Hi Mathew! One of my readers linked me to your post. I wrote on this topic too taking a slightly different approach (I had no idea who this Oster was until today) which seemed to have taken off. Take a look at it if you can! Also I copied the twitter post montage you had here. It was much better than the one I put together.
I believe Tim Robbins is genuine in his remorse and is gradually emerging from the fog of having being politically and psychologically manipulated. He has been calling out the Screen Actors Guild and defending actors like Clifton Duncan, who lost his acting career over this (see his brilliant Mises Institute talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCH_8KtLeVQ), for months now.
I reached out to Tim to commend him for the humility he displayed in pausing to reflect on his beliefs and behaviors and recalibrating accordingly, recognizing that it was wrong to comply with authoritarianism. This takes bravery, especially in an ideologically conformist industry that has the power to crush him for wrongthink.
He followed me on Twitter, which I take as a sign of his authentic change of heart, and I have extended an invitation to participate in a new interview series focused on the newly awakened. I hope he’ll take me up on the offer as I intend to delve *much* deeper in my attempt to understand the burning question at the heart of all my work: namely, how are ordinary, good-hearted, intelligent people manipulated by propaganda into becoming hateful, hurtful, even genocidal beings?
I would welcome him on this side of the fence. I'm genuine in how I lay it out---I want to give him the shot to display a change of character and help fix what's gone wrong. I'm glad to know you've been in contact with him. That's encouraging.
Look---I hear you. Like I said, my calculus on forgiveness isn't going to be an easy one. I want Emily to hold the hands of victims before I even think about trusting her as anything but a status-seeking snake.
Similarly, before I'd say Tim has truly crossed the right line, I'd like to see him rebuild the world in some way. I'm going to judge harshly.
Understand that while I've published on a bit of it, I'm researching links between the DoD and all of Hollywood. He's on my list to pay attention to at this point. And I won't hold back.
Just wait for the next story line he will be pushing for $$$. Just like his really ignorant, whacked wife/ex wife Susan lunatic Sarandon. BTW, they are both in the Black Eye Club.
Personally I want people to understand how easily manipulated they are. In the UK if you are caught speeding for the third time you can go on a course on how not to be so stupidly selfish in future.
I think we need to brush up our critical thinking skills, if you are not too busy could you make up a course? 7 billion took the vaccination, start with them.
Nov 1, 2022·edited Nov 1, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
I was actually thinking about writing a post on this (amongst my hundreds of other drafts in progress), partly inspired by your own questions about why we forgive some and not others.
I personally make a distinction between people of goodwill who were indoctrinated into the cult and Goebbelsian propagandists, psycho/sociopaths, malicious colluders, and media prostitutes like Rachel Maddow, who is incapable of genuine remorse and if she ever appears to display any would merely be acting in an attempt to save her own skin and career.
If someone who had been a cult member begins awakening from the daze; realizing they had become someone they were ashamed of; and offers a specific, heartfelt, and remorseful apology, then I will give them the benefit of the doubt, especially if their actions and words bear out their sincerity.
My entire mission is to unmask totalitarianism and awaken the sleeping before tyranny triumphs, so of course, I welcome the newly awakened, especially if they are performing penance and joining in the Resistance to tyranny in meaningful ways. We need all hands on deck to defeat totalitarianism, and if this helps others see the light, I will welcome them with open arms.
1. I used to watch Rachel Maddow. She was actually kind of cool once. Maybe she will want to come around too to defeat totalitarianism. Maybe Fauci will as well.
2. I'll look forwards to the post. I am fundamentally interested in this "re-vetting" of trustworthy allies. Because I'm pretty sure that they are responding ONLY to social pressures, not inspiration.
3. If anyone can parse this out, it is you, MAA. But what are the metrics that make people in the club to resist tyranny?
Take Bhattacharya. Great Barrington! yeah? A hero. Still slinging the jabs. Still Rand Corp. Still more Stanford than Dissident.
And responding to social pressures in the face of pressure is probably not going to go away quickly.
Fauci has no outs. He can tell us he's sorry at the sentencing.
I agree that the people who have played an active part must all pay some sort of price. I don't necessarily know what that is.
I believe you are correct to hold Bhattacharya and his kind to a different standard. They're a tough call, depending on the circumstances---some of which we may never find out. In fact, that might be what they need to do: shed light on the secrets they can that put us where we are. We have no government at this point, but it could only be put back together with transparency. Somebody holding on to secrets that could stop mass murder may have to take jail time to be trusted again.
I would pass on handling Fauci at all. We all have our line at controlling our inner demons, and I'm afraid to find out that I'd enjoy what I dished out.
I remember watching Rachel when she was a YouTuber wearing a backwards baseball cap with a dry-erase marker and Post-It board for illustration. And then I saw how she allowed herself to become thoroughly corrupted and co-opted for relentless propagandizing, and her emotionally manipulative fear-mongering, embarrassingly displays of fake tears, and role in perpetrating mass deception make it difficult me to ever believe she would authentically repent.
The social pressures are still *strongly* in favor of Covidians, Wokeists, and Cancel Culture—especially in Hollywood—so Tim Robbins, for example, is taking a serious career risk by speaking out on behalf of the uninjected, and he has been doing so for a while now (even though most only learned about it recently due to his interview with Matt). He exhibited wisdom by recognizing that he was wrong, and he is now making amends for the harm he has done. I applaud that behavior and want to encourage others to follow suit.
Forgive me if I don't worry too much about Tim Robbins's career prospects.
I'll tell you what is going to happen. And I hope I'm wrong:
You will get the high profile types flipped with an appropriate show of contrition, and then leading a movement and it will be Obama, "Yes We Can!" all over again.
Just like you got a guy straight out of decades in the Big Military and Big Private Public Partnership somehow immersed with the freedom movement when one year ago he was advocating for more tracking and tracing and surveillance.
It will be Bernie Sanders shepherding stadiums full of people into the DNC or whatever new entity arises from this shitfuckery.
And nobody will get to the DOD.
Hope I'm wrong.
When people say, "Celebrities, they are just like us!" they are kind of wrong.
Celebrities are incredibly marginal people.
*edit: If they want to come in and be humble servants, great. But they will more than likely take over and you will find yourself erasing your metrics of success and re-drawing them and erasing and re-drawing.
I understand your skepticism, Sage, and it may turn out that way, although, like you, I hope not.
Until their actions prove otherwise, though, I am willing to accept those who show genuine contrition (genuineness being judged by each individual’s gut, I realize) and are joining us on the frontlines.
I know too many kind, smart people who were bamboozled by the most sophisticated propaganda campaign in history, and I want more than anything for them to wake up. I also desperately want to understand why and how they succumbed so we can help inoculate them and others from further menticidal attempts—now and for generations to come.
Triumphing against tyranny requires as many people to awaken from their inculcation as humanly possible, so the more the merrier as far as I’m concerned.
If those crossing sides are met with insults it will slow the awakening. Unfortunately we need celebs to come out of the covid closet, as much as we may want to hurl insults it's best that we don't.
At the very least, what we should do is something like what I have tried: state where our line is with acceptance. I want more than words from any one of them. They should both apologize and either participate in the deconstruction of the mindset or otherwise put in their own self-imposed "service hours"---and not through some bullshit NGO nonsense charity. Actual human contact and work.
Agreed, for the "useful idiots" such as Oster/Robbins an apology and meaningful penance. For the Dr Hilary Jones and Prof Alice Roberts of this world, these are medical doctors who used their media presence to push the vaccines. I want their medical licence and I want them on trial for attempted manslaughter, we need to use the law to make an example out of them, to be taught as case studies in medical schools.
Exactly Sage, and the latter will hide behind the former excuse like Rochelle Wolensky ( I love to spell her name wrong, everyone does ) did months ago already. She said " I was just watching CNN like everyone else, thinking this was the answer." ( the Bioweapon injection she was referring to. ) These are words for the future upcoming trials. They are all back pedaling to cover their asses with new words now, and a wink.
May be a bit of waste of time to pander with these suckers on this site. We need to get onto the next assaults with the injected graphine oxide assembling 5G nanobots and the aerosolizing of Bioweapon " vaccines " ( not vaccines ). This will again be way over the uneducated "actors " heads so they will poo poo it and laugh at us yet AGAIN, until it too, hits them in the face. The Evils just did there second beta test in S. Korea, the first ( that I know of ) was at the demonic rapper concert in Houston, Tx - Travis Scott I think.
Nothing to do with a " stampede " of course - that was LSM spin,Watch the concert goers dozens of videos it was during the concert and people essentially standing still and dropping from mostly cardiac arrests from the GO bouncing around inside them set off by certain wave lengths of sound energy.
Keep moving forward, the 300 Billionaire Club is moving faster. Tim and Susan just pissed they are not in that club. Why did they both get black eyes? Have you and your significant other both had black eyes in a relatively short time period apart?
Read, if you haven't already " In the Garden of Beasts " about 1939 Germany, largely outlines the clueless American Ambassador ( Professor from U of Illinois - Chicago ) to Germany who was a delusional Libtard. Again, those who get us into these messes.
MAA please let us know when you do. I am so grateful to have "met" you and I too want to understand (and you explain things like no one else) how ordinary people can be so manipulated by propoganda....Cannot wait.
I’d love to have you, Rebekah! I’m at MargaretAnnaAl1 (I didn’t realize Twitter was going to truncate my name or I would have tried to see if I could change it, but now it’s too late so oh well):
I’m sorry but common sense alone should have told us covid was a fear mongering political tool based on greed and power. There was no science because there wasn’t enough time to dictate truly safe results. The rules and mandates made no sense. Wear a mask inside a restaurant but okey to remove once sitting down? Good grief. BLM riots okey but church services banned. George Floyd gets 3 funerals but our loved ones don’t even get a small family gathering. Illegals fluid the border but not required to be vaccinated. Oh the list goes on and on. Hospital nurses dancing on social media but we’re told how brave they are. Utter nonsense. Medical procedures put on hold so only covid patients allowed, where they were then intubated and given meds that killed them all while no family allowed to visit or question. If these covid die-hard manipulators calling for the unvax to be punished now want to apologize ‘because they didn’t know,’ they can beg all they want. Won’t get forgiveness from me that quickly, if ever.
