snippet of the kind of stuff that goes on in the energy industry these days as a good example of 1) the complexity of issues (both technically and societally) and 2) the state of affairs today with trying to push costs onto the “next guy”.
For context, the issue being discussed is the allocation of the (considerable) fixed costs of the transmission grid, in particular costs associated with grid expansion and upgrades. This is a partial summary of discussions at a stakeholder working group of the grid operator covering the central swath of North America, from Manitoba to New Orleans (MISO, for those in the industry):
–There’s a general preference toward quantifiable/measurable benefit metrics vs qualitative benefits, and benefits should be as granular as possible and not double counted.
–Several of the submitted principles noted an aversion to generalized or broad cost allocation methodologies (e.g., postage stamp or load ratio share).
–Several others indicated a preference toward individual project benefit calculations vs. the use of a portfolio construct.
–Some think cost allocation should be fixed at time of project approval while others suggested there could be some post-approval methodologies.
–There are differing opinions about “cost causation” vs “beneficiary pays” methodologies.
–Some stakeholders think there’s some justification to share costs with generators.
–Clean Grid Alliance (CGA) said there is the question of how generators in the queue can share in the costs and then how generation forecasted in the planning process can help pay for projects (RRF units). These two categories may need to be treated differently.
–Some suggested that we should allow for voluntary funding of economic projects.
–Some thought cost allocation principles should be applicable to existing and new project types/categories.
–There was some deference to state policies and resource adequacy.
–MS Commission staff is concerned about “portfolios” vs individual projects and “postage stamp” cost allocation. They want to avoid situations where individual projects in a portfolio can’t stand on their own but are propped up by the other projects in the portfolio.
–CGA thinks we may be getting hung up on semantics when we talk about “portfolio”. We don’t plan the grid one facility at a time. Instead we think about all of these elements and how they work together synergistically to support a reliable grid. Any project has multiple elements.
–Sustainable FERC Project said the “portfolio” concept for Multi Value Projects (MVPs) addresses synergistic lines that can be evaluated together as the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We wouldn’t want to limit MISO by eliminating the “portfolio” concept.
–IN Commissioner Freeman said “portfolio” is a term of art and trying to conflate it with other meanings does it an injustice. There is synergistic value to a portfolio of projects and eliminating the use of that concept removes a tool that should be available to MISO.
–“Portfolio” is the wrong word. MS Commission staff said the word “groupings” is fine where we identify projects with synergistic benefits. This can be effective, and they are open to that idea.
–The City of New Orleans addressed the “portfolio” idea. The context mentioned about grouping projects for MISO to run a reliable and efficient system is fine as a planning concept but not as a cost allocation concept. Projects, even those in a group, should be able to stand on their own for approval and cost allocation.
–MN commission staff said MISO defined “portfolio” in tariff Module A. MISO has an obligation to run an efficient market, and we cannot tell them not to do their work.
–“Portfolio” can be used for synergistic projects and situations where states come together to build projects to deliver renewables. The idea that benefits of a portfolio of projects should be the same for everyone isn’t possible. Power flows change constantly as do the benefits.
–CES noted that projects do not need to be contiguous in order to have synergistic benefits.
–The MS Commission is more focused on a common driver than whether or not the projects are contiguous in order to be “grouped”. Concern is that the concept of “portfolio” is a smattering of projects.
–CGA supports the point that, when we’re talking about elements of the system or projects that are synergistic and support each other, we need to leave that decision to the engineers.
–MISO is generally comfortable with the conversation today about “portfolio” vs “grouping”. MISO thinks that groups of transmission facilities will work together and you can determine that there isn’t dead weight in any of the included elements. Each major piece should be shown to be a necessary part of the group.
There’s a lot of technical terminology being tossed about and the stakeholders run the gamut from advocacy groups to utilities to state public service commissions and their staffs. But the upshot is that I was reading through two pages of discussion of people arguing over what the word “portfolio” ought to mean…
@Bridge
The fact that people react badly to this sort of thing is a tale as old as, well Babylon at least. I was asked to draw the attention of an old friend, and a card carrying PMC member to this, a retelling of The Poor Man of Nippur. He’s a good man and a devout Christian but if the message got through I’d be surprised; certainly he hasn’t reacted.
It’s a YouTube video made by some Cambridge students and unless your ancient Babylonian is pretty good, you need to turn the subtitles on. Also worth just listening to since it seems to have been a rather lovely sounding language – at least to my ears.
https://youtu.be/pxYoFlnJLoE
All–
Re my previous post
For further context, the essence of the “game” (as it were) is to have your project’s costs allocated broadly, so other people are paying for it and other people’s project costs allocated narrowly so that you’re not paying for them.
Getting your projects included in a broadly-allocated portfolio is rather like getting your special interest funding included in an omnibus appropriations bill in Congress.
HI Scotlyn,
I liked your comparison of the parallels between those who minimize risks from Covid-19 and those who minimize risks from the vaccines. You called these positions “poles”, and I understand that to indicate extreme positions on a spectrum of risk evaluation, and of faith in certain institutions or speakers.
Your (and Simon’s) later comments, however, sound to me as if you divide the whole population into those who “trust biology” and those who “trust technology”, those who are “ technophobic” and those who are “biophobic”. You do suggest looking for a ternary, but I submit that even in the present, there is not an exclusive dichotomy.
Somebody who uses masks while driving alone in a car (I have seen some, rarely), who lives a home office life entirely dependent on Amazon and DoorDash – yes, it makes sense to call them biophobic, and they are quite probably enthusiastic about the vaccines.
Somebody who suggests that worldwide, in all possible settings, Covid-19 is a negligible risk for people under 60 (or 80), and who is already sure that the vaccines will cause unspeakable damages, could rightly be called either “technophobic” or maybe more correctly “corporation-phobic”, and could be said to have complete trust in biology.
However, both of these seem to me to be minorities, and there are other combinations.
It’s been all over German news that 50% of nurses and 30% of doctors refuse to get vaccines right now. I do think that many or most of these nurses and doctors consider Covid-19 a serious risk – they see risk coming from both sides and would probably prefer to take other measures. Or maybe they simply feel they shouldn’t be the ones to shoulder the risk of first-line vaccination. Without further information, I don’t know what measures each of them prefers; personally, I think one should look at those countries who avoided both lockdowns and Covid-19 deaths, even without a vaccine.
For another example: if you are in Manaus, where the daily death toll right now is more than 5x the usual numbers (all-cause deaths), it would be truly “blind faith in biology” to think that everything will be fine if you go about your normal life. But you won’t be able to put your trust in a vaccine either, because they are hardly available yet and won’t be for months or years. You will have to make do as best you can without trusting either biology or technology.
@Cicada Grove:
If you take the sequence from your link to the Covid spike protein (https://www.rcsb.org/structure/6ZB5, Sequence tab, FASTA sequence) and paste it into the BLAST homology searcher (https://blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi?PROGRAM=blastp&PAGE_TYPE=BlastSearch&LINK_LOC=blasthome), restricting the search to non-redundant sequences in Homo sapiens, you don’t get any significant results, which means there is no more homology with any human protein than would be expected by chance. This confirms in more stringent terms what you found by manually comparing various stretches of sequence.
If one does compare that sequence directly to the Syncytin sequence (I used a longer sequence than the one you used, from https://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/Q9UQF0), by pasting the sequences into https://web.expasy.org/sim/, and to hell with statistical significance, one finds the homology that Yeadon and Wodard talk about. But as we saw in the previous paragraph, this homology isn’t higher than what would be expected by chance in any comparison of a viral protein with the whole human proteome. Doesn’t mean an antibody cross-reaction is out of the picture, but it surely doesn’t count as strong evidence. Strong evidence would be to take anti-serum raised against Covid-19 spike protein and quantify its binding to syncytin – not at all a difficult experiment to do.
About the Atlantic link: yes, exactly what I thought, too. She clearly feels disgust, but tries to set that aside because the alternative would be worse. Her comparison of the USA with Northern Ireland did not sound very comforting to my ears…
@Goldenhawk
“Beautifully put, thank you!”
Thank you!
In the DA (Dolmen Arch Vol II) there is this:
“… the individual who realises that he, himself, is will in his real nature, and that the personality assumed by him in this lifetime, together with its incidental qualities, character and emotions, is an outer reality which he may change, and which he will eventually put off as a man puts off a suit of old clothes.”
…which is giving me plenty to explore in relation to the subject I’ve been rambling about. In martial arts practice, there is a strange ‘Goldilocks zone’ or state of mind where everything comes together, I came across something somewhat related in looking at some of the Russian Systema practices dealing with emotions, and Mastering the Opposites from the DA would appear to fit in with this too. I have been pleasantly surprised how some of the core DA practices and some of the Taoist meditation practices I’ve studied seem to dovetail – they are different but some of the parallels have been a delight to discover.
One big surprise was finding that what JMG calls a ritual or working, my old practice would call a meditation; and what JMG calls a meditation I would call discursive meditation.
At the moment I am working on core elements from the Dolmen Arch – there is an absolutely incredible amount of material in there and I reckon some of the meditation and thinking tools in the two books are already proving incredibly useful. Thank you for putting it together John Michael.
“Nero can kill me but he cannot harm me” led me to “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul”
One of the Taoist meditations was referred to as ‘practising death’ – since death is a significant state change for consciousness, they reckoned being in the right mind-state when any significant situation occurs was worth practising! Which of course brings me back around to where I started back up thread…
@ David by the Lake – thanks for that. The grid itself is complex and expensive, which makes it hard to think clearly about as the matter of diminishing returns and increasing costs just to stay in place kick in. Your summary makes this very plain… 😉
Politics, as always, is about passing the costs on and grabbing the benefits in negotiation with others who are doing the very same thing, but I’m wondering if yourself and/or Oilman, or anyone else with an inside “foot in the door” in energy circles might throw some light specifically on the widely publicised closure this week of the Keystone XL pipeline for the transport of Canadian tar sands product.
Obviously the superficial public discourse is pitched at “Jobs vs Climate” and is highly partisan and polarised, obscuring the substance. I personally tend to think that it is a “long term” good idea to close down on pipelines and extraction generally, because our descendants will want and need clean healthy land for a lot longer than we, or they, will need oil based energy (especially as the context for its efficient use continues to break down).
Still, for sure, any jobs lost now are going to hurt real people in the short term. Unless those jobs were pie in the sky anyway because of the bankruptcy element of the oil business just now…
Anyway, more (behind the scenes) info would be excellent.
More baleful moans….
“In Rasmussen Reports’ first Presidential Daily Tracking Poll of likely voters, the new Democratic president starts at 48% approve, 45% disapprove.
Notably, he is underwater with women, 46% approve, 48% disapprove, and whites, 43% approve, 51% disapprove.
Rasmussen’s daily survey number is an average of the last three days.
By comparison, Biden’s approval is ho-hum compared to former Presidents Trump and Obama, said the polling data.
Trump opened with a 56% approval rating. Just 44% disapproved. It was one of his highest ratings of his four years.
Obama started at 67% approval, 32% disapprove, also one of his highest ratings.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/slow-start-bidens-opening-approval-below-trump-and-obama-just-48percent/ar-BB1cZY21
@David by the Lake
Honest question. What is that makes the American Constitution so special? I don’t get it…
Mexico has had 3 Constitutions so far, the latest and current being the 1917 one, but I do not see how this fact would erode our national identity going back to at least 1821 (when the first Mexican Empire was born).
European countries like England and France have much older national identities and, over the centuries, have rotated through radically different regimes.
I agree the process would likely be traumatic, and that slow, deliberate modification of the status quo would be preferable in most cases. However, I cannot grasp the existential terror Americans seem to have over Constitutional changes.
[Resubmitted with some redundancies purged. Sorry]
Re: Dr. Bankhead-Kendall, the information about her seemed so odd that I duckduckgo’d her, and got some perspective.
She is described as a trauma surgeon in the links cited above, but this is not quite right. She is Associate Professor in the Trauma/Acute Surgery Dept. at Texas Tech Univ. Health Sciences Center.
She is indeed a surgeon, freshly minted, graduating from medical school in 2013, did a surgical residency, followed by a fellowship in surgical critical care (i.e. caring for surgical ICU patients) in 2020. So that would account for the Covid-surgeon connection.
What is significant about that in this context is that her exposure to covid patients is skewed by her case-population, which consists of surgical patients who were critically ill for whatever reason and had Covid. She certainly would have seen the worst of the worst, and certainly those patients who had lung damage from Covid would have had correspondingly bad x-rays.
I found no published research by her having anything to with lung-findings of asymptomatic patients. As regards her seeing asymptomatic covid patients, I infer her regular surgical clinic patients were simply screened positive. If she is in an academic surgical center, then her patients will generally be more complicated with more co-morbidities than those at community surgical centers. I think she fails to appreciate how non-representative her case-load is, and she is not skilled in quantitative/probabilistic reasoning, and is prone to exaggerate for rhetorical effect. That’s my best take, and my jaundiced view of her opinions for the rest of us remains jaundiced.
@ Cicada Grove January 22, 2021 at 1:15 am
Please, read the following post from february 20 afer recently discover of Sars-Cov-2 genome
https://virological.org/t/response-to-ncov2019-against-backdrop-of-endogenous-retroviruses/396
Cheers
David
Hi JMG, and others, a happy new year too.
In some podcast where you was, Greg Muffett mentioned some Iranian who had called much of the Middle East as ecologically dead. So, I suppose you should take a look at this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T39QHprz-x8&fbclid=IwAR1TDz05CoY_LS_PYfO-YYWDCNpm1a6QQhOq_yc5-5IB9gAYRUa5SycH-fM
and this, about the same site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdlI-7HO2vI&fbclid=IwAR1mNoGzFigscgriqHe8tPNEm1KBwoMZ_x3q5d7M5yq2gEQclrysBjeKmw8
And an article: https://www.greenprophet.com/2020/08/the-al-baydha-project-how-regenerative-agriculture-revived-green-life-in-a-saudi-arabian-desert/
Looks it could work, technically at least. Or so should be said: ecotechnically?
@ CR Patino
Re the US Constitution
I can’t speak for others, but I certainly don’t have an existential fear of constitutional changes. We’ve had 27 so far and I’ve got a whole list of proposals I’d make if I were a delegate to the constitutional convention I hope occurs. What we do have are constitutional processes for altering the constitutional framework and these allow for a considered and methodical approach to adapt our governance structure to new conditions.
Rebellion is always a choice (as the Declaration of Independence states), but for me at least, it should be option of last resort. Other countries have identities based on deeper historical roots: tribal alliances, kingdoms, duchies, and the like. Things that reach back long before the modern nation-state. Americans don’t have that. The Constitution is very much what defines this republic of disparate states as a nation.
If one goes outside the constitutional framework to impose change, then what prevents the next group from doing the same thing? And the group after that? The Constitution has power, as I said, because people believe it to have meaning. If it becomes something that is tossed aside when inconvenient, then it has no meaning and no power and we are left to arbitrary rule.
We’ve been fortunate to have had a very stable system and it would be foolish to throw that away for transient gains when there are better options still available.
@ Scotlyn @Matthias
We know respiratory viruses are transported by droplets and the transmission is effected by humidity. My understanding is that it has been accurately determined what amount of ventilation is required to remove droplets from the air of a room to reduce transmission to safe levels (caveat: this came from a source I trust although I did not verify the content of those papers myself).
So, we have a form of technology: the built environment. We designed our built environment without adequate ventilation/humidity control to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses. This matches my personal observation. Prior to corona I saw respiratory viral outbreaks happens with my own eyes in poorly ventilated office buildings. In other words, we created a technology that was ignorant of biology. We could solve it by building better technology (buildings).
That’s where capitalism comes in. Designing buildings with proper ventilation costs money. Builders and consumers can save money and externalise those costs onto society by not doing so. Now a slightly worse than normal respiratory virus comes along but its effects are exacerbated by the fact that the whole population is shut up in poorly ventilated spaces. Even worse, the government tells the whole population to stay inside those poorly ventilated buildings including the most vulnerable members of the population who are confined to nursing homes (some of the most shoddily run and poorly designed institutions and buildings we have). Note that during the Spanish Flu, governments told people to get ‘fresh air’. For corona, they told people to do the opposite.
Buildings designed to have adequate ventilation and humidity levels for a given number of inhabitants would reduce viral transmission and would be, I think, the link between biology and technology.
I am trying to find a “rational” discussion of what was presented as evidence of a stolen election and how that evidence was debunked. I have been trying to find an actual discussion of the issues with out the (at least overt) partisan posturing. In the comments above Robert and others gave some references as to why they thought the election was no more corrupt than usual, but I was wondering if anyone had come across a blogger or such, that actually went case by case to say why the concern is not credible.
Even the news people that I have found that at least work to examine their own assumptions say that the idea that the election was stolen is unfounded, but I can’t find why they say that.
I realize that many people invested in “stop the steal” will not listen to anything that doesn’t support their position. But that doesn’t mean that no one would. Since this isn’t going to get a trial in court, it would be helpful if it got a “trial” in the public sphere. Actually talking about it might help. Maybe someone has done that somewhere and I didn’t see it?
Thanks for any leads!
@CR Patiño:
Very much unlike most European nations, and (to the best of my knowledge) also unlike Mexico, the United States as a whole hardly has a robust common national identy that goes much beyond fairly superficial symbols (the flag, patriotic songs, the pledge of allegiance, the two national mottos, etc.) — or so it seems to me. Even our foremost national myths have distinctly regional characteristics: the Cowboy, the Mountain Man, the Pioneer, the Yankee, the Nantucket Whaleman, the Cajun, the Alamo (with Jim Bowie), La Llorona, High John the Conqueror, Paul Bunyan, the Hillbilly, the Old South (with its ancient hopes of rising again after what Southerners still call “The War of Northern Aggression”), and so forth.
Rather, the United States are–not is!–little more than a frangible and fragile federation of a number of regional “sub-nations”–nine or eleven major ones, and a dozen or two minor ones. And the one and only thing that really binds that Federation together is the Constitution. Take that away, or radically change it, and the United States will fall apart within a generation.
The standard narrative of schoolbooks claims that the Westward movement of the population of the United States happened primarily for economic reasons. While I would not wish to deny a measure of economic motivation, it seems to me Timothy Dwight also accurately pointed to a second, perhaps more powerful motivation when he wrote in 1821:
“A considerable part of all those, who begin the cultivation of the wilderness, may be denominated foresters, or Pioneers. The business of these persons is no other than to cut down trees, build log-houses, lay open forested grounds to cultivation, and prepare the way for those who come after them. These men cannot live in regular society. They are too idle; too talkative; too passionate; too-prodigal; and too shiftless; to acquire either property or character. They are impatient of the restraints of law, religion, and morality; grumble about the taxes, by which Rulers, Ministers, and School-masters, are supported; and complain incessantly, as well as bitterly, of the extortions of mechanics, farmers, merchants, and physicians; to whom they are always indebted. At the same time, they are usually possessed, in their own view, of uncommon wisdom; understand medical science, politics, and religion, better than those, who have studied them through life; and, although they manage their own concerns worse than any other men, feel perfectly satisfied, that they could manage those of the nation far better than the agents, to whom they are committed by the public. After displaying their own talents, and worth; after censuring the weakness, and wickedness, of their superiours; after exposing the injustice of the community in neglecting to invest persons of such merit with public offices; in many an eloquent harangue, uttered by many a kitchen fire, in every blacksmith’s shop, and in every corner of the streets; and finding all their efforts vain; they become at length discouraged: and under the pressure of poverty, the fear of a gaol, and the consciousness of public contempt, leave their native places, and betake themselves to the wilderness. Here they are obliged either to work, or starve. They accordingly cut down some trees, and girdle others; they furnish themselves with an ill-built log-house, and a worse barn; and reduce a part of the forest into fields, half-enclosed, and half-cultivated. The forests furnish browse; and their fields yield a stinted herbage. On this scanty provision they feed a few cattle: and with these, and the penurious products of their labour, eked out by hunting and fishing, they keep their families alive.
“A farm, thus far cleared, promises immediate subsistence to a better husbandman. A log-house, thus built, presents, when repaired with moderate exertions, a shelter for his family. Such a husbandman is therefore induced by these little advantages, where the soil and situation please him, to purchase such a farm; when he would not plant himself in an absolute wilderness. The proprietor is always ready to sell: for he loves this irregular, adventurous, half-working, and half-lounging life; and hates the sober industry, and prudent economy, by which his bush pasture might be changed into a farm, and himself raised to thrift and independence. The bargain is soon made. The forester, receiving more money for his improvements than he ever before possessed, and a price for the soil, somewhat enhanced by surrounding settlements, willingly quits his house, to build another like it, and his farm, to girdle trees, hunt, and saunter, in another place. His wife accompanies him only from a sense of duty, or necessity; and secretly pines for the quiet, orderly, friendly society, to which she originally bade a reluctant farewell. Her husband, in the mean time, becomes less and less a civilized man: and almost everything in the family, which is amiable and meritorious, is usually the result of her principles, care, and influence.
“The second proprietor is commonly a farmer; and with an industry and spirit, deserving no small commendation, changes the desert into a fruitful field.”
This description seems to me to fit a large segment of the current population of these United States. Old ways die very hard.
“since death is a significant state change for consciousness”
Okay – re-reading that I deal one of two cards:
1. I claim INTJ as a defence
2. No s*** Sherlock
(hopefully the regular appearance of ‘crap’ intimates the acceptance of ‘s***’?)
[Ed. — Nope.)
@ CR Patino
Re my response
By “other countries”, I was meaning Old World, not New World nations. I ought to have been more clear when I wrote that.
>what “parallels” are you talking about?
The parallels in your respective narratives. Try to set aside the difference in what happened in 2016 vs 2020 and compare what you believe now, in January of 2021, to what HRC supporters believed in January of 2017. Even if you’re completely right and they were completely wrong, you both believe essentially the same thing. The only significant difference I see is that you think the perpetrators of the voter fraud were domestic while they thought the perpetrators were foreign.
>I also think it’s bizarre that you don’t think that rising superpower China would prefer someone like Biden to Trump.
I didn’t say that. I said there are things they would care about more.
Let me put it this way: Suppose you were a foreign actor with significant soft power who wanted to destabilise the US. Suppose you had the bones for one big disinformation campaign. Would you focus on misinforming the courts and electoral college about who won the election so you could deal with your preferred candidate for the next four years? Or would you misinform the public to make them think the election was stolen, in hopes that the eroded confidence in the government and rule of law fractures the country from within?
So an inauguration time of 11:20 am puts the ascendant in Aries, so that the Biden Administration’s chart is ruled by Mars – really bad news!
But an inauguration time of 11:48 am puts the ascendant in Taurus, so the chart is ruled by Venus – still a terrible chart, but the bad news is blunted a bit. This chart is very close to the one JMG posted on his Patreon.
So the question is, which start time is the one that counts, for astrological purposes?
@adwelly
Thanks for “The Poor Man of Nippur”; absolutely delightful!
Re: the lack of influenza this season. Regular seasonal flu has an R0 of about 1.26 and that’s with no mitigation efforts to prevent its spread. Covid-19 with measures to inhibit its spread is somewhere between 2.0 and 3.3 in the U.S. The mandates in place for preventative measures may be aggressive, but compliance is mediocre., but mediocre can be significant. A July article in Emerging Infectious Diseases calculated a median R0 value of 5.7 from data collected early in the pandemic. Even if our mitigation efforts reduced the spread of pathogens that transmit by proximate contact by 30%, that’s enough to drop the R0 of the seasonal flu below 1.0, which is what happens around May every year in the U.S. It still spreads during the summer months till flu season starts back up in October, but at an inconsequential rate.
I really don’t see the mystery why there’s little influenza this season, its there, just spreading at June rates instead of January rates.
@Matthias Gralle – you make excellent comments on the “trust in technology” vs “trust in biology” binary which I threw out in an earlier comment. Thank you very much for the thoughtful feedback.
I should say that, although I have an avid clinician’s interest in biological systems and their workings, my first academic training was in anthropology, and my degree (class of ’82) was obtained at a time when “structural analysis” of mythology was all the rage. So, those tools still come readily to hand for me, and they were what that particular analysis of mutually mirroring narratives came out of. Of course an analytical tool is a model building or mapping tool, and the map is NEVER the same thing as the terrain, so of course, in all of its messiness, reality, and real people inhabiting it, will present huge amounts of terrain that you left off of the map.
The weird thing about people, though, is that we have a habit of having lots of messy and real experiences that lie on no one’s map, and then trying to mentally fit them into a narrative that we find useful and meaningful as we we retell them to ourselves and to others. This is why the narrative “poles” that these stories are congregating around do have a certain power over actual events for us.
But what is, perhaps, “further in” these narrative poles, both of them, is the question of the degree to which we, as individuals, can control events that impact us. Obviously we are biological creatures and our biological natures are well equipped with a large number of tools with which to respond to biological events, such as encounters with a novel pathogen. However not every biological creature will be able to wield that toolkit effectively, and some of us will succumb to sickness and death, and so any individual’s biological power to withstand such a pathogen cannot be guaranteed.
Our society, it seems, has taken this fact of life, together with every other limiting fact of nature, as a challenge that must be overcome, and many of our technological “feats” are of this nature – we overcome gravity with airflight, we overcome decay and spoilage of food with refrigeration, we overcome pests and vermin with poisons, we overcome, we overcome we overcome…. you get the picture. Biology takes on the narrative role of the irrational limiter of everything good which must be overcome if we are to experience anything good at all.
On the other hand, technology has many faces. The face which might be closest to the ternary we are looking for (the one that resolves the binary) is the “convivial” type of technology that Ivan Illich wrote about. This is “small” technology that is within the power of a human being, or a small group of human beings to implement and use.
However, what most people conceive of as “technology” is very much the not small, not easily graspable preserve of a tiny cadre of specialist priests and acolytes who appear to understand and to be able to tame the necessary forces in order to provide us with electricity that flips on with a switch, a screen interface where we can interact with faraway friends, chemicals that can be transformed in complicated ways from poisons to medicines and etc.
Most of us are well aware that, for example, if the grid went down, “we” could not reproduce it or anything like it for ourselves. It is NOT “our” technology, we are NOT consulted about its nature or shape, nor are we asked what we are willing to pay in costs. And yet it has built up dependencies in us whose difficulty of escape is becoming more and more apparent. This is what makes technology as fearful as it is useful. It may be a source of “control” of nature for some. But it is not likely to be a guarantor of “control” for most of us, unless we successfully continue to propitiate this arcane priesthood of those who know the secrets of taming the powers and purveying the technologies in order to continue to live in the style upon which we have come to depend. And the cost to be paid by each and every one of us steadily rises.
There was a comment up in this thread (mine) on Dec 30 regarding Tulsi Gabbard’s bill to ban biological men from women’s sports, and how I hoped that might be evidence our elite was beginning to respect the wishes of the pubic. JMG replied, “We’ll see”.
Well that was fast, JMG isn’t even back yet and we just saw something:
Biden just issued an Executive Order that bans discrimination against biological men in women’s sports. Check out the 1-22-2021 entry in moonofalabama –
https://www.moonofalabama.org/
From the text of the EO: “…Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports …”
I know this cliche is dreadfully overused, but you really CAN’T make this s—- up!
Anonymous and all who are interested in the the covid vaccine issue: here is an excellent set of posts from Dr. Pascal Sacre (of France) –
Check out – https://www.globalresearch.ca/author/pascal-sac
Robert Matthiesen, Several online encyclopedias know of a Rev. Timothy Dwight who lived from 1754 to 1817. Would that most appropriate quote you shared have been published posthumously?
The adventurers are the Andrew Jackson faction, and, alas, still with us today. I wonder if many of them didn’t evolve into Tea Partiers, the guys who play the angles, look for the easy life and the easy chance, and who think work and craft are for losers?
Cicada,
Very welcome. There will be more stories to tell.
DBL,
Thanks for the link, I’ll probably be talking about India’s nuclear power program on my blog at some point.
Bridge,
I’m not sure how you got from “just because the legacy media outlets are biased and factional, does not mean that new media or freelance journalists are any less biased or factional”. To “there is no truth in journalism, at all?”
Bias isn’t just caused by greed, any ideology sufficiently internalized can warp our perceptions of reality. Independent journalists may not be beholden to a large wallet, but they may be beholden to a specific ideology. What I look for are facts on hand, how a particular actor is interpreting those facts, and whether I can figure out another reasonable explanation for the fact.
For example everyone noticed how few people showed up to Biden’s campaign rallies vs. Trump’s rallies. One side interpreted that fact as relative popularity, while the other side didn’t, but how many news outlets simply pointed out the fact and let the audience draw its own conclusions? The answer is exactly zero. Not one outlet that I could find simply said “this is a thing, what do you the audience think it means?”
Does bias mean a lack of truth or objective fact, or does it simply mean the interpretation of objective fact to indicate a preferred truth?
