It’s so transparently clear that Andrei has really slipped his rocker over this matter. A sobering reminder that no-one - not the savviest of us - is ever completely immune to the damnably-inconvenient blind-spot/hot-button syndrome.
Unusually for me, I didn’t finish reading this post by Andrei, because it’s so over-flowing with ad-hom-laden silliness. It’s a real shock to see someone, who’s proven repeatedly his intelligent insight into many geopolitical subjects; descend into such childish slagging.
All, I surmise, because he just happens, as some of us are, to be unusually susceptible to hypnotic induction and post-hypnotic priming, when hooked by a health-threat terror-narrative. It’s the sense of helpless terror before an alleged oncoming juggernaut, which the covid-bollocks narrative aims to induce, which creates this extraordinary departure into such fire-spitting craziness in the highly hypnotically suggestible.
So I suppose, anyway, as some sort of stab at an explanation.
The first half of Andrei’s post, which is all I managed, is an object lesson in the kind of ranting craziness which comes over people who find themselves in that unfortunate bind. I post it here simply as an example, for people to muse over, and note for future use, in our continuing discussions on the power of the propaganda machine. This is what happens to the best of us when we go overboard for a fear narrative - as the highly-hypnotically suggestible can do so tragically easily. Astonishingly, Andrei even admits in his title that he’s ranting; yet he doesn’t seem to notice the implication. Note the complete absence - in the half that I read - of any engagement with the actual realworld evidence that’s making the truth about the covid scam so obvious. The deeply-entranced, like troobleever cult-members, simply don’t do evidence. The rabid certainty of being right is all that matters; evidence and cautious general scepticism be buggered. Oh dear! Get well soon, Andrei. Your usual sharp, savvy insight is missed:
Now - back to Saker’s blog, for the other, still-high-quality stuff there…
If I recall and understand correctly, Saker has changed his position.
I’m sure that, previously, he was absolutely against mandatory jabs. But now he endorses that policy.
(I remarked last time that, actually, he was fundamentally in agreement with the ‘anti-vaxxers’ because the only thing, really, that AVs preach is the right of the individual to choose what to ingest and that they should not be discriminated on that basis. They don’t question anyone’s right to ingest any jab cocktail. And since personal body autonomy is the fundamental issue, then he and AVs are essentially in agreement. People can argue about the science ad infinitum, but that is a separate debate.)
It seems that he has changed his position - from libertarian to totalitarian - simply because he has gotten even more angry at the ‘anti-vaxxers’.
The counter-argument to his latest outburst seems simple: he should take a chill pill.
Yep! Andrei’s gone right off the deep end about this. I surmise because he’s been terrified by the fear-porn. FWIW, I always noticed, and made a discount for, his tendency to be alarmed by the most extreme possible outcomes of matters he was discussing. He does seem to have a strand of Chicken Little in his DNA.
With respect RG, what’s the difference between calling the covid sceptics a religious cult etc, and those who do think that covid is a serious threat suffering mass hypnosis or terror derangement?
The level of discussion that I’ve seen on both sides of this discussion has been mostly appalling. Even on this site - clearly the best one on the internet for this - those who feel that covid is a serious disease and that millions have died from it have more or less left the discussion. This is partly due to responses like “there’s no possible evidence that might change my view on this” - a response I’ve had here a couple of times.
It will be a shame if 5F becomes another echo chamber but there seems precious little real discussion possible about all this.
Fighting amongst ourselves whilst the PTB got on with the Great Reset will be how this w will be remembered, I think.
You too, PP, like the vast majority, are mixing up two separate debates.
There is the scientific question: ‘Covid is a serious disease that has killed millions.’ Discuss.
There is the political question: ‘The correct response is mandatory masks-lockdowns-jabs.’ Discuss.
Saker, Unz and many others (e.g. me) profess ignorance on the science question; we are not scientists. But everyone is a citizen, so can debate the political question.
Saker has flipped. He was against mandatory jabs, but now he endorses them.
My guess is that you too are against mandatory jabs; that, at most, you simply recommend that people get the covid jab.
That is why I contend that, certainly on this site, and on any reasonable discussion site, there is large unanimity of opinion on the central question, because even the most extreme ‘AVs’ don’t contend that anyone should be sanctioned for taking any jab; they just want to be equally free to make their choice.
Saker has now disgraced himself by endorsing such totalitarian fascism as the state forcibly jabbing citizens. His infantile nature has become apparent because, whilst he masturbates over his professed prioritising of ‘logical thinking’, his flip has resulted not from that but from anger and tantrum.
Courage, mon brave! P, I’ve been feeling for sometime your distress at the way these discussions are going - towards angry and closed-minded irrationality, as I suss you feel it to be. I get that you feel persuaded that a lot of people have died, in many cases unnecessarily and nastily, in a genuine pandemic; this a long way over and above normal all-causes death rates. I don’t know what to do about the obvious distress you feel that people can’t - or apparently won’t - see this as demonstrable fact.