If one was paying attention it was clear early on that the risks were vastly exaggerated. The biggest tell in this regard was how hard it was to find information about risk - the IFR or CFR for example, or the stratification of risk by age and health status. It’s still underreported imo. Most people who die of covid were - and are - are old or otherwise vulnerable. Just like the flu. All known by summer 2020. The fear was so pervasive that in my purple area, life didn’t return to normal until 2022.
Nov 1, 2022·edited Nov 2, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
Thank you, again, Mathew. Nice examination. I don't think you have mis-characterised this. And you have sparked a great discussion in the comments. Thank you everyone.
The issue of a 'true' apology has an inherent requirement for atonement, imo. Emily is a flat out flake fake, looking for an AH to lick as if that is atonement. (Hope not too blunt.) Tim, I am skeptical about. Genuine sentiment, perhaps, only so far as he doesn't need to atone.
This discussion brings to mine Oedipus Rex. Freud did a slight of hand, and so we think of Oedipus as having sex with his mother. Perhaps a few think of him as having killed his father. The 'real' story of Oedipus is that, despite doing these abhorrent acts in COMPLETE ignorance, he plucked out his eyes in an EFFORT to atone for his evil.
Where is this genuine atonement with these people? Dr. Fraiman moved towards that with an honesty that was likely going to cost him his job. OTH, what I see in Emily is woke virtue signally as clear as day. And at this point, I am hard pressed to not see that with Tim too.
Margaret, when/if you get the chance, please ask Tim how he will atone for blindly obeying authority no differently than Goebbels and his ilk did; for having been blind to 'we will never do that again' purpose of Nuremberg, on top of being blind to what so many people saw and expressed.
I am also puzzled how it is, when convenient, that we collectively ignore the rule of law that 'ignorance is no excuse from the law.' Oedipus killed his father, had sex with his mother and blinded himself willingly because he knew in his core that his ignorance was not an excuse from what he did.
The ignorance of Emily and Tim was not in the same league as Oedipus. Mathew wrote here, and many others have pointed out elsewhere, that the 'errors' of EVERYTHING covid were not hidden! The blindness to it all was wilful, not ignorance. What the supporters of covid did is ... incomparably worse, with killing and injuring 10s of millions, including children, while denying that evidence, as well as ethical behaviour, as if they didn't exist.
Apologies without atonement are, under the circumstances, hollow at best and a puke fest at worst.
Addendum: It is important that the atonement be voluntary for the apology to be considered 'true'. Involuntary atonement is simply punishment, and of far lesser value to both the society and the individual, even when desired and/or required.
Agreed. I don't think anyone that successful in Hollywood can be so naive. If Desmet's numbers are correct (and my memory is!), then 30% or so really believed the fear BS, 10-20% saw early on and spoke up and the rest... either didn't care/went along to get along/wanted to be on the "winning side". There are also a lot of people who think they are "influencers" in some way and love the power they think this gives them. Oster's just trying to save her own skin.
Thank you, Irene. Your comment brought to mind a slight misstatement in my response. I added the following:
Addendum: It is important that the atonement be voluntary for the apology to be considered 'true'. Involuntary atonement is simply punishment, and of far lesser value to both the society and the individual, even when desired and/or required.
Nov 1, 2022·edited Nov 1, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
The money ran out. All the subhuman grifters who were being paid to push the vaccine aren’t being paid anymore. Now they’re going to come out and apologize.
There are a lot of slow and naive people on this site. They better hurry up and focus on the matter at hand, what is about to exterminate them. This is exactly the population the WEF intends to eliminate to catapult evolution. Not my words. They are theirs. Read the book. The Great Reset, Klaus Nazi Schwalb
Emily's apology was a non-apology apology. She wants to be let off easy, and she hasn't changed her heart nor her behavior. She will adjust it somewhat, but not CHANGE.
I'm not singing Kumbaya with most of these people. I don't treat them badly, but too many are not healed from their darkness, and they are not going to do "reparations" so to speak. They are not going to stand up for those they harmed, they want to get back to "old" life and have everything "be okay." They have to die in and participate actively with making sure it doesn't happen again and helping with things like removing school and health board members. Those persons in positions of effect cannot remain, they have not changed, they have not changed enough, we need based people who will keep their heads in those positions. The people who harmed us cannot be rewarded with same-old same-old. they have to start over. Too bad if they invested a lot of years and their retirement or whatever will be less. THEY were not the victims. Deeds, behavior, and time not words.
Nov 1, 2022·edited Nov 1, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
Thank you Matthew, that J.Goebbels meme...so fitting... Your essay is balanced, you let their own words speak and, let us think about how we want to receive it.
On a private level as in regards to friends and family alike, I will be excersising
personal and individual judgement in proceeding - or not - with relationships.
As for the professionals in medical field (who failed in their duty of care) and
all those in media who failed to educate themselves or have been corrupted well, I think they should be accountable for all the harm they've caused.
And what about those who were most militant but didn't take the procedures
I just saw this phenomenal apology video from Graham Linehan to Count Dankula today, and *this* is a sincere, heartfelt, and honest apology that is worthy of appreciation:
Yes, I found it quite heartening as Graham Linehan is the creator of three of our absolutely favorite comedies of all time—"Black Books," "Father Ted," and "The IT Crowd," and I was thrilled to see he had rediscovered the sense of humor that made it possible for him to craft this hysterical gem:
In reviewing the referenced Darkhorse video, Bret says amnesty for honesty is a good trade. That kind of resonates with me. This cretin Emily Oster is still being incredibly dishonest. She didn't just try to insinuate that "we couldn't have known," she explicitly said so. This is a lie, because many of us knew and have been saying so from the start. She was a vocal proponent of using nudge architecture to silence and force us to comply with what she believed was correct secondary to her scientific and moral incompetence. This incompetence is what disqualifies her as a credible contributor to productive conversation until she can fully articulate how and why she got it so wrong in a manner that reflects that her own incompetence was central to her error.
A kind of person who devises special signals to put masks on a hiking trip when someone is approaching is indeed a cretin. I've seen lots of people like that where I live. I think the concept of forgiveness applied to people like that is almost a category error. It is similar to forgiving a wild animal. Possibly some trained Buddhists can figure out what it means and how to do it, but not regular people like us.
Though not a Buddhist, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on this issue as my signature character strength is forgiveness and mercy! Those who can demonstrate that they understand what they did wrong in a manner that leaves us all confident they won't rinse and repeat for SARS-CoV3 will be helpful allies. This demonstration of understanding and contrition is a higher bar than most people think when it comes to the holier-than-thou professional class. Those who can't make it over this bar must be subjugated by any legal, moral, and ethical means available.
You misunderstood what I was saying. Let me rephrase it in less metaphorical terms.
The idea of the twin concepts of castigation and forgiveness is to promote intra-tribe (using the OP's terminology) cooperation. The defectors are threatened with castigation and punishment. For the threat to be effective it has to be carried out against the offending parties.
On the other hand, we do not want to castigate and banish everybody forever for most offenses. That way the tribe will soon end up with no members. Hence forgiveness. Also, if no forgiveness were possible, any offender would have every incentive to become the tribe's enemy forever.
However, the tribe would like to reduce recidivism. Hence no forgiveness without repentance. Which becomes harder and harder to accomplish with each subsequent offense.
The integral part of repentance is to understand and confess the wrong that one has done. That requires certain mental capacities. Without those mental capacities there could be no real repentance and therefore no real forgiveness. That's what I mean by my comparison of such a person to a wild animal.
My point is that a person who devises special signals to put masks on a hiking trip when someone is approaching have a certain kind of mental failing. I am not saying that they are crazy or stupid. But they are fools.
That failing cannot be explained just by believing the propaganda. It's beyond that. Part of their repentance must be realizing and acknowledging that mental failure, and explaining how they plan to avoid it in the future. Just saying "we trusted the government" is not enough. Until that is accomplished no forgiveness is possible.
Yes, the archetype of the Head Girl is important to understand. It is definitely a thing and deserves much attention. I think there is something very useful in understanding your own innate personality and that of others. Character strengths are related. I'll probably write something about it at some point.
Your pessimism is irrational and counter-productive if you hope to hold the enemy accountable. In this case you seem to be using an overly narrow interpretation of what is meant by "honesty" here such that you miss the entire point. If you conceive of honesty as the ability to articulate why you were wrong while others got it right while taking full responsibility for being wrong, then this will be the optimal strategy. Anyone who can clear that bar will be an ally. You generally can't say those kinds of words without undergoing a paradigm shift and switching sides. Of course there are a select few that can pull it off, but some chaff will always come with the wheat. Those who are unable to clear this bar must be subjugated. I think most everyone on our side can agree with this. Those unable to admit they were wrong and why will inevitably try to do the same again, and in this case the same is a violation of the non-aggression principle. Using force to constrain such individuals is necessary and proper for the functioning of a healthy society. If you're unconvinced, then fine, give up, but no need to pessimistically announce it to the world and undermine the morale of those who are still committed to taking purposeful action towards holding these motherfuckers accountable.
"Your pessimism is irrational and counter-productive if you hope to hold the enemy accountable"
Bret's the one who is preaching amnesty. Not me, bro.
Also, I think your notion of "this side" will fall apart under even rudimentary definitions of objectives.
"Using force to constrain such individuals is necessary and proper for the functioning of a healthy society. "
No shit. Did I say otherwise?