Regards,
Varun
@Simon S:
Yes, improving ventilation seems like a win-win: reducing infectivity of many diseases while preserving (and actually creating) jobs. It is probably one of the measures which those health workers who don’t want to get vaccined would prefer. I can’t tell how much an optimal ventilation would reduce transmission of respiratory viruses, but I have heard in many places that it would make a sizable contribution. The office building where I worked until the beginning of 2020 did not allow us to open windows, and gave us no information on how their recycled air was filtered – which is why we left there.
The assembly which produced the US Constitution in 1789 was a runaway assembly. The delegates from the various states were sent to it with instructions to revise the Articles of Confederation. They decided that the Articles were unworkable, scrapped then entirely, and wrote a new constitution from scratch.
They were able to get away with this because they held their deliberations in strict secrecy.
The public had no idea what they were discussing until they adjourned and published the entire document. That led to the famous conversation in which a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government they had decided on, and he said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
As soon as it was published, many men said “This won’t do. It does not offer sufficient protection for the rights we fought for in our war for independence.” Someone (James Madison?) drafted a set of ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights. The states would not have ratified the Constitution and agreed to join the federation if the Bill of Rights had not been included in the package.
That worked out because the franchise was limited and the ratifiers had enough in common in their outlook and interests to accept the various compromises that the Constitution contained. We had to fight a civil war later to undo one of those compromises. Another, the makeup of the Senate, is still with us. The Electoral College never worked the way it was intended to.
If we call a second Constitutional Convention, I don’t think the public would tolerate it holding its deliberations in secret. If the deliberations are public, there is going to be at least as much posturing for the supporters of particular positions, and as little willingness to compromise, as we see in Congress today. My list of revisions is probably entirely different from David’s. I might not be eager to see his pass, and vice versa. JMG has suggested in some of his near future fiction that a second Convention might not be able to find enough common ground to make any substantial revisions that our citizens would be willing to accept.
All,
I’ve read a couple of comments wondering about how the exact time of the inaugural ceremony might affect the astrological predictions for the Biden presidency.
My understanding is that the timing of the ceremony is irrelevant. What matters is the U.S. Constitution’s 20th Amendment, saying specifically that the Presidential term begins as 12:00 noon. Therefore, that’s the time for the relevant chart.
For further reading, JMG addresses this very subject in the Q&A of his “US Inauguration 2021” post on his Dreamwidth journal. Look for his comment at: “Date: 2020-11-17 11:21 pm (UTC).”
JMG,
Thank you so much for putting the comments through while you are on break. I hope you and your wife are enjoying the respite!
I second JeffinWA. I couldn’t get the subtitles to work, but I really enjoyed The Poor Man of Nippur anyway. One thing that made me grin was that the language was probably the only authentically Babylonian part of it! They were all great characters but I got a kick out of the security guard. Thanks for this!
Sim P, January 22, 2021 at 6:10 pm re Al-Baydha— awesome project! “They” (who??) outlawed the original native methods of land-maintenance?? What were they thinking?? It’s great that some of the royals, this American, and the locals got together and made this work. I hope that his proposal comes to pass and they duplicate this all up and down the west coast of Arabia.
As a matter of fact, there is lots of lore around the world related to this. Pull in the waterworks of Petra, Jordan. Add the underground pipelines from the mountains in Xinjiang (yes, that Xinjiang), all built by hand, which cause that desert to bloom. Xinjiang is a major producer of citrus and vegetables in the Chinese hegemony as a result. Meanwhile Simi Razavian, now of San Diego, California, has gathered old Persian architecture lore on how to build cool, livable houses in hot deserts, with no electricity needed; only putting the forces of weather and physics to work.
Now, while we can still easily travel, now is the time to gather all this lore from around the world and share it back all around the world. The Xinjiang people might love the Persian house-architecture and Petra rock rainwater-channels. The Arabians could put the Xinjiang underwater canals to great use. And so on. Most important of all, the knowledge must be shared by the locals, people-to-people, because they are the ones who will need it most when the fossil fuels are all used up.
Matthias Gralle, January 22, 2021 at 1:31 pm – Hah! You did my next “anal-ytical” project for me!! I was wondering if the coronavirus spike protein contains same amino acid sequences for any human proteins, and from what you said, no there are no proteins with the exact same sequences. Thanks for those links, more handy tools!
“However,” DFC said at January 22, 2021 at 3:44 pm, raising one uplifted index finger, “have a look at this little article by Professor Bill Gallaher.” And so I read it (twice) and my mouth just formed an ‘O’. Wow.
If I understand it correctly, Prof. Gallaher says that up to 8% of the human genome is composed of the remnants of various viruses that infected us over the eons, such as the afore-mentioned Syncytin-1.The examples he presented were “Syn-1”, “Syn-2”, and “HERV-K”.
He also stated that even though two proteins don’t share identical amino acid sequences, they can share similar enough ones that the shape of the proteins are the same in parts. The “sheet stereochemistry” figures (fourth figure in the article) were what made my mouth turn into an ‘O’. Even if only every other amino acid matches, one whole side of the protein can be the same shape as one whole side of the other. They rhyme topologically!
I would have never called those ‘matches’ based simply on the sequences of amino acids, but he says they are similar enough. I guess that’s why biochemists have PhDs :).
In addition, it’s my understanding that it’s the shape of a protein that matters most of all to its function, and how the body/immune system reacts to it. So…
Prof. Gallaher then points out, possibly very presciently (this was February 2020, after all), that if the virus proteins are similar enough to human proteins, the immune system may see them as busted ‘home’ proteins (“Altered Self”) and attack them.
Flip side of this, if the two sets of proteins are similar enough, we have the following sequence of events: A coronavirus infection occurs, the immune system goes to war against the virus invasion and wins, but now it has ‘learned’ the identities of a suite of viral proteins that greatly resemble ‘home’ proteins. So, even though the virus is gone, the immune system then proceeds to “jump at shadows”, seeing proteins it thinks are more of the virus, and winds up attacking the body’s own tissues. Thus, an auto-immune response (and I’ve seen a couple of little comments here around the Web and there about auto-immune responses relating to coronavirus).
If this is indeed going on, then either the virus or the mRNA vaccine could trigger it. And, an auto-immune response of this sort could be at least a part of the “long covid” phenomenon, and could explain why “long covid” seems to hit those who were the most fit beforehand– being fit, their immune systems would have been stronger and, unfortunately, quicker to attack any perceived “enemy”.
The treatment for this might be something that damps down the body’s immune system response a little. Might be worth a try for “long covid” sufferers, anyway.
The hated “fossil fuels” have peaked, there are no viable alternatives, and time is running out. [Don’t read if you prefer life inside The Matrix.]
http://energyskeptic.com/2021/renewables-not-enough-minerals-energy-time-or-clean-and-green/
For those who have been requesting an astrological interpretation of JB’s inauguration on January 20, I can pitch in. Please note, however, that I am a vedic astrologer and while it has much in common with Western astrology, it differs in several significant ways – the most obvious being that vedic astrology is sidereal (i.e., every “sign” is shifted 22+ degrees, so that Aries starts on April 14); another being “aspects” that planets give to other houses and planets. And I am not going to wade into the pit of scorpions which is the debate over which system of astrology is “better”; I have seen that both systems are valid and will leave it at that. I believe that Western astrologers in the group will agree with many of my overall assumptions/predictions. I will keep this posting as brief and to the point as possible.
I tried 11:20, 11:48 and 12:00 and found no significant difference. So – here it goes (most important stuff at the top)!
1ST HOUSE (The common people or general state of the nation): ARIES, occupied by MARS (lord of the house, and at 12 degrees is at the peak of his power and is in “boyhood state” meaning endowed with strength but not wisdom – watch out! Americans are in a “fighting mood”). Also occupied by MOON (friends with Mars; emotional and reflective; moderate strength but in “childhood state” and therefore behaves irrationally but not with strength). There are many positive things with having Mars and Moon together – but much of what I see is a desire for the people to be perceived as “good” and “great” again. I’d say that under the circumstances, the USA can expect some new wars and domestic instability.
10TH HOUSE (most important house in mundane astrology, signifying the president, police / armed forces, the Heads of State and national reputation and prestige): man, this is a real tangled mess, as it is occupied by four planets (Sun, Saturn, Jupiter & Mercury) in the sign of CAPRICORN. All planets gain strength by being in the 10th house. Let’s start of with the SUN, which also signifies the country’s ruler: while he is most powerful in the 10th house, the sign is ruled by his arch-enemy Saturn, so the Sun is going to have a rough time. Further, he is only 3 degrees apart from Saturn (too close for comfort!), indicating a lot of struggles against enemies (as well as against Congress, a Saturn is also Lord of the 11th house in this chart). Think of it this way: the 10th house is where the Sun wants to be, but the 10th house doesn’t want him to be there! SATURN is also strong, although in “old age” state and being so close to the Sun is greatly damaged. JUPITER, the great benefic and friend of the Sun, is debilitated in the sign of Capricorn: the advisors to the President may not be wise or trustworthy. Finally, MERCURY – who is enemies with the Sun – also functions as a great malefic, being the lord of the 3rd and 6th houses. Don’t be surprised if JB suffers from health problems (but not death in office, as I see no connection with the 8th house). In summary, the president does not receive any good support from others and he will have both internal and external struggles. For what it’s worth, there are several indicators that the president is a spiritual man.
11TH HOUSE (Congress, hopes of the nation): AQUARIUS (devoid of planets, receives no aspects). This house is ruled by Saturn, who is considered to be both a “natural” and “functional” benefic in this chart. Given the fact that Saturn is so close to the Sun (in the 10th house) that he is “burned”, I expect that Congress will be “bullied” by the President (this could be the case with a Democrat majority), but I would expect things to be fractious.
4TH HOUSE (the land, real estate, natural resource industries and those who oppose the government): CANCER (devoid of planets). This house receives a ridiculously large number of aspects from planets: harsh/malefic aspects from Mars, Sun, Mercury and Saturn, damaged benefic aspect from Jupiter and the severely malefic aspect from the shadow-planet “Dragon’s Tail” (Ketu). This house is receiving a lot of energy – most of it nasty – so, Republicans can expect to be absolutely humiliated and vilified. And where does the 4th house’s lord (Moon) reside in this chart? Oh yeah – the 1st house (house of “the people”). Great if one wants the rise of “Trump 2.0” or something much darker in the future…
7TH HOUSE (public enemies, international warfare, treaties and alliances): LIBRA (devoid of planets) receives aspects from Mars, Moon and Saturn. War is strongly indicated, as it is supported by “the people” (Mars, lord of 1st house), the president and Congress (Saturn, lord of 10th and 11th houses) and may involve land/agriculture/minerals (Moon, lord of the 4th house).
Lastly, I’ll share one of the “short cuts” for quickly determining how “good” or “bad” a chart is, according to vedic astrology. The more planets there are in the cardinal houses (1st, 4th, 7th and 10th) the “stronger” the chart. The more benefic planets there are in these cardines, the better the chart; the more malefic/harmed planets, the worse the chart (a classic comparison made by vedic astrologers is the birth charts of Gandhi and Hitler – I’ll leave it to the commentariat to guess whose chart has cardines chock-a-block with malefic planets and whose has lots of benefics). In this chart, 6 of the 9 planets used in traditional vedic astrology are located in cardines: 4 of the 6 are malefic in this chart and of the two benefics (Jupiter and waxing Moon) one is undamaged and the other is considered to be a “functional malefic”. In summary, I suspect this to be a troubled presidency. Keep in mind, however, that I am not a professional astrologer and what I have described above is very superficial. We’ll see how far my predictions come to pass.
Lunar Apprentice, January 22, 2021 at 3:39 pm — thanks for the additional information about Dr. Bankhead-Kendall.
Having had the one anal-ytical project snatched out of my hands by Matthias Gralle :), I went on to the next one which was an analysis of the “Horrible Coronavirus Chest X-Rays” news stories on the Web. Because I’d noticed so many of them, I originally thought it was some kind of propaganda push (there may still have been some elements of that), but it also appears to have followed the fairly typical life cycle of a news story.
I gathered up 16 “hits” and pored through them. Most of them shared the same several story elements:
-“Texas trauma surgeon Dr. Brittany Bankhead-Kendall”
-“Has treated thousands of patients since March of 2020”
-“Of her patients who had coronavirus, all who had symptoms had bad chest X-rays and 70-80% of those without symptoms also had bad chest X-rays”
– “Even those who said ‘I’m fine’ and had no issues, also had bad chest X-rays.”
– “She tweeted that ‘post-covid lungs look worse than any type of terrible smokers lung we’ve ever seen.'”
I arranged the “hits” in chronological order, and this was instructive.
(1) 13 January 2021, 6:52 pm – CBS-DFW – This appears to be the original break of the story, as some of the later stories refer to her talking to this station.
The story gets legs the next day:
(2) 14 January 2021, 10:33 am PST – CBSDFW.com, KWTX picks up the story.
(3) 14 January 2021, 3:06 pm – CBS News, News 9 also picks the story up.
– They add the ending of Dr. Bankhead-Kendall’s tweet, which is fairly horrible. The full(er) tweet is: “Post-COVID lungs look worse than any type of terrible smoker’s lung we’ve ever seen. And they collapse. And they clot off. And the shortness of breath lingers on… & on… & on.”
– To this station’s credit, they also add a statement by Dr. Amesh Adalja, who comments that after any pneumonia, even when you feel better there is still a lot of crud in your lungs that takes some time to clear out, and shows up on an X-ray.
(4) 14 January 2021, 16:11 EST – DailyMail.com (a UK paper) – Here the first transcription error occurs; they state ‘she has treated thousands of coronavirus patients since March’. The original article never stated that all of her thousands of patients had coronavirus! They also keep the full, horrifying tweet and add some further discussion of lung damage.
(5) 14 January 2021 – “7 News, Sunbeam Television” – This outlet also commits the ‘thousands of coronavirus patients’ goof, and publishes the whole horrible tweet.
(6) 14 January 2021 – FoxNews.com picks up the story. They omit the “thousands of patients” element (thus sidestepping the goof), publish the whole horrible tweet, and also add some new discussion and stats on ‘long covid’.
The story continues to run with vigor the next day:
(7) 15 January 2021, 0:37 – The Sun, UK picks up the story. They repeat the “thousands of coronavirus patients” goof and the full horrible tweet.
(8) 15 January 2021, 10:04 GMT – “LAD Bible”, which appears to be UK. Repeats the “thousands of coronavirus patients” goof and the full horrible tweet.
(9) 15 January 2021, 7:25 am – CBS News main site picks up the story. They avoid the “thousands” goof, and publish the whole horrible tweet. The also repeat the statement from Dr. Adalja about lungs still looking bad on X-ray for awhile after you feel better.
(10) 15 January 2021, 7:06 pm EST – ABC7, but the wire credit is “CNNWire”. Their article pretty much duplicates number (1), including no ‘goof’ and using the shorter tweet.
(11) 15 January 2021 – The International Business Times weighs in with a copy. They say ‘has been treating coronavirus patients for months’, omitting the ‘thousands’, and publish the whole horrible tweet. However, they omit several of the “standard story elements” listed above and add some other discussion of their own.
(12) 15 January 2021 – MSN, crediting “CBSNews” – Publishes the “standard elements” and minus the “thousands” goof; includes the whole horrible tweet and the statement by Dr. Adalja.
The pace of the story’s propagation begins to slow:
(13) 16 January 2021, 14:44 IST – RepublicWorld.com, from India, carries the story. They include the “thousands of coronavirus patients” goof and the whole horrible tweet.
(14) 17 January 2021, 9:02 am – “BGR” runs the story, without the “thousands” error and with the full horrible tweet.
(15) 18 January 2021 – Fox 10 Phoenix runs it, stating that “The Associated Press contributed to this report.” This version leaves out the “thousands”, the tweet, and several other “standard story elements”, and adds the following:
-“I started to realize that all of these patients that we’re seeing, who are having
chest X-rays that have had COVID in the past, are showing up abnormal,”
– “Bankhead-Kendall said not every post-COVID X-ray she’s seen had scarred lung tissue.’I’ve definitely seen patients who have had COVID and they don’t have scarring,’ ”
(16) 19 January 2021, 9:09 am – “CNNWire”, the URL says ‘ABC7’. The story elements replicate those in (1), including the shorter tweet without the horrible ending.
paradoctor, January 19, 2021 at 6:20 pm weighs in here with a post linking to the story. But the story has already jumped the shark by this time.
I found no copies of the story on 20 January or later. It appears the Inauguration swamped it and the outlets ran over to the new story.
David btl,
You have not explained to my satisfaction at all why the constitution requires us to allow election fraud.
Robert M,
In your reply to Bridge, all I can say is wow. I am ashamed to be American.
@David BTL
Fair enough. Did not mean disrespect or anything, just that I did not grasp the power of that symbol over you all. As a fellow engineer, I very much appreciate the beauty of a system that is able of “self change” and would be very attached to it indeed.
@ Robert M
How, you have just blown my mind! Even if I was, am and will likely continue to be a city boy myself, I totally can relate to the lure of the wild.
Hello again Varun, Candace and others who are interested in evidence regarding the allegations of 2020 election fraud.
There were about 60 lawsuits filed regarding election fraud (including to the US Supreme Court with the State of Texas as plaintiff). Did the claimants file really lawsuits without evidence? Yet the MSM repeats “There is no evidence” like a mantra.
The courts threw out the lawsuits on the basis of “standing” or other technical issues. Here’s one MSM article which at least acknowledges this:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/nov/29/trump-judges-refuse-look-election-fraud-evidence/
If you want online evidence, you have to go to non-MSM sources:
https://hereistheevidence.com/
This lists over 1600 links to evidence consisting of witness reports (as in affidavits), material evidence (e.g. regarding dominion voting machines), expert witnesses, statistical evidence and so on.
Enjoy.
@ Matthias
A news story from a parallel universe:-
A BREATH OF FRESH AIR
January 24th 2021
The incoming Biden administration today announced a massive spending package designed to overhaul the ventilation systems of the nation’s building stock in order to reduce disease transmission. Biden said he planned to unleash an “army of HVAC Heroes” in a move that is expected to create tens of thousands of jobs for qualified tradespeople across the country and includes provisions to improve the energy efficiency of buildings thus providing real gains in environmental performance alongside tangible health benefits.
Biden criticised the “reckless and wasteful” spending on unreliable PCR tests and un-tested vaccines and said he would instruct public health bureaucrats to instead focus on common sense measures to reduce respiratory viral disease. These included schemes designed to reduce lifestyle illness, improve diet and encourage exercise. The President described the locking of healthy people in their homes and mandatory mask requirements as “pure malarkey” and said he would encourage the nation’s citizens to get outside at every opportunity and breathe fresh air.
Many in this thread have asked for proof that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. The following is my collection of articles and videos. (Long, sorry.) Taken all together, they strongly hint at election skulduggery.
Things That Make Me Go “Hmmm” About The 2020 Election:
– In September 2020, the “Transition Integrity Project” ‘wargamed’ scenarios to keep Trump from having 4 more years.
– On October 25, 2020, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that:
(a) mail ballots could be received and counted up to 3 days after the election, as long as there was no proof it was mailed after Election Day. (that is, ballots without a postmark could be counted); and (b) that the signature on the voter’s registration and on the ballot didn’t have to match. The Pennsylvania Secretary of State ruled, in fact, that election workers would do NO signature matching.
(c) Also, voting officials kept poll watchers 25 feet away from the ballot-processing area, meaning they couldn’t see what was going on.
– In an October interview, Biden said his team had assembled “the most extensive voter fraud organization in history”. Nobody is sure whether this was a typical Biden gaffe, or a Freudian slip.
– Following up on this, after the election, Mayor De Blasio’s daughter in verbal slip said Biden “was able to steal” the election.
– Matt Taibbi called out the media for suppressing the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop and its evidence of his dealings with China and Ukraine just before the election.
– Two months later, Hunter Biden revealed he is under investigation for tax fraud in these deals and was subpoenaed.
– Dmitri Orlov pointed out some highly unlikely numbers in the 2020 election vote tallies (scroll down a bit).
– How did Biden get more votes in Milwaukee County than Obama in 2008— and the county’s population has decreased since then?
– A Democratic-leaning professor explained to Tucker Carlson how Google swung the election by selectively presenting information and GOTV messages (watch the video of the guy with the glasses, partway down the page).
In down-ballot races (Senate, Congress etc), Democrats did worse than Biden. They lost half their House majority-margin, in fact. Usually a winning presidential candidate coattails down-ballot races in his wake:
– Moderate Democrats weigh ousting Pelosi over dismal election showing
– Democrats’ hopes for Senate majority fizzle; House margin eroded
– Democratic Senators got fewer votes than Biden in the same states
– Democrats regroup after Senate setback
In many jurisdictions, Republican poll-watchers said they were blocked from watching the ballot count, often in contravention of that state’s laws:
– in Detroit
– In numerous locations (item #5)
– Also mentioned in this list
– and in this list
– Wisconsin poll workers allegedly altered thousands of invalid ballots so they could be counted.
– McEnany presented 234 Pages of sworn affidavits alleging fraudulent election activities in Michigan (remember, a “sworn affidavit” means you can be prosecuted and go to jail if you lie on that document. People who swear an affidavit are serious.)
– A Nevada poll worker listed a bunch of dubious ballot activities they witnessed. (scroll down in the article to find this part.)
– A CCTV video showed Georgia election workers telling poll watchers they were done counting, then after the poll watchers and reporters left, they pulled more ballots out from under a table and continued counting those– against Georgia law!
– Several news outlets tried to debunk the Georgia video, then a ‘Federalist’ columnist un-debunked it.
– A Georgia recount monitor caught a 9,626-vote pro-Biden error during hand recount.
– A software glitch in Michigan’s ‘Red’ Antrim County gave thousands of Trump votes to Biden.
– And a later forensic exam of this county’s machines revealed that the “adjudication log entries” for 2020 had been removed.
– A tech guy testified to a Pennsylvania hearing about curious pro-Biden “spikes” in the vote count.
– Over 432,000 Votes were removed from Trump in PA, data scientists say.
– In Georgia, the Dominion vote-counting machines had their memories wiped before they could be analyzed (scroll down a bit to the election worker conversation with their superior).
– An Italian defence employee claimed he helped manipulate the US election in Biden’s favor (by transmitting switched votes to Frankfurt Germany). Here is that affidavit.
There are several full-on shopping lists of suspicious things about the election.
– From this “Just The News” one, here are the items I found most persuasive:
– A City of Detroit worker said she saw thousands of ballots being backdated the day after the election so that they could be counted.
– Nearly 3/4 of Detroit’s precincts had mismatches between “the approved voter files and the number of ballots counted”.
– At least nine Georgia observers swore affidavits that they saw pristine, uncreased “mail-in” ballots in an audit, almost all of them for Biden.
– About 5,000 Georgia ballots that had not been initially counted were discovered during an audit, most of them for Trump.
– Many Pennsylvania voters in a poll said that someone else had requested their mail-in ballot.
– A shopping list of 20 items that imply election fraud
– Texas’ list of complaints to the Supreme Court about the election, all of which sound like evidence of fraud
Happy reading!
@Mary Bennett:
You have found the right Timothy Dwight, who (among other things) was President of Yale University. The long quote is from his Travels in New-England and New-York. He was definitely a member of the New-England elite of his day. That quote says as much about him as it does about the people among whom he traveled. — I hadn’t paid attention to his death-date; if 1817 is his right death-date, then yes, his book must have been published after his death. And that raises other questions, for it is a huge production, 4 volumes in all. Who then saw it through the press, and why?
@Onething:
Don’t be ashamed, please! Knowing ourselves is far, far more important than any shame or guilt we might feel in consequence of that knowledge. “Know thyself,” proclaimed the Oracle at Delphi, and also “Nothing to excess.” I take this to imply that excessive virtue is just as bad as excessive vice.
We Americans are what we are, and what we always have been: a motley crew of fools in motley. (In that we resemble every other nation and its people, at every time and place in history.) Idealists have their place in civic life, but they do have a tendency to die young and in despair. I prefer to live, grimly cheerful in the face of all that folly, and to take every possible ideal with a grain or three of salt.
Robert M et al,
Regarding the fascinating quote from Timothy Dwight, I am struck by how deeply class conscious a society we are (and have always been). Deplorables indeed!
@ CR Patino
No offense taken. I appreciate the conversation and I can understand the perplexity from the outside: we Americans are an odd assortment of even more odd characters.
@ Cicada Grove
Yes, but what I understand of Dr. Yeadon & Wodarg concerns about the vaccines is not only the effect of the proteins of the virus itself, but in the case of the m-RNA vaccines are the “rogue” or “junk” m-RNA that go with the “right” m-RNA after the synthesis and separation process of them, that is to say, the result of an industrial process of manufacturing of vaccines, not a lab-purifying one.
I remind you the article with the hacked e-mails from the EMA commitee that approved the Pfizer vaccine:
https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2021/01/16/vaccins-ce-que-disent-les-documents-voles-a-l-agence-europeenne-des-medicaments_6066502_3244.html
The e-mails, from experts of the EMA, said:
“The vaccines used in clinical trials had between 69% and 81% “intact” RNA, that is, the entire sequence used to make the Spike protein. On the other hand, data on the batches produced in these new production lines revealed lower percentages, 59% on average. Some lots even went down to 51% and 52%. A”Sticking point , ” said the EMA on 23 November”
“We often have a little shorter or a little longer RNA in these products. We filter according to the size of the molecule, but this filtration is difficult on a large scale ”
It seems that they have increased the “purity” of the m-RNA used, but still if “only” 20 or 25% of the m-RNA is “strange” and it is possible than many can make the ribosomes to produce proteins based on this “junk” RNA, what could be the effect on the body? and in the immune system?
For me the “right” m-RNA and the virus have some risks as described by Dr. Gallagher, but this amount of “not controlled” m-RNA in the vaccines, in my point of view, could produce some kind of shotgun pellets effect, and increase a lot the possible auto-immune effects because you are shooting, with “shotgun pellets” (proteins), around some proteins that are homologous to the human one, and then you are increasing the probabilities to hit the (unintended) target compared to the virus or another vaccines based on virus.
Many unknowns for some vaccines that they want to inject to hundreds millions of healthy people
Cheers
David
@JeffinWA You are very welcome.
@Cicada Grove
Quite right. It’s filmed mostly around Kings College in Cambridge I think. Pretty old – dating from 1441ad but a newcomer compared with Babylon. I’m told the British Museum has something like 130,000 cuneiform tablets from the region dated from 3000bc to about 100ad. I’m not sure they are all translated either.
[Ed. — Nope.)
So noted!
Lunar Apprentice says:
January 23, 2021 at 12:39 pm
“I know this cliche is dreadfully overused, but you really CAN’T make this s—- up!”
Insert coprolite of choice: https://poozeum.com
Somebody is poking the woke with a stick – wonder if they will take the bait?
“I hear cautious b****ing about the hypocrisy of fashion influencers who scream for the removal of statues of long-dead slavers while accepting large sums to appear in ads for fashion brands that rely on modern-day slavery to stitch their clothes.”
https://spectator.us/topic/introducing-wokeyleaks-celebrity-fame/
I think the Spectator is still considered to be ‘conservative’ leaning (whatever that means these days).
Certainly the recent (UK) situation where no-one except ‘the right’ is publishing anything about women’s rights is an irony not lost on many women who previously would have voted for the Labour Party (may it rest in peace).
What a strange world it is!
Starting to wonder if the self-proclaimed woke™ are so self-absorbed and embedded in narcissism that there is a total disconnect from reality (grammar/punctuation is racist and biology is transphobic etc). Not only do they lack any sense of humour, any residual thinking ability looks more and more like a guttering candle.
They are becoming dead-eyed drones clutching their social media feeds as they swim online through a stream of POO (Profound Onanistic Outrage) to perform their ritual ‘two minutes of hate’.
Saw a nice one on why grammar/punctuation is useful:
I’m giving up drinking until Christmas!
Sorry, bad punctuation.
I’m giving up. Drinking until Christmas!
Razor-edged laughter might be all that remains for them; as Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army would have said – “They don’t like it up ’em”
But as has been said already, looking at history, the dead-eyed earnestness of zealotry is often an extremely ugly thing so hope it doesn’t go that way; but it really might need some sort of extraordinary shock to societal systems to break the spell (which likely won’t be fun either).
@DFC, Cicada Grove:
Somebody (was it you, David ?) posted that link to virological.org back in March or April 2020, and I read it with great interest. There is homology there (imperfect, as usual), and a suspicion that the homologous stretches would be exposed in the same way on the surface of the two proteins. Now that 3D structures are available (the RCSB codes Cicada Grove linked to), one can highlight the homologous aminoacids in the structures (there are many freeware programs available; the one I used to recommend to my first-year medical students is FirstGlance, a marvelous toy!) and see if they are in fact exposed in similar ways. However, all that bioinformatics can do, whether based on the 1D sequences or the 3D structures, is to generate hypotheses. I have worked alongside bioinformaticians, and I can only say that it is easy to generate hypotheses, and few people will then put on gloves and set to work pipetting to test those hypotheses.