The problem is, I and many others just don’t see any such demonstrable fact. I just can’t see a pandemic. And I guess you just can’t see why I can’t. Maybe I’m having a blind spot; we never notice our own, do we?
I guess we all have this potent urge to cherry pick ‘favourable’ evidence, and absent-mindedly fail to see the ‘unfavourable’. No idea what to do about it. It’s never going to go away, is it? May be possible to keep it leashed in satisfactorily.
Anyway. I’m sorry to see you so upset by our apparent not-up-to-scratch behaviour. But thinking as I do, that hard facts with guaranteed reliability are like hen’s teeth these days, I feel bound to fall back on a wide surf-n-sample habit to build up a probable gestalt, and on applying a constant intuitive assessment of what’s built up, to see how likely it all feels. Using that method - perforce - I reach the - always tentative and reviewable - guesstimates that I offer so far. Just can’t see any better approach so far. Nil desperandum, fratre!
I’ve twice asked for discussions of “extreme” Covid 19 positions, that the pandemic in fact is a result of fraudulent PCR tests, and very few have participated and no real critics. I’m very interested in any discussion of the issue, thanks!
I read his whole rant. Not a single reference to evidence. Nothing about PCR tests, WHO being bought off and ‘redefining’ basic terms such as herd immunity, censorship, etc etc.
He does mention a Russian miracle drug!
How can anyone discuss his evidence when he presents none?
To throw in my two penny-worth, in the last 18 months I’ve had just about all of my human rights taken from me; this on the back of a ‘pandemic’ that, whatever side of the argument you’re on, has many serious questions surrounding it.
If there was a cart going down my lane every day, collecting dead bodies, than, maybe.
But that cart has never been there - or at least, until they started the vaccine roll-out.
Yes, to some extent. Surely the question of what is an appropriate response depends on how serious a disease one thinks Covid is? We can’t separate those two things easily. There is a tendency, as Ron Unz noted, to downplay the seriousness of covid by those who are sceptical of the narrative - surely they are the ones who are making the error of mixing up the two separate debates? Although, to be fair, this kind of mixing seems to occur on almost all sides of the debate.
To be honest with you, I’m not sure I even recommend that people get the jab. I think it’s a personal choice. I got it, and basically everyone I know also got it. But I didn’t do that lightly, or in the simple belief that there are no problems with it. It was a cost/benefit analysis based on my circumstances, and whatever data I could dig up.
Hi @PontiusPrimate , I think we are all struggling to understand what has happened and as you say we all have to make our decisions for ourselves. Rightly we all seem to be anti mandatory vaccines on this site - putting personal liberty first.
I am constantly changing my understanding as new info turns up - I suppose because of my very limited exposure to health-logies of all types .
Take Zach Bush’s video RG posted recently, I’m an hour in but he explains all sorts of mysteries in great detail with convincing sincerity, without criticising specific people and fully accepting that Sars Cov2 exists. But points to numerous other factors which collaborate with Sars Cov2 to cause the high morbidity and high death rates.
I can’t understand much of this but he is pointing to evidence for people to check.
Just one point that my grandkids knew but had completely escaped me, virus’s don’t need person to person connections nor air transport to travel around the globe they’re in all layers of the atmosphere, seas and soil - this makes a nonsense of all the public health moves.
I live and learn, maybe ZB has a lot of the answers but as he points out science is not fixed.
Let’s assume that’s true - that the sceptics downplay the seriousness of covid. That is not mixing of the debates at all, because the other debate is, ‘Should the jab be mandatory?’
My contention is that the overwhelming majority would answer, ‘No, regardless of how serious covid is.’
That is: I contend that there is actually overwhelming consensus, because everyone respects the Nuremberg principle of outlawing forced medication.
This is why Saker is such a disgrace, because that, previously, was his position too, until his infantile temper and tantrum caused him to flip and now embrace totalitarian fascism.
Of course thalidomide is the seminal example of the disaster that can happen when a medication goes unopposed, and no doubt the history of medicine contains plenty more examples (e.g. vaccines themselves).
What better example do we need than these injections and their disastrous effect on people already; so bad it can’t be censored and propagandised away; and with unknown extra problems still to be faced over the next months, possibly years, if previous experience is anything to go by. Understanding of all this is flowing out widely.
This whole craziness is a disaster created through the mad hubris of rampantly-arrogant technocracy; with - as far as I can see - no upside at all. No smallest hint of their hubris dawning yet on the technocrats, afaics. Bloody hell, what a shitshow!
- those who feel that covid is a serious disease and that millions have died from it have more or less left the discussion. This is partly due to responses like “there’s no possible evidence that might change my view on this” - a response I’ve had here a couple of times.