"If you're unconvinced, then fine, give up, but no need to pessimistically announce it to the world and undermine the morale of those who are still committed to taking purposeful action towards holding these motherfuckers accountable."
----
Oh fuck off you sanctimonious prick. I'll say whatever the fuck I want based on what I'm seeing at any given time.
I take your desire to have a good conversation as a heartening sign that you haven't given up, which is awesome. The disparate coalitions aren't based on the jabs, not really. The jabs have recruited more folks to these disparate coalitions, but you're right, this issue isn't the unifying force for the team. I don't know the best way to brand and package it, but I am reasonably certain that what unifies us is our opposition to the managerial class. Since this opposition poses an existential threat to managerial class rule, the stakes are high and shit will definitely get crazier before it gets better, but the inherent complexity of the situation suggests that it is reasonable to believe we'll come out on top as long as we stay poised to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. My boy Bret is a good dude, and I think allowing for some form of amnesty is both strategically and morally necessary, but no, I don't think he is a leader in understanding the ongoing class/spiritual conflict. In this context, my spirit animal is Robert Barnes. I also think Mathew has some great ideas, which is why I'm here. What do you think? How do you conceive of the sides, or do you not believe there are two distinct sides?
i've been reading vinay prasad's substack and watching some of his videos for maybe 6 months now. i've seen him get increasingly radicalized as he's become more disillusioned with his profession. even Paul Offit is now, according to the new dictionary definition of the word, an anti-vaxxer! bet you never thought you'd see that!!
prasad doesn't really need to apologize. he's never advocated forced vaccination, internment camps, denying care to the unvaxxed, firing people or anything like that. he has always been very measured. as he's seen more unethical insanity, he's gone closer to the edge, calling for fauci et al to be fired, saying that the Biden administration needs to dump all it's truly terrible covid "experts.
the thing to remember is that no one who needs to hear this stuff is going to listen to Bret Weinstein, Del Bigree or RFKjr. as courageous and honorable as those men are, they are too easily written off as kooks and quacks.
guys like Prasad, V-dogg and Marty Makary have the ear of the mainstream and they are fairly bulletproof in terms of losing their jobs because they speak out against mandates, etc. their positions may not be perfect, but they are evolving as they see clearly that something is very wrong. Makary calls it "the pandemic of lunacy."
I sort of agree, except Prasad sat and giggled for months beside ZDogg, who may as well be a phrarma shill. Prasad never said boo, and ZDogg, that guy did some damage while ridiculously staking claim to the "alt-middle". What a joke, except it's not funny.
Prasad's actions speak loudly now though, and thus I am torn on what he really thinks.
Offit is an lifetime pharma shill. He's only an "anti-vaxxer" because he doesn't want to overreach and kill the golden goose. He knows very well what overreach followed by backlash will do. He wrote a book on the disaster of the polio vaccine fiasco.
offit is an "anti-vaxxer" only because of the change in definition. of course, he's as pro-vax as they come but i believe the insanity of the last 3 years is making him have doubts. he's never going to be an anti-vaxxer. that would be too much to expect.
and honestly, no one has to be an anti-vaxxer. i'm not an anti-vaxxer; i just don't want anyone trying to force me to do something i don't want to do no matter what it is and even if a case could be made that it's for my own good. i'm an adult and i'll make that call, thank you.
but i do question you're saying that ZDogg "did some damage." that's a bit close to the woke belief that words cause harm, that misinformation "kills" people, that speech is dangerous, that Trump actually incited the jan 6 thing. we're all to some extent free adults and i listen to quite a few podcasts and read some substacks. i don't agree with everything everyone says. in truth, guys like ZDogg and Prasad can only influence the people who are influencible.
now if ZDogg was a policy maker like Fauci, an ACIP voter like Offit or a demented President instituting mandates that would cost you your job, i'd say yes, he could do some damage. but in his position as a comedian/doctor, i don't see it.
the reality is, these moderate people are valuable. maybe it's taken them a long time to see what's going on because they're in the belly of the beast. maybe they'll never be a rabid anti-vaxxer; they don't have to be.
they just have to have a sense that something is wrong and have to balls to speak out about it on their platforms. there is an entire world out there of doctors who were to chicken shit to say anything lest they lose their licenses. then there are the hero/martyrs like Paul Marek, Pierre Kory, Bob Sears. those three guys once had more faith in the medical system and in vaccines than they do now.
There is hard evidence that the vast majority of the population trust doctors as an authority on health advice. It is hard evidence that ZDogg has a large following online. It is also hard evidence that ZDogg heavily heavily promoted vaccines for all ages. That caused damage. These are not woke statements.
Any authority giving advice knowing full well their influence is guilty of causing damage. ZDogg, has been pretty silent on those original vaccines for a while now.
I don't find him very moderate TBH. He is not extreme, but he also relies heavily on arguments of authority, a prime example being his awful video attack/review of McCullough and Malone on Rogan.
hmmm, i'm still going to respectfully disagree. i confess i haven't "followed" ZDogg in any meaningful way. i first heard him on Peter Atia's podcast before the pandemic. i did listen to his "awful" video on the Rogan episode and didn't think it was that awful. he said what he thought the two got right and what they got wrong. in other words, he didn't think it was the second coming but he didn't condemn it outright, call for it to be censored, etc. his opinion of those episodes didn't influence my opinion of them.
i don't really care if the vast majority of people trust doctors. that's on them. some comedic doctor you hear on a podcast probably doesn't have great influence on your life decisions. maybe your own personal doctor should have more? i'm pretty sure that people who were going to get the vaccine were going to get it no matter what ZDogg said or didn't say. and the people who weren't could listen to all the vaccine cheerleaders in the world and not be moved.
i listened to TWIV throughout the pandemic and, despite their constant repeating of several slogans (vaccines are how this pandemic ends, never miss an opportunity to vaccinate, children are at low risk but not at no risk, no one is safe until everyone is safe) and their continual insistence that only unvaccinated people are still dying of covid, i didn't race out to get the vaccine and if i did, i could hardly blame them or ZDogg or Rachel Madcow or any of the other thousands of voices, commercials and incentives telling me 24/7 that i should do this. i do have the power to change the channel.
now if my job coerced me (and it did), i like to think that i'd hold to my principles and be fired (which i was) but i don't have children, my mortgages are paid off, i have rental income, a BF with a good pension and i can still earn money with my dress making skills so i can't say i've been tested the way some people were tested.
excuse my woke comment but the crux of the issue is this- if you're going to have standards... the Left says the Right is destroying Democracy, killing people, doing damage and must be censored. they say that any anti-vaccine person is a Trump voting republican, Qanon member, redneck hillbilly who is being paid millions by the Russians to spread "dangerous misinformation" with the purpose of weakening america by killing us off because they've influenced us not to take the life saving vaccine and Facebook should censor them better. they actually said this on TWIV. i listened but didn't run out to get vaccinated.
now the other side is saying that any medical person with a platform who doesn't come flat out and say "these vaccines are horrible; don't ever take them" is doing damage by influencing people. should they be censored? isn't that the next logical step in your argument?
i have two friends who volunteered as Moderna subjects. obviously they believe in the technology but they've never criticized me. they have also not influenced me (they've since had covid a few times). their belief in the vaccine has not in any way made me consider it for myself.
way back a few months into the rollout, my BF- who is not as strong of a personality as i am- asked me if i'd check with the people at my doctor's office for their opinions. my response was "why should i care about their opinions?" but i asked for his comfort. my health coach said that they had already seen two miscarriages and a 69 year old woman who started up with menstrual bleeding; the shots were messing with women's hormones and the practice would not recommend them. she also said that the pfizer and moderna websites were very clear on the limitations of the shots but that the government and the media were pushing them like they were miracles. i thanked her for her candor but honestly, had she said "we won't have you as a patient anymore if you don't take the vaccine" i would have walked out the door of my own volition, not influenced by RFKjr or Del Bigtree.
actually my cousin's wife did spend a year in a wheelchair with GBS after taking the 1976 swine flu vaccine and that was enough for me. perhaps that's why i'm so resistant to advertising of any kind. still if anyone was influenced by ZDogg or any other internet doc, i think they have to take responsibility for being so easily influenced.
and honestly, i enjoy hearing what "the other side" has to say. it sharpens my arguments. i have pretty much given up listening to TWIV; there are only so many insults i can tolerate. i tune in now and then to see how their positions have morphed. i did listen to their most recent Paul Offit interview. he e-mailed them, saying he wanted to come on to explain why he voted against the bi-valent booster. while i differ radically with him, i wouldn't have missed that for the world. hearing him say it seems like the FDA just does whatever pfizer wants made my day!
"i don't really care if the vast majority of people trust doctors"
Hi Caroyln, whether you care isn't the point though. The point is people look up to doctors as authorities and the State gives them protected status as authorities on medicine. That authority comes with responsibility.
"i do have the power to change the channel."
Excellent, something to be proud of given the intense pressure. You were clearly in a small minority of people. You, unlike most, managed to maintain critical thinking skills.
"now the other side is saying... is doing damage by influencing people"
Maybe, but I don't speak for a side, and I used the past tense because I was referring to a very specific period where he was clearly a cheerleader. I can't speak for anyone else, but I do think my case against ZDogg is sound. I also don't think any single person can blame anyone else for their final decision, but he added his voice to the propaganda, and he needs to take responsibility for that. I think doctors like ZDogg do influence people, that is one reason they get paid.
I would never advocate censorship. I'm asking for acknowledgement of his mistakes, before I'll give him any respect. I think we should call a spade a spade. They were pharma cheerleaders and until they acknowledge that issue, no respect.
I love Peter Atia BTW.
"i did listen to his "awful" video on the Rogan episode and didn't think it was that awful. "
Did you notice he used ad hominem and arguments of authority instead of addressing the points made by the doctors? That is the sign of illogical reasoning. Manipulative. Not respectful.