In other words, there is no strong evidence, much less proof, that antibodies raised against any part of Covid-19 will in fact react with any human protein or specifically Syncytin. There are some initial suggestions, which are not particularly significant, but if somebody is willing to invest time, money and reputation into testing that hypothesis, they can do so. JMG was right when he spoke of the many unknowns for 2021.
@ Deborah Bender
Re a constitutional convention and it’s likely difficulties
No disagreement on any of the points you make. The kind of proposals that would have the greatest chance of making it out of such a convention to be offered to the states for possible ratification would be things that are not left/right but more “let us agree to disagree”…that is things that decentralize governance a bit and restrict congressional power over the several states. These are the sorts of things I’d propose. (Congressional term limits, restricting Congress to the strictly enumerated powers, getting rid of gerrymandering through proportional allocation of a state’s delegation to the House, etc.). I’d also include a legal pathway for succession, so that those states who’s citizens wish to leave the Union, and are willing to accept the consequences of doing so, can.
A looser Union—with more allowance for variation, less insistence on uniformity, and a willingness to mind our own business rather than our neighbor’s—stands a much greater chance of surviving our post-imperial existence. The question is how to produce those needed changes in a reasonably peaceful manner.
Simon,
Meanwhile, in our universe, governments are mandating masks be worn outside. I’m no longer legally allowed to even step into my yard without wearing one of them….
@ onething
Re the Constitution and it’s discontents
Nothing compels you to accept anything. You are free, as am I, to make your own decisions on these matters.
If there’s any single thing that I can thank our host for doing for me over the years I’ve been participating in the community, it would be the clearing of the distinction between objective fact and subjective value, which is so very important in discussions such as this.
I think that you and I can agree that election fraud erodes the structure of our government. I think we can also agree that disruption of the peaceful transfer of power also erodes the structure of our government. Both of these undermine the public trust upon which our society rests. These are facts.
The assessment that the acceptance of the results of a potentially fraudulent (and undeniably disputed) election *is worse than* the disruption of the peaceful transfer of power is a subjective valuation. You have your assessment; I have mine.
My argument is more or less the following:
We had a very tight election held under very unusual circumstances. There were allegations of serious fraud, circumstantial evidence to that effect, and a lot of suspicion. For my own part, given that the states had certified their results and the Electoral College had voted, it would require *substantial* evidence (not circumstantial, not suspicion) that a state’s results were fraudulent in order for Congress to reject them.
For a mob to assault Congress in an effort (however sincere and/or misguided) to prevent that certification is completely outside the constitutional order and if successful, would not just undermine the foundation of our government, but would destroy it. I value the constitutional order more than the outcome of any particular election. Others may disagree.
Fighting to the bitter end strains the system. Scorched-earth tactics become commonplace and burn everything. Disputing the certification of a state’s electoral votes *in the absence of incontrovertible evidence* opens the gates to the other side doing the same thing. We’re already at a point where impeachment is likely to become a standardized political weapon and now the Democrats are discussing the possibility of expelling Republicans who sought to dispute the certification, which they can do with a majority. So then this too becomes standardized and one side expels people on the other side they don’t particularly like whenever a sufficient majority exists. And our entire governance structure becomes even more dysfunctional than it already is.
I want fraud-free elections as much as anyone else. I’m not prepared to destroy the country, however, and as things stood, that is what would have occurred. It may happen anyway, my hopes to the contrary aside.
Trump’s response to the election was, in my opinion, rather like Operation Market Garden: a bridge too far. Pursuing recounts, fine. Seeking legal remedies within the states in question, fine. But once the EC has voted, it is done. His best choice then was to swallow his pride, accept the results, play the statesman, and prepare for his 2024 campaign. He didn’t do that.
@ one thing
I did respond, but the internet may have eaten it. I won’t know until these comments get posted. If it doesn’t show up, I’ll try to reconstruct it.
to David BTL
the “game” is often heralded with the announcement “Hold my beer”
to Candace
for “rational” discussion we first need to agree on the “facts”, many of which appear inconsistent on their own. I’ll offer this quote from Donald Trump’s ‘Insurrection Address’ of Jan 6 –
Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We’re supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.
States want to revote. The states got defrauded, They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.
(call for contingent election?)
And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: “Mike, that doesn’t take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage.”
(Mike Pence votes “present”)
to Robert Mathiesen
thank you for this reflection on America’s ‘collective’ identity. That it echoes a pattern observable in western religious tradition is just a coincidence. Or a matter of larger human nature.
to Deborah Bender
in current juxtaposition, I’ll offer the current assembly of citizen-soldiers in the District of Columbia to be relatively dispassionate, “under oath” and there.
to Onething
the matter of national shame as we choose how to deal with it. The US has been somewhat successful in papering-over its collection of skulls with dollars.
Deborah Bender,
How was the electoral college supposed to work?
Lunar Apprentice, January 23, 2021 at 11:06 pm – Your election-fraud list is better than my election-fraud list! I wanted to donate to Here Is The Evidence, but none of their funding options is one that I have. If they only had a Patreon link. I wonder if PayPal and/or the credit card (SWIFT?) system just won’t touch them.
One of the most frustrating things to me has been watching all these courts (not just the Supreme Court) smack down complaints on the grounds that the plaintiffs “don’t have standing”. It appears to be a glaring hole, maybe even in the Constitution itself– if there is massive skulduggery in the Federal election, to include the state legislatures, who in the country does “have standing” to contest it? I bet those TIP operatives spotted this and said, “hey, I bet we can make this work.” Could explain why they’ve been so brazen– they think there’s nothing we can do about it. Well, if Americans are persuaded that we can’t “petition for a redress” via the ballot box, then the genie comes out of the bottle.
Greencoat said on January 22, 2021 that an outside, rival power might benefit from sowing dissension in the United States. Very true. If we rip ourselves apart, they don’t have to fire a shot. OTOH, if they are trying to take us over from within, they may have just overplayed their hand.
– – –
DFC, January 24, 2021 at 9:18 am – thanks for reiterating that many of the RNA chains made in the vaccines are not the “right” one– they are truncated/warped versions of it. You said so before at January 18, 2021 at 2:12 pm… but this is a long thread. I have added your comment to my “list of reasons why I’m not taking the mRNA vaccine”.
Here is the Messybeast article about chimeras:
http://messybeast.com/mosaicism6.htm
Notice the black cat with the gray tail. A few years ago, I saw a man walking a white dog with gray back legs, rear end, and tail. He looked like a white dog wearing gray jogging pants. 😄. I wonder if he was a chimera?
@Lunar Apprentice – as I understand the matter, the “biological men” are actually more intersex. It’s a condition some people are born with, giving them XY chromosomes, but female sex organs rather than male in most cases. It’s due to androgen insufficiency or else prenatal inability to respond to androgens. The February issue of Scientific American has a discussion of the matter. The tone and commentary is heavily biased, and I totally disagree with the author’s stand on the XY athlete who also has testosterone levels as high as a man’s – I think she should be competing with men – but the science is sound. Readers of Scientific American would bombard the magazine with letters if it weren’t.
Now, my take on the matter is to make a 3rd category of sports for just this reason.
@Cicada Grove – you don’t even need to go to ancient Persia for examples of how to build for desert climates. Spanish Colonial architecture will also do the trick, as will Pueblo style, if it uses read adobe. The problem with abode is maintenance, which is why most of it is stuccoed over today. But thanks for that good news!
Hi all
As Denis January 22, 2021 at 3:05 pm said:
“In Rasmussen Reports’ first Presidential Daily Tracking Poll of likely voters, the new Democratic president starts at 48% approve, 45% disapprove.
Trump opened with a 56% approval rating. Just 44% disapproved. It was one of his highest ratings of his four years.
Obama started at 67% approval, 32% disapprove, also one of his highest ratings.”
I have reading the historical data of pasts USA presidents approval in the beginning of their mandate from FDR to now, and it seems ALL of them have an approval rate above 50%, almost all of them above 60%, except Biden, but Biden had 80 millions votes, many more than Obama in 2008 (69,5 millions), and it seems there were a kind of yuuuge enthusiam for Obama that did not exist with Biden in the past election; it seems Biden achieve much more than Obama 2008 now with much less enthusiasm from the people.
I have two explanations:
a) People voted in so overwhelming way for Biden just to get rid of (the odious) Trump (“regime”).
b) There were fraud.
Both of them are not good in the longterm.
Cheers
David
@ Scotlyn
Technology can be very small and easy to understand but someone has to think of it first.
Thus, I give you buttons.
Someone had to figure out how to make flat, pierced disks and sew them onto garments as adornment.
Then, hundreds of years later (buttons are very old), some else makes a great mental leap.
Buttonholes in garments.
A buttonhole looks simple but it isn’t. It has to have reinforced edges so the slit doesn’t become a rip. Buttonholes changed garment design because they allow for a closer fit to the body.
If you want to go further back, look at combs. Needles. Thread. How about twisting plant fibers into string so you can tie your chipped piece of flint to a nicely shaped stick?
All examples of technology be we don’t recognize them as such anymore.
A second Constitutional Convention, if allowed to be called at all would quickly descend into a farce. Soo many different entities with soo many pet agendas would come out of the woodwork. And that comes back around to the real problem and why a CC would never solve it – there’s no consensus on what a workable union consists of any more.
Again one side wants to wag its finger and boss everyone around and the other side wants mostly to be left alone.
@Robert Mathiesen
In your response to Bridge you said “…in the USA a very large fraction of the citizenry do not actually want “fair and free elections,” though they give lip service to the concept. They actually want elections that can be gamed, and they want to be the ones who succeed at gaming them.”
Why do you believe this? I speak regularly with normal folks from across the political spectrum, and no one I know wants this.
OTOH, I do believe that the professional political classes feel this way. They want to be able to game the system as required to serve their selfish aims. That’s the obvious explanation for the fact that nothing has been done about e.g. the easy hackability of electronic voting machines, despite the fact that we’ve known about this for more than 2 decades, during which time either or both parties could easily have done something to remedy the situation.
The thing that makes clear (at least to me) why this is the case, as well explaining so many other seemingly inexplicable ‘oversights’ and ‘accidents’ is this: The political conflict between D and R is a mostly a charade. Controlling the vote (by allowing directed fraud as necessary) is key to maintaining control of the system in the hands of the professional political class.
The real fight is being waged by the professional political class, D’s and R’s TOGETHER, against US, normal folks of whatever political leaning. Partisan politics mostly serves only to distract from and legitimize the looting that’s the real game.
@ Anonymous
Sorry to hear that. Here in Melbourne, Australia, we had that for five months but we are currently enjoying a summer reprieve. No doubt, we’ll be muzzled again come winter.
I noticed the US Surgeon General saying how he is sick of hearing about how the masks and lockdowns don’t seem to be doing anything. He says it’s all part of the ‘swiss cheese model’. Personally, I’d prefer our experts to be using models that don’t have big holes in them.
Meanwhile, our public health bureaucrats say they won’t release their modelling because it would only ‘muddy’ the debate. All perfectly laughable from a scientific point of view. I wonder what Richard Feynman or Kary Mullis would have to say about it.
@earthworm – loved the grammar quip. As the old classic goes – I think from the dedication of an old-time somebody from the right wing, I forgot who, . “Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.”
Just an observation…you know what would make this site better? If the comments on each post were numbered. Trying to find the first unread comment would be so much easier if each response had a number attached to it. Then we could just say “The last comment I read was #425, so let me go to #426 and pick up reading where I left off”, rather than having to search back through dozens (or even hundreds!) trying to find the new stuff.
Those of us interested in the recent Great Financial Crisis / Great Recession (as predictive of the NEXT Great Financial Crisis / Great Depression-2) can probably pick up some good ideas about how it went down from this article.
12-1-2017
The Financial Crisis as a Religious Crisis
Robert H. Nelson
https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1330&context=jibl
Scholars of alternative religions might find it interesting, too. It’s 42 pages, just so you know what you’re getting yourself into.
The concluding paragraph is just too good to condense (but I’ll add some emphasis:
—————————–
The financial crisis in this respect can therefore be said to have been in significant part a religious crisis. In looking towards the future, however, this diagnosis does not offer a solution. It is unlikely that any of the economic religions of progress of the twentieth century will experience a great renewal. Indeed, it appeared increasingly doubtful over the course of the century that economic progress could be expected to lead to corresponding moral progress. Another critical problem is the loss of public confidence in the legitimate expertise of the professional economic priesthood — as exacerbated by the events of the financial crisis. Finding the way forward will be more difficult because of the absence of recent skills and experience among the American professional and other elites in discussing in public the larger religious questions of politics and economics. One prediction can be made with confidence: religion in all its traditional and more recent secular religious dimensions will have a central role in shaping the political and economic history of the twenty-first century.
——————————
Speaking of “alternative religions”, Krista Tippet’s guest on “On Being” this morning quoted the head Druid of the U.K. (approvingly).
My wife asked me, “when we saw candidate Trump, five years ago, mocking a reporter (who had a physical disability) at one of his rallies, why didn’t his campaign just end right there? How did he get elected in the first place?”
My answer was: “Candidate Trump was promoted by the mainstream media as the least-electable Republican, the most easily beaten by Hilary Clinton, as well as the most entertaining.” They gave him the publicity that more responsible candidates could have used, and have never admitted their culpability in his election. (This belief on my part was informed by an item in the Podesta e-mail leak, in which someone mentioned a Democratic Campaign strategy shared with their friends in the media to promote Trump as the weakest opponent.) Naturally, having “created the problem”, they did their best to “correct” it.
What our foreign readers may not appreciate is that our elections are organized by state and by county, and some urban counties are, actually, on the order of 90-95% Democratic voting. When the membership becomes so dominant, the local races are decided in the Democratic Primary, so anyone who wants a voice in local government has to register as a Democrat (since many Primary elections are segregated by party). When the local structures of government are so heavily weighted to one party, there’s really very little check on fraud. Even without outright bogus ballots, election procedures can be inconsistent in ways that favor one party or the other. In rural areas, Republicans dominate, and generally try for strict, “honest” voting (such as official voter-ID, looking for trivial errors in mail-in ballot completion to reject the ballot), while in urban areas, Democrats try to “err on the side of the voter”, which also errs on the side of fraud.
If we had real solutions to offer for the predicaments of our age, we could press whoever gets elected to implement solutions. We don’t really expect elderly politicians to solve problems, do we?
David, by the lake
I would perhaps consider also, a proposal to disallow ANY congress volken the right to represent corporate/lobbies in any way, shape, or form – period ! whilst ensconced within their term, incluing donations .. of whatever kind .. cutting off the Influence $pigot completely.
Kimari/JMG:
Here is some styling to add comment numbering to the site if you like the idea – the markup is already on the page, but the numbers are hidden at present. JMG you just need to add it the bottom of styles.css.
/* add numbering to comments – copy below */
#comments ol {
counter-reset:commentcounter;
}
#comments li .comment-metadata a:before {
content: ‘#’ counter(commentcounter)’, ‘;
counter-increment:commentcounter;
}
/* copy above */
It looks like this.
@Matthias Gralle – “In other words, there is no strong evidence, much less proof, that antibodies raised against any part of Covid-19 will in fact react with any human protein or specifically Syncytin. There are some initial suggestions, which are not particularly significant, but if somebody is willing to invest time, money and reputation into testing that hypothesis, they can do so.”
Indeed. However in the absence of willingness to invest that kind of time, money and reputation into testing that (along with many other hypotheses of how this can go wrong), the required testing is now being carried out in the human bodies of (I hope) the willing and (I doubt) informed.
One major difference between the corporate standard for technological safety and a layperson’s standard for technological safety is that the corporate inventor/purveyor is quite willing to deploy in the world for so long as there is an absence of evidence of harm.
Whereas most laypeople would much prefer the technology not be deployed until after there is presence of evidence of safety.
So long as the corporate standard of safety is the one applied (absence of evidence of harm), and so long as the corporate thumb can press upon the scales and prevent this evidence being gathered, or being credited, or being studied, technologies will continue to be recklessly deployed in haste, while their harms are reckoned and repented of at leisure.
On searching for the last-read post: I scroll clear down to the bottom, to “Leave a Reply. Then scroll back up until I see one I’ve read, or until I see yesterday’s date at the last time I was online. That way I only have to look through, in this case, 7 posts instead of 793.
@yves vetter:
You ask why I take such a dim view of our elections. There are several reasons …
(1) I have seen this attitude constantly where I have lived since 1967 (Providence, Rhode Island). The longest-serving mayor of this city was a crook and quite open about it. Finally he was convicted of some crime or other, and he spent some years in federal prison. Once he was released, he ran for mayor of the city again, and was again elected to that office by a large majority of the voters. “He may be a crook, but he’s our crook” (that is, a crook who will fight dirty for our side) was the usual reason given. It was almost his unofficial campaign slogan. Most of the opposition to him came from the academic community and the upper classes, who looked down on him as a lower-class politician, crass and crude. For the average Providence voter, his being crass and crude was decidedly a point in his favor. A mayor who belonged to the PMC would have seemed as alien and unfathomable to them as some squamous and rugose monster from the depths of space. (So I never had any trouble understanding why so many voters favored Trump, though he always struck me as a con-artist of only middling competence, not able to handle the actual demands of the job he aspired to win.)
(2) For all those years I have also been a professor at the local Ivy-League university, definitely an upper-crust institution. What I have seen of Ivy-League academic life from the inside long ago beat every last bit of youthful idealism out of me. My wife is a specialist in animal behavior. Whenever I would tell her about something I had seen happen in academe, or been compelled to deal with, she would point out strong parallels to the usual behavior of chimpanzees or baboons in their troops. I eventually concluded that the default setting for humanity, apart from a few admirable individuals who strove against their biology and social conditioning, was that of “hairless chimpanzees with language”: hoot, pant; hoot, pant …
(3) Fortunately, I also happened to be the grandson (on my father’s side) of a couple of generations of quite successful con-artists and professional criminals, so I had already picked up a modicum of the life-skills needed to recognize what was going on both in the city and in the university. And I was not emotionally invested in being a member of any elite. None of my ancestors had been anything remotely like elite: my mother’s father was a boilermaker, a gunsmith and a machinist. Professoring was just my current job, not my identity. At the time it seemed to me to be a matter of sheer chance and luck that I had ended up with that cushy (if disillusionizing) job; I did not actively seek such a position, but was gently pushed into it by strange circumstances. I had aspired to be a locksmith, and for decades, while I worked as a professor, I continued to improve my skills in locksmithing — as well as I could from books and from bench-work on actual locks — just in case that other job of mine didn’t pan out.
Of course, everyone’s view of the world is inevitably shaped by their circumstances and background, by their parents and other relatives, and by the challenges they have met (or failed to meet). Certainly mine has been. Other people, growing up otherwise than I did, will view the world differently, and come to different conclusions. That’s fine with me: differences and the impermanence of all things is what makes life enjoyable and exciting.
Teresa in Hershey – Thanks a million for the discourse on buttons… 🙂
Yes, absolutely, inventions are rare but the following of trends is not. So if there are plenty of people who play with stuff and, while doing so, invent things, if those things are useful and doable, they will catch on and spread. But people are rather inventive, so we will never get to an end of that kind of convivial technology with startling innovations from time to time which quickly become trendy.
Complex society which facilitates complex technology is what is just now peaking, and also creaking, and its peaking & creaking is probably what causes reflection on technology vs biology to appear as a set of poles of opposition upon which we are all strung out and stretched way too tight just now. 😉
All–
Was it Twain who once said that while history doesn’t repeat itself, it often rhymes very well?
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/collateralized-debt-obligations-way-defi-140016963.html
[shakes head] What could possibly go wrong?
>The financial crisis in this respect can therefore be said to have been in significant part a religious crisis.
A spiritual bankruptcy always precedes the financial one.
Greetings, all,
I’m harking back to Robert Mathiesen’s comments on On the character of the European immigrants who settled North America—and I have a question:
My ancestry is ¾ German, most of them came in the mid-19th century, and they definitely fit that second-wave “farmer” profile that Timothy Dwight describes: farmers that moonlighted, shopkeepers, a couple architects, some Lutheran preachers, and a lot of teachers. They lived all the virtues of the teutonic bourgeoisie, very down-to-earth folks.
Most of them left the Old Country because of hard times, political disturbances, aversion to military service, and lack of opportunity. But the last straw for Xavier Aleck was when the Pope was declared infallible. When asked why he didn’t go to church, he said he had nothing against it, except he “just didn’t believe all that stuff”.
The other quarter of my ancestry that isn’t German is a motley crew, and they came earlier. A Frenchman who’d been in the business of finishing silk, and slipped out of Paris a day before they set up the guillotine. Even earlier, some English that came over with John Winthrop to Massachusetts Colony. My aunts and my mother who did the genealogical research on them had no reason to think the Gages and Tuckers who came over with Winthrop were anything but staunch Puritans, but this blog has given me to understand that Winthrop and the folks that came over with him were something else again.
And on that subject, I have a question for Robert Matheisen as an expert on the occult life of New England. I distinctly remember someone mentioning a Gage in the Winthrop colony who was notorious for activities that would have got her hung as a witch in some places. I thought I saved that information, but I can’t locate it. Now that my brother, whom I always thought of as a big oaf, has started having precognitive dreams and impressive success at bibliomancy, and then there’s me. . . . . Maybe something DOES run in the family. I am really curious about what those Gages may have been up to in the Massachusetts Colony.
Can someone point me to something in print that might fill me in?
@ polecat
Re $ and Congress critters
I’d suggest an amendment that says only persons capable of voting (that is “natural persons” who are citizens and of voting age, not corporate persons) are allowed to contribute to political campaigns.
@ polecat
Preferably, an amendment ending corporate personhood altogether!
@scotlyn:
The lemonde article with the leaks on vaccine approval (posted by DFC) contains a discussion of why the European Union insisted on approving the Pfizer vaccine as a temporary, but regular vaccine, including their being responsable for any harm done to the vaccined, while the USA and UK went ahead and approved the same vaccine under emergency rules, with no responsability.
Mattias Gralle wrote, “In other words, there is no strong evidence, much less proof, that antibodies raised against any part of Covid-19 will in fact react with any human protein or specifically Syncytin. There are some initial suggestions, which are not particularly significant, but if somebody is willing to invest time, money and reputation into testing that hypothesis, they can do so.”
Didn’t it used to be the pharmaceutical company, which stood to profit from its patented discovery, that was required to invest the time, money, and reputation in proving its treatment was in fact both safe and delivered benefit? It has always been true that any random schmoe can expend his own resources testing hypotheses whose results, confirming or disconfirming, will in no way ever profit him. Though you are kind to let the world’s schmoes know that that route to bankruptcy remains open to them.
We used to have enough integrity as a culture to require the entity that would eventually profit up the yin-yang from all the patent law and government subsidies tilted to its advantage to be the one that performs all the tedious and costly testing needed to ensure safety and benefit. That was considered a basic cost of doing business in the particularly lucrative field of legal drugs. Given how insanely profitable the pharmaceutical-development field has historically been, I have to assume that something fundamental must have changed for our regulators to have been willing to abandon good governance and put the populace’s health at risk in order to absolve/rescue the pharmaceutical giants from their historic requirement of preforming thorough safety testing. I wonder how that simple cost of doing business became such a burden that Big Pharma needed rescuing from it?
Perhaps what changed, as exemplified by the Sackler family pushing Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin on an unsuspecting populace, is that the unfettered greed and hubris of the pharmaceutical executives has left them drifting ethically-unmoored. But that wouldn’t explain our politicians’ newfound willingness to dance feverishly on the third-rail of courting public health disasters. All politicians are constantly monitoring for potential scandals to erupt and continually positioning themselves to avoid getting tainted by them. Why this sudden enthusiasm for transferring risks off the medical industry and onto the politicians’ own heads (by way of putting the populace at risk first, of course)? Is there an even more career-destroying scandal they hope to skirt by embracing what they perceive to be lesser risks?
Did US politicians finally realize the risks associated with keeping a dying medical industry alive through government life support? Did they wake up to the fact that by screening off the ICU so the public wouldn’t ever look in and recognize our medical industry for the goner it is, they have set themselves up to receive all the blame and rage when our medical extraction racket finally goes belly up? Do they really think the blowback for being in office while our corrupt, bloated medical aristocracy implodes upon itself will somehow be more that the blowback for overseeing the poisoning, disabling, or killing of any significant percent of their constituents with “cures”? Surely, they do recognize how badly the latter would turn out for them.
It may just come down to a probabilities assessment — a near 100% likelihood that the whole industry collapses messily on their watch, versus a somewhat lower likelihood of untested vaccine technologies doing in enough of the populace to cause political fallout. I am quite loathe to place my own trust in the prognostications of political operatives who pretty universally espouse the tenets of the religion of Progress. If they can’t even entertain the notion that things might get worse rather than better, their probability assessment is going to turn out just a tad biased.
What is the actual probability that an insufficiently tested vaccine technology, one that managed to kill every feline lab subject it was tested on, will end up harming its recipients? I have absolutely no idea. What have they changed since it proved universally fatal? How does it affect feline and primate populations differently? What are they reporting publicly? What are they hiding? One litmus test might be to see if the Sackler family, with their deep appreciation of the moral relativism infesting the pharmaceutical industry, feels comfortable undergoing these new vaccines that have been sworn every bit as safe as OxyContin once was.
I will wait until proper product testing can be done (either in lab trials or on an unsuspecting populace) to rule out choking hazard, autoimmune disorder, risk of electric shock, narcolepsy, fire hazard, etc. Until the manufacturer is willing to take responsibility for all risks resulting from its product’s use, I have to assume it remains deeply concerned just how extensive those risks will finally end up being. With the sprawling infrastructure of testing labs we have throughout the US, the problem would not seem to be the exorbitant cost of testing, but rather the exorbitant cost of potentially failing the tests. An industry that now needs that long-established hurdle removed would appear to be in pretty bad shape. If product testing has become too burdensome for the existing US pharmaceutical industry to practice, perhaps it shouldn’t continue existing or practicing at all.
@Scotlyn:
“Whereas most laypeople would much prefer the technology not be deployed until after there is presence of evidence of safety. ”
No disagreement with your post here, but I would add that in the case of coronavirus, these inadequately tested, so-called “vaccines” were approved for emergency use in the face of abundant, clear and persuasive evidence of grave harm being caused by the unchecked transmission of the virus, and the political and economic fallout from it.
It is, by any reasonable analysis, a desperate situation and desperate measures are being employed.
“Just over a year after the virus was first identified and around ten odd months after the WHO declared covid-19 a pandemic its spread continues unabated. Much of the world is in one or other form of official “lockdown” and the ethos of “social distancing”, the wearing of face masks in public and hand sanitization has been ubiquitously adopted. All of this is set to continue well in 2021, at a minimum, but more probably, until an effective vaccine is developed, tested, and universally rolled out. It would be remiss not to mention that the idea of compulsory vaccination, albeit by irresistible persuasion and not physical force, is an Orwellian nightmare scenario for many.”
https://appliedjung.com/confession-tertius-2020/
Thank you Luna Apprentice, Cicada Grove and all. I’ll do my best to wade through. I wish some of them had actually gone to court so that merits of cases needed to be argued.
Candace
Lunar Apprentice,
I’ve seen the affidavits, but I think there’s a misunderstanding here. As I explain this please keep in mind I’m relying on my American Law and Society civics course from nearly a decade ago.
In US jurisprudence an affidavit can be submitted as evidence, but that doesn’t mean it will necessarily be accepted as evidence in the pre-trial discovery process. During the discovery process the lawyers each side must present their evidence before the judge. The judge then ask the lawyers to explain how they gathered the evidence (this is called discovery…I think), and how the determined whether the evidence was valid.
The validity of the evidence depends on the type of evidence. For example, if the a lawyer presents a gun as evidence in a murder trial, then they have to explain how to gun was found, processed, stored, how it was determined that the gun was the weapon used, and etc. If, on the other hand an affidavit is presented then it the responsibility of the lawyer to determine the character of the person who’s testimony is in the affidavit.
The process of investigation requires a lawyer to interview the person in question, determine their character through background investigation, determine whether they are of sound or unsound mind, and etc. There are of course multiple other steps, but those are the ones that I remember. Lawyers are extremely particular about asking for sworn affidavits, because it’s very time consuming for them to go out an investigate a witness statement.
What the Trump administration did was use a shotgun approach. They publicly asked for supporters or people with knowledge of alleged impropriety to submit affidavits. In the process several affidavits were submitted that the Trump campaign’s lawyers were able to determine were false, and others that the campaigns lawyers were unable to determine were true or false, and several that had no bearing on the cases in question. In one particular case in PA, the judge threw out the case in pre-trial because the lawyers had submitted about the provable false ones and the indeterminate ones (under penalty of perjury). He pointed out to the lawyers that if their process of gathering evidence could not functionally determine which were false, then the process itself was in question. That was repeated in multiple cases across the country.
I’ve read through several affidavits, though not nearly a majority, and it’s pretty clear that there are many of them that do not understand what actually counts as legal impropriety in the electoral process. Things as petty as “person was wearing a BLM hat while counting ballots,” are included in the pile. That isn’t to say there aren’t ANY valid claims, just that if a judge cannot determine the validity of the process of evidence of gathering during pre-trial, there is no way in hell they’ll allow the case to proceed any further. It’s been a standard of American jurisprudence for ages.