"people look up to doctors as authorities and the State gives them protected status as authorities on medicine." well, California is certainly taking that away and anyone who still has trust in the medical system at this point might be an irredeemable fool.
"Did you notice he used ad hominem and arguments of authority" maybe i'll find it and listen to it again.
"I think doctors like ZDogg do influence people, that is one reason they get paid." but doctors like ZDogg have had their podcasts for a long time; it's not like they cropped up just to act as propaganda arms for the US government's public health policy. they've had podcasts on various topics and had on guests that you may have found interesting. and they don't "get paid." they are paid by their listeners, some who find them interesting and entertaining enough to subscribe to get more than what is offered for free (i'm too cheap). both ZDogg and Prasad have been in the medical field for years and i'm sure that they took vaccines for granted. now if it turns out that they got funds from the government to sneak certain messages into their podcasts, as i'd bet TWIV did, that would be unforgivable and in that case, even an apology wouldn't do it for me.
i have no real problem with someone saying "i think everyone in a certain risk category should get vaccinated" as long as that's what they believed and they weren't getting paid to say it. and i have no problem with them, later as they saw more things, wondering "WTF is going on with these vaccines?" i don't think that's hypocrisy or demands a mea culpa.
i DO have a problem with a guy like Piers Morgan saying "strip them of their rights, imprison them, forcibly vaccinate them" and then later, realizing that there might be a price to pay for such behavior, trying to justify it- "well, with the information i had at the time..." and "the science has changed." that's bullshit and no apology is sufficient. this guy revealed himself as a dark soul. he would have been first in line to load jews onto boxcars. who would ever listen to him again?
"sign of illogical reasoning"
the greatest example of illogical reasoning i ever heard was on TWIV. one week they would interview peter daszak who talked about how oh so easy it was to manipulate a virus and the next week, someone would ask about the lab leak possibility and they would say "oh human beings aren't smart enough to make anything as clever as sars cv-2. i'd think huh? trust me, they're still talking about natural origin.
"I love Peter Atia BTW."
i especially loved it when Atia came around to the lab leak hypothesis in his interview with katherine eban. (do you remember Atia saying that the vaccines were great and so effective that you shouldn't have any cancer screenings after getting them? do you remember him later on saying that he would not get his children vaccinated and he moved his family to texas? but i have yet to hear him apologize for saying that the vaccines were great. i wonder if he's having a bit of buyer's remorse. he took a position- for himself- based on his medical training and later on, he saw that something was fishy and adjusted accordingly).
i am especially disappointed in eric topol. that's who i can't forgive. in his podcast with atia, he talked about how he was tortured, fired, threatened (by MERCK) after pointing out the safety signal for VIOXX. atia thought it was a good drug that was unjustly taken off the market but topol made him see it differently since he had lived through it.
then i heard that very same topol (who i respected and bought his book) accusing bret weinstein of spreading "dangerous misinformation" that is "killing people" with that insufferable and unbearable sam harris.
as if death threats only matter when they happen to you, dr. topol but they're fine for everyone else, provided you don't like them.
then harris said on triggernometry that it didn't matter if hunter biden's laptop contained photos of dead children in the basement, it needed to be kept hidden because keeping trump out of office justified anything!!! YIKES!!!!!
i expect ZDogg might admit that he got some things wrong one of these days and it's ok to be wrong as long as you didn't threaten to fire or kill people who didn't think you were right. but there's something oddly communist about making people recant their past sins. as for topol and harris, they can apologize till the cows come home. they're dead to me. which doesn't mean that they might not say something intelligent that i can agree with one of these days. but as examples of humanity, no way.
"maintain critical thinking skills"
i still think people have to take some responsibility. just as i can't respect women who blame the "patriarchy," BLM blaming systemic racism or ancestral slavery or any of the other career victims blaming someone or something else for their failures, i can't blame guys like ZDogg and Prasad who i didn't hear pressure anyone to do anything. now, like i said, i haven't heard much ZDogg and i mostly read Prasad so maybe they did urge people to get vaccinated. i would expect them to do that, steeped as they are in conventional medicine (much like aseem malhotra who never questioned vaccines in general and covid vaccines specifically until his father died. we're not going to ask him to apologize, are we? isn't losing his father enough? do we really want to call him a shill for the drug companies- even though he did urge people to get vaccinated- when he's probably getting plenty of heat from those same companies and his wikipedia page will be rewritten to tar him as a "spreader of dangerous misinformation" and he's certainly jeopardized his career?) but there's a big difference between urging without teeth and coercive urging at gunpoint. whatever you think, they're just talking. a lot of people tried to blame joe rogan for all vaccine hesitancy but really, he's just a guy talking. and he was 9 when i decided against flu shots so i don't think he had that much to do with it.
we all listened to biden warn us about the winter of severe illness and death. some of us marched right out and got vaccinated. some of us threw our shoes at the television set. some of us (me) used it as a christmas card. ZDogg can give his opinion and there's no cost to me if i choose to disregard it. biden sets policy and has the army behind him to enforce those policies. that's not constitutional but since when has that stopped any of them lately?
i think the ultimate question is: if you had a fantasy jail, who's in there for life and who isn't? fauci yes, ZDogg no. and sadly, as much as i would enjoy it, even sam harris hasn't done anything criminally wrong that would earn him a cell in my dream prison.
so we can disagree and enjoy this friendly banter and both come away enriched, i hope.
They’re so afraid of Elon musk taking over twitter, and the truth getting out, that the ones who know how gamed the system is, are coming out now to apologize ahead of time.
Elon is an enigma. Immense power to repair and heal but somehow still too little and too late. Had he fixed Twitter the week after he said he was buying it I would applaud him. Now the stalling tactics before getting into control at Twitter have let the childhood vaccine schedule danger come about, it just leaves an empty feeling in the gut. He should exit Twitter from the TNI immediately if he wants to redeem himself and speak openly against any censorship legislation.
We have to wait and see if Elon Musk will turn out to be a Joseph Goebbels or an Oskar Schindler, it could still go either way.
In my heart, I want to believe that people can be good and experience awakenings and find truth. I want to believe that human beings can be good and make reparations.
BUT, the onus is on the people that shamed others, forced others, cultivated a mob mentality that was as cruel as it was mendacious.
Some people like Fauci and Maddow are not welcome at my table, EVER.
People like Robbins and Oster I have zero sympathy for. They are highly educated and had access to the information if they sought it. For all their self-claimed morality on other subjects, they failed miserably and participated in cultivating the climate that enabled this nightmare. No simple apology will suffice. They need to make a real sacrifice to balance their scales, if that is even possible.
If they mean it, they will go out on that gangplank and take ALL the slings and arrows and not flinch. Why? Because if they believe it is right, then their compass should guide them, not their ambitions or their careers. Until then, I don’t believe it because it is too facile and convenient.
As well as getting things wrong, there are the "sins of silence"... and these people are still being silent or downplaying things that are happening right now... this doesn't demonstrate they have learned much... in a years time, will they also be asking for amnesty on having not spoken out now. e.g. silence on question why are governments and scientists not working on getting to the bottom of, and stopping, all the ongoing excess deaths and decreased birth rates we are seeing all over the western world, and why is the media silent on this, when during the peak fear mongering period, they were reporting every single death within 28 days of a positive test every single day as a tragedy that needed draconian measures? Why, suddenly, don't lives matter?
Hi Mathew! One of my readers linked me to your post. I wrote on this topic too taking a slightly different approach (I had no idea who this Oster was until today) which seemed to have taken off. Take a look at it if you can! Also I copied the twitter post montage you had here. It was much better than the one I put together.
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/dissecting-the-deceptive-plea-for
It's usually good form to credit the meme-montage creator. ;)
Great article. I've added it above.
Also I wanted to say I really appreciate your substack and it was one of the original ones on here that inspired me to write!
I have enjoyed yours as well. I am humbled by the compliment.
Thank you! I normally link the images to the original source to credit those ;)
I believe Tim Robbins is genuine in his remorse and is gradually emerging from the fog of having being politically and psychologically manipulated. He has been calling out the Screen Actors Guild and defending actors like Clifton Duncan, who lost his acting career over this (see his brilliant Mises Institute talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCH_8KtLeVQ), for months now.
I reached out to Tim to commend him for the humility he displayed in pausing to reflect on his beliefs and behaviors and recalibrating accordingly, recognizing that it was wrong to comply with authoritarianism. This takes bravery, especially in an ideologically conformist industry that has the power to crush him for wrongthink.
He followed me on Twitter, which I take as a sign of his authentic change of heart, and I have extended an invitation to participate in a new interview series focused on the newly awakened. I hope he’ll take me up on the offer as I intend to delve *much* deeper in my attempt to understand the burning question at the heart of all my work: namely, how are ordinary, good-hearted, intelligent people manipulated by propaganda into becoming hateful, hurtful, even genocidal beings?
I would welcome him on this side of the fence. I'm genuine in how I lay it out---I want to give him the shot to display a change of character and help fix what's gone wrong. I'm glad to know you've been in contact with him. That's encouraging.
Cheers.
Why? He'll sell you out again in a heartbeat if the wind blows.
I would give him no such authority. If he had it, his penance would not be complete.
Perhaps I phrased that incorrectly.
You can welcome someone back into whatever you deem a "side".
You can even think that you may get to control the boundaries of that side, to dictate its margins.
You went one way, Mathew.
Tim Robbins went another.
Neither of you is exactly conferring authority as to how the other will behave in the future.
But you went a "follow data route" and Robbins went a ???follow Hollywood? route?
Kind of hate it that we are talking about celebs right now, but the larger principle is the one I'm focused on.
Look---I hear you. Like I said, my calculus on forgiveness isn't going to be an easy one. I want Emily to hold the hands of victims before I even think about trusting her as anything but a status-seeking snake.
Similarly, before I'd say Tim has truly crossed the right line, I'd like to see him rebuild the world in some way. I'm going to judge harshly.
Understand that while I've published on a bit of it, I'm researching links between the DoD and all of Hollywood. He's on my list to pay attention to at this point. And I won't hold back.
Appreciate you, MC.
You are based, as the cool kids say.
Oh good. Because the DoD is behing this entire thing...and I want them exposed.
Sage, You bet!
Just wait for the next story line he will be pushing for $$$. Just like his really ignorant, whacked wife/ex wife Susan lunatic Sarandon. BTW, they are both in the Black Eye Club.
Beware of enemies bringing gifts.
Personally I want people to understand how easily manipulated they are. In the UK if you are caught speeding for the third time you can go on a course on how not to be so stupidly selfish in future.
I think we need to brush up our critical thinking skills, if you are not too busy could you make up a course? 7 billion took the vaccination, start with them.
Want to give him "the shot"? Unintended pun or have they gotten to you too?
In any case, just when you thought you were tired of Emily Oster takes on Substack, Mathew, comes through with one of the best. Worth the wait.
"emerging from the fog of having being politically and psychologically manipulated."
--------
Rachel Maddow too, then?
I don't get this logic.
Tim Robbins is no small adorable child who fell in with a bad crowd.
He is a seasoned politically active veteran of spin and propaganda.
How are you sorting out the "hapless victim of propaganda" stack and the complicit person who sided with those who simply did no research?
I was actually thinking about writing a post on this (amongst my hundreds of other drafts in progress), partly inspired by your own questions about why we forgive some and not others.
I personally make a distinction between people of goodwill who were indoctrinated into the cult and Goebbelsian propagandists, psycho/sociopaths, malicious colluders, and media prostitutes like Rachel Maddow, who is incapable of genuine remorse and if she ever appears to display any would merely be acting in an attempt to save her own skin and career.
If someone who had been a cult member begins awakening from the daze; realizing they had become someone they were ashamed of; and offers a specific, heartfelt, and remorseful apology, then I will give them the benefit of the doubt, especially if their actions and words bear out their sincerity.
My entire mission is to unmask totalitarianism and awaken the sleeping before tyranny triumphs, so of course, I welcome the newly awakened, especially if they are performing penance and joining in the Resistance to tyranny in meaningful ways. We need all hands on deck to defeat totalitarianism, and if this helps others see the light, I will welcome them with open arms.
There is so much to unpack here.
1. I used to watch Rachel Maddow. She was actually kind of cool once. Maybe she will want to come around too to defeat totalitarianism. Maybe Fauci will as well.
2. I'll look forwards to the post. I am fundamentally interested in this "re-vetting" of trustworthy allies. Because I'm pretty sure that they are responding ONLY to social pressures, not inspiration.
3. If anyone can parse this out, it is you, MAA. But what are the metrics that make people in the club to resist tyranny?
Take Bhattacharya. Great Barrington! yeah? A hero. Still slinging the jabs. Still Rand Corp. Still more Stanford than Dissident.
And responding to social pressures in the face of pressure is probably not going to go away quickly.
I appreciate this exchange. It's healthy.
Fauci has no outs. He can tell us he's sorry at the sentencing.
I agree that the people who have played an active part must all pay some sort of price. I don't necessarily know what that is.
I believe you are correct to hold Bhattacharya and his kind to a different standard. They're a tough call, depending on the circumstances---some of which we may never find out. In fact, that might be what they need to do: shed light on the secrets they can that put us where we are. We have no government at this point, but it could only be put back together with transparency. Somebody holding on to secrets that could stop mass murder may have to take jail time to be trusted again.
Well I'm interacting with two of my fave people on this corner of the Universe and trying to sharpen some steel.
I will surprise you.
I would take a Fauci and mine every bit of his intel, and kompromat.
I'd take him on the "side", use his data like Lecter and upgrade his cell to Plum Island.
But I wouldn't trust him. And I damn sure wouldn't create some kind of "redemption arc" like this is a movie.
And I'm never going to fool myself about what people are demonstrably capable of when the shit heats up...just b/c they're "nice". Or "cool."
I would pass on handling Fauci at all. We all have our line at controlling our inner demons, and I'm afraid to find out that I'd enjoy what I dished out.
I remember watching Rachel when she was a YouTuber wearing a backwards baseball cap with a dry-erase marker and Post-It board for illustration. And then I saw how she allowed herself to become thoroughly corrupted and co-opted for relentless propagandizing, and her emotionally manipulative fear-mongering, embarrassingly displays of fake tears, and role in perpetrating mass deception make it difficult me to ever believe she would authentically repent.
Fauci is irredeemable. He is a mass-murdering psychopath who *knows* exactly what he is doing and has caused incalculable suffering and deaths over the four+ decades of his reign. That is why I called him Dr. Mengelfauci (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/dr-mengelfauci-pinocchio-puppeteer) — he is a sadistic bureaucratic monster who knowingly colluded (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-a-colluder-stop-enabling) with philanthropaths (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/anatomy-of-a-philanthropath-dreams) to fulfill their dreams of democide and dictatorship. There is no path to redemption for him or his ilk.
The social pressures are still *strongly* in favor of Covidians, Wokeists, and Cancel Culture—especially in Hollywood—so Tim Robbins, for example, is taking a serious career risk by speaking out on behalf of the uninjected, and he has been doing so for a while now (even though most only learned about it recently due to his interview with Matt). He exhibited wisdom by recognizing that he was wrong, and he is now making amends for the harm he has done. I applaud that behavior and want to encourage others to follow suit.
Forgive me if I don't worry too much about Tim Robbins's career prospects.
I'll tell you what is going to happen. And I hope I'm wrong:
You will get the high profile types flipped with an appropriate show of contrition, and then leading a movement and it will be Obama, "Yes We Can!" all over again.
Just like you got a guy straight out of decades in the Big Military and Big Private Public Partnership somehow immersed with the freedom movement when one year ago he was advocating for more tracking and tracing and surveillance.
It will be Bernie Sanders shepherding stadiums full of people into the DNC or whatever new entity arises from this shitfuckery.
And nobody will get to the DOD.
Hope I'm wrong.
When people say, "Celebrities, they are just like us!" they are kind of wrong.
Celebrities are incredibly marginal people.
*edit: If they want to come in and be humble servants, great. But they will more than likely take over and you will find yourself erasing your metrics of success and re-drawing them and erasing and re-drawing.
I understand your skepticism, Sage, and it may turn out that way, although, like you, I hope not.
Until their actions prove otherwise, though, I am willing to accept those who show genuine contrition (genuineness being judged by each individual’s gut, I realize) and are joining us on the frontlines.
I know too many kind, smart people who were bamboozled by the most sophisticated propaganda campaign in history, and I want more than anything for them to wake up. I also desperately want to understand why and how they succumbed so we can help inoculate them and others from further menticidal attempts—now and for generations to come.
Triumphing against tyranny requires as many people to awaken from their inculcation as humanly possible, so the more the merrier as far as I’m concerned.
This!
If those crossing sides are met with insults it will slow the awakening. Unfortunately we need celebs to come out of the covid closet, as much as we may want to hurl insults it's best that we don't.
At the very least, what we should do is something like what I have tried: state where our line is with acceptance. I want more than words from any one of them. They should both apologize and either participate in the deconstruction of the mindset or otherwise put in their own self-imposed "service hours"---and not through some bullshit NGO nonsense charity. Actual human contact and work.
Agreed, for the "useful idiots" such as Oster/Robbins an apology and meaningful penance. For the Dr Hilary Jones and Prof Alice Roberts of this world, these are medical doctors who used their media presence to push the vaccines. I want their medical licence and I want them on trial for attempted manslaughter, we need to use the law to make an example out of them, to be taught as case studies in medical schools.
Exactly Sage, and the latter will hide behind the former excuse like Rochelle Wolensky ( I love to spell her name wrong, everyone does ) did months ago already. She said " I was just watching CNN like everyone else, thinking this was the answer." ( the Bioweapon injection she was referring to. ) These are words for the future upcoming trials. They are all back pedaling to cover their asses with new words now, and a wink.
May be a bit of waste of time to pander with these suckers on this site. We need to get onto the next assaults with the injected graphine oxide assembling 5G nanobots and the aerosolizing of Bioweapon " vaccines " ( not vaccines ). This will again be way over the uneducated "actors " heads so they will poo poo it and laugh at us yet AGAIN, until it too, hits them in the face. The Evils just did there second beta test in S. Korea, the first ( that I know of ) was at the demonic rapper concert in Houston, Tx - Travis Scott I think.
Nothing to do with a " stampede " of course - that was LSM spin,Watch the concert goers dozens of videos it was during the concert and people essentially standing still and dropping from mostly cardiac arrests from the GO bouncing around inside them set off by certain wave lengths of sound energy.
Keep moving forward, the 300 Billionaire Club is moving faster. Tim and Susan just pissed they are not in that club. Why did they both get black eyes? Have you and your significant other both had black eyes in a relatively short time period apart?
Cheers
Read, if you haven't already " In the Garden of Beasts " about 1939 Germany, largely outlines the clueless American Ambassador ( Professor from U of Illinois - Chicago ) to Germany who was a delusional Libtard. Again, those who get us into these messes.
MAA please let us know when you do. I am so grateful to have "met" you and I too want to understand (and you explain things like no one else) how ordinary people can be so manipulated by propoganda....Cannot wait.
I am so grateful to have met you, too, Duchess, and will do! 🤗
Would love to follow you on Twitter, what is your handle?