I would also like to thank you for the comprehensive list you provided. The MSM sources I’ve read would often only link evidence related to the particular case they were talking about, but never the whole list.
Regards,
Varun
Christophe – You ask why there’s so little risk imposed on the Big Pharma companies? Don’t just look to the executives who seek to profit, but to the stockholders too, and not just the set of individual stockholders (which probably overlaps significantly with the set of federal lawmakers), but also every one of us who expects to collect a pension from institutional funds invested in the market. Don’t we expect our lawmakers to protect our investments (by proxy) in every publicly held company, and the bonds issued by privately-held corporations?
Does everyone know (with varying degrees of certainty) that it’s all a house of cards, and that they don’t want to be blamed for disturbing it? As I write this, a zesty blend of snow, freezing rain, and sleet is falling in my neighborhood. What do you do when your car hits a patch of ice? “Slow down, speed up, or change direction: pick just one.” We’re all skidding along through this pandemic and economic mess (which started before the pandemic), hoping that we’ll hit dry pavement some time soon and can regain some degree of control.
David by the Lake:
Another restriction involving political campaigns that should be in place is: You cannot contribute to, nor work for a campaign in which you are not allowed to vote for the candidate or proposition.
I live in San Francisco, California. I can vote for the Governor of California, so I should be able to contribute to, or work for one of the candidates. I can vote for Mayor of SF, and my district supervisor, therefore I should be able to contribute to, and work for any of these campaign. However, I should not be allowed to contribute to a campaign for the Governor of Nevada, or New York, or wherever. Likewise, I should not be able to contribute to campaigns for officials in Oakland or Los Angeles.
Antoinetta III
Patricia Matthews quoted, “Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.”
Good Lord! I hope I don’t ever have to meet whatever unfortunate offspring that improbable union would have begot. Now that I have involuntarily contemplated the annunciation of Ayn and her heretofore undisclosed immaculate conception, I have a whole new appreciation for Oxford commas.
Once more on the risk of vaccines:
Christophe, see my comment slightly above yours regarding liability of vaccine producers. The US decided to go on a different path than other countries.
Scotlyn, Christophe and everybody: I am quite uncomfortable with mRNA vaccines being used for the first time in humans on such a large scale. It is the unknown unknowns, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, that make me uncomfortable, and those cannot be excluded beforehand. Risks can only be mitigated by ramping up the treated population slowly, and the vaccine company should be liable for all harm caused.
The homology with syncytin is a known unknown and can easily be tested for a few thousand dollars in a lab that routinely does such tests, or for some tens of thousands of dollars in a contract lab. Samples of a positive control (spike protein itself), a negative control (papaya or whatever) and different concentrations of syncytin can be sent to a contract lab in barcoded and otherwise identical recipients, together with anti-Covid antiserum, to make sure the contract lab doesn’t falsify the results. Among all those who speak of the dangers of these vaccines, from President Bolsonaro of Brazil to millions of ordinary citizens, would it be impossible to find a donor, or make a fundraising campaign, to test this hypothesis in an actual experiment, and then lay either the vaccine or the accusation to rest? The bioinformatic evidence isn’t very strong, and I can think of many other potential risks the vaccine company should rather be forced to exclude before making it test this unlikely hypothesis. As I wrote above to Cicada Grove, ANY viral protein might have a homology to SOME human protein that is at least as strong as the homology between Covid-19 spike protein and syncytin.
Dear Goldenhawk,
Please remember that there is a great deal of solid doubt as to evidence of any ‘grave harm’ from the virus.
I personally know precisely zero people who have died from it. I know more people who have died from medical malpractice, organ failure, cancer, old age, single car single occupant accidents, AND bicycle struck by car accidents in the same time frame. We’re waiting on stroke: my friend had one a week before Christmas and as of today’s update 65% chance the brain surgery worked. I do know people who have been hospitalized supposedly due to Covid, but any pneumonia would have landed them in the hospital, and the total cases are about the same number as 2019. I have a lot of friends 25-60 years older than me. Pneumonia is a regular problem, but there have been no non-Covid pneumonias this year. Either Covid has eliminated all other pneumonia causes or it’s just occuring together with them. My friend who had Covid while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation described her case as like a not bad flu. (And if anyone was going to get really sick, you’d think 65+ in middle of cancer treatment would be the one, but she wasn’t: supposedly healthier friends got much sicker.)
Given the understanding that the official numbers are unreliable, to me this looks like any regular year as far as deaths by disease go.
I will give you grave harm from the political shenanigans surrounding the virus, but as for the virus itself, it’s no measles. My mom can name kids from her elementary class every year through fourth grade (when her dad’s coworker’s vaccine got approved) who died from polio. This is not such a disease. It isn’t killing like those did, and the hype is obviously worse than the disease.
Christophe – ” With the sprawling infrastructure of testing labs we have throughout the US, the problem would not seem to be the exorbitant cost of testing, but rather the exorbitant cost of potentially failing the tests.”
Exactly. Exactly.
And, as I think the commenter Patricia in Japan would be able to testify, this provision extends a long way beyond the medical industry. Other technologies are equally happy to deploy in the condition of “absense of evidence of harm” (onus on people to PROVE harm), as opposed to waiting for the condition of “presence of evidence of safety (onus on the deployer to PROVE safety).
One could mention the extensive pesticide/herbicide industry, which is now beginning to be “found out” through legal discovery.
I expect a similar story might eventually play out in court regarding various forms of wireless technologies and electrical technologies, as well as the stories we are already familiar with in the pharmaceutical industry repeatedly being found, through legal discovery, to have known and hidden their knowledge of harms, including from the supposedly fraud proof peer review process.
Somehow, somewhere, the onus to produce products one knows to be safe and beneficial has been shifted away from the producer and onto the general public. Which lacks the strength of thumb to press the scales the other way, so long as corporations can both impede discovery of harms, and can impugn the discoverers of harms and delay, delay, delay addressing them until way past the point of rescue for anyone harmed.
@Goldenhawk – I second your opinion. It was a choice between letting COVID run rampant, with all the damage that’s been amply documented, vs. rushing the vaccine, knowing it may carry some risk. Anyone can decline the vaccine is they so choose. I chose to take it and assume the risk, as did most of my family. YMMV.*
*Your Mileage May Vary.
@ Goldenhawk.
We have some desperate problems but that doesn’t necessarily mean that gathering ALL of our gold and handing it all over to proven hucksters on a gamble is a sensible way to solve any of them. There may be other options, sitting in plain sight, some of them a lot cheaper and more cost effective if only we go looking for them.
I would point out that there is a group of frontline doctors (linked to by another commenter above), who have been doing what any public health department worth its salt SHOULD have been doing. They have been looking into the repurposing of existing medicines and into actively developing useful protocols for treating the sick people in their care. They have not only found enormous success with their protocols, they are also finding out that some of these protocols can be readily adapted for prophyllaxis (very useful for preventing sickness in all those high-risk and high-exposure people who are especially at risk) and also in the early stage treatment of Covid-19 which in many cases is left altogether untreated. Here in Ireland, the advice is all oriented towards, “don’t catch and don’t spread” but if you get sick, the only advice is “stay home” and don’t go near the doctor’s unless you can’t breathe. I’m realy happy to glad to see they are working to get the word out, educating other doctors to this effect, because sick people have been by far the biggest losers in our standard public health responses so far!
What these doctors are doing is filling that very large hole in public health that has shown up everywhere where public health departments have become beholden to corporate interests instead of public benefit. They are trying to convey to family doctors that EARLY treatment of Covid patients can very effectively prevent them needing LATE and EMERGENCY treatment in ICU’s, by which time the damage is often too advanced To me, this is what is exactly missing from the public health campaigns that have all been about preventing spread in healthy people and being overwhelmed in ICU’s by seriously sick people is ANY plan of treatment for the mildly ill, and ANY plan of preventive medicine (other than experimental and speculative vaccines and m-RNA medical devices).
These doctors are doing it. And people who are sick with Covid are better for their work! More power to them.
Here is the link again for anyone interested. https://covid19criticalcare.com/
@ Yves Vetter: regarding “…in the USA a very large fraction of the citizenry do not actually want “fair and free elections,” though they give lip service to the concept. They actually want elections that can be gamed, and they want to be the ones who succeed at gaming them.”
When I pointed out to my wife that the use of electronic voting machines makes it easier to cheat, she approved, if it allowed the people in charge of the machines to get rid of Trump. I know the plural of anecdote is not data.
Yesterday, at my church’s (virtual) coffee hour, almost every other person in the room of 20 expressed their relief at the inauguration of Biden. It’s a Unitarian Church, so everyone in the room was a card carrying member of the PMC. I said that I was worried that Biden was likely to repeat the actions of the Obama administration which lead to the election of Trump, shown by his selection of Obama retreads for most cabinet positions. That was a bucket of cold water on the happy talk.
More interesting thing for me was the content of the sermon, by our Minister Emeritus, also a Zen Priest. He spoke of the beginning of a new religiosity in the denomination around the idea of Universalism, which is to say belief in universal salvation. Our denomination, the Unitarian UniversalistAssociation, was formed by the merger of the Unitarian and Universalist churches in the early 1960s. The Unitarians have from a long tradition of intellectualism: Emerson was amongst the early leaders in the split with trinitarian churches. The Universalists, espousing a belief in universal salvation, come from a more working class and small holder background. The Unitarian roots are much stronger, so it was surprising to hear that from the Minister. He is from a working class background, but has climbed into the PMC.
@ Patricia Mathews
As the old classic goes – I think from the dedication of an old-time somebody from the right wing, I forgot who, . “Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.”
Brilliant! And as Christophe noted, not a little disturbing to contemplate…
Somebody cut an internet cable in Brooklyn and now a good part of north-east US is suffering from internet outages. Either they knew what cable to cut or the internet infrastructure is just that brittle. Could this be an act of resistance? Are we going to have people cut internet cables all over the country now?
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/brooklyn-fiber-cut-appears-cause-east-coast-verizon-fios-outage/
Peter van Erp – re “the plural of anecdote is [not] data” …. it turns out that this is a widely disseminated MISquotation… 🙂
http://blog.danwin.com/don-t-forget-the-plural-of-anecdote-is-data/
@Kimari If you click on the date/time stamp of the last comment you’ve read, the URL will update to include a “bookmark” to the comment # of that last comment – like so: https://www.ecosophia.net/into-the-unknown-region/#comment-59224. That’s how I keep track of where I am in the comment chain.
@Peter van Erp, @Robert Mathiesen and others
Thanks for your reply and the data points regarding your wife and congregation.
I think JMG has discussed the distinction between two categories of professions: first those professions that involve non-negotiable feedback from the physical world (e.g. most trades); and second those professions that lack physical feedback and rely instead on subjective evaluation by peers (e.g. most professional managerial occupations). The experience I related, of folks who mostly just want fair and transparent elections, is with trades-people (where I live usually self-identified R’s) and owners and employees of smaller business (where I live mostly self-identified D’s). These folks, although both D and R, are squarely in the first category ID’d by JMG, those whose livelihood depends on feedback from the physical world. Could it be that the difference between what I am seeing, and what you and Robert Mathiesen report, is due to the different categories of people we know?
Whatever the cause, it seems ominous to me. I had thought we all agreed that “The ends don’t justify the means”. If Ends justifying Means is now becoming acceptable even among Unitarian Universalists (the church I was raised in BTW), we are in deep trouble, as that seems a sure path to violence.
Hello all, I have just happened on an article in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which jumps the shark altogether. Article link:
pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/137/4/e20154154
The article starts by telling us that, to the authors great dismay, “Promoting breastfeeding as “natural” [which way too many doctors, public health departments and others, including the American Academy of Pediatrics itself, have inadvertently been doing] may be ethically problematic, and, even more troublingly, it may bolster this belief that “natural” approaches are presumptively healthier”.
And this is problematic, why? Well, because this presumption may “ultimately challenge public health’s aims in other contexts, particularly childhood vaccination.”
“Public health’s aims”… take note, I’ll come back to this.
I was immediately intrigued, as this article seems to be outlining, almost word for word, one of the narrative poles I referred to earlier – the one that centres on “trust of technology” and on “mistrust of biology”.
So, what ARE the dangers that come with promoting breastfeeding as “natural”, you may ask. As, of course, I did.
The authors, who declare no conflicting interests, give us a lengthy list of them.
1) the benefits of breastfeeding, as “a spate of recent work” shows, may be overstated
2) promoting breastfeeding may be unethically “stigmatizing” non-breastfeeders
3) “Condemnatory discussion of vaccine refusal” (apparently this type of condemnation passes the author’s ethical sniff test) reveals that a “not necessarily illogical worldview is discernable – a rejection of the manufactured, the synthetic and the ‘unnatural’ and an embrace of the ‘natural’ as healthier and intrinsically better.”
4) This worldview leads not only to vaccine refusal or hesitancy, but to the creation of “networks of like-minded individuals with similar beliefs, which overlap with…
5) …reliance on and interest in complementary and alternative medicine…
6) …skepticism of institutional authority, and…
7) …a strong commitment and interest in health knowledge, autonomy and healthy living practices.
8) rejection of genetically modified foods
9) a preference for organic over conventionally grown foods
10 rejection of assisted reproductive technologies
11) concerns over environmental toxins and water fluoridation.
Well, I looked this list over, and I found it was fairly easy to identify that in every single case, there IS a live corporate financial and reputational interest that is actively undermined or contradicted at each of these points. Yes, incuding “skepticism of institutional authority”. Why?
Well, this is because of the sentence after the enumeration of all these hazards, which reads: “this view that ‘natural’ is synonymous with ‘better’ may work against **specific public health goals**.”
I wonder if the authors realise that they are letting the cat out of the bag here. It does not take two minutes to work out that the goals of “public health” which they say are endangered by this preference for the “natural” coincide most precisely with the goals of some corporate bureaucracy. That is to say, “institutional authority” is now, for all practical purposes, indistinguishable from “corporate authority” – at least where public health is concerned.
However this is not the end of the story, no it is not. Because there are more “inadvertent” fails that can occur when breastfeeding is promoted as “natural”. Because, when you do this, you may also “inadvertently endorse a controversial set of values about family life and gender roles, which would be ethically inappropriate.” This is because “coupling nature with motherhood… can inadvertently support biologically deterministic arguments about the roles of men and women in the family (for example, that women should be the primary caretakers of children).”
Reading this, I have realised one thing. This narrative is actually absurd and irrational. It would only make sense if each and everyone of us was born with a “corporate-solution-deficiency” which we could NEVER solve for ourselves.
Who could believe such an absurd narrative? Not I, said the little red hen…
Hi all
In this reddit threads people are putting their experiences after the Covid jabs (adverse events, etc…):
https://www.reddit.com/r/CovidVaccinated/
You have to read there or in twitter or in facebook or the like because if you try to acces to VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) from some days ago is down:
https://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html
One of the threads that attracted my attention was about the changes in the women’s period after the jabs, and problems of “swollen boobs”, more bleeding than usual and others issues that could indicate some changes in the hormonal system of women (related to PMS or similar):
https://www.reddit.com/r/CovidVaccinated/comments/l3uli1/swollen_boobs/
I haven’t read anything about this kind of reactions after the jabs in the FDA report for Pfizer vaccine approval for emergency use, but it seems it is not so rare event at all, and I do not know what could means.
On the other hand we have to wait still 1 or 2 weeks to take any conclusion, but with more than 50% of the population of Israel older than 70 years had the two doses from around two weeks ago, but yesterday they had the highest number of new cases with severe cases of Covid of all the pandemic (the full effect of the jabs is expected after 1 week of the second dose). Anyhow, of course, it is too early to draw a conclusion, but the benefits should start to arise soon, and the benefits must be in the number of severe cases and the mortality, because, as all of you know, in the trials they even did not measure the effect on infections or transmission of vaccinated people.
Cheers
David
Hi again
From early in the pandemic not only Dr. Gallagher, but also others have been saying that some of the strong inflamation, cytokine storm and other symptoms that have the severe Covid cases seems to be related to some auto-immune reactions probably due to the homology of the proteins of the virus to some proteins of the patients, and in this article the author recommended an screening of the homology of the proteins of the virus to avoid include any of them with human homology in the vaccine:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7142689/
They didn’t
It isn’t killing like those did, and the hype is obviously worse than the disease.
Damn straight.
rabtter: So, I guess what you’re saying is that if the seasonal influenza has an R0 of 1.3 under normal conditions, and COVID-19 has an R0 of 3 (just to put a number on it, because estimating it is hard), our non-medical mitigations (distance, masks, and hand-washing) might cut each number in half. That’s enough to push influenza well below 1.0, but COVID-19 is still well above it, and (by the formula for exponential growth), anything below 1.0 fades away (almost), while anything above 1.0 grows without bound. That makes sense to me. Thanks for the explanation. I hope that it’s right.
The Washington Post had a big article today on MANY viral diseases that are dramatically lower this year, and how experts expect a rebound as we’ll come out of this pandemic having had less exposure to the other diseases. Apparently, some regular, low-level exposure maintains immunity (for those who are strong enough to fight it off). An immune reaction to one virus also seems to prevent any other virus from getting a foothold, so COVID-19 might be displacing other viruses, too.
For a long time, I have speculated that group singing in church provides exactly the frequent, low-level exposure that we need! Doing it weekly gives the disease time to incubate, so the vicious viruses don’t spread, but milder viruses do. (Crowded housing, on the other hand, allows a more vicious virus to pass from person to person within days, which apparently was a factor in the 1918 outbreak in the military.)
@ Scotlyn
That’s a very important point. The doctors have been ‘disintermediated’ during corona. The whole thing has been run out of public health bureaucracies. The government has intervened in the doctor-patient relationship in multiple ways including telling doctors what treatments they can and can’t give their patients. This was all done in the name of ‘protecting the hospitals/health system’.
This top-down approach doesn’t work. The whole 20th century showed that. One of the main strengths of western societies has been to have a robust civil society and an independent professional class (including medical professionals) who are not beholden to government and, in fact, are able to push back against dumb government actions. That professional class has been silenced during corona all in the name of pushing the vaccine agenda.
I view corona as just the latest development in the capture of government by corporate interests. I’m really, really, hoping some of the courts cases against the public health response are successful. Government needs to be held account.
BoysMom:
“Given the understanding that the official numbers are unreliable, to me this looks like any regular year as far as deaths by disease go.”
I know of one person who died from covid. My 93 year old neighbor fell inside her home last month, was taken to a hospital, then transferred to a nursing home, where she caught covid. Or so I heard.
I would say the official numbers may be unreliable, but they are still telling us something. I have thought from the beginning that there’s been too much hype and over-reaction. I remember last spring when Dr Fauci predicted that we could have 100,000 – 200,000 covid deaths in the US, and I thought, no way! it could never get that high!
Well, here we are at 400,000 deaths and counting. I have to believe there is at least a core of truth in the stories from around the world about a great many people getting very sick and dying from covid…my personal anecdotal evidence notwithstanding.
Scotlyn:
I completely agree about looking for alternative treatments. I made a donation to the frontline doctors group a couple of weeks ago.
And yes, spot on about the pharmaceutical companies. It hadn’t occurred to me to think about their entanglement with public health departments, but of course, it makes sense.
@ Scotlyn
Re that breastfeeding article
Wow. Just wow.
Do the authors not understand how plainly they’ve laid out their agenda? Any reasonably clear-thinking reader is going to understand what they’re saying there.
DFC,
I really hope I’m wrong, but this looks like exactly what I was afraid of: the vaccine side effects are being labelled Covid, in order to justify the vaccines. It can’t be a coincidence that so many places are seeing a spike in cases requiring hospitalization and medical treatment, much worse than anything before, at the same time the vaccines are being distributed…..
@yves vetter:
The ether seems to have eater my first (rather lengthy) reply to your query. Here’s another version of what I wrote:
My take on Americans and their elections is based largely on my 50+ years of residence in Providence, RI, and also on my own family background. To a much lesser extent, it is also based on my interactions with my fellow academics at the local Ivy-League university.
Providence is (apart from a few exceptional neighborhoods) a solidly working-class city, almost exclusively Democratic. Since the mid-1930s its politics have been quite tightly controlled by the Democratic Party machine; only in the last decade or two has the grip of that machine somewhat loosened. The machine had found a very clever, entirely legal way to game the state’s system of elections, secret ballots notwithstanding.
How it worked was explained to me by a friend, not too long after I had arrived in the city. She had been a life-long member of the local machine. When we became friends she was already quite elderly, but she still worked the local polls every election.
Basically, the machine kept extensive records of all the registered Democrats, including detailed list of all their relatives and–this is the key point–who among them (almost always many of them) worked for the city government. (Most voters were, and still are, Roman Catholic, and she also told me that the parish priests were the ones who were the greatest help to the machine in keeping records on who was related to whom.)
Every such registered Democrat knew that every time he went to vote, he had to pretend that he did not understand how the voting machines worked, and thus needed poll workers to come into the booth with him to make sure he got it right. Of course, that meant that a poll worker from each party accompanied him into the voting booth and could see how he voted. Now these machines also had party master levers, so it didn’t take long for a voter to pull the master lever for the Democratic party; the poll workers didn’t have to do much to help. But the real reason they were in the booth with the voter was so that the Democratic poll worker could see that he had pulled the master lever for entire slate of Democratic candidates. If any registered Democrat did not do that, or did not invite the pollworkers into the booth with him, all of his relatives who worked for the city would find themselves fired the very next day–and they would be told precisely who among their relatives had bucked the machine’s system. So there was enormous unofficial family pressure on almost every Democrat to vote the strictest party line.
Nor was this pressure much resented, so far as I could tell: the machine gave jobs to loyal Democrats in great plenty, and most of these Democrats loved the machine and its crooked largesse. The longest-serving mayor of Providence (now deceased) was a very well-known peddler of political favors, who made no bones about his power and the need to curry his good will to get anything done in HIS city. A few of the city police were in his pocket, too, and would help out when he decided that someone had disrespected him and needed to be taught a violent lesson. All this was entirely out in the open. This mayor, eventually, was brought up on federal charges, and spend a few years in prison. When he returned from prison, the voters of Providence re-elected him as mayor by a substantial margin. The (unofficial) campaign slogan for him seems to have been: “He may be a crook, but he’s OUR crook.”
So much for the city. My own ancestors included a fair number of successful — that is, never arrested — con-artists and professional crooks. (They worked mostly in Oakland, California.) So I had grown up with stories of successful cons and how they had been worked, of businesses that fenced stolen goods, of corrupt and viscious police, and so forth. Nothing that the old lady in Providence told me was either a surprise or a shock. I already knew how that part of the world worked and what its values were. Loyalty, silence and obedience ranked high among them
I spent my working years as a professor at the local Ivy-League university, the first in my family ever to hob-nob with the upper crust. Ugh! When I could finally retire, I was so very glad to shake the dust of the place off my sandals! With a fair number of shining exceptions among my faculty colleagues (almost all of which exceptions were from similar non-privileged backgrounds), they seemed to me just as corrupt as the rest of the city, but unwilling to admit it even to themselves. To my great surporise, they actually had very, very little self-knowledge! Your average crook knows exactly what he is; your average academic does not, so far as I have observed. Or, if they do know on some level, they will never admit it even to themselves, but they spend their days living in a mirage of their own superior virtue and wisdom.
So I have an extremely jaundiced view of society — more precisely, of those parts of American society in which I have lived and worked — and especially of its elites. One of my favorite con-artist maxims is “There’s no one so easily conned as a highy educated man; he thinks he’s too smart to fall for any con.” That explains so much about the state of American politics.
So, the CDC’s VAERS (vaccine adverse effects reporting system) is “temporarily down for maintenance… for the next few hours.” Let’s hope that the “maintenance” means adding capacity due to popular demand, and not purging the database of problematic data.
Goldenhawk,
“I would add that in the case of coronavirus, these inadequately tested, so-called “vaccines” were approved for emergency use in the face of abundant, clear and persuasive evidence of grave harm being caused by the unchecked transmission of the virus, and the political and economic fallout from it.”
My understanding is that granting emergency use is only to be done when there are no available treatments. This is most certainly not the case as there are several.
The situation is far less desperate than the media presents it as.
Government needs to be held account.
If anything these circumstances have proven is that there’s apparently no reliable or effective means to hold anyone in government accountable, and THAT bodes very ill for everyone’s future.
Ecosophian, January 26, 2021 at 12:55 pm — You are wondering of the Verizon cable cut, “Could this be an act of resistance?”
It could. No guarantee that it is. But… there is this list…
Re COVID.
I’m.based in the UK. I personally know many people now who have had COVID. For most it was like a cold or flu, and didn’t have any lasting impact. For some it knocked them down for a week, and they describe it as being the worst flu they can remember (42yo male). A few have nearly died because it hit them really hard. I know 2 folks who have developed long-covid. A mother in her mid forties, and 3 months later still off work, unable to walk more then a couple of blocks without rest. She says that it has affected her cognitively, finding it hard to read, write and work in any meaningful way. For her it is a like a disability with no end in sight.
My sister works in a hospital on the front line. They have been extemely busy, and what I mean is they ended up having sick people queue outside in winter due to it being so full.
So I think for many of us, we wonder what the fuss is all about because it looks like a cold season. If you are one of the unlucky ones who get really hot, it can turn your life upside down.
IMO we may look back on this in 10 years time and say that the duration was the same as Spanish flu whether we locked-down or not, and the economic impact could be substantial, especially for smaller businesses. However the lock-down is managing (just) to stop us overwhelming the health service.
It will take some nerve to debate whether we should have let the sick people die and hospitals be overrun to save the economic impact and inconvenience of the majority for whom it is just a bad cold. I’m really not sure we can have any conversation in today’s highly charged political environment.
So in summary, I have seen enough to know it is not normal – COVID is real, and for a minority catastrophic. And I also see there is the double-blind in society not really having a way to talk about the real sacrifices and trade-off a here. Whichever way you go it is a highly problematic Hobson’s choice.
MCB
Ecosophian wrote, “Could this be an act of resistance? Are we going to have people cut internet cables all over the country now?”
That is certainly something I have been expecting. Now, I was expecting it on a much smaller scale, more of a death by a thousand cuts than a cut causing a thousand deaths (outages), like we got. As I hike through the forests every day, I pass under utility lines with absolutely no video cameras trained on them. Since the cable lines are usually the lowest ones hanging on the poles, sometimes they droop to just a few feet above hikers’ heads. I’ve been wondering how long it will be before disgruntled citizens, tired of being cancelled by an internet that allows them no voice, begin wielding hedge clippers and branch pruners to effect their own form of cancelling.
Our pearl-clutching media is far too stupid to do anything but amplify the cable-cutters’ reach by broadcasting their exploits, naturally with considerable disapproving tisk-tisking. One could even be forgiven for imagining they may have already made that mistake by hyping this recent cut. Whether it was accidental or intentional is kind of beside the point now that they have promoted this persuasive act nationally, with the kind of reach that only the mainstream can achieve. Or, could once achieve, back before they helped this cutting craze go viral. Just how stupid are they?
The seed of a new, alluring, and very disruptive narrative has been planted. If our new overlords imagined that threatening to silence and ruin every deplorable would make them all slink into hiding while continuing to buy into a system bent on their destruction, our overlords have a serious imagination deficit. Once the internet got turned into a weapon for ostracizing and stifling real discourse, plenty of those targeted are creative enough to re-imagine that internet as nothing but their enemy’s means to propagandize. And what do those who get marginalized tend to do to their enemy’s infrastructure?
Did these fools not realize why they had put so much effort into convincing everyone that they desperately wanted and needed internet access? All that effort to get everyone to buy-in and trust in the benevolence of the social media behemoths just got frittered away on a befuddled short-term political gain. Oops! If you don’t leave people with any encouraging reason to continue buying in, they may instead opt out, of your control. That’s a self-reinforcing trend since any successful disruption of internet cables will disrupt their propaganda, allowing others to move out of its shadow as well. It wouldn’t take very many people truly withdrawing their support to leave the internet’s infrastructure in shreds. And that’s just from re-evaluating allegiances domestically!
Internationally, what regime will feel comfortable relying on the good graces of Zuckerberg or Dorsey to continue being able to connecting with their citizens? Now that they have all seen the most powerful leader in the world silenced at the whim of Silicon Valley oligarchs, how many world leaders will be looking to control their own infrastructure, media platforms, server farms, etc.? Every vulnerability that was exploited to silence Parler is a “service” that the rest of the world will no longer want to pay America to provide them with, or possibly not provide them with, at the oligarchs’ whim. First, countries will turn to Russia, Europe, or China for access to already established alternative networks as a stopgap. Eventually, every regime will want to control all potential choke points domestically. In their recent panic, our media moguls destroyed the international markets they were so desperate to preserve. Oops! Imagination deficit really does have some serious drawbacks.