I’d love to have you, Rebekah! I’m at MargaretAnnaAl1 (I didn’t realize Twitter was going to truncate my name or I would have tried to see if I could change it, but now it’s too late so oh well):
https://twitter.com/MargaretAnnaAl1
I’m sorry but common sense alone should have told us covid was a fear mongering political tool based on greed and power. There was no science because there wasn’t enough time to dictate truly safe results. The rules and mandates made no sense. Wear a mask inside a restaurant but okey to remove once sitting down? Good grief. BLM riots okey but church services banned. George Floyd gets 3 funerals but our loved ones don’t even get a small family gathering. Illegals fluid the border but not required to be vaccinated. Oh the list goes on and on. Hospital nurses dancing on social media but we’re told how brave they are. Utter nonsense. Medical procedures put on hold so only covid patients allowed, where they were then intubated and given meds that killed them all while no family allowed to visit or question. If these covid die-hard manipulators calling for the unvax to be punished now want to apologize ‘because they didn’t know,’ they can beg all they want. Won’t get forgiveness from me that quickly, if ever.
If one was paying attention it was clear early on that the risks were vastly exaggerated. The biggest tell in this regard was how hard it was to find information about risk - the IFR or CFR for example, or the stratification of risk by age and health status. It’s still underreported imo. Most people who die of covid were - and are - are old or otherwise vulnerable. Just like the flu. All known by summer 2020. The fear was so pervasive that in my purple area, life didn’t return to normal until 2022.
*flood (correction)
Thank you, again, Mathew. Nice examination. I don't think you have mis-characterised this. And you have sparked a great discussion in the comments. Thank you everyone.
The issue of a 'true' apology has an inherent requirement for atonement, imo. Emily is a flat out flake fake, looking for an AH to lick as if that is atonement. (Hope not too blunt.) Tim, I am skeptical about. Genuine sentiment, perhaps, only so far as he doesn't need to atone.
This discussion brings to mine Oedipus Rex. Freud did a slight of hand, and so we think of Oedipus as having sex with his mother. Perhaps a few think of him as having killed his father. The 'real' story of Oedipus is that, despite doing these abhorrent acts in COMPLETE ignorance, he plucked out his eyes in an EFFORT to atone for his evil.
Where is this genuine atonement with these people? Dr. Fraiman moved towards that with an honesty that was likely going to cost him his job. OTH, what I see in Emily is woke virtue signally as clear as day. And at this point, I am hard pressed to not see that with Tim too.
Margaret, when/if you get the chance, please ask Tim how he will atone for blindly obeying authority no differently than Goebbels and his ilk did; for having been blind to 'we will never do that again' purpose of Nuremberg, on top of being blind to what so many people saw and expressed.
I am also puzzled how it is, when convenient, that we collectively ignore the rule of law that 'ignorance is no excuse from the law.' Oedipus killed his father, had sex with his mother and blinded himself willingly because he knew in his core that his ignorance was not an excuse from what he did.
The ignorance of Emily and Tim was not in the same league as Oedipus. Mathew wrote here, and many others have pointed out elsewhere, that the 'errors' of EVERYTHING covid were not hidden! The blindness to it all was wilful, not ignorance. What the supporters of covid did is ... incomparably worse, with killing and injuring 10s of millions, including children, while denying that evidence, as well as ethical behaviour, as if they didn't exist.
Apologies without atonement are, under the circumstances, hollow at best and a puke fest at worst.
Addendum: It is important that the atonement be voluntary for the apology to be considered 'true'. Involuntary atonement is simply punishment, and of far lesser value to both the society and the individual, even when desired and/or required.
Agreed. I don't think anyone that successful in Hollywood can be so naive. If Desmet's numbers are correct (and my memory is!), then 30% or so really believed the fear BS, 10-20% saw early on and spoke up and the rest... either didn't care/went along to get along/wanted to be on the "winning side". There are also a lot of people who think they are "influencers" in some way and love the power they think this gives them. Oster's just trying to save her own skin.
Fauci should be imprisoned in isolation for life.
Thank you, Irene. Your comment brought to mind a slight misstatement in my response. I added the following:
Addendum: It is important that the atonement be voluntary for the apology to be considered 'true'. Involuntary atonement is simply punishment, and of far lesser value to both the society and the individual, even when desired and/or required.
The money ran out. All the subhuman grifters who were being paid to push the vaccine aren’t being paid anymore. Now they’re going to come out and apologize.
Save your apologies for the dead.
We are going to end up trampling over the corpses to get some autographs.
Malignant,
You nailed it!
There are a lot of slow and naive people on this site. They better hurry up and focus on the matter at hand, what is about to exterminate them. This is exactly the population the WEF intends to eliminate to catapult evolution. Not my words. They are theirs. Read the book. The Great Reset, Klaus Nazi Schwalb
Do Not Comply
Long before I'd believe "plausible ignorance" - I'd believe "complete and utter moral turpitude."
The leadership class gets fewer passes---particularly the cognitive elite.
I'm going to have to work on a sliding scale.
Steve Kirsch just posted this and it's a perfect example of that "moral turpitude" I alluded to - just unbelievable behavior in a CDC civil servant:
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/dont-bother-to-let-the-cdc-know-about?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=548354&post_id=81835309&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Completely accurate and expected in a "civil servant ".
Ha like Noam Chomsky floating the idea of the unjabbed being banned from grocery stores?
Every DeepState/Globalist Operation has a plan for blame & deflection....I call this the Deep State "blame & deflection narrative."
Emily's apology was a non-apology apology. She wants to be let off easy, and she hasn't changed her heart nor her behavior. She will adjust it somewhat, but not CHANGE.
I'm not singing Kumbaya with most of these people. I don't treat them badly, but too many are not healed from their darkness, and they are not going to do "reparations" so to speak. They are not going to stand up for those they harmed, they want to get back to "old" life and have everything "be okay." They have to die in and participate actively with making sure it doesn't happen again and helping with things like removing school and health board members. Those persons in positions of effect cannot remain, they have not changed, they have not changed enough, we need based people who will keep their heads in those positions. The people who harmed us cannot be rewarded with same-old same-old. they have to start over. Too bad if they invested a lot of years and their retirement or whatever will be less. THEY were not the victims. Deeds, behavior, and time not words.
She will pretend to adjust her behavior but it will be all contrived. I don't think she can have real remorse.
Thank you Matthew, that J.Goebbels meme...so fitting... Your essay is balanced, you let their own words speak and, let us think about how we want to receive it.
On a private level as in regards to friends and family alike, I will be excersising
personal and individual judgement in proceeding - or not - with relationships.
As for the professionals in medical field (who failed in their duty of care) and
all those in media who failed to educate themselves or have been corrupted well, I think they should be accountable for all the harm they've caused.
And what about those who were most militant but didn't take the procedures
themselves?
I just saw this phenomenal apology video from Graham Linehan to Count Dankula today, and *this* is a sincere, heartfelt, and honest apology that is worthy of appreciation:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HLBAhokxiQ
I agree. Seems quite refreshingly authentic. Open hearted.
Yes, I found it quite heartening as Graham Linehan is the creator of three of our absolutely favorite comedies of all time—"Black Books," "Father Ted," and "The IT Crowd," and I was thrilled to see he had rediscovered the sense of humor that made it possible for him to craft this hysterical gem:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zkL91LzCMc
I hadn't heard of him! Thanks for the link. I needed the laugh. :)
In reviewing the referenced Darkhorse video, Bret says amnesty for honesty is a good trade. That kind of resonates with me. This cretin Emily Oster is still being incredibly dishonest. She didn't just try to insinuate that "we couldn't have known," she explicitly said so. This is a lie, because many of us knew and have been saying so from the start. She was a vocal proponent of using nudge architecture to silence and force us to comply with what she believed was correct secondary to her scientific and moral incompetence. This incompetence is what disqualifies her as a credible contributor to productive conversation until she can fully articulate how and why she got it so wrong in a manner that reflects that her own incompetence was central to her error.
A kind of person who devises special signals to put masks on a hiking trip when someone is approaching is indeed a cretin. I've seen lots of people like that where I live. I think the concept of forgiveness applied to people like that is almost a category error. It is similar to forgiving a wild animal. Possibly some trained Buddhists can figure out what it means and how to do it, but not regular people like us.
Though not a Buddhist, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on this issue as my signature character strength is forgiveness and mercy! Those who can demonstrate that they understand what they did wrong in a manner that leaves us all confident they won't rinse and repeat for SARS-CoV3 will be helpful allies. This demonstration of understanding and contrition is a higher bar than most people think when it comes to the holier-than-thou professional class. Those who can't make it over this bar must be subjugated by any legal, moral, and ethical means available.
You misunderstood what I was saying. Let me rephrase it in less metaphorical terms.
The idea of the twin concepts of castigation and forgiveness is to promote intra-tribe (using the OP's terminology) cooperation. The defectors are threatened with castigation and punishment. For the threat to be effective it has to be carried out against the offending parties.
On the other hand, we do not want to castigate and banish everybody forever for most offenses. That way the tribe will soon end up with no members. Hence forgiveness. Also, if no forgiveness were possible, any offender would have every incentive to become the tribe's enemy forever.
However, the tribe would like to reduce recidivism. Hence no forgiveness without repentance. Which becomes harder and harder to accomplish with each subsequent offense.
The integral part of repentance is to understand and confess the wrong that one has done. That requires certain mental capacities. Without those mental capacities there could be no real repentance and therefore no real forgiveness. That's what I mean by my comparison of such a person to a wild animal.
My point is that a person who devises special signals to put masks on a hiking trip when someone is approaching have a certain kind of mental failing. I am not saying that they are crazy or stupid. But they are fools.
That failing cannot be explained just by believing the propaganda. It's beyond that. Part of their repentance must be realizing and acknowledging that mental failure, and explaining how they plan to avoid it in the future. Just saying "we trusted the government" is not enough. Until that is accomplished no forgiveness is possible.
agree 100%
eugyppius just posted again on the subject: https://www.eugyppius.com/p/once-more-on-renowned-fool-emily
Using his terms, the mental failing is being a Head Girl. And he actually calls her a fool in in the title :)
Yes, the archetype of the Head Girl is important to understand. It is definitely a thing and deserves much attention. I think there is something very useful in understanding your own innate personality and that of others. Character strengths are related. I'll probably write something about it at some point.