So, the age of global services is rapidly coming to a close while the old, tarnished image of nationalism will get rebranded as “possessing an age-tested, lustrous patina that globalism can’t hope to imitate.” It was pretty dumb for our overlords here to divide the American nation into warring camps just when coherent nation-states were about to become the fallback. If we manage to remain one country, once the internet cables become too spliced to be serviceable, will we have to go back to the pony express? No, there’s always good, reliable rail to depend on — well, the few remaining railroads we didn’t tear out in the US. At least there’s no possible way they could ever get sabotaged in acts of resistance…
As of 6:30 Wednesday morning, VAERS is still down “for a few hours”.
I recently found an article about the rise and fall of “Lodge Doctors” in relation to the more organized “formal medicine” of today. https://fee.org/articles/lodge-doctors-and-the-poor/
This seems like a topic that would be right up your alley — are you well versed in that particular bit of history? I’d love to see a post covering that topic some day.
@Boysmom
I know two people who’ve died of COVID: one was undergoing lung cancer treatment (not her first), and the other was elderly, obese, diabetic, and from what I’ve heard, totally noncompliant once she landed in the hospital. Either of them could just as easily have been taken out by the regular flu or any viral pneumonia. I also know two people who were sick and miserable with it, never went to the hospital, and are fine now. One was in her twenties and otherwise healthy, and the other a gentleman on the far side of fifty and living with serious chronic health problems.
Like you, I’m not seeing anything here on the ground that looks anything like as dire as the news is reporting. The usual number of people have been dying of cancer, heart attacks, strokes, etc., at the typical ages for such things.
@Scotlyn,
I notice the article is four years old and filled with the kind of
self-important verbiage typical of corporate flacks. More current
sites such as WebMD and the CDC still promote breastfeeding as better
than synthetic formula for the long-term health of the child. Apparently
nobody is listening.
And this little red hen doesn’t believe their narrative either…
JLfromNH
Christophe, consider that SpaceX’s internet satellite constellation will provide US-controlled and sabotage-resistant internet just about anywhere in the world using a pizza box sized receiver worth about 1000 dollars and needing 100 watts of power. There definitely are some deep connections with SpaceX and the USG that aren’t really public.
Of course, the Starlink constellation IS vulnerable to sabotage, but only in a very big and spectacular way – for instance some modern surface-to-air missiles can kill satellites in low earth orbit, and once enough Starlink satellites are killed, we’re off to the races with Kessler syndrome (at least for a while, the Starlink constellation is very low altitude).
Hi all
In UK the deaths in nursing care homes have tripled in a fortnight, ending 22-jan-21, I have to remind everybody that the massive vaccination in UK started in 8th-dec-20 and specifically with the target to vaccinate all the people in nursing homes, so I guess that the start of this increase is close to the date of the second dose of the vaccines, that give much more strong side effects:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9188551/Coronavirus-UK-Weekly-care-home-death-toll-triples-fortnight.html
If you consider the Dailymail a “tabloid” (which probably is), you can download an excel file with the raw data from the web of the Office of National Statistcs of UK:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/numberofdeathsincarehomesnotifiedtothecarequalitycommissionengland
Look a table 4 of the excel file, and you will see how the numbers of deaths increase from two weeks ago.
Similar phenomenon is happening in Gibraltar (the UK colony), it had only 10 deaths of Covid before the vaccination (in early jan-21) and from this date they have 60 deaths (they are 34.000 people), in worldometers if you filter by more deaths/million is the first country/territory to appear.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
On the other hand in Israel yesterday all the hospitals in Jerusalem were full, and some patients are outside inside the ambulances because there is no room from them in any hospital:
https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/1942573/israel-woman-dies-in-ambulance-as-all-j-m-hospitals-refuse-treatment.html
Israel is the more vaccinated country in the world (around 30% of the population) and almost all the people older than 70 years from two weeks ago have the two doses, but yesterday they had the high number of new severe cases in the country of all the pandemic, and today seems even worse, but the statistics do not grow because they cannot admit and record new patients, and probably many more are inside the nursing homes.
ADE? strong side effects? still the effects of the vaccine are not complete? I don’t know but it stink a bit.
I remind you also that Israel is in lockdown from 27 december last year, so only with the lockdown they should see a decrease in severe cases and deaths.
Or may be this could be related to this issue:
https://noorchashm.medium.com/a-letter-of-warning-to-fda-and-pfizer-on-the-immunological-danger-of-covid-19-vaccination-in-the-7d17d037982d
The doctor says:
“when viral antigens are present in the vascular endothelium, and especially in elderly and frail with cardiovascular disease, the antigen specific immune response incited by the vaccine is almost certain to do damage to the vascular endothelium. Such vaccine directed endothelial inflammation is certain to cause blood clot formation with the potential for major thromboembolic complications, at least in a subset of such patients”.
I know here in Spain they are not vaccinating the health care workers if their serology indicate they had Covid recently, but as far as I know, they vaccinate everybody even the frail and elderly without serology tests. It seems they do not want “side effects” from this in the health care workers, but the rest?…
On the other hand the VAERS web (CDC) is down for the third day in a row, when most needed because should be used as a tool for the physician in a mass vaccination program to investigate and consult the side effects and if they are normal or not, etc…. Too many days for a “glitch” isn’t it?
People say VAERS is suffering from a “Dominion-like” glitch.
May be I am completelly wrong (I hope) and may be we will see how the data show soon a complete success of the vaccines or may be I am not wrong and soon we will see some “distribution problems” with the vaccines and the vaccination start to slow-down very very quickly….just… to see is “something” have been wrong?
May be at the end doctors Yeadon & Wodarg were not lunatics.
Good luck
David
All–
An abbreviated energy-news update:
Not in *my* lake
https://www.observertoday.com/news/page-one/2021/01/borrello-argues-against-freshwater-wind-turbines/
Again, what could go wrong?
https://www.gloucestertimes.com/news/local_news/nrc-to-discuss-100-year-licenses-for-nuclear-plants/article_c0762bc7-dfa9-5d14-a307-71015064ee88.html
A changing of the guard
https://www.euci.com/u-s-wind-and-solar-generation-set-to-soar-in-2021-as-coal-fired-and-nuclear-plants-close/?x=54317a242282Sy&utm_campaign=012721_energize_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=energize
@ DFC – thank you David, I appreciate all of your links, and your thinking!
@ Simon S – yes, I have wondered for a very long time when doctors are going to begin realising how severely they have been relegated to being mere technicians administering bureaucratically decided and enforced “standards of care”. What has been euphemistically called “evidence-based medicine” appears to have successfully (in many places) replaced clinical interactions between educationally and clinically trained professionals and real, live, unique, flesh and blood patients, with scripts modelled on abstractions built upon statistics (but which, somehow, never fail to align with an identifiable corporate intention to sell products).
I do think statistics regarding “burnout” and suicides among doctors is telling, and tragic.
But, personally, I do believe that doctors who find themselves at odds with the corporate, bureaucratic “diktat” style of medicine they are enjoined to administer, will be important allies to patients who are also looking for a different style of healthcare. I really hope many more of these doctors notice the way the wind is blowing, and notice how many patients would love to receive tailored treatments from someone whose professional clinical judgment they know they can trust – the “standard of care” be drecked!
@ Ian Blaylock – not two weeks before this post was made… I give you the JMG post on the “lodge doctor” (among other topics) https://www.ecosophia.net/knock-and-give-the-password/
@Robert Mathiesen
Wow. Very interesting all the way through. Thanks especially for the look beneath the hood of RI politics.
Regarding conning the (over) educated, I’ve seen that up close and in person, during a decade I spent in university and as a post-doc. And now that you’ve pointed it out, I think it goes far in explaining the original issue I posted on above, that of putting ends before means: righteousness that won’t contemplate it’s own error, or imagine unintended consequences.
I hope you’re enjoying your retirement!
Cheers-
@ Robert. Your description of American corruption is really interesting. How were your fellow academics corrupt? What underhanded things did they do that that refused to see?
@ Boysmom and Covid
Here in Minnesota Covid doesn’t seem that bad. I know a few people who have had it but nothing very serious. I have a good friend from Mexico. She lost a 45 year old cousin to it a few days ago. Last month she lost a 51 year old healthy childhood friend to it. She also has had a cousin and an uncle with serious cases of it.
Interesting discussion by Michael Hudson at nakedcapitalism.com on industrial capitalism vs. finance capitalism, with a final section on how the US financial system uses the pandemic to bankrupt small businesses and strengthen the big ones.
I have never seen the capitalist case for non-profit public health, transport infrastructure and schooling so clearly made. It seems economics professors in the 19th century thought much more clearly than nowadays! I am less sure that the “golden age” of industrial capitalism can be recreated after peak oil, and I suspect that China is not at all as well set up as Hudson says, but that doesn’t detract from his historical analysis of Western countries.
I especially liked this comparison: “Finance-capitalism is not industrial capitalism. It is a lapse back into debt peonage and a rentier neo-feudalism. Bankers play the role today that landlords played up through the 19th century, making fortunes without corresponding value, by capital gains for real estate, stocks and bonds on credit, by debt leveraging whose carrying charges increase the economy’s cost of living and doing business.”
@Christophe
I was thinking similar things when I saw that little news item. Weaponize the internet against a significant portion of the population, and we will rapidly find out just how delicate and unprotected is the infrastructure that delivers that service to us… and how motivated the people it is being used against!
I have cut a cable line from a power pole (legit reasons– we were clearing a road after a hurricane: huge mess of downed trees, broken poles, and lines everywhere: emergency vehicles could not get through: all the lines were FUBAR already) and was shocked at how easy it was. It takes very little to make that leap over all the grade-school conditioning that says “Power lines! Danger!” — just a little bit of information: power lines look like this. Cable lines look like that… and cable lines can’t electrocute you.
One suspects that bombing of the ATT building back in December could be just an opening salvo. Hikers in the woods can certainly cause some irritating and inconvenient damage. But if things go far enough to motivate even a handful of current or ex employees of the companies that keep the internet going… those guys could up the ante significantly.
Whichever way you go it is a highly problematic Hobson’s choice.
No, it’s not. Effective, inexpensive and widely available treatments have been there from the beginning and had they been applied either as prophylaxis or upon *first* sign of symptoms the hospitalizations and deaths would be lower than the seasonal flu. The choices made were purely political and people continue to die because of it, notwithstanding all the greater collateral damage from lockdowns, etc.
Some weird datapoints for you –
Kibbo – the future of nomadic co-living is taking investments https://republic.co/kibbo
Trump appointed DOJ prosecutor leading case on man who participated in the Meme War of 2016 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/social-media-influencer-charged-election-interference-stemming-voter-disinformation-campaign
The bankrupting of hedge funds by running up GameStop and AMC stock prices (can’t wait to see how this plays out)
I thought the news cycle would be more boring with Biden in office but apparently its just Babylon Bee and Onion all the way down.
As we all endure the lamentable withdrawal symptoms of surviving an entire month without guiding posts from John Michael (Talk about an overlooked mental health crisis in the making!), I thought it humanitarian to share one of the most rhetorically-well-crafted articles I have come across in this bleak period. The beauty and impact of masterly phrased and calibrated argument is truly a pleasure to read, especially out loud, as the following paragraph demonstrates:
“The Democrats want you to believe that 1/6 was a coup, a rebellion, a putsch, an overthrow of a legitimate government. It is unclear how you claim to be a legitimate government, of the people, by the people, for the people, when each year the elites get more and more wealthy and ordinary folk are driven into poverty and then laughed at. Called Deplorables. Despicables. Traitors. Insurrectionists. Domestic Terrorists. Refused airline travel because of their political views. Refused legal counsel because of their political views. Have their employment threatened because of their political views. Have their insurance contracts revoked because of their political views. Have their communications media cancelled because of their political views. Put on watch lists because of their political views. Labelled as American ISIS for their political views. Al Qaeda in America. Bin Laden’s corpse is adrift in the Arabian Sea but he is winning.”
https://thesaker.is/american-prospect/
I keep trying to grasp why the reported perception of the commentariat on Covid19 does not match my own. Today, I understood why:
Excess deaths, USA: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Excess deaths, Mexico: https://coronavirus.gob.mx/exceso-de-mortalidad-en-mexico/
The second link is in Spanish, but fear not. An image is worth a thousand words. At its worst in mid July, more than twice as expected people died per week in Mexico. In the same time period there was in the ballpark of 5% excess mortality in the US. My interpretation of that fact is: 1) If your health system is tasked beyond capacity, Covid19 is about as bad as the Spanish flu. 2) Most of the huge excess mortality in Mexico is indirectly caused by Covid19; either psycho-social problems (suicide, substance abuse, domestic violence) increase during confinement, or long term chronic patients being displaced from the already overextended health system by Covid19 patients.
Please note that fudging death cause, in either direction, is relatively easier than fudging total deaths, all-causes. Furthermore, it is easier to hide deaths (just one example, chill out and try not very hard to search disappeared people) than to create fake deaths (in order to create death certificates you at least must create birth certificates, better if you also create tax records, school records, work history, etc).
@CR Patiño
I agree that all cause mortality/excess death is the only reliable statistic to use. Here are some possible explanations to account for the excess deaths:
1. sars-cov-2 is a new and deadly virus
2. The panic-driven response including a never-before-seen global lockdown caused the excess mortality
3. If you look at the US excess mortality figures you’ll notice that the preceding three years were years of ‘under mortality’. Every week with the exception of a couple in Jan 18 had lower than expected mortality. The theory goes that there was a ‘backlog’ of people waiting to die. This is called the ‘dead wood’ theory as it is analogous to the way bushfires come every few years if fuel builds on the forest floor.
What evidence is there to support point 2:-
– There is significant variability in mortality between states in the US and countries in Europe. Why would a virus stop at state/national borders? Some countries seem completely unaffected. This tells us to look for other factors like the response to the virus and not the virus itself
– The majority of the deaths in most western countries were from people living in nursing homes. The average age of death ‘from covid’ is above 80. By contrast, spanish flu and hong kong flu killed people in the prime of their life
– Confining the elderly to nursing homes, preventing visits from family at a time of high stress, reduced staff numbers which led to substandard care in already substandard facilities, bats**t crazy government policy like forcing nursing homes to house covid positive residents all created the perfect conditions for the virus to spread against the most vulnerable members of society who are the ones that have made up almost all the deaths. In Britain in April there were 10,000 excess deaths from dementia patients (just the ones who tested negative to sars-cov-2). These lived in homes mostly staffed by Eastern Europeans many of who left before the lockdowns.
– At the start of the panic, hospitals were using a heavy sedation-invasive intubation protocol by default. This is an extreme measure especially likely to kill weak and elderly patients. Similarly, hydroxychloroquine was being administered in very heavy doses in some places. As it is an immune suppressant, this would have made already vulnerable people even more vulnerable.
Note that these factors all have a positive feedback loop. You take the vulnerable people in the nursing home, remove their care and social support, lock them inside where they are more likely to become ill, then send them to hospital to be treated like a biohazard and given excessive treatments normally reserved for people who are about to die (because the assumption was that they were). Could this account for all of the excess deaths? I don’t see why not. We have an ageing population many of whom are housed in poor conditions.
Beneaththesurface wrote, “I hear so many similar stories among other Covid long-haulers: doctors dismissing the patients’ experience just because the standard tests done are normal, and not having much helpful treatment to offer…. On the plus side, this whole experience has given me reason to really delve into herbal medicine and acupuncture, which I had little experience with prior.”
I remember feeling the same frustration you’re describing when I naively tried to get my myriad mechanical imbalances corrected through surgery. Ai, yai, yai — live and learn! As though my body wasn’t screaming to get my attention precisely through those imbalances. And it wasn’t about to let them rebalance until I started listening and doing the internal work it was demanding of me. Never get into a power struggle with your body or subconscious — you will most certainly not come out the winner!
How many doctors did I visit in the hope that one of them could link my experiences to correctable injuries? How many times was I arrogantly dismissed by surgeons with nothing but a prescription for anti-inflammatories to show for it? (A Hospital-for-Special-Surgery shoulder surgeon with Celebrex posters and joint models throughout his office and treatment rooms prescribed, you guessed it, Celebrex. His assistant led me to a closet devoid of anything except samples of every available dosage of Celebrex. That sample and prescription went directly into the garbage.) How surprised were surgeons when I began dismissing them as soon as it became obvious they were useless to me? Had they never considered that their haughty techniques could be directed right back at them?
I did have a few hard-earned successes through allopathic practice though. A brilliant labral repair of my left shoulder was quite promising until a physical therapist went beyond the protocols and ripped the surgical anchor out of the bone, sounding for all the world like a gunshot in the treatment room. Naturally, that PT practice immediately began falsifying their records to erase any evidence of malpractice on their part. Fortunately, MRI revealed enough residual problem to justify going back in, which is when a different surgeon discovered that the anchor had been ripped out. Alas, that corrective surgery was botched with one of the sutures coming untied two days later and slipping back into the joint space. Can you say pain? Can you scream it a heck of a lot louder than you just did? Yeah, it takes quite a bit of pain and several weeks of sleeplessness to render a confirmed skeptic worried enough to submit himself back into hospital care on a suicide watch. Morphine drips can be used to save lives too, not just end them. Alas, this time multiple MRI’s revealed nothing, not even when I carefully outwardly rotated my arm for the scan to make the tear visible.
I remember the hopeless moment, many months later, as the first surgeon, who did acknowledge that something had definitely gone wrong (the second, of course, denied anything abnormal about the recovery to protect from malpractice), walked out of the treatment room saying he would schedule yet another MRI. Thank the gods I asked his retreating posterior if there were any position whatsoever my arm could be put in that might open the tear enough for confirmation. He walked back in and said, “You know, we could put you in an ABER position, like we do for pitchers. I’ll request an ABER view.” That MRI finally showed the persisting labral tear and justified a third trip in — third time’s a charm! Not only did he discover the suture, still floating around in the joint space, but the surgery actually held this time, probably because I did not allow any PT’s to do any stretching afterwards. Oh, Lord, I had forgotten about reducing one PT with unresolved daddy issues to tears. That may well have built up some bad karma for me, but I was not about to let a PT injure me again. Did I mention above that my few allopathic successes were rather hard earned?
It’s wonderful that you’ve already discovered how to achieve better results through herbs and acupuncture than through allopathy — you certainly seem to be a faster learner than I was! Some of us have to suffer through quite a bit of trial and tribulation before we discover any real balance. Fortunately, Covid did not turn out to be one of my personal tribulations. Part of that may well be because of the extraordinarily complex herbal tea I made up last February, based on my body’s previous experience and recovery from hundreds of common coronaviruses throughout my life. With over 75 ingredients, it certainly packs a punch and even tastes good! Actually, that’s one of the weird ways we figured out how to guess when our bodies were fighting off Covid without any symptoms — the tea and the lingonberries went from tasting good to tasting like pure abmrosia, like a desperate craving. Of the people who drank the tea seriously as a preventative medicine, all had nearly symptom-free cases of Covid. When other friends contracted Covid and were completely wiped out, they were finally willing to accept bags of the tea, and they were all amazed how delicious it tasted (when they could barely taste anything else) and how rapidly they started recovering. Herbs are very powerful medicine, and our bodies know which ones they need!
After my almost symptomless Covid infection (confirmed afterwards by antibody test), I asked my body lots of questions about what it had learned from finally having a personal experience of it. Quite surprisingly, its take was that the virus mostly went after my spleen, with a exceptionally distant second of weakening my ureter. Otherwise, the virus just hoped to get me sneezing and coughing in order to pass it on to others. I then had to look up what the spleen does, as I had paid very little attention to the poor thing up until that point. I never realized that the spleen plays a significant role in balancing the immune system and the blood, specifically red blood cells, which transport oxygen around the body. Enough of the complications resulting from Covid-19 seem to involve dysfunction of systems the spleen helps regulate that I see absolutely no reason to doubt my body on this one. If you would like to join the freak club I obviously belong to, you could ask your acupuncturist and herbalist about rebalancing and restoring any lost function of your spleen. There are certainly plenty of spleen tonics and splenic troporestoratives growing all around us.
@ Scotlyn
I work in a field which has supposed to be getting automated away for a couple of decades now. Fortunately for me, some philosophically-minded people went to the trouble to explain the theoretical reasons why our jobs can’t be automated away (without a subsequent loss of quality). So, when I found out about the PCR test and how it was being used I realised it’s exactly the same pattern I have seen in my industry. It’s a test that is never used by practitioners (doctors) but which gives the illusion of control to bureaucrats who think they can manage everything from an office somewhere. I imagine, much like my field, there are many doctors who think they can advance their careers by playing along and there’s enough money around to make that true for now. But, yes, when the purse strings get tightened, paying for PCR tests will seem like the extravagant waste of money it is.
@Matthias Gralle – I’ve always appreciated Hudson for his breadth of historical knowledge of economies and how they work, or how they fail. Also, he is a fantastic expositor of early European enlightment and capitalist economic thinking. I always find it useful to ponder his idea that some economies are “hosts” and some are “parasites” because, from a medical point of view the pathway for saving the patient is clearly indicated, as one in which we feed the “host” and starve the “parasite”. Possibly much easier said than done. 😉
The one thing that your quote made me realise, though, is that the “landlord” that he mentions in the past tense, has, in fact, not gone away, and is beginning once again to take its place, alongside the banker, as a gobbler of economies.
Christophe, there are no cameras that you can see. If it escalated you wouldn’t see the snipers either. Honeypots and entrapment are a significant part of counterinsurgency. In the military the prefix Q is shorthand for ‘schmuck bait’. A Q-ship looks like a helpless cargo ship but is stuffed full of anti-submarine weapons. A Q-squad are disguised like the enemy’s perfect victims, but are elite special forces. Anyone who wants to see the variety of tricks that are played can read John Newsinger’s book British Counterinsurgency.
Christophe,
I consider 1/6 the same thing I consider the attack on the court house in portland, an attempted insurrection.
I’m all in favor of sympathy for the people, and believe that our system is broken, corrupt, and sadistically unfair, but I draw a red line at attempting to use extra-legal means to get ones way.
The oligarchy can be beaten, but once Caeser is in power the Republic ends, and that I will not abide by. To that degree, I view 1/6 as a substantially worse affair.
Regards,
Varun
@Darkest Yorkshire, about the prefix Q:
Hence Q-Anon.
I never bothered to look at Q-Anon myself, but from what those who did follow it had to say, it was pretty obviously something of that sort, complete with addiction-creating puzzles of graded difficulty to keep its readers hooked. (The puzzles to be solved were my first tip-off.)
It occurs to me that any nation, but especially one that is inherently as frangible as the USA, can easily be destroyed from the inside within a decade by such means, if only its screen-media (e.g. its internet) is open to those who would do so. (I specify screen-media here since they are inherently much more addictive than print media.)
The hostiles wouldn’t even need to be other states, or even would-be states. Any quite wealthy individual, cartel or corporation could attempt such an offensive with a fair chance of success. The key resource would seem to be an in-depth knowledge of the techniques, not immnense wealth. Q-Anon sounded to me like the work of a non-state agent.
And many thanks for the hat-tip about Newsinger’s book, which I absolutely must read, and soon. Along not wholly unrelated lines, have you ever looked into Carolyn Nordstrom’s Global Outlaws?
Can someone repost a link to the instructions on how to properly embed a link in a comment? I mucked it up on my last comment an I am embarrassed.
We have got along without JMG for nearly a month. He has built a functional Internet community. Good on him! Now, does anyone wonder if he and we could do it in real life? The Libertarians and Communists have tried and failed and I remember at least one alt-right attempt that never really got off the ground. I wonder, what about us common-sensers?
an attempted insurrection
Sorry, Varun, but that’s pure hyperbole. The events we’ve seen in the past year certainly qualify as various levels of riots but little more. When a true insurrection occurs you’ll know it.
@Simon S
Thank you, but I pass. For every baseless assumption you throw I can throw an equally baseless statement to prove that the virus is very dangerous… and it would be about as effective in changing your opinion that yours was in changing mine.
Let’s us agree that the majority of excess deaths in 2020 were caused by the response to the pandemic and leave it at that.
Darkest Yorkshire wrote, “there are no cameras that you can see. If it escalated you wouldn’t see the snipers either.”
There are no cameras that they can afford — to cover all the parkland, streets obscured by leafy canopy, dark alleys, etc. More ridiculous is the thought that they could monitor them all if they could even afford to put them in. The absurdity of complete centralized control has become laughable at this point. The more centralized, the more fragile and in need of universal buy-in, so there’s no one outside the system to give the teetering mess the little push it needs to topple over under its own weight.
As for snipers, there’s always casualties. You seem to be assuming the utter lack of courage, honor, and mettle that has left such a ghastly emptiness at the heart of US culture over the past few decades will endure. What if our overlords have self-destructively reawakened those very traits they managed to keep so long sedated? What’s more, both sides will have snipers — be very careful what you wish for. Hopefully, the elites’ craving for total centralization will cause their ill-begotten system to spiral out beyond their control, destroying itself before snipers are needed. One can always hope.
Varun wrote, “I draw a red line at attempting to use extra-legal means to get ones way. The oligarchy can be beaten, but once Caeser is in power the Republic ends, and that I will not abide by.”
You’re assuming that a Caesar is not in power now. Some group certainly did use extra-legal means to get their way. Now who was it who got their way this month?
Oh, I’m going to have to ponder that one — it’s so very hard to parse out who gained unfettered advantage recently. I wonder how Caesar’s supporters justified his takeover of Rome by loudly proclaiming what they simply would not abide by.
@ Scotlyn
Thank you, I like also your comments
VAERS is again on-line, but only with the data frozen since 1/15/21, almost all the data from the second dose are missing.
On the other hand, this news makes me laugh:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55839885
“Germany’s vaccine committee has said AstraZeneca’s Covid jab should only be given to people aged under 65.”
They say they haven’t enough data about efficacy and safety for older people, but, do they have for the brand-new-never-used-before-two-month-tested m-RNA vaccines they are using now?, I don’t think so.
Cheers
David
“In the military the prefix Q is shorthand for ‘schmuck bait’. A Q-ship looks like a helpless cargo ship but is stuffed full of anti-submarine weapons. A Q-squad are disguised like the enemy’s perfect victims, but are elite special forces. ”
…and a Q-anon doesn’t need a leap of imagination to comprehend.
MCB,
“It will take some nerve to debate whether we should have let the sick people die and hospitals be overrun to save the economic impact and inconvenience of the majority for whom it is just a bad cold.”
I actually think it takes some nerve to speak of “inconvenience” when there have been already for months voices and articles with large numerical estimates of the deaths caused by lockdowns which far exceed the numbers that may have died from covid. I’m talking cancer, heart attacks, suicide, and poverty and starvation. Many of these will be children and youths, whose average age, may I point out, is considerably younger than 81.
I’m curious, has your own income been impacted by lockdown?
Hi Christophe,
I had a good, but greedy, foot dr who was evidently getting a darn good kickback from whoever made Vioxx. His office was festooned with Vioxx promotional junk and he gave me the hard sell on it. I declined the prescription. I decline all prescriptions unless the medicine has been on the market for at least 10 years without killing a significant number of people. One day we go in his office and you wouldn’t know Vioxx existed. When I got home and picked up the paper I found out why. 😄
—Lady Cutekitten
I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that the ongoing GameStop short squeeze will turn out to be the singlemost important event this month, even more important that what happened at the Capitol. Unlike with Occupy, this time the folks at Wall St. are legitimately freaking out, one hedge fund has already gone bankrupt, and some of the things they’ve done to try to get this under control may have already crossed the line into illegality.
The cold class war in America could be about to warm up.
@onething, it may have been my use of language, but I was intending to make broadly the same point I think you are making, i.e. the damage from the lockdown is also real.
Hence my statement at the end that it is a Hobson’s choice. This is what I see around me (small businesses going under, people struggling with mental health etc) and also I see the health-service at its limit, and *some* people being hit hard by long-covid.
My major point was I see very little space for a true conversation about the balance in the middle. Most conversation seems to either polarise to COVID is a conspiracy on one hand, or that anyone who questions it is somehow stupid on the other.
Neither of those is satisfactory in my view.
MCB
@Lady cutekitten “He has built a functional Internet community. Good on him! Now, does anyone wonder if he and we could do it in real life?”
I think the immediate problem is that we are spread out all over the globe. Would be great to see how it would pan out over a longer time period and in real life.
A lot of structureless communes can function fairly well in real life…for about 3 months. Who knows if folk here would have a better result.
@Christophe “There are no cameras that they can afford — to cover all the parkland, streets obscured by leafy canopy, dark alleys, etc. More ridiculous is the thought that they could monitor them all if they could even afford to put them in. The absurdity of complete centralized control has become laughable at this point.”
There is the counter-example of China, where every street and alleyway in many cities, is covered by networked cctv cameras, combined with observation drones. Everything is monitored in real-time by facial-recognition software and other AI applications. All text and speech communication via electronic devices is likewise monitored by AI. Universal surveillance is quite doable these days.
Lady CK – You write as if JMG hasn’t been invisibly moderating this conversation. The commentariat has been sustaining itself well, which is indeed an accomplishment, but we haven’t exactly been on our own here. There’s an invisible hand (and it isn’t capitalism)!
Robert Mathiesen – The origin story for Q-anon is that the author “Q” takes his/her name from having been granted the above-top-secret “Q” clearance, which has something to do with nuclear weapons. The linguistic parallel with the Q-boat is (probably) just coincidental. If it were done consciously, wouldn’t it scare people off (at least, those who knew the history of the Q-boat)?
One logical gap in the Q story is that it assumes that someone cleared for access to “Q” material would have privileged access to all kinds of other government-insider secrets, not just the nuclear weapons stuff, and “that’s not how it works”. If “Q” means “nuclear weapons info”, then that’s all it means. It’s like a key to a safe-deposit box in a vault where every other box of secrets has its own key.
I haven’t read the Michael Hudson article on industrial capitalism yet, but my view of the huge capital accumulations we are seeing now is that we don’t notice the danger because capital is invisible and spread out.
Take Bill Gates. He owns land all over the place, but few people know this. Imagine if he was sitting on top of some giant machine perched on one huge tract of land, zapping anyone coming on to the land, hoovering up crops and sending them off somewhere, not to local people. They’d come after him with pitchforks.
Or imagine Jeff Bezos and the Waltons, driving giant steam rollers, flattening local businesses and factories, and scattering cheap Chinese crap to people who no longer have the income to afford anything better. You’d call out the Air National Guard and take them out with Hellfire missiles before they destroy the economy.
This is all happening, but in secret, by men plotting in plush offices, protected by the laws made by the politicians they sponsor.
@Christophe – yes. In rereading 1984 after the fall of the USSR, I started wondering if the watchers Winston was afraid of were sleeping on the job, playing games, watching porn – or tuned into a more interesting bedroom – or even AWOL. “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” And of course, taking the many opportunities for blackmail.
It also occurred to me that Winston could have gotten out from under the Party’s control long ago by refusing to join the bureaucracy, but getting a prole job instead. (Shudder, horrors, unthinkable….. picturing suggesting to my daughter that a grandson might be better off that way, she’d give me a nasty look and say “That’s not funny,” and recite their academic qualifications and promise in great detail.)
Of course, Winston wouldn’t have either the strength or the skill for any known trade, let along brute labor.
@scotlyn:
I have always had a great liking for Irish (Gaelic) language, mythology and history. In 2015 I had the chance to do a work stint of two weeks in Dublin and used it to gauge the possibility of moving to Ireland for a longer time. The housing prices in Dublin shocked me, considering the Great Recession had supposedly pricked the real-estate bubble, and also considering the quality of the infrastructure and housing stock (my hosts told me some stories). I was already living in a city with absurd housing prices and immediately decided against Dublin. Unfortunately, my line of work wouldn’t have permitted me to live in a smaller place in Ireland.
So yes, in many places, the owners of real estate continue to extract a great deal of money, usually in collusion with the bank (shareholders), which drives the price of living and of labor up, just as Hudson described. By the way, the name of the 19th century economics professor he cites, who made such a clear capitalist case for non-profit transportation and schooling, is Simon Patten (Hudson himself seems to have Marxist leanings).
“’Parks, sewers and schools improve the health and intelligence of all classes of producers, and thus enable them to produce more cheaply, and to compete more successfully in other markets.’ Patten concluded: ‘If the courts, post office, parks, gas and water works, street, river and harbor improvements, and other public works do not increase the prosperity of society they should not be conducted by the State.’
In one sense, this can be called ‘privatizing the profits and socializing the losses.’ Advocating a mixed economy along these lines is part of the logic of industrial capitalism seeking to minimize private-sector production and employment costs in order to maximize profits.”
@Simon S:
I don’t want to discuss your whole post on mortality (we would have to look at many more examples around the world, such as Manaus), but there is one thing about the US data that you didn’t read correctly:
“If you look at the US excess mortality figures you’ll notice that the preceding three years were years of ‘under mortality’.”
Actually, the yellow line is the threshold for statistically significant excess mortality, so the blue bars are expected to be below the yellow line 97.5% of the time (I suppose that is the significance level they used).
I saw the photo of the “Buffalo Guy” walking through the Capitol. What’s that? Do I hear laughter? Then I saw the inauguration, with the flag formations, the military, and the fences. Huh. More laughter? And now I watch the goings-ons in the stock market. Oh yes, definitely laughter.
It seems to me The Trickster is having some fun.
Which gives me two thoughts:
1) It’s going to be a wild ride, and not what you expect.
2) Now is bad time to take oneself too seriously.
David BTL,
Thanks for your perspective. I disagree, quite a bit. But, to make an adequate response is too difficult for me with one hand and so I should probably stick to my resolve not talk a lot publicly.
Lady CK,
Back around ’96 when I began as a nurse I used to hand out Vioxx. Then, all of a sudden I didn’t. Funny that.
A couple years later I found the Mercola site and discovered he warned against it some years before it was pulled. He has a good track record that way and I now think that most boondoggle / mistakes do have warning signs that are seen by at least some people.
Has anyone else been paying attention recently to the bitcoin bubble? Apparently, Elon Musk has simply mentioned Bitcoin publicly and people began to incontinently purchase way more of it. Now, people value one unit of bitcoin at nearly $40,000, about twice as much as two years ago. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/bitcoin-soars-15-elon-musk-tweet
also: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/bitcoin-surges-as-elon-musk-changes-his-twitter-bio-to-bitcoin-11611920026
Looks like we’re getting some market volatility right in time for the Aries Ingress chart with Aquarius rising, Uranus in his Fall in the Second House (The time I’m casting from is 5:38 am, March 20th 2021 if people want to take a look for themselves).
Hi all
About the Gamestop “riot” (or “insurrection”), this funny link makes me laugh:
https://babylonbee.com/news/wall-street-bans-anyone-who-doesnt-wear-a-top-hat-and-carry-around-giant-bags-of-money/
“We are making this change to keep the poors out,” said an SEC spokesperson. “There were too many smelly poor people trading stocks, when the stock market was always intended just to help the rich people make more money. Now that the big investors started losing, we are changing the rules of the game. Don’t make us flip the game board over — we’re warning you!”
Cheers
David
@ Matthias,
Thanks for the clarification.
I saw an exchange the other day which went like this: 1) hey, look, deaths per thousand in Sweden in 2020 were the same as 2015; 2) yes, but 2020 excess deaths were way up.
I was wondering how to reconcile these two things. How is it possible that deaths as a proportion of population could look normal while excess deaths look abnormal? Of course, excess deaths should really be called ‘expected deaths’ and the expectation is based on a model. If excess deaths are off it could be that something is going on or it could be that your model is wrong.
A short update on the markets: It was close to breaking on Thursday and forced many brokers to stop trading a few stocks. I’m seeing unprecedented moves to prevent a meltdown. I expect big names in a war room this weekend.
A brief explanation: Markets have clearing houses that act as an intermediate between buyers and sellers of stocks and serve multiple brokers. Clearing houses have become central to markets since 2008 crash and run with high risk (they never learnt lessons from it). On Thursday they were really close to going bankrupt causing the market plumbing itself to break. I hope they have plans to limit the blast radius, the coming week is going to to be crucial.
With regards to GameStop, I wonder if the astrologers here wouldn’t mind throwing in their two cents:
The GameStop blowout occurred as Jupiter was cazimi with the Sun. There was also a square to Mars and the Moon was a day or so before full. If Jupiter rules wealth and laws, what would the Sun mean in this case? Could the Sun represent a higher power brought down to eclipse Jupiter’s wealth? Jupiter is increase, and the increase does not necessarily mean good increase. Hedge fund maneuvering could be an increase, but not a very honest one.
Mars square the Jupiter/Sun conjunction makes sense as not only can Mars be belligerent, squares are of the nature of Mars. Also, a full moon usually means the completion of something that started during the new moon. Perhaps this has been going on for a couple of weeks and we’re just hearing about it now?
Then there is Saturn square Uranus. Shock to the old system? And Venus conjunct Pluto. Venus has no dignity in Capricorn, but Venus can represent hedonism. Venus conjunct Pluto could mean a love of avarice.
As I finish writing this I have just noticed what a doozy of a week this is astrologically!
So the last post I am seeing here (by Nomad) has the number 883 attached to it, but the counter at the top of the comments says that there are 897 comments. What happened to the other 14 comments?
BTW, isn’t this a new record for the number of comments on any post on any of our host’s blogs? And can we hit 4 figures (1,000) before the next post goes up on February 3?
@ onething
Likewise, I can appreciate your perspective as well. I think we can agree that there’s a line where extra-ordinary responses are called for, though we disagree where that line is. The debates in the years leading up to Lexington & Concord were little different. These discussions need to be had, however. I remain hopeful that we can avoid the worst of the spectrum of possibilities before us, though that would require those in power to acknowledge the severity of the situation and the nature of its root causes. And, of course, be willing to make the needed changes. We’ll see, I suppose. All war is stupid. That some war may be necessary doesn’t alter that fact.
Lady Cutekitten wrote, “I had a good, but greedy, foot dr who was evidently getting a darn good kickback from whoever made Vioxx. His office was festooned with Vioxx promotional junk and he gave me the hard sell on it. I declined the prescription.”
I am continually amazed by all the gods who look out for us, if in no other way than by blessing us with enough instinct and intuition to spot a snake-oil salesman at twenty paces. You dodged a serious bullet to the heart with that one!
I had a near brush with Levaquin, prescribed for a protracted sinus infection back when I still thought allopathy could help with that sort of thing. My guardian-angel pharmacist actually came out from behind the counter to look me deep in the eyes and tell me that she could not legally make any drug recommendations, but that she STRONGLY suggested I read the black-box warning on Levaquin.
The dancer and athlete in me didn’t have to read any further than “Achilles-tendon rupture” to refuse the prescription and ask her if she would contact the prescribing doctor to find out if there were an alternative. The look of relief on her face was priceless — angels to the right of me, angels to the left. There but for the grace of all the gods, I stumble along, awed by their generous blessings and protection.
Jon,
(I am not an astrologer. This is not astrological advice. I have no shares of $GME, although I bought a couple of video games from them today.)
Assuming the chart you’re using is the correct one (btw, what time are you using for it?)…
Cazimi, unlike combustion, strengthens the conjoined planet; so the Sun was on Jupiter’s side and giving its blessing to it. Remember that what the hedge funds were shorting the stock — betting that it would go down. Jupiter, the planet of increase, said “nah,” and the short squeeze drove the stock price up.
Mars is definitely evident in the combative nature of the r/WallStreetBets crowd: many of them know they’re to lose a lot of money of on this, but they want the hedge funds to pay for what they did to them or their parents back in 2008.
As for the Moon… your comment is more correct than you know, because it was about a week or two ago that WSB really started organizing this (this sea shanty was posted on the 19th). But beyond that, this has actually been two years in the making: u/DeepF—ingValue, who is considered a hero or even the leader of the squeeze, started buying shares of $GME in 2019.
I think your comment on Saturn square Uranus is sound, but I’d go farther: it’s also the individual (Uranus) against the establishment (Saturn). There’s also a nostalgia factor (Saturn) for a lot of investors when it comes to GameStop, and I’d be interested in seeing if that shows up in the full chart.
I don’t feel confident enough to really analyze Venus conjunct Pluto. If JMG is right, Pluto’s influence is fading, though, so this may not be a huge influence.
Bogatyr wrote, “There is the counter-example of China, where every street and alleyway in many cities, is covered by networked cctv cameras, combined with observation drones…. Universal surveillance is quite doable these days.”
In China, yes. In the US, no. The cultural divide between east and west is difficult for either side to fully fathom. If you have not lived in East Asia, you may have a hard time conceiving of their sense of communal culture that can lead to near-universal buy-in of personally disempowering but communally strengthening ideologies. That’s certainly what our overlords are fantasizing about transplanting in the US, but they will fare no better in the long run than Senator McCarthy did.
Our tamanous culture has no mechanism by which to compel obedience to Pelosi’s manufactured “Mandate of Heaven”. The more she shouts “obedience”, the more people disobey — it’s very American. Our tech moguls can peddle their dystopian Star-Trek future to their hearts’ contents, but they’ll never achieve the commoners’ buy-in needed to bring it about. What we certainly will have to suffer through though, like it or not, is the studied screeching of our offended class, since doomed elites always gnash their teeth and strike ghastly poses as they fade into utter insignificance.
@Robert Mathiesen / JMG
The mis-total is because the pingbacks/trackbacks do not increment the comment counter, but the blog software still counts them as ‘comment’ objects for the summary.
This change to the styling will fix it, along with another couple of potential bugs:
/* need to be specific to hit only ol.comment-list to prevent accidental resets if someone uses a ordered list in a comment */
#comments ol.comment-list {
counter-reset: comment;
}
/* wordpress counts all list item children as ‘comments’ in the summary total, increment the counter on the item itself to ensure the total counts match as there are potentially many different types of children (comments/pingbacks/trackbacks….etc) */
#comments ol.comment-list > li {
counter-increment: comment;
}
#comments .comment-metadata::before {
content: “#” counters(comment,”.”) “. “;
}
/* If you want the number to be green and linkable – like the date – use this instead */
/*
#comments .comment-metadata > a:first-child::before {
content: “#” counters(comment,”.”) “. “;
}
*/
Patricia Matthews wrote, “getting a prole job instead. (Shudder, horrors, unthinkable….. picturing suggesting to my daughter that a grandson might be better off that way, she’d give me a nasty look and say “That’s not funny,” and recite their academic qualifications and promise in great detail.)
What’s the matter with kids today — do they realize that wisdom only comes with age and experience? Your perfect comeback, without dropping a beat, “Well, naturally, ‘that’s not funny’ at all — it’s a very serious suggestion!” But that probably wouldn’t be any better appreciated.
Who knows, maybe your daughter’s more the comedienne than you think she is, and would instead say “That’s not funny, but this is,” and recite their academic qualifications and promise in great detail. Oh, how will we ever learn to laugh at ourselves with all of our qualifications and accreditations weighting us down?
Cyclone wrote the understatement of the year, “Now is bad time to take oneself too seriously.”
Oh my God, my keyboard is covered in tea! Thank you, I needed that.
BCV, January 28, 2021 at 12:11 pm – re how to post a web-link in here:
I don’t think people are ignoring you; I think the blog’s software is throwing them off the horse when they try to explain it. (I’m dusting some grass off myself at the moment.)
So go here, it’s a tutorial and this language works on this blog too.
For use here on the blog, you only need to read down to “the target attribute” in the tutorial. The rest of that page is for if you are writing your own webpage. Yourself. From scratch. With, like, Notepad. (Which I do, by the way. It’s a hobby.)
To get hold of the “url” as described in the tutorial, just copy the text in the narrow long box at the top of the web-browser when you are on the webpage you want to post a link to. (This is for a browser in a Windows PC.)
For those with iCrack or Samson’s Nebula or an honest-to-god Apple computer, can you please weigh in on how to grab the webpage URL in those appliances?
Matthias Gralle and others who are interested in all cause mortality during 2020.
Looking at the CDC (US) data for 2017-2020 all-cause mortality, it does appear that starting in April or so that mortality took off.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm (scroll down 2 pages)
The lockdown took effect in March. The excess mortality has been attributed to Covid-19. But we might be tempted to ask: Could it be that the LOCKDOWN is what’s causing the excess mortality? It does appear that many people have delayed seeking medical attention for emergencies, such as heart attacks, strokes and such; and people with cancer have had postponements of their chemotherapy or surgery, etc… These delays have resulted in deaths that otherwise would not have occurred. Then there are the extra suicides and overdose deaths…
I don’t have the means to gather and analyze the data, but it appears that a thorough analysis could shed some light. Someone over in the UK, Nick Kellerstrom, is persuaded, and his discussion, “There Is No Pandemic: A British View of the Imposture”, is here:
https://www.unz.com/article/there-is-no-pandemic/
I’m not familiar with Kellerstrom, and Unz.com is not exactly one of the more credible websites, but with the prevailing MSM/social-media censorship, I’m willing to give him a read; and at first glance, his thesis sounds plausible and worth at least a second glance.
Robert Mathiesen, I haven’t read Global Outlaws, but I’ve read McMafia, Illicit, The Outlaw Sea, Methland, and Global Guerillas, which I think are all in the same family. Warbands with secret bank accounts in Dubai are a disturbing combination. 🙂
Christophe, you might want to read Surveillance Tradecraft by Peter Jenkins. The kind of cameras I’m talking about aren’t science fiction – people use them to catch allotment vandals. 🙂 It seems like you’re not clear what you’re wishing for. At first it looked like you expected a sabotage campaign to go unchallenged, then you’re talking about snipers being heroic and courageous, then hoping it doesn’t come to that. Back when I was in the Socialist Workers Party, I was told a story about how Che Guevara died. When he was in Bolivia trying to start a guerilla war, about two valleys over, there were miners on strike. For someone supposed to be a leftist, what was he thinking trying to ambush convoys or whatever, when he could have been supporting militant proletarians instead? Insurgency is the last resort when just going on strike will get you machine gunned anyway, so there’s nothing to lose. Also, you don’t want the system to collapse until you’ve built up a rival organisation to take over. You want dual power – where you’re essentally already running everything already, so when you do take power it’s more a coup de grace than a coup d’etat. If the system crumbles with nothing to replace it, you can end up with a failed state filled with gangsters, warlords, and terrorists. That may be fun for a while but it’ll get old fast. 🙂 But if you do want to go down the armed struggle route, you need to read these books: https://maxvelocitytactical.com/product-category/books/. Probably read Wingate and the Chindits as well, to see likely the best scenario you could hope for.
I like Louis Rossmann’s take on GameStop and shortsellers: https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos.
I just sent a reply to Robert Mathiesen and Cristophe, but it seems to have vanished. I’ll wait until the comments come up and if it’s not there I’ll type it again. On the subject of website bugs, sometimes the cookie consent bar pops up then rapidly disappears again. Also occasionally when someone embeds a Youtube video, it and the comments box switch places.
Re: Gamestop
Nobody’s caught on to the symbolism of the word “Gamestop”? As in, this is where the game ends?
All–
You’d never have guessed. The solution to our debt problem is a “global coordinated economic plan” (sic):
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/postpandemic-well-end-up-with-higher-inflation-than-expected-strategist-222701545.html
A couple of data points for you….
Yesterday I stopped at King of Prussia mall, curious what the status was. This is the largest enclosed mall on the east coast and shifted its focus to very upscale stores about 10 years ago. https://www.simon.com/mall/king-of-prussia
20% of the leased spaced is empty. Another 15% of the spaces are filled with what I call junk stores – the printed at Staples sign and filled with random flea market level stuff. The Apple Store had been reconfigured to look like a pawn shop – floor to ceiling walls with windows and small openings, with three security guards. The guards looked ex-military with tasers, not the usual overweight mall cop. The Gucci and Louis Vitton store also had guards and lines out the door. They seemed to be the only stores with shoppers.
Someone started the Twitter account “Biden voters posting their L’s online” and its hilarious. @BidenLs is the handle. Definitely worth a scroll of the screenshots of the complaints from the left about Biden one week in. My favorite “I knew I was going to regret voting Biden but I didn’t think it would take less than a week.” (left the expletives out).
Left Twitter is just as nasty and angry post Biden inaugural as they were pre-Nov 6th. They might even be worse. They certainly don’t act like they won anything. Years ago you wrote about the poison chalice of winning the presidency, well it seems to have appeared in shining technicolor.
Christophe,
I actually disagree that there is a Caesar currently in power. I think the oligarchy won this round, but next time who knows? Like I said, it’s not substantively better that the oligarchs won, but I’ll take that over a Caesar winning.
Regards,
Varun
Thank you, Daniel! I wondered whether it might be something like that, but I lack the computer smarts to figure it out for myself.
@Darkest Yorkshire on Nordstrom’s Global Outlaws:
Nordstrom is an anthropologist, not a military strategist or a political scientist. Apparently she has the very uncommon gift of getting people to talk with utter frankness about things they wouldn’t otherwise ever tell any outsider. She used that gift of hers all over the world to get all sorts of bit-players and mid-level people working in the shadows–her “outlaws”–to explain to her just how things worked in their own parts of the global outlaw world. And then she wrote it all up in ways that did not compromise her informants in the slightest. Utterly fascinating!
And I found her analysis of the massive security failures in the port of Long Beach, CA, most impressive. Had she chosen (and had the nerve) to be an outlaw herself, she would have gone far. She seems to me to have a natural “nose” for that sort of work.
@Darkest Yorkshire:
PS Thanks for the further book recommendations.
Jon & Slithy Toves: thanks for sharing your astrological interpretations of the GameStop happenings. I wish that I could contribute, but my training is vedic astrology not Western astrology. I’ll simply say that I have been involved (elsewhere) in a conversation on this very subject from a vedic astrology perspective and there are clear indicators of an unusual phenomenon in which the ‘greedy underdogs’ are using greed to exact revenge on the ‘dominant greedy’. It is interesting how two quite different systems of divination can end up shedding similar light in these strange times.
A question for those of the community here living in the US.
As we come up on three months post-election, what are your observations re the amount of Trump signage still out? What I’ve seen in my corner of WI isn’t massive and it isn’t everywhere, but it is… noticeable.
Re my previous comment
FOUR months post-election, coming up on three months post Electoral College. Apologies, I could’ve been clearer.
The query for the group stands, though, for those who’d be willing to share their observations.
Slithy Toves: “I don’t feel confident enough to really analyze Venus conjunct Pluto. If JMG is right, Pluto’s influence is fading, though, so this may not be a huge influence.”
Superficially, I’d say Venus (values) conjunct Pluto (revolutionary upheavals) in Capricorn (old structures and institutions) means stock value exploded and blew up at least one hedge fund.
Hedge funds have apparently lost at least 70 billion to date.
Nobody’s caught on to the symbolism of the word “Gamestop”?
Brilliant observation!
but I’ll take that over a Caesar winning.
Biden’s already far closer to a Caesar than Trump ever was.
@ Lunar Apprentice and others who are interested
Denis Rancourt has done an excellent study concluding that the lockdowns caused the deaths – https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341832637_All-cause_mortality_during_COVID-19_No_plague_and_a_likely_signature_of_mass_homicide_by_government_response
Re: GameStop – interesting – first four comments following the article give an interesting twist.
https://www.unz.com/article/bonfire-of-the-shorts/
Darkest Yorkshire wrote, “It seems like you’re not clear what you’re wishing for. At first it looked like you expected a sabotage campaign to go unchallenged, then you’re talking about snipers being heroic and courageous, then hoping it doesn’t come to that.”
Wow, I seem to have touched a nerve. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to send you into a projection fit.
No one but you inserted the ludicrous idea of a sabotage campaign going unchallenged. Neither did anyone else mention snipers being heroic or courageous. The recently lacking mettle I was referring to was the bravery necessary to stand tall in the face of intimidating snipers, a bravery few Americans have possessed of late. I think our overlords have conveniently overlooked how very much harder it is to demoralize a truly fearless opponent with nothing to lose. Those wannabe overlords, protected form the cradle to the grave, have absolutely no inkling what fighting for their lives without hoards of nannies and servants to shield them from their utter incompetence would feel like. Nor can they imagine the likely outcome… Their lack of imagination, grit, and mettle will be their downfall.
You are also the only one who interpreted the hope I mentioned as being for not needing to unleash the heroic courage of snipering. I most certainly do hope that is not what will be needed, as there is absolutely no heroic courage to be found in slaughtering from hiding; however, the actual hope I was referring to in my comment was syntactically obvious. I was hoping that the elite’s myriad incompetencies and delusions would cause them to implode on their own, à la the Soviets, without open warfare. Odd that your rebuttal left out any reference whatsoever to our elites’ many, many weaknesses and limitations, which is what my comment was actually about. Why is that?
Waving your hands about distractingly while twisting others’ arguments around to make them easier to dismiss is exactly the kind of tilted-playing-field tactic that I am criticizing our coddled elites for relying on to win them the war — not bloody likely. That ivy-leaguer mentality merely “appears” to yield successes against the townies when distortedly viewed, cowering behind the protective coattails of influential parents and fraternities. Please, stop depending on no one being willing to point out your disingenuous distortion of the discourse in order to gain unearned advantage over others. At this particular point in history, that has become quite tedious and rather obvious (consider Pelosi.) Also, do not assume that anyone not calling you out has actually fallen under your disempowering spell — most people stay perfectly silent as they switch loyalties (no doubt, to avoid attracting the attention of your threatened snipers, and the ubiquitous Karens.)
Your admonition to me that I could only possibly want a smooth transition from one well established overlord to another is rather revealing. What if I, not being you, in fact have no interest whatsoever in getting the puppeteer to switch which puppet he covers up his hand with? What if I, not being you, in fact have no interest whatsoever in being cowed by your admonition? Did I mention in my post how important universal buy-in is for elite control to function properly? No member of our elite or wannbe classes has yet to come fully to grips with just how devastatingly outclassed they are in this bitter struggle (à la the Soviets, again.)
You then mentioned “dual power – where you’re essentally already running everything,” which sounds like a very precise description of the goal of entryism. As for your Che-Guevera anecdote, talk about revealing! Exactly what it’s revealing is kinda hard to say as it was somewhat incoherently dropped in as a distracting non-sequitur to bolster your straw-man depiction of my comment and to then allow you to recast your discouraging spell of the system’s crushing power and its only binary alternative — the dreadful failed state. My, what an emotionally compelling narrative you’re distributing! Who authored it?
Lastly, thank you for all of the reading recommendations to kindly get me back on the proper track that all the best Good People™ travel on exclusively. There’s really nothing quite as effective as waving a few credentialed experts in front of a clueless peasant to make him collapse into a puddle of self-doubt — or so Fauci tells me. I’m sure Messrs. Jenkins and Rooney will be able to guide me back into the fold in record time.
Denis wrote, “My favorite ‘I knew I was going to regret voting Biden but I didn’t think it would take less than a week.’ (left the expletives out). Left Twitter is just as nasty and angry post Biden inaugural as they were pre-Nov 6th. They might even be worse. They certainly don’t act like they won anything.”
Thank you, that was an hysterical trip into the twitterverse. I particularly love that Harris’ face is the icon accompanying each thread — at least that’s being honest. I’m afraid the nasty and angry in the left hasn’t risen above a simmer yet. Just wait until it boils over, when they realize they truly didn’t win anything!
My favorites:
“This aged horribly.”
“Is your consent manufactured yet?”
“If those voters were alive, they’d be very upset.”
And my favorite complete thread:
https://twitter.com/BidenLs/status/1355267071911866370/photo/1
Apparently, blaring out facts from the credentialed experts is no longer producing the intended effect. “But it worked for so very long; how could it cease delivering the goodies now??” they forlornly wail as The Machine Stops. I am moved to tears — laughing can do that to me.
Slithy Toves
I set my chart for Thursday, the day of the full moon. I wasn’t sure when the whole thing broke in the news, but I believe most of the aspects hold true for several days, except for the Moon and the cazimi. The cazimi took place on Thursday, so it may not be valid if we use a chart for Wednesday or earlier. On the other hand, maybe this was all meant to climax during the cazimi. I don’t know. Astrology is such a subtle Art and I don’t have a full grasp of it.
Thank you for the sea chanty! I can’t tell you how much that brightened my day. Illigitimi non carborundum!
Varun:
Except I expect a Caesar will be the only way to rein in the oligarchs, and divest them of most of their wealth and influence. A Caesar might just be a dose of unpleasant, but necessary medicine.
Antoinetta III
David BTL:
Trump signs remaining in Windsor County Vermont and environs: Not many. There were lots and lots before the election, they’ve been whittled down to a smattering. Could have something to do with the nasty wind and big snow storms we’ve had since election day though. I see more Trump signs when we go over the river into New Hampshire, but then NH has always been somewhat more to the Right than Vermont.
Biden signs: None. Haven’t seen one since around Christmas. He won, so perhaps his supporters no longer feel the need to display signs? Just guessing.
Even before the election Trump signs outnumbered Biden signs by quite a margin, even here in a very blue state.
By the way, I was elected to the position of Justice of the Peace for our tiny village last November, my first foray into politics. I had no opposition candidate so it wasn’t much of a race, but I’ll be one of five JPs for our town. Should be interesting.
RE: Election Signage
Most of the signs came down after January 6th. There’s a few here and there though, definitely enough to be noticeable. What has really taken me aback is seeing a Biden 2020 flag that has been up and prominently displayed at a high traffic intersection in the town I live in. Otherwise, the more you get out of town and into rural areas, the more common Trump signs still being up seems. It’s as if no one is going to let this go. I’m up on the Minnesota Iron Range, just a reminder.
David BTL – re #906
Here in central California there are still Trump signs everywhere except on lawns. Lots of Trump flags flying in front yards as well. My small kids are so confused, “Didn’t he lose?”