"Bret says amnesty for honesty is a good trade."
------
Yeah, Bret is dead wrong. But whatever. I give up.
This is the type of stance that only an overhyped "Dark Web" 🙄 Public Intellectual can take.
The Normies are going to win. I get it now.
Settle in and enjoy the Cull.
John Campbell and Aseem Mulhotra and Bret Weinstein will come running out at the last minute and connect all the dots.
I think that "amnesty for honesty" may or may not be a good trade depending on the game theory of the circumstances. We need a larger conversation.
But first, we need to pfucking win.
Many of the Nazi scientists were directly honest about their actions.
You may "win" like this. Sure.
Your victory may end up suspiciously similar to your loss.
related: Obama: "Yes We Can!"
Elected to stop the nightmare bloodbath wars on lies.
"Yes WE Can!"
Yay. We did it! Hope and Change.
"Yes WE Can!" (continue to murder the world and run out of bombs.)
So, when you sort out what your W looks like, factor in the metrics that you intend to clock.
Your pessimism is irrational and counter-productive if you hope to hold the enemy accountable. In this case you seem to be using an overly narrow interpretation of what is meant by "honesty" here such that you miss the entire point. If you conceive of honesty as the ability to articulate why you were wrong while others got it right while taking full responsibility for being wrong, then this will be the optimal strategy. Anyone who can clear that bar will be an ally. You generally can't say those kinds of words without undergoing a paradigm shift and switching sides. Of course there are a select few that can pull it off, but some chaff will always come with the wheat. Those who are unable to clear this bar must be subjugated. I think most everyone on our side can agree with this. Those unable to admit they were wrong and why will inevitably try to do the same again, and in this case the same is a violation of the non-aggression principle. Using force to constrain such individuals is necessary and proper for the functioning of a healthy society. If you're unconvinced, then fine, give up, but no need to pessimistically announce it to the world and undermine the morale of those who are still committed to taking purposeful action towards holding these motherfuckers accountable.
Grant Smith
Writes H2F Man
4 min ago
"Your pessimism is irrational and counter-productive if you hope to hold the enemy accountable"
Bret's the one who is preaching amnesty. Not me, bro.
Also, I think your notion of "this side" will fall apart under even rudimentary definitions of objectives.
"Using force to constrain such individuals is necessary and proper for the functioning of a healthy society. "
No shit. Did I say otherwise?
"If you're unconvinced, then fine, give up, but no need to pessimistically announce it to the world and undermine the morale of those who are still committed to taking purposeful action towards holding these motherfuckers accountable."
----
Oh fuck off you sanctimonious prick. I'll say whatever the fuck I want based on what I'm seeing at any given time.
How do you like me now?
Am I still on your 'side'?
Yes, you're just not a terribly effect member of the team
Disparate coalitions based on Jabs Bad, a "team" does not make.
You are using comic book heroes and villain logic, and the villains come from your old bosses in the good old USM.
Think your boy Bret will lead us to them?
I take your desire to have a good conversation as a heartening sign that you haven't given up, which is awesome. The disparate coalitions aren't based on the jabs, not really. The jabs have recruited more folks to these disparate coalitions, but you're right, this issue isn't the unifying force for the team. I don't know the best way to brand and package it, but I am reasonably certain that what unifies us is our opposition to the managerial class. Since this opposition poses an existential threat to managerial class rule, the stakes are high and shit will definitely get crazier before it gets better, but the inherent complexity of the situation suggests that it is reasonable to believe we'll come out on top as long as we stay poised to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. My boy Bret is a good dude, and I think allowing for some form of amnesty is both strategically and morally necessary, but no, I don't think he is a leader in understanding the ongoing class/spiritual conflict. In this context, my spirit animal is Robert Barnes. I also think Mathew has some great ideas, which is why I'm here. What do you think? How do you conceive of the sides, or do you not believe there are two distinct sides?
i've been reading vinay prasad's substack and watching some of his videos for maybe 6 months now. i've seen him get increasingly radicalized as he's become more disillusioned with his profession. even Paul Offit is now, according to the new dictionary definition of the word, an anti-vaxxer! bet you never thought you'd see that!!
prasad doesn't really need to apologize. he's never advocated forced vaccination, internment camps, denying care to the unvaxxed, firing people or anything like that. he has always been very measured. as he's seen more unethical insanity, he's gone closer to the edge, calling for fauci et al to be fired, saying that the Biden administration needs to dump all it's truly terrible covid "experts.
the thing to remember is that no one who needs to hear this stuff is going to listen to Bret Weinstein, Del Bigree or RFKjr. as courageous and honorable as those men are, they are too easily written off as kooks and quacks.
guys like Prasad, V-dogg and Marty Makary have the ear of the mainstream and they are fairly bulletproof in terms of losing their jobs because they speak out against mandates, etc. their positions may not be perfect, but they are evolving as they see clearly that something is very wrong. Makary calls it "the pandemic of lunacy."
don't sell them short. they are allies
I sort of agree, except Prasad sat and giggled for months beside ZDogg, who may as well be a phrarma shill. Prasad never said boo, and ZDogg, that guy did some damage while ridiculously staking claim to the "alt-middle". What a joke, except it's not funny.
Prasad's actions speak loudly now though, and thus I am torn on what he really thinks.
Offit is an lifetime pharma shill. He's only an "anti-vaxxer" because he doesn't want to overreach and kill the golden goose. He knows very well what overreach followed by backlash will do. He wrote a book on the disaster of the polio vaccine fiasco.
offit is an "anti-vaxxer" only because of the change in definition. of course, he's as pro-vax as they come but i believe the insanity of the last 3 years is making him have doubts. he's never going to be an anti-vaxxer. that would be too much to expect.
and honestly, no one has to be an anti-vaxxer. i'm not an anti-vaxxer; i just don't want anyone trying to force me to do something i don't want to do no matter what it is and even if a case could be made that it's for my own good. i'm an adult and i'll make that call, thank you.
but i do question you're saying that ZDogg "did some damage." that's a bit close to the woke belief that words cause harm, that misinformation "kills" people, that speech is dangerous, that Trump actually incited the jan 6 thing. we're all to some extent free adults and i listen to quite a few podcasts and read some substacks. i don't agree with everything everyone says. in truth, guys like ZDogg and Prasad can only influence the people who are influencible.
now if ZDogg was a policy maker like Fauci, an ACIP voter like Offit or a demented President instituting mandates that would cost you your job, i'd say yes, he could do some damage. but in his position as a comedian/doctor, i don't see it.
the reality is, these moderate people are valuable. maybe it's taken them a long time to see what's going on because they're in the belly of the beast. maybe they'll never be a rabid anti-vaxxer; they don't have to be.
they just have to have a sense that something is wrong and have to balls to speak out about it on their platforms. there is an entire world out there of doctors who were to chicken shit to say anything lest they lose their licenses. then there are the hero/martyrs like Paul Marek, Pierre Kory, Bob Sears. those three guys once had more faith in the medical system and in vaccines than they do now.
There is hard evidence that the vast majority of the population trust doctors as an authority on health advice. It is hard evidence that ZDogg has a large following online. It is also hard evidence that ZDogg heavily heavily promoted vaccines for all ages. That caused damage. These are not woke statements.
Any authority giving advice knowing full well their influence is guilty of causing damage. ZDogg, has been pretty silent on those original vaccines for a while now.
I don't find him very moderate TBH. He is not extreme, but he also relies heavily on arguments of authority, a prime example being his awful video attack/review of McCullough and Malone on Rogan.
hmmm, i'm still going to respectfully disagree. i confess i haven't "followed" ZDogg in any meaningful way. i first heard him on Peter Atia's podcast before the pandemic. i did listen to his "awful" video on the Rogan episode and didn't think it was that awful. he said what he thought the two got right and what they got wrong. in other words, he didn't think it was the second coming but he didn't condemn it outright, call for it to be censored, etc. his opinion of those episodes didn't influence my opinion of them.
i don't really care if the vast majority of people trust doctors. that's on them. some comedic doctor you hear on a podcast probably doesn't have great influence on your life decisions. maybe your own personal doctor should have more? i'm pretty sure that people who were going to get the vaccine were going to get it no matter what ZDogg said or didn't say. and the people who weren't could listen to all the vaccine cheerleaders in the world and not be moved.
i listened to TWIV throughout the pandemic and, despite their constant repeating of several slogans (vaccines are how this pandemic ends, never miss an opportunity to vaccinate, children are at low risk but not at no risk, no one is safe until everyone is safe) and their continual insistence that only unvaccinated people are still dying of covid, i didn't race out to get the vaccine and if i did, i could hardly blame them or ZDogg or Rachel Madcow or any of the other thousands of voices, commercials and incentives telling me 24/7 that i should do this. i do have the power to change the channel.
now if my job coerced me (and it did), i like to think that i'd hold to my principles and be fired (which i was) but i don't have children, my mortgages are paid off, i have rental income, a BF with a good pension and i can still earn money with my dress making skills so i can't say i've been tested the way some people were tested.
excuse my woke comment but the crux of the issue is this- if you're going to have standards... the Left says the Right is destroying Democracy, killing people, doing damage and must be censored. they say that any anti-vaccine person is a Trump voting republican, Qanon member, redneck hillbilly who is being paid millions by the Russians to spread "dangerous misinformation" with the purpose of weakening america by killing us off because they've influenced us not to take the life saving vaccine and Facebook should censor them better. they actually said this on TWIV. i listened but didn't run out to get vaccinated.
now the other side is saying that any medical person with a platform who doesn't come flat out and say "these vaccines are horrible; don't ever take them" is doing damage by influencing people. should they be censored? isn't that the next logical step in your argument?