This Yank researched British culture regarding Darkest Yorkshire’s comment about stealthy cameras. Apparently “allotments” are Britain’s equivalent of “community garden plots”, and neighborhood juvenile delinquents vandalize them from time to time. We Yanks are told that Britain is more tightly supervised and surveilled and thought-controlled than in America… but when it comes to snotty kids smashing your zucchini, maybe not so much.
David, by the lake, January 30, 2021 at 1:51 pm re remaining Trump signage– Yesterday as I was coming out of the clinic, I passed a man going in who was wearing a “Make America Great Again” mask. I said to him, “nice mask!” and gave him a thumbs up. He said ‘thanks’.
Denis and Christophe re ‘BidenL’s… JMG predicted this. I’m looking specifically at the last sentence of the paragraph beginning “The first aspect to perfect is Sun square Moon.” Looks like it’s happening already– 8 days in!
Antoinetta III: Although I, too, harbor fond daydreams of a Caesar sailing in and divesting the oligarchs of their wealth and influence and restoring a decent standard of living to the common folk, Caesars are all-too-corruptible. And once corrupted, they are king and cannot be either corrected or removed except by bloody force and swathes of destruction for all. Unless the country gets as lucky as Spain.
Hi y’all Trusty JMG Commentariat, ol’ buddies, ol’ pals…
Whoo boy… Another bombshell just landed: Black Lives Matter is nominated for a Nobel peace prize. I’m NOT kidding. Hallucinating? Maybe. I’ve died and gone to Hell? Now THAT could be…
Check this out:
https://nypost.com/2021/01/29/black-lives-matter-is-nominated-for-a-nobel-peace-prize/
My head is spinning…I have heart palpitations…I forgot my gender… Salvador Dali was a great representational artist…perspective is purple…
I thought the Nobel Committee learned its lesson after Obama’s Peace Prize (and I won’t mention Kissinger’s), as they DID fire the guy who championed him, IIRC. At least tell me I’m not hallucinating; the only mushrooms I’m taking are Criminis. Anyone out there an expert on options? I propose we all short The Onion on high margin, upstage the Gamestop operation, collapse Wall Street with the US Empire, and get rich as a little side benefit. Seriously. Talk to me pal.
Who says those evil bast***s running this s***-show don’t have one wicked sense of humor? They remind me of a fat cat toying with his doomed mouse.
JMG, do consider sponsoring a contest for ‘Great Reset’ gallows humor. First prize? Winner and family get a one-way ticket to Russia.
[Memo to NSA and doxxer-goons: This comment is for entertainment purposes ONLY.]
‘sigh’, -shakes head.- (and I won’t be the least bit offended if this comment is not put through)
—Lunar Apprentice
The Great Reset: “You will own nothing and you will be happy. Everything you need you will rent.”
I found a video that shows people owning nothing and being happy. They’re camped in the parks and on the streets of Seattle, living in tents and wearing clothes that have been scrounged from dumpsters. They need drugs. They rent them from the merchants. Because the drugs conveniently self-destruct in the body, there’s no problem with returning or recycling them. They can basically do what they want. The cops seldom arrest them and the judges never sentence them.
For a look at paradise, Davos style, search “The Fight for the Soul of Seattle | A KOMO News Documentary “
@Christophe So glad you enjoyed it! Twitter is still that place where people feel safe to express themselves with their “anonymous” accounts. Unless of course they are all robots or Chinese fake accounts looking to sway opinions here. Its hard to tell. It could be my confirmation bias, but I feel less anger from Trump supporters then Biden supporters in my real life interactions right now.
A question for our host and the community here – have you seen this set of predictions about extreme agriculture shortages by June due in large part to the policies Biden has enacted or plans to enact?
https://www.iceagefarmer.com
It seems to map to what we discuss here.
I still have trouble believing that a raucous crowd could force their way into the US Capitol building (on that day in particular!) with so little resistance. Has everyone forgotten the draconian (and arguably unconstitutional) protection and powers put in place after 9/11? The average American can’t double park at a midsized airport without risking a small cohort of t, s, and a personnel swarming him/her with assault weapons but a few hundred protesters can just kick in a few doors and windows at the Capitol? It doesn’t make sense. The whole affair smells to high heaven, and not of lilies or roses!
And if it was nothing more than a cynical bit of political theater, who benefits the most?
@ Christophe, Denis, et al.
Re BidenL
It was nice to see someone else lamenting his plans for the Middle East. It was clear from that essay his staff had published in Foreign Affairs that he’d be reinvesting in the imperium.
David by the Lake regarding election signs.
I still see Biden signs up in a rather upscale neighborhood I travel through from time to time. I haven’t seen any Trump signs, but I haven’t been out in the rural areas of the county for a while. What was interesting about the upscale neighborhood is that there must have been Trump voters there, but they must have felt very outnumbered and stayed very quite. Except once. One very large and palatial house had a very large display of Trump signs and banners up for just one day, election day. I was impressed by both the display and the caution.
Kay
@ David by the lake. Here in central Minnesota the amount of Trump signs is down something like 60% but like you are seeing there is still a lot of around. At the height it was everywhere so 40% left is still alot
For everyone that is interested here is a very interesting article about possible election fraud and Trumps team failing in response to it. I have no idea if any of it is accurate or not but you all might enjoy it
https://www.deepcapture.com/2021/01/november-3-december-23-all-the-presidents-teams/
Christophe, My favorite from the twitter thread you linked is from one “Feminist Next Door” who declared that
Wall Street is not the enemy of working people “for ****s sake”. “That is so pedestrian”
Pedestrian!
Well, I guess I have been told off but good. She goes on to enumerate just some of the blessings which have flowed from WS, our 401ks and Community Centers! Love the way Ms feminist can swing the profanity just like the guys do! Note to anyone running for office, Do Not Hire This Woman. She will lose you a hundred votes every time she tweets.
Robert Mathiesen, I looked at my bookshelf and remembered Global Guerrillas is the website, the book is called Brave New War. GG’s best years were in the mid-2000s when it had some great analysis of new types of crime and warfare, and introduced me to concepts I’d never heard before.
11 1/2 hours to go! If JMG sees his shadow when he returns, do we get 6 more weeks of winter?
Quite by chance, I just went over to Founders House Publishing on the web, and I saw that our host’s next contribution to the Haliverse, The Weird of Hali Companion, is now available for pre-ordering there. Publication is scheduled for February 22nd. I have pre-ordered it. Can’t wait!
Re: Trump signs. I live in an extremely PMC neighborhood, and there were only a couple Trump signs, and they’re gone. More surprising, I only saw one Biden sign in the time leading up to the election, which was outnumbered during the primary by Tulsi signs, and it’s now gone too. The store selling MAGA and Trump election merchandise, is still open, but everything is on sale, and the owner expects to switch over to fireworks shortly. (wimpy “fireworks” – this IS Rhode Island, after all.)
Regarding the Nobel Peace Prize: the announced nominations are not part of the formal Nobel deliberations. They only accept nominations from a select group of the correct persons, and the actual nominations are kept secret for 50 years. By a nice coincidence, we do have such an august person in our commentariat: (University professors, professors emeriti and associate professors of history, social sciences, law, philosophy, theology, and religion). So Professor Emeritus Robert Mathiesen, whom would you nominate? You’ve only got until the end of the day today to toss a spanner into the works, so we may have to wait until next year to get the Ecosophian nomination. With the proper PR, we could get it into the media to cause outrage.
Beekeeper: I’m glad to see you have continued the stealth takeover of the reins of power by the Ecosophian Community! I’m trying to be appointed to the local Harbor Commission, thereby avoiding the pesky electorate altogether.
@Christophe
by the way that internet outage was caused by a tree falling on cables. Maybe.
“Yesterday there was a broad internet issue that caused a temporary degradation of Fios service to customers in the Northeast for just under an hour,” a Verizon spokesperson told Insider in an email. “There was an unrelated fiber cut that impacted a very small number of customers in Brooklyn, NY. The cause of the cut was a tree falling on the cable and service has been restored.”
https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/verizon-said-tuesdays-outage-impacting-fios-users-was-caused-by-a-fiber-line-cut-by-a-fallen-tree-in-brooklyn/articleshow/80484483.cms
So it wasn’t an act of sabotage. I think its far more likely the internet is going to fail because of lack of proper maintenance and funding. I would discourage anyone from performing acts of sabotage and exposing themselves to the legal risks. Just build yourself an internet-independent lifestyle, sit back and let time and nature do the job for you.
Also I don’t think there is going to be much video surveillance in the US outside of major urban centers. Exposure to surveillance is totally voluntary, only if you want to belong to the “good people” class.
Antoinetta III,
Gods I hope not, both the Senate and Caesar spell the end of the republic. A third option is that we get to work rebuilding the republic at the ground level.
I will take this opportunity to remind all that the 4th Annual Ecosophia Midsummer Potluck will be held June 19, 2021 at our house. Only 139 days to go! Sign up here. I hope that by then, the plague will have diminished to the point that my neighbors will not turn us in.
A reminder that we still have 3 days to add enough comments to get us over the 1,000 hump! (h/t Robert Mathiesen)
PS: please stop recommending books! The to read/half read pile next to my bed is getting too tall.
>Biden’s already far closer to a Caesar than Trump ever was.
Don’t insult Caesar by comparing him to either one of those midgets.
Lunar Aprentice,
You may be taking Criminis .. but I would wager all my Triskelion quatloos that those Nobelians are spacing out on something beyond even psilocybin … most likely some undiscovered variety of $tinkhorn – looking like the Devil’s phallus and smelling to high heaven, but without any of the mycelial benefits. It’s a sham that they can’t be reabsorbed back into that glacial till from whence they came.
I’ve just blown the dust off my keyboard, preparatory to tonight’s Magic Monday post over on Dreamwidth, and posted an announcement of two books now available for preorder and two graphic novels now available in digital format.
I want to thank everyone for keeping this online community lively, civil, and interesting over the past month. I had very few trolls to delete. (Someone was asking why the numbers on the posts aren’t always sequential; all attempted posts get numbered, and when you see a gap, that’s the smoking crater once inhabited by a spammer or a troll.) Despite a lot of very difficult comments, you folks kept things friendly and intelligent; consider me impressed.
Wednesday’s post is already written and I’ll be announcing certain changes to the mundane astrology project in the next few days. Things are in motion in the world, and here in my digital living room. I expect the next year to be a wild ride.
More soon!
@ David, by the lake and Trump signage
Here in central Pa, there are still Trump signs, flags, and banners around, some quite large. I would say that most of them slowly disappeared.
Months after the election, I’d say I see several Trump signs for every Biden OR Black Lives Matter OR “Everyone is welcome here” OR “Hate isn’t spoken here” signs.
@Peter Van Erp:
Ha! Thank you, Peter, but no! I prefer to fly under the radar, especially where issues that arouse strong passions are concerned. In his later years Arthur Machen would quote Thomas a Kempis: Ama nesciri et de nihilo reputari “Love being unknown and of no repute.” This always struck me as good general advice, especially for professors.
(Students often look for a mentor whose views they can uncritically adopt as their own. An estimable professor , if s\he is at all inspiring, should energetically discourage this. If a professor can truly say upon retirement that s\he has no disciples, then s\he has done the work of professoring well.)
@ Cicada Grove #920
True Caesarism came after civil war (bello civili), and true Bonapartism after revolution
What you have seen are not Caesars but Crassus
Cheers
David
Just a quick note, in that I’d like to echo our host’s thanks to the community here. You guys are great and I appreciate having a space where people can engage in conversations like these in a generally reasoned and respectful manner, even when (and perhaps more accurately, especially when) we don’t agree. Truly, this community is an oasis in a parched and thirsty land.
Slightly early, but a blessed Imbolc to all.
La ‘le Bride Shona Daoibh! Happy St Brigid’s Day. Happy Imbolg. The year is turning… who knows what it brings, but it never sits still… 🙂
According to an old Irish tradition that may pre-figure the American groundhog day tradition, tomorrow’s weather will tell us how hard the rest of the winter is likely to be. If it is a dark, stormy, wintry day, the Cailleach is going to be sleeping in, and she’ll not have time to collect any firewood, which means the winter will be short, because her logpile won’t last. On the other hand, if is a bright, sunny day (the kind of day on which one spots one’s shadow), she’ll get out and collect another big load of firewood, and the winter can then go on for a long while yet.
I’ll let yez know what the omens have to say about this… 😉
Welcome back! I hope your vacation was refreshing, and thanks for continuing to put comments through all this time!
Lunar Apprentice wrote, “Another bombshell just landed: Black Lives Matter is nominated for a Nobel peace prize…. Who says those evil bast***s running this s***-show don’t have one wicked sense of humor? They remind me of a fat cat toying with his doomed mouse.”
A weird sense of humor for sure. And wicked in the sense that the joke will get played out on them in the end, to quite hysterical effect. Do you remember back when Sears and Ford were top-quality brands? Do you remember back when the Nobel prize held more merit than a mug reading “#1 Mommy”?
A Nobel prize for every Mommy could be their new marketing campaign. They certainly wouldn’t want to single out certain Mommies, leaving the rest to feel discouraged and overlooked — that would surely be racist, or misogynist, or something. And then black Lives Matter would have to come burn down the Nobel Institute to protect us all from its white supremacy. Wait a minute!
That’s why they nominated Black Lives Matter! The Nobel Institute is probably one of the most white-supremacist organizations on the planet, projecting an entitled overreach of European values and worldview far and wide. They have a gigantic bullseye on their back in this woke dystopia. Admittedly, it’s probably one of Dali’s melting bullseyes in this kaleidoscopically-distorted new normal, but that doesn’t mean BLM wouldn’t be able to chuck a Molotov cocktail in the bullseye’s general direction and do some kind of damage.
The Institute might be better served and protected by just handing the prize directly over to George Soros, but maybe he prefers the pomp and splendor of having his dark-skinned retinue elevated above Europe’s nobility for a day. How else can the gazillionaires enjoy their redundant wealth than by inflicting my-servants-are-more-noble-than-your-masters moments on each other. Welcome to the silverbacks’ Thunderdome! It’s all just optics anyway, as they fiddle in the flames.
What they remind me of is a doomed fat cat, toying with a much larger and more dangerous prey than it realizes in its conceited cluelessness. They really ought not judge their adversary’s true size and strength by the tip of his happily twitching tail; they have no way of knowing just how far he may extend out beyond their blinkered sight. Whatever topsy-turvy, through-the-looking-glass world they’re hoping to impose upon us, they’re imposing it upon themselves as well. With John Michael’s assistance, we have all developed considerable skills in navigating around their distorted (sur)reality, while our nobel masters are fumbling about in their mythic blindness (the worst possible kind of blindness.)
On the other hand, maybe our environment has just become so psychedelically surreal that some latent intoxicating effect in Criminis has gotten activated. We might all need to lay off our fungiphilic habits for a while until the heavens pass through this Dali/Van-Gogh/El-Greco-inspired phase. Whatever you do, don’t take any magic mushrooms or you might just wake up to them offering the Nobel peace prize to Hitler, posthumously.
Ron M
It is amazing how different traditions often come to the same conclusions. Somebody once said that these oracles are more of a technique to grasp the future than being true. I don’t know if that makes sense, because I see Hellenistic Astrology as true, and you see Vedic Astrology as true.
Slithy Toves
One thing I just remembered too is that Mars is in his detriment in Taurus. JMG pointed that out in his inauguration reading.
Goldenhawk
When you say the stock value exploded because of Venus/Jupiter, that makes sense because plutonium is used for bombs. Whether or not Pluto’s influence is waning, it’s a fun coincidence! Hedge funds are notoriously cryptic and hidden, too, so that seems plutonian.
@David BTL. – I’m in a PMC-heavy college town in Central Pa with land grant university at core, surrounded by rural ag townships. Many Trump signs still up in the farm areas.
@JMG – seeing your return made me tear up just a smidge. Goes without saying but will say it anyway…missed you and glad you’re back.
@ Peter van Erp — our borough Council just re-upped its “temporary” ordinance from last spring, prohibiting gatherings of more than 10 people in a private residence, requiring application for a government permit allowing up to 15 more (but no more than 25 under any circumstances), all punishable by citation carrying $300 fine per infraction. Current iteration set to expire May 31.
Having crossed a threshold from silent, nonconsensual compliance back into active defiance mode around the time of the Parler dismemberment, I’m now trying to organize an illegal potluck at my house, and be ready to challenge the citation if issued. Unlikely to be successful getting off the starting block though, because the PMCs are too scared and obedient to want to come. ( I used to have local friends among that demographic and we shared sociable all-ages meals together often in the before times, but probably have lost most more or less permanently to the Blorg.)
Mary Bennett wrote, “Christophe, My favorite from the twitter thread you linked is from one ‘Feminist Next Door’ who declared that Pedestrian! Well, I guess I have been told off but good.”
Oh, haven’t you just? Her obvious poise and self-assurance made you want to slink back into your groundhog hole, didn’t it? I guess when their arguments are so utterly devoid of any level of awareness or intelligence they have to start slinging around the really big insults, like (Gasp, will John Michael’s profanity ban even allow me to print this?) “pedestrian!” For a wannabe to imagine that kind of smug posturing might play to her slipping advantage is either way out of touch or she’s a mainstream journalist.
These fools must have convinced themselves that somewhere, beneath all of our mockery and embarrassment for them, we crave their approval and cower at their stricture. What’s more, if we don’t straighten up quickly, I’m sure they will bring out the big guns! I know you’re wondering, “What ammunition could possibly be more damaging than hurling the dreaded ‘pedestrian’ at us?”
I think that might be best answered through the parable of a dialogue (prepare to engage lockjaw):
“My dear, how very ‘pedestrian’ of you! I’m quite sure you don’t want to be associated with one of those reviled ‘pedestrians,’ darling. So despised for allowing their feet to be contaminated by the filthy earth, which itself is so helplessly pathetic it needs our elite rescuing with a green new deal (though it does make for a decorative bauble of a globe in the study, now doesn’t it?) Those poor, poor ‘pedestrians’ who have to consider durability when buying their shoes.”
“Oh, chérie, you’re so very drôle.”
“No, don’t laugh, dahling, it’s unseemly. Not that they could ever hope to keep their shoes looking fashionable, even if they could afford the Right ones. Poor dears! How we do pity those who can’t afford their own proper transportation. Why, even those ghastly bus riders are not quite so unfortunate as the atrocious ‘pedestrians,’ groveling in their earthy abasement. But I hear there’s an even better way to signal distinction on the horizon.”
“Really, ma chérie, do tell! I’m all ears.”
“Well…. With so many in our class flying by private jet nowadays, and helipads popping up in all the best places, we’re positively soaring! ‘Pedestrian’ will be so yesterday’s derision. The new snub will be ‘terrestrial’. Yes, precisely dear — I knew you would get the implications as soon as you heard it. No need to leave your jaw hanging agape like that, dahling. Isn’t it just divine? I mean that quite literally. They’re terrestrial, and we’re…?”
“Oh, chérie, I just can’t wait to start using it!”
“Oh, no, you mustn’t begin using ‘terrestrial’ quite yet. As usual, dear, we’re a bit ahead of the curve on this one. ‘Terrestrial’ won’t be introduced until the first flying cars make it to the market, which, if my sources are correct, will not be long now at all. Until then, don’t call them ‘terrestrial’ to their faces because we have to give them something they can fantasize about aspiring to before we transition them down from ‘pedestrian’ to ‘terrestrial’. They’re certainly revolting, darling, but we want to make sure they stay revolting in only one way, don’t we?”
“Oh, ma petite chérie, how awfully drôle of you.”
(disengage lockjaw now)
JMG,
Thanks for the Cell Salt recommendation. They seemed to drastically reduce the length of one of my colds, and I recently sent some to two older family members who got COVID a few days ago along with a vitamin regimen of C, D, Quercetin and Zinc.
Since the inauguration ceremony began earlier than expected, does that affect the chart?
It seems a lot of the trends you predicted with the Grand Mutation are already in full force.
David, BTL,
I live in a blue bit of a very red and rural state, as demonstrated by a minimum of one Old Glory flown per block (and in my neighborhood, where there are no blocks, every fourth house or so) but most of the Trump signs are down. No one ever bothers removing bumper stickers: there are still Obama era campaign stickers driving around, so those aren’t much use. People still wear MAGA clothes, but who really can afford to get rid of perfectly good clothing? Those who can donate, and then others wear them. I only ever saw a very few Biden signs, and those went away immediately in November.
Locally the two unchallenged D candidates for state legislature won, the challenged D incumbent lost to his R challenger. I sincerely hope there are people kicking themselves in the rear over that on both sides-for losing a ‘safe’ seat and for not challenging two ‘safe’ seats.
And, of course, three school board members actually managed to tick off enough voters that they’re facing a recall election! To quote a friend who attended K-12 in the local district: “I’ve learned more civics from this recall campaign than they taught in school.”
To Scotlyn – La ‘le Bride Shona Daoibh! Happy St Brigid’s Day. Happy Imbolg to you as well! Tomorrow’s forecast from beautiful Florida – North Florida, mind you – 53/31, wind WNW 8-16 mph. But with a fair amount of sun. But then, winter hereabouts is like spring and fall combined.
A wild ride ahead indeed! A news story about a 9 year child, handcuffed and in the back of a police vehicle is subsequently maced in the face because she refused to “calm down”.
It feels as though a couple of powerful trickster deities are playing a game of “hold my beer…”
Strange times with strange fruits.
I have read the Rancourt report references by Simon S above. It is well-written and well-researched and makes several good points. I do think that as a physicist he has a tendency to look for single causes of complex biological phenomena, and in my experience from other areas of biology, these simple physicists’ models don’t perform very well. For example, I have read a bit about the droplet vs. aerosol debate. As far as I know, cloth masks haven’t ever be claimed to reduce transmission by more than 20-25%. I don’t feel comfortable excluding a role for aerosol in Covid-19 transmission, but I don’t think droplets can be discounted entirely, and therefore masks cannot be dismissed as cavalierly as he does. Actually, my opinion is swayed, in this case, more by the successful examples of Covid-19 containment without lockdown in East Asia, which have involved mask use at least at some point, than by lab experiments.
And this brings me to the second limitation of Rancourt’s report: he focuses entirely on Western states, and particularly on New York City, Canada and Northern Italy. I tend to think he is right in explaining the sharp peak in New York City (and in Montréal, by the way) through the decision to transfer potentially infected elderly people back into nursing homes, and he may well be right about Northern Italy, too, though I haven’t looked into that. He doesn’t specify what happened in England and Spain, the two worst-hit countries in Europe, and I don’t know if the same policies were applied there. His model does not seem to apply, in any case, to other continents.
Several commenters here have reported that in their neighborhood there were few cases of Covid-19 mortality, and I believe them. But Rancourt makes general statements about the virus itself, or even about all respiratory viruses, so his model must apply everywhere to be valid.
South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have had clusters of Covid-19 cases several times, and each time they were able to quench the outbreaks through testing and tracing. According to Rancourt’s model, testing and tracing one particular virus strain shouldn’t make any difference to overall mortality, yet these countries (and Vietnam) have very successfully avoided a rise in mortality.
A third limitation of Rancourt’s model (which of course he isn’t to be blamed for) is that his report only shows the first 2-3 months of the pandemic.
In Brazil, the federal government has done all in its power to avoid and block distancing and mask wearing, while pushing aggressively for treatment with hydroxychloroquin and ivermectin. Some governors and mayors have nevertheless tried to impose distancing measures, while others haven’t. In the case of Manaus, the governor and mayor didn’t ever impose a successful lockdown, and nevertheless overall mortality rose to a peak value of about 4x normal death rates in April and May (other cities like Fortaleza had numbers almost as high). When mortality fell, even very partial distancing measures were abandoned, since just about everybody (me included – I posted this here on this blog) thought they might now have “herd immunity”, though bought at a terrible price. Then cases and mortality rose again, and in January Manaus arrived at more than 5 times normal mortality. The mortality is in large part due to criminal negligence on the part of the various levels of government, which did not bring in the necessary oxygen supplies, but Rancourt wouldn’t be able to explain why oxygen demand rose to three times normal levels in the Equatorian rainy season.
So I do see value in several parts of Rancourt’s report, but it is not the whole picture.
(Dividing comments here to avoid excessive length, and to reach 1000 :-))
With regard to models of excess mortality, yes, let’s do abandon models. Ignore the yellow line in the CDC chart. The raw mortality data shows 2020 was different from the preceding years (I would love to see a comparison with a longer times series, such as the one included in Rancourt’s report).
With regard to Sweden, the simple total number as of today is 97 941 deaths in 2020, while in the preceding 10 years they were between 88 976 and 92 185. So, regardless of how you calculate it, there was higher (“excess”) mortality in 2020. It is another discussion if the excess mortality was worth the restrictions Western countries chose to impose – Peter Van Erp has expressed his value judgment with admirable frankness there.
On the King in Orange, From Pew Research: https://www.pewresearch.org/2021/01/29/how-america-changed-during-donald-trumps-presidency/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
John and everyone–
The Dem-Reps in the making?
https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-dozens-former-bush-officials-111446506.html
Now, now, Courtinthenorth, they had to mace the obstreperous kid To Keep Us Safe.
I’m so old I can remember when a grown man would rather die than let it be known he needed a weapon to subdue a 9-year-old.
Spring is just around the corner—the city just tested the tornado sirens for the first time in 2021.
Curious if others are finding no joy in going out to parks/museums/sites any more? Very little is open in PA -theaters, libraries, archives, courthouses, museums, historical sites all closed March 13th. A few museums and garden sites opened with timed tickets and very limited capacity. We went out to one the other weekend as we used to do in the before times, and it was just devoid of any enjoyment.
First, the parking lot was 1/3 with out of state plates – NY, NJ, MD, DE, MA, VA. We supposedly have a 14 day quarantine if you come in from out of state, so that obviously ain’t happening. Second they closed all the bathrooms and all we had to use was outdoor, unheated bathrooms, with ice cold water for hand washing. Third, masks had to be worn the whole time no matter your distance from people and that just gets annoying. Fourth, I felt like I was just waiting for someone to scream at me for standing too close to them, or rubbing my face through the mask, or whatever and post it on social media. Fifth, the restaurant was grab and go and no where to sit inside or out.
It used to be so fun to go for a day, grab a snack or meal, and stroll around chatting while seeing the sights. Any opportunity for that is just gone now. It’s so depressing. I can’t believe they just took any opportunity for cultural, artistic, or just plain human events away from us.
We are letting all our memberships to these places expire. I don’t see any of them fighting to open and ease restrictions, or make the state prove that Covid is spreading at their site. In fact every place that is government-run or non-profit seems to enthusiastically embrace this never-ending madness. We just might have to move to a “free state.”
JMG good to see you back and eagerly awaiting your post!
All–
Re things that shouldn’t surprise us
The first of many such delays, I’m sure:
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/nasa-delays-artemis-moon-lander-contract-awards-221522659.html
“They thought Trump was the river when he was really the dam.” – Michael Malice
Malice is one of the clearer thinkers out there. Avoids the right/left political tit-for-tat. A very interesting interview on current events, how the cathedral (managerial class) is flailing, and how the cities have been destroyed over the last year (mayors did more damage than any terrorist could have)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCWB4CMou_M
I haven’t kept up with this thread unfortunately. I’m throwing a comment in to get it to 1000.
One thought I had is that the blatant media lying (just read what’s actually being said on the subreddit) about r/wallstreetbets pushing Silver might wake up some of the previously devout followers of MSM to the manipulative ways of the former.
Also did anyone notice MSM took down the covid death counter right when our current pres. took office? (I don’t watch TV anymore, a family member pointed this out when I went to their house)
I have read the deepcapture report about the election fraud investigation with a good deal of amusement (thanks, Will Oberton!). Without going through the statistical reports in detail (and not by video), I cannot judge the veracity of Byrne’s claims. However, it occurs to me that the following two hypotheses are not incompatible:
1. There might have been widespread election fraud.
2. Trump’s team (and by extension Trump himself) might have been either unwilling or not competent enough to make a plausible case in the courts.
If both of these hypotheses were true, would it then make sense to put him back into the White House?
Everybody keep an eye on silver. If the WSB crowd succeeds in it’s latest shortsqueeze it will have much broader implications than most realize. [p.s.: Oh, and you should’ve already had yours by now.]
@ Matthias
Sweden’s population has grown by almost a million in the last ten years. The number of people in the at-risk group for corona (>65 years old) has grown there by a few hundred thousand. As the baby boomers come to the end of their lives, we are going to see a natural increase in the headline mortality figure so correcting the death rate for population size and demographic shift is necessary to get a proper understanding.
When you correct for population growth, Sweden’s death rate in 2020 was lower than 10 years earlier as explained here – https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2021/01/04/sweden-will-have-a-lower-death-rate-in-2020-than-it-had-in-2010/
Well, it looks like carrots are not a very good way to paraphrase a quote with multiple quotation marks inside it in the reply box. Carrots must be some kind of html code that ends up obliterating whatever is sandwhiched between them. Let me try that again using parentheses instead. Comment #949 was supposed to begin:
Mary Bennett wrote, “Christophe, My favorite from the twitter thread you linked is from one ‘Feminist Next Door’ who declared that (Wall Street is not the enemy of working people ‘for ****s sake’. ‘That is so pedestrian’) Pedestrian! Well, I guess I have been told off but good.”
Oh, haven’t you just? — And haven’t I just been told off but good by the little carrots? They’re probably laughing and calling me ‘pedestrian’ or ‘terrestrial’ with their tiny carrot beaks!
TJandTheBear,
Alas, silver seems to be a distraction engineered by the hedge funds. The users of r/wallstreetbets are adamant that it’s not them.
Back to my previous post on future agricultural shortages – I found the executive order, or at least one of them, that sets a troubling policy. Biden is ordering Secretary of Agriculture to set aside 30% of agricultural land and make it fallow in effort to fight climate change. This will make farmers poorer, send the cost of food skyrocketing, and lead to a lot of hungry people. So if people start doing small scale food production will it be criminalized because we aren’t participating in the fight against climate change? I am freaking out a bit over here.
“Sec. 216. Conserving Our Nation’s Lands and Waters. (a) The Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce, the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, and the heads of other relevant agencies, shall submit a report to the Task Force within 90 days of the date of this order recommending steps that the United States should take, working with State, local, Tribal, and territorial governments, agricultural and forest landowners, fishermen, and other key stakeholders, to achieve the goal of conserving at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030.”
[Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad | The White House](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/27/executive-order-on-tackling-the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad/)
Thank you DFC for introducing me to Babylon Bee! I just spent an hour reading and the tears are still in my eye.
Not my tribe but I laughed and laughed. Quite a few direct hits there -“Wheel of Science” indeed!
I’ll do my best to carry this gift forward.
I also thank all of you in this community (and the host) for providing civilized, nuanced, sometimes perhaps even enlightening discussion for an old troll to read.
Thank you for the reminder about population growth, Simon S! I had forgotten about their strong recent immigration. You have made me curious about excess mortality per age group, but I will resist trying to hack numbers right now and wait for their report at the end of the month.
In any case, I do agree with Sweden’s decision to keep the schools open, and their wager to appeal to employees’ and employers’ civic sense of responsibility in working from home whenever possible, instead of using decrees, seems to have paid off.
Denis writes: “Second they closed all the bathrooms and all we had to use was outdoor, unheated bathrooms, with ice cold water for hand washing.”
Same stupid thing at the rest areas on the interstates here in Vermont. Closed the bathrooms which, during normal times are impeccably clean, and stuck porta-potties in the parking lot which are as disgusting as any porta-pottie you’ve ever used. This is the sort of disease-prevention plan you’d expect a bureaucrat to dream up.
All:
There’s been much discussion here and elsewhere about the new Covid vaccines. For Mr. Beekeeper and me, we won’t be getting them; I’m not a fan of jabs in general (although I do keep up my tetanus vaccine) and the Mr. has an autoimmune disease, currently under control, but we’ve heard that the vac can trigger an autoimmune reaction and he’s decided he doesn’t need any more of that.
This morning I came across a website to which anyone can post their experiences with any of the Covid vaccines. A couple of the anecdotes are positive, but the vast majority are truly frightening. I have heard that YouTube has been removing videos of people showing their dangerous reactions to the vaccine and one commenter on the vaccine website mentioned that FaceBook had taken her negative experience story down, so maybe it’s only a matter of time before any bad review online is sent down the memory hole.
Anyway, here’s a link to the website at prezi.com for those who are interested. Make of it what you will. I have yet to hear about a single bad reaction reported by the MSM, although to be fair I don’t tune in very much. My impression from what I’ve seen is that the main news outlets are all-in for the vaccine though, having successfully terrified everyone that Covid is going to kill us all.
https://prezi.com/i/byzl22mqwfaa/experiences-following-cvvaa/
Everyone impacted by yesterday/today’s snow:
Be safe. Don’t drive like a crazy person if you have to go anywhere.
@Denis
I live in PA too and concur with all you’ve said. It’s awful here. All formerly public spaces indoors are closed and locked, including local government offices and libraries, and have been since last spring. All public places outdoors are lousy with civilian mask and distancing enforcers. It’s slightly better in rural communities, but I don’t happen to live in one of those and can only escape there for brief visits.
Also upsetting is how “well” my kids (high school and college age) have adjusted to it all.
I understand that they would be in more immediate psychological pain if they viewed all the restrictions on their lives (online schooling and gaming, masking everywhere, no casual social gatherings with friends in person), as illegitimate coercion and ineffective for public health, so it’s somewhat a self-preservation choice.
but it also breaks me that they and their friends go along with it all and look at skeptical and dissenting views as crazy.
I don’t think they will ever really understand or care about what’s been robbed from them and everyone else, in terms of human self-determination, social trust bonds and so many other things.
@ Will Oberton – thanks for the deepcapture links which make for interesting reading. It struck me forcefully, as it seems to have struck Matthias, that if his information is credible, it may be equally accurate to say BOTH that:
1) there was electoral fraud specifically directed at flipping results in key counties
2) Trump, and by extension Trump’s personally trusted team, were either unwilling or unable to make any serious effort to bring this to light, even though the tools and the teamwork appeared to be in place several levels further down the chain.
If I understand the scenario posed, the real “meat” of the vote-flipping lies in the machines being programmed to have a high degree of trouble “reading” the ballots, requiring an “adjudication” by one of the counting staff. The “adjudication” process itself appears to have little oversight or rulings as to how to proceed when a ballot cannot be read by the machine.
I have been very fortunate to have had the chance to at as a poll watcher at several elections in Ireland, and it strikes me that this is what the electoral officers call a “spoiled vote” – for which there are specific rules and procedures, eliminating the possibility of a poll counter “adjudicating such ballots without oversight. Of course Ireland bought, but rejected, electoral machines several years ago, and fortunately has stuck to the pencil, paper ballot, and the naked eye style of counting.
But I was present at an “adjucation” of “spoiled votes” once. The rule is that they are called “spoiled” if the counter cannot immediately understand the voter’s clear intention, and/or there is something written on it that may potentially reveal the voter’s identity.
On this occasion, the electoral officer set up a table. Each candidate represented on the ballot was invited to select two reps for the viewing. The officer “showed” the paper ballots that fit the first criteria (no clear voting intention) one by one. If anyone thought the vote looked like its intention *could be* read for their team, they’d say so, and if the others agreed, that vote would be “adjudicated” as being for that candidate. Sometimes there was a bit of an argument, but mostly there was general agreement. The “potentially identifying” votes were not shown at the adjudicating table (to protect the voter’s identity), but could not be counted at all.
In the Donegal counts, typically there are some 30-40,000 ballots to count, and yet the “spoiled” count to be adjudicated is never more than 200-300 ballots. I personally did find it quite shocking to see that, per the Deepcapture report, in one county alone, something like 97% of ballots had been manually “adjudicated” and that without any visible oversight – the ballot counter appears to be simply “deciding” how the vote should have gone and electronically adjusting it all by themselves. If this process affected only a tiny percentage, and if the original paper ballots were retained, in the event they were questioned, so that a manual, overseen, recount could be conducted, this would be an acceptable outcome. But as a procedure carried out in the vast MAJORITY of ballots, not in the presence either of the voter, or of any party poll watchers, this does seem extraordinary.
Lady Cutekitten,
Yes, I remember those days too. Per chance we will live long enough to see the pendulum swing back again?
For now though I feel like we are living in a strange and surreal time and I don’t know whether I want to laugh hysterically or cry! I guess I will have to decide once I pick my incredulous jaw up off the floor! 😉
Welcome back JMG! I hope you are indeed refreshed…. and thanks again to all here for the sanity saving conversation and debate.
Cheers all!
Court
@ Denis
Re closed up spaces
Our libraries are closed and have been for almost a year, though “open” for curbside pick-up of online holds. As far as I’m concerned, if I can’t browse the stacks, I don’t have a library.
#971 KW said:
“Also upsetting is how “well” my kids (high school and college age) have adjusted to it all.”
I’ve have seen the same with older people too.
Also people being of very different ideas – those who are totally with the programme and the ‘rules’ give them something to hold onto and refuse to consider any question of the narrative, those who are ‘hesitant’ but swayed by the crowd and media storm but not making noise, and those willing to ask questions about what is going on, those in complete denial and very very cross indeed… all sorts of flavours etc.
Something that has surprised me is the number of people I considered as ‘thinking’ who have suddenly seemed to switch off higher capacity and go completely driven by base emotions.
To say “some of the safety studies aren’t scheduled to finish until 2023” elicits ‘So you’re an anti-vaxxer then!’
It is not just the disease idea but many other areas too. Anything that might trend above the astral emotional level gets immediate and hard pushback – my 21yr old niece informed me that since I was male she was offended (offended I tell you!) that I might have anything to say about, well, anything it seems.
Naughty of me I realise, but the question ‘well if sex is a spectrum as you suggest, doesn’t that mean that anyone can say anything about anything because male and female do not exist?’ did not go down well – I detected the smell of burning circuitry 100 miles away and it seemed prudent to back away promptly.
Pointing out that there is actually a difference between gender and biological sex and the two should not be conflated, or asking whether an injection that does not prevent infection should be called a vaccine, seem questions too far for a good number of people.
JMG – have you thought about a book prize for poster #1000 ? ; )
Closed toilets? No mystery there at all. Same with the closed showers at the few public swimming pools that have been re-opened – showers that were put in decades ago, and their use made compulsory, in order to HELP STOP the spread of diseases.
“Controlling the spread of the disease” should not be interpreted as “doing all we can to make the disease stop spreading”, but instead as “getting the disease to spread in a controlled manner”. Then the light comes on, and everything illogical in the government policies regarding covid-19 suddenly makes sense.
Cicada Grove, those allotment revenge plots are the funniest comedy of escalation I’ve seen in ages. 🙂
Hi Scotlyn,
I completely agree with your commentary about electronic voting. Germany, fortunately, still has people counting paper ballots and manages to publish a reasonably correct nation-wide vote by about 10pm on election day. In Brazil, voting is entirely electronic (no scribbling or half-way punching of paper ballots), and counting is done on servers in the national capital, which comes with its own problems (delays because of denial-of-service attacks in the last municipal elections). If nothing else, the report from Antrim Country, Michigan (which I have now read) reinforces my suspicions about voting machines in general.
What I feel is missing from Byrne’s account is the step from inference to actual evidence: Yes, in Antrim County many things went wrong, and two days after the election, votes were corrected in favor of Trump. Yes, since the same machines were used in other places, it is worrying and in principle possible that there the counts were “corrected” in favor of Biden. But he would need to show some evidence at least that this actually happened in the counties that decided the election, going beyond inference. Antrim County seems to be his “trump card”.
By the way, I remember perfectly well Democrats complaining before, during and after the 2004 election (including on Jan 6,2005) that the owner of the company that supplied voting machines to Ohio had declared he would “deliver Ohio for Bush”.
Denis,
We used to live in the deecee metro area and had subscription tickets to downtown venues like the Kennedy Center and various museum memberships. When the madness hit (hard to believe almost a year ago) I watched with astonishment. After a few months, I realized that things were not going back to “normal”. If people are going to become so terrified of a respiratory virus — how will that will ever end? There’s ALWAYS respiratory viruses going around, and respiratory viruses ALWAYS kill a lot of old people.
And when I saw people wearing masks while driving alone in their car — what? or while hiking in the forest in the middle of nowhere — what? I am a scientist. I know what the protocols are to make a real mask useful. Sigh. I simply will not participate in the mask wearing thing unless I have to. So I am not going to do anything voluntarily that requires wearing one.
So we moved. We are lucky; we had the luxury of doing so. We cancelled all our subscriptions to performance venues and museums and etc. As an introvert, I am happy to hang out in the mountains and go for walks by myself and go to the grocery store once a week. Again, I am lucky that this is an option.
I spent 40 years as a scientist before I retired. JMG has said much about “science” in the US and I cannot disagree. There is still some science out there (the elites may be afraid to totally stomp it down), but what you get from the media has little resemblance. You can find the science, but you have to read the papers, and know how to critically read them and find the holes. Not an easy thing.
Christophe, perhaps my argument sounded confusing because I’m coming at this from a strange angle. Allow me to explain. I’m 40 years old and have been a revolutionary socialist since I was 14. I’ve spent a long time looking forward to the big showdown, and a long time considering the options. I don’t want to see anyone charging into something that may not be what they think it’s going to be. On the other hand, how much advice do I want to be giving to what would be a largely right-wing insurgency. Turns out I didn’t need to worry as you don’t even want to look at books that actualy tell you how to pursue such a campaign.
I’m always amused by the dread horror people have of entryism. I knew people who did it, were bored to tears by it, and were glad when that period ended. That sort of palace coup is a thing, but that’s not what dual power means. It’s more like the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike. Nothing moved in the city without the union’s permission. They kept the trucking companies locked down, but gave farmers with their own vehicles permission to bring food to market. As you get closer to revolution that sort of thing becomes common across society. Then you have the numbers, organisation, planning capacity and power to start thinking about putting the old regime out of its misery.
Without that, there is your ideal – the fall of the Soviet Union. Public health and life expectancy drop sharply, two coups with people killed in the street, gangsters kill a load more people, corruption becomes endemic, then a strongman authoritarian takes over and kills even more. If the Soviet Union hadn’t fallen apart on its own but been taken down by mass movements like Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, or Solidarity in Poland 1980-81, then it may have turned out differently. Things would have to be really bad for Russia to seem like the happy ending.
Which brings us to your claim of people being fearless and with nothing to lose. There have been revolts like that and they were spectacular. But there’s a huge gap between present day America and the inmates of the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz and Treblinka. That’s what nothing to lose really looks like.
I’m a hairy-chested Latino revolutionary, so trust me I know this temptation. And once it gets to a certain point, fair enough. I’m good with Spanish republicans running over fascist machine gun posts with cars and lorries. But ask yourself – can you pull this off, and if you do will it actually get you where you want to go?
Finally (and mostly for my own smug satisfaction) I do have to come to your suggestion that no-one is listening to what I’m saying. Dude. I’m telling a group who seem to be majority moderates and centrists to think twice before they start breaking things. Easiest sale I’ll ever make. It does lead to another thought. Watching the Egyptian Revolution during the Arab Spring I was seeing everyone milling around Tahrir Square and thinking “You need to do something. You’ve got about five days to storm the palace or do something or you’re going to run out of steam and you’re going to lose”. Called it to the day. Then watching America recently I think I know what game the US ruling class is playing. I wondered as a joke if I know this stuff well enough to hire myself out to regimes as a counterrevolutionary consultant. If you take me saying “Guerrilla war bad. Die for nothing. Striking better.” as sophisticated psyops, maybe I have skills I wasn’t fully aware of…
@KW Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
I am also heartbroken here with my two adult college age children also seemingly accepting everything and going along. Their colleges have been examples of buffoonery at a scale I didn’t think possible in terms of communication and handling this situation.
Both colleges are PA based, doing 100% online classes. One just opened dorms to freshman and its so obvious its because they can’t afford to lose any more of that sweet sweet cash. Dorm living is essentially some cross between isolation and reality TV. Apparently they get assigned 6 people for a “pod” and you can snitch on people who are talking with people outside their assigned “pod.” No dining hall, no gym, no social events, limited library access. It’s awful.
Both my kids are still home. I don’t want them going back. I don’t want to give these people any more of our money. My husband feels like we need to cut them slack and they are doing the best they can. My kids want to go back when it is normal. They do at least remained concerned with the even harsher punishment of quarantine which is doled out if you even come in to contact with someone who needs to be tested (no necessarily positive).
Meanwhile my local hospital has nurses and doctors who are Covid positive working as long as they don’t show symptoms such as fever and cough. Insane.
@ Scotlyn. We have a similar paper ballot system in South Africa. At the counting place, the ballot boxes are emptied onto long tables, the ballots are unfolded and placed face up. They are placed into piles of 20 (or 50 or 100, I forget) and the piles counted to get a total vote tally. Then they are sorted into candidates, piled and counted again. The two tallies must match. During the sorting any doubtful ballot paper will go to the electoral officer who examines it together with the candidates or their representatives and determines if it is a vote for a candidate or a spoiled vote.
In the election I was concerned with there were no disputes. It all went very smoothly. One thing that helped was we had pictures of ballots that had gone to the Supreme Court for adjudication in past elections and they gave good guidance.
Our system is one ballot, one vote. If we are having local and national elections at the same time we get two ballots, one for local, one for national. In the US the ballots seem to be more like spreadsheets where you can vote for multiple candidates on one ballot which would make counting far more complex, so maybe some mechanization is justified.
Forgot to mention, we have postal votes as well. They are kept one side in their sealed envelopes. If they are fewer in number than the winning candidate’s margin they cannot affect the result so they remain sealed and are not counted. Normally there are very few of them. Where they are a high percentage of the total votes cast like in the last US election, I imagine they present a major problem to the counting officers.
@KW
Re kids adjusting to it all
I have two kids in high school (in central NJ) and our district is all virtual. Some things I’ve noticed:
They’ve spent most of their lives observing teachers, coaches, adults in general, make (in my kids minds) arbitrary rules or restrictions that don’t seem to follow logic which is why some will go along with it. They’re used to it.
Many of the kids who are learning virtually or even hybrid appreciate the extra sleep, the easy access to food, not being inundated with drama, peer pressure, drugs, etc., not being stuck in classrooms all day with people they don’t like (both staff and fellow students.)
(For the record, the instruction here has been haphazard but then even before covid the curriculum left much to be desired. Not much gained but then not much lost either.)
These kids have grown up in a digital age where much of their social interaction is online so the current restrictions just push them further in that direction. They already have a very different idea of socializing and casual interactions that preceded the whole covid situation. For some this has been devastating, but for number of kids this was a welcome break.
As for personal freedoms, self determination and such, again, this is a generation that as a whole has had much more adult influence than many of the readers here. In other words, the changes WE see compared to our life experiences are enormous but for the youngsters today the shift is significant but not inconceivable.
—
My kids believe most adults are clueless but they also see it as a once in a lifetime opportunity- and they’re enjoying it while they can. They miss their friends, though they’ve have some creative get togethers. They’ve also learned some new recipes, worked on some arts and crafts, redecorated their rooms, slept really well, eaten really well, and have some interesting zoom stories:
-mom bursting in on her son while he’s taking a math quiz to tell him (in Hindi) that his lunch is ready and the concerned teacher asking if everything is ok
-algebra teacher explaining about coefficients when her four year old interrupts, gets in front of the camera and waves to the class and says ‘hiiiyyyeee’
-classmate has to mute her mike when her little brother starts singing loudly
-another classmate is sitting looking almost bored, then suddenly alarmed ‘Fluffy, no!’ then a flash of gray before she’s disconnected
-(me) listening to my daughter play melodic but incomplete bits of music on her cello during orchestra (I did recognize Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies)
I worry about the future my kids will inherit but I also see a shift in the way they are thinking about it. They’re adapting and learning to be flexible. That gives me hope.
Denis wrote, “Biden is ordering Secretary of Agriculture to set aside 30% of agricultural land and make it fallow in effort to fight climate change. This will make farmers poorer, send the cost of food skyrocketing, and lead to a lot of hungry people. So if people start doing small scale food production will it be criminalized because we aren’t participating in the fight against climate change? I am freaking out a bit over here.”
Certainly all kinds of worthwhile behaviors will be criminalized, while many, many useless ones will be mandated — not much of a change in that! But you don’t need to freak out on this one. They already blew their criminalizing/mandating wad by test running it on a non-plague — now they’re just shooting blanks at a populace that already learned to disregard them. Section 216 will never move beyond the managerial-class looting it was actually written to accomplish: submitting reports, that recommend steps, that should be taken to achieve goals, by working with all of our ever-so-united levels of government that are, at last, back in complete and total cooperation under centralized control. Oh my god, you really don’t want to take this garbage seriously! Like the great reset, it’s worry porn for the masses. If your hand’s too distracted by the porn, you won’t be able to use it tearing the system down, brick by crumbling brick.
“Conserving Our Nation’s Lands and Waters” is just another smash and grab with an astronomical price tag. They probably hope it will also serve as some kind of litmus test over at the Dept. of Ag. to force Trump-loyalists to out themselves and get fired. Why would they possibly want to out themselves when they’re already perfectly situated to inflict maximum damage? As bureaucrats, all they have to do is slow-pedal this thing to death. It will also be very funny when Trump supporters do an about face and begin screaming about the fate of the big-eyed, blue-tufted titmouse that will lose its ecological niche if the land stops getting tilled. So many ways to derail a poorly-conceived executive order, and only one way for it pan out — universal buy-in. Child, that ship done already sailed! Now climb yourself down off that roof.
DC’s government retains no more domestic influence now than any coup regime. Like a coup regime, they control the military, full stop. Internationally, that makes them quite dangerous. If they could successfully wield their military control domestically through secret police, terror squads, and midnight disappearances, I’d be concerned here at home too, but those are so far outside the American mythos that they won’t work properly here.
If the government’s goal were open civil war, fine, call in the goon squads. But no pretender seizes the throne (not even the ones who do it hiding behind demented old men) with the intention of diminishing their control. They don’t want an outright civil war, so they can’t call out their goon squads. They’re hoping that the corporations are foolish enough to employ their private goon squads, and thus shield the government from the legitimacy hit. News flash: the government already took a legitimacy hit! So far, only the media moguls have been dim-witted enough to take up the government’s invitation. Incoming!: massive legitimacy hit in five, four, three…. Good thing our octogenarian overlords practiced hiding under their desks back in the fifties. Who knew that would eventually come to such good use?
Most-esteemed Archdruid, welcome back! I rejoice in the soon-return of your voice to this blog, and the recent return of your oft-intriguing Magic Mondays.
This particular blog posting of yours mentioned quite a lot about the interweaving of social trends with environmental policies and related discussions. As a late addendum to this discussion, here’s an article discussing one person’s relationship to the climate-change arena:
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-climate-crisis-is-worse-than-you-can-imagine-heres-what-happens-if-you-try
I came across this article by way of a web site that is guardedly skeptical about the general topic of climate change (though in my opinion often making some good points.) The comments to that posting are… interesting, with a general consensus that the subject of the ProPublica article has obsessed himself into a bit of an unenviable place. Here’s the article with its comments: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/02/that-way-madness-lies/
Disclaimer: I personally know Peter Kalmus, the subject of the ProPublica article. He and I worked at the same institution (I am now retired.) I even did some minor rough-manuscript reviews of his published book (yes, he even mentions me in the frontispiece as one of the reviewers.) Peter was an occasional poster to the Archdruid Report years ago. Both Peter and I occasionally contribute to the institution’s Green Club mailing list. Peter has far more depth than the ProPublica article makes him out to have. But the article is, I think, reflective of where certain self-styled eco-warriors find themselves right now.
In closing, many thanks for hosting this forum, and kudos/bravo/ thumbs up to all its many other contributors!
My last comment on this open post (maybe no. 1000?): a 58 year man from the building across the street has died, alone in his room, while self-isolating from Covid-19. He worked in a nursing home here in Quebec and had not been vaccined.
This together with a former student of mine in Rio de Janeiro, who died at less than 30 years while working as a Paediatrician, and 4 nurses of my wife’s acquaintance in Rio who died, makes me think this virus is different from normal respiratory viruses at least for medical personnel.
Hi all
Youtube has censored the testimony in the United States Senate of Dr. Pierre Kory in defense of the use of Ivermectin to treat cases of Covid-19, Dr. Kory speaks on behalf of more than 2,000 associated intensive care physicians at the FLCCC ( Front Line Intensive Care Covid-19):
https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-cancels-the-u-s-senate-11612288061
How the heck did he dare to propose an effective treatment for Covid-19 and not based on the shiny, sophisticated, new and high-tech vaccines?
They say that we must receive the experimental vaccines quickly because there is no alternative and we cannot wait, but it seems that there are more alternatives, and if true, the narrative falls apart, and propose that it is very, very dangerous for Pharma – Medical – Media- Financial- Complex.
Of course, the FDA has denied recommending the use of Ivermectin to treat Covid-19, they do not accept clinical trials in Cairo, Baghdad, Dhaka, Lahore, Mumbai, Lima and many other “s**t holes”.
How obnoxious Big Tech is getting, my gosh
Be ready for the explosion of rage
Health
David
999!
MCB,
Thanks for the clarification, and the call to reasonable debate.
To be sure, I suppose we can always debate the problems of safety and the reality of death. What I find absurd and indeed unacceptable, is for governments to give themselves the right (none of it is legal in most countries) to play eeny meenie miny moe with people lives, arbitrarily assigning those who may live and those who may not. To take away from people absolutely everything that makes life worth living.
Denis,
Of all the many observations about the lockdown, I found your recent one perhaps the most poignant. The slow, grinding, depressing, boring despair of it all.
And of the several who wrote how the young people are accepting it all, perhaps the saddest of all.
Did I get the lucky 1000th post?
Regarding the 30% of land for wilderness thing, I don’t see how that necessarily effects farming too much – it is 30% of all land, not 30% of farmland.
@ Denis comment #967
If you’ve checked already, please excuse the following, but there is already a fair amount of agricultural land that is fallow under the federal CRP Program. Several millions of acres are put into native grasses in which the landowners are paid market value rent to have their land lay fallow. It is my experience that the local county officials highly encourage this, and most landowners love it. Do you know if the land in the executive order includes this land? Also, I believe the US Forestry Service is under the US Dept of Agriculture, which could place a lot of forest lands into a “fallow” category. If you haven’t, you might poke around to see if this is really a land grab or simply an attempt to look like something is being done about climate change, when it is really just the same programs with a new name. If like me, you care about the overall health of the land and its non-human inhabitants, letting several million acres “rest” for a few years without having to be in service to humans is always going to be a good thing.
Like so many here, I am looking forward to our host’s return this Wednesday. I hope John Michael’s time off from blogging has been both restful and fruitful. As I write this, there are 999 comments, which is beyond impressive and if I am not mistaken, a record for any of his blogs. It just goes to show what a valued resource this forum really is.
Matthias Gralle – I remember the 2004 complaints from Democrats about voting machines too. I suppose that Robert Matthiesen’s contention that no one *really* wants to fix them makes sense in that there has been no election year that I remember where questions about their hackability and lack of reliability have not been raised. The purchase of election machines in Ireland (for around €53million or so) in, IIRC in about 2004, which were promptly proven to be eminently hackable. This quickly led to their embarrassing recall in the face of EVERYONE disliking this intrusion into elections, (expensive) storage in some dusty warehouse while those concerned tried to forget they’d ever thought of the idea, and eventually, after many years of expensive storage and forgetting, they were sold last year for around €300 or whatever their scrap value was.
What Byrne’s piece (if reliable) revealed, though, was a mess. A great many potential loopholes and avenues for flipping votes, but, at the very top, too little vision or strategy to make more of it than a lot of unproductive noise. Which, in its own way is quite damning.
And there is still no appetite I can see, for the actual slog that genuine electoral reform would require.
>Alas, silver seems to be a distraction engineered by the hedge funds. The users of r/wallstreetbets are adamant that it’s not them.
Yeah, I definitely get the sense that everybody and his brother are coming out of the woodwork with their pet agendas to try to turn them into their personal army. I find it amusing that some of these media outlets loudly proclaim what r/WSB is doing but then you go and actually read r/WSB and they’re saying almost the exact opposite.
And what I saw with whoever was buying silver, they knew enough to stay away from the paper markets entirely and go straight for physical. This isn’t the act of degenerate chatroom gamblers, to be a bit pejorative. So I agree – this wasn’t r/WSB, this was someone else.
My take is that you put what’s going on the “market” in perspective, it’s just another indication of incipient hyperinflation. You put money printing + rampant speculation + bare shelves together – what do you come up with?
@Denis – I think this 30% order is targeting agribusiness, which is a fancy term for “mechanized plantations.” I don’t think they’ll mess with backyard organic gardens at all. Though if you want ridiculous laws, check out Denver’s “All your rain belong to us.” law. Or why my nephew doesn’t have a rain barrel, and his New Mexico aunt had two of them.
@Beekeeper – Florida state parks did the same thing for a while, but a few of them are opening up the restrooms again. I know at least two of them have working drinking fountains, and they’ve always had faucets where you could get water for your dog. Just stoop down with your water bottle etc.
@Matthias Gralle
The virus affects the blood, which then affects the lungs. Were any of the people who died treated properly with Ivermetin?
@investingwithnature:
The neighbor here in Canada surely wasn’t treated with ivermectin. I don’t happen to know this in the case of any of our personal aquaintances in Rio. I do know that treatment with hydroxychloroquine, zinc and ivermectin has been very strongly pushed by the federal Brazilian government, and was pushed also by the muncipal administration of Rio de Janeiro in 2020, and hasn’t prevented very high death rates. For example, during the days leading up to the fatal running out of oxygen stocks in Manaus (Jan 14, 2021), the federal secretary of science (an army general) was personally in Manaus to pressure for ivermectin distribution instead of bringing in oxygen, vaccines or in fact anything else. That same general has now relented and instead suggests flying out 1500 ICU patients to other states.