i have two friends who volunteered as Moderna subjects. obviously they believe in the technology but they've never criticized me. they have also not influenced me (they've since had covid a few times). their belief in the vaccine has not in any way made me consider it for myself.
way back a few months into the rollout, my BF- who is not as strong of a personality as i am- asked me if i'd check with the people at my doctor's office for their opinions. my response was "why should i care about their opinions?" but i asked for his comfort. my health coach said that they had already seen two miscarriages and a 69 year old woman who started up with menstrual bleeding; the shots were messing with women's hormones and the practice would not recommend them. she also said that the pfizer and moderna websites were very clear on the limitations of the shots but that the government and the media were pushing them like they were miracles. i thanked her for her candor but honestly, had she said "we won't have you as a patient anymore if you don't take the vaccine" i would have walked out the door of my own volition, not influenced by RFKjr or Del Bigtree.
actually my cousin's wife did spend a year in a wheelchair with GBS after taking the 1976 swine flu vaccine and that was enough for me. perhaps that's why i'm so resistant to advertising of any kind. still if anyone was influenced by ZDogg or any other internet doc, i think they have to take responsibility for being so easily influenced.
and honestly, i enjoy hearing what "the other side" has to say. it sharpens my arguments. i have pretty much given up listening to TWIV; there are only so many insults i can tolerate. i tune in now and then to see how their positions have morphed. i did listen to their most recent Paul Offit interview. he e-mailed them, saying he wanted to come on to explain why he voted against the bi-valent booster. while i differ radically with him, i wouldn't have missed that for the world. hearing him say it seems like the FDA just does whatever pfizer wants made my day!
"i don't really care if the vast majority of people trust doctors"
Hi Caroyln, whether you care isn't the point though. The point is people look up to doctors as authorities and the State gives them protected status as authorities on medicine. That authority comes with responsibility.
"i do have the power to change the channel."
Excellent, something to be proud of given the intense pressure. You were clearly in a small minority of people. You, unlike most, managed to maintain critical thinking skills.
"now the other side is saying... is doing damage by influencing people"
Maybe, but I don't speak for a side, and I used the past tense because I was referring to a very specific period where he was clearly a cheerleader. I can't speak for anyone else, but I do think my case against ZDogg is sound. I also don't think any single person can blame anyone else for their final decision, but he added his voice to the propaganda, and he needs to take responsibility for that. I think doctors like ZDogg do influence people, that is one reason they get paid.
I would never advocate censorship. I'm asking for acknowledgement of his mistakes, before I'll give him any respect. I think we should call a spade a spade. They were pharma cheerleaders and until they acknowledge that issue, no respect.
I love Peter Atia BTW.
"i did listen to his "awful" video on the Rogan episode and didn't think it was that awful. "
Did you notice he used ad hominem and arguments of authority instead of addressing the points made by the doctors? That is the sign of illogical reasoning. Manipulative. Not respectful.
"people look up to doctors as authorities and the State gives them protected status as authorities on medicine." well, California is certainly taking that away and anyone who still has trust in the medical system at this point might be an irredeemable fool.
"Did you notice he used ad hominem and arguments of authority" maybe i'll find it and listen to it again.
"I think doctors like ZDogg do influence people, that is one reason they get paid." but doctors like ZDogg have had their podcasts for a long time; it's not like they cropped up just to act as propaganda arms for the US government's public health policy. they've had podcasts on various topics and had on guests that you may have found interesting. and they don't "get paid." they are paid by their listeners, some who find them interesting and entertaining enough to subscribe to get more than what is offered for free (i'm too cheap). both ZDogg and Prasad have been in the medical field for years and i'm sure that they took vaccines for granted. now if it turns out that they got funds from the government to sneak certain messages into their podcasts, as i'd bet TWIV did, that would be unforgivable and in that case, even an apology wouldn't do it for me.
i have no real problem with someone saying "i think everyone in a certain risk category should get vaccinated" as long as that's what they believed and they weren't getting paid to say it. and i have no problem with them, later as they saw more things, wondering "WTF is going on with these vaccines?" i don't think that's hypocrisy or demands a mea culpa.
i DO have a problem with a guy like Piers Morgan saying "strip them of their rights, imprison them, forcibly vaccinate them" and then later, realizing that there might be a price to pay for such behavior, trying to justify it- "well, with the information i had at the time..." and "the science has changed." that's bullshit and no apology is sufficient. this guy revealed himself as a dark soul. he would have been first in line to load jews onto boxcars. who would ever listen to him again?
"sign of illogical reasoning"
the greatest example of illogical reasoning i ever heard was on TWIV. one week they would interview peter daszak who talked about how oh so easy it was to manipulate a virus and the next week, someone would ask about the lab leak possibility and they would say "oh human beings aren't smart enough to make anything as clever as sars cv-2. i'd think huh? trust me, they're still talking about natural origin.
"I love Peter Atia BTW."
i especially loved it when Atia came around to the lab leak hypothesis in his interview with katherine eban. (do you remember Atia saying that the vaccines were great and so effective that you shouldn't have any cancer screenings after getting them? do you remember him later on saying that he would not get his children vaccinated and he moved his family to texas? but i have yet to hear him apologize for saying that the vaccines were great. i wonder if he's having a bit of buyer's remorse. he took a position- for himself- based on his medical training and later on, he saw that something was fishy and adjusted accordingly).
i am especially disappointed in eric topol. that's who i can't forgive. in his podcast with atia, he talked about how he was tortured, fired, threatened (by MERCK) after pointing out the safety signal for VIOXX. atia thought it was a good drug that was unjustly taken off the market but topol made him see it differently since he had lived through it.
then i heard that very same topol (who i respected and bought his book) accusing bret weinstein of spreading "dangerous misinformation" that is "killing people" with that insufferable and unbearable sam harris.
as if death threats only matter when they happen to you, dr. topol but they're fine for everyone else, provided you don't like them.
then harris said on triggernometry that it didn't matter if hunter biden's laptop contained photos of dead children in the basement, it needed to be kept hidden because keeping trump out of office justified anything!!! YIKES!!!!!
i expect ZDogg might admit that he got some things wrong one of these days and it's ok to be wrong as long as you didn't threaten to fire or kill people who didn't think you were right. but there's something oddly communist about making people recant their past sins. as for topol and harris, they can apologize till the cows come home. they're dead to me. which doesn't mean that they might not say something intelligent that i can agree with one of these days. but as examples of humanity, no way.
"maintain critical thinking skills"
i still think people have to take some responsibility. just as i can't respect women who blame the "patriarchy," BLM blaming systemic racism or ancestral slavery or any of the other career victims blaming someone or something else for their failures, i can't blame guys like ZDogg and Prasad who i didn't hear pressure anyone to do anything. now, like i said, i haven't heard much ZDogg and i mostly read Prasad so maybe they did urge people to get vaccinated. i would expect them to do that, steeped as they are in conventional medicine (much like aseem malhotra who never questioned vaccines in general and covid vaccines specifically until his father died. we're not going to ask him to apologize, are we? isn't losing his father enough? do we really want to call him a shill for the drug companies- even though he did urge people to get vaccinated- when he's probably getting plenty of heat from those same companies and his wikipedia page will be rewritten to tar him as a "spreader of dangerous misinformation" and he's certainly jeopardized his career?) but there's a big difference between urging without teeth and coercive urging at gunpoint. whatever you think, they're just talking. a lot of people tried to blame joe rogan for all vaccine hesitancy but really, he's just a guy talking. and he was 9 when i decided against flu shots so i don't think he had that much to do with it.
we all listened to biden warn us about the winter of severe illness and death. some of us marched right out and got vaccinated. some of us threw our shoes at the television set. some of us (me) used it as a christmas card. ZDogg can give his opinion and there's no cost to me if i choose to disregard it. biden sets policy and has the army behind him to enforce those policies. that's not constitutional but since when has that stopped any of them lately?
i think the ultimate question is: if you had a fantasy jail, who's in there for life and who isn't? fauci yes, ZDogg no. and sadly, as much as i would enjoy it, even sam harris hasn't done anything criminally wrong that would earn him a cell in my dream prison.
so we can disagree and enjoy this friendly banter and both come away enriched, i hope.
Yes indeed. Stick with the more 'credible' allies.
That way when you go flying off the cliff, you will still take comfort in the illusion of "mainstream".
They are not evolving. They are just clocking an imaginary window of what is allowed set by Power.
They will not and cannot "evolve" quickly enough to do anything other than point out the LAST Operation.
That is how the whole Psy Op that runs for decades works.
"Evolving" just co-signs this: "The Science changed! We didn't know!"
It's the same ruse, the SAME RUSE.
Same shit that Oster is pulling.
The data was always there.
Heard a new theory…
They’re so afraid of Elon musk taking over twitter, and the truth getting out, that the ones who know how gamed the system is, are coming out now to apologize ahead of time.
Elon is an enigma. Immense power to repair and heal but somehow still too little and too late. Had he fixed Twitter the week after he said he was buying it I would applaud him. Now the stalling tactics before getting into control at Twitter have let the childhood vaccine schedule danger come about, it just leaves an empty feeling in the gut. He should exit Twitter from the TNI immediately if he wants to redeem himself and speak openly against any censorship legislation.
We have to wait and see if Elon Musk will turn out to be a Joseph Goebbels or an Oskar Schindler, it could still go either way.
I expect a purge of bot accounts, benign accounts like The babylon bee and project veritas to be restored, and maybe Trump.
That’s all I really expect out of it.
In my heart, I want to believe that people can be good and experience awakenings and find truth. I want to believe that human beings can be good and make reparations.
BUT, the onus is on the people that shamed others, forced others, cultivated a mob mentality that was as cruel as it was mendacious.
Some people like Fauci and Maddow are not welcome at my table, EVER.
People like Robbins and Oster I have zero sympathy for. They are highly educated and had access to the information if they sought it. For all their self-claimed morality on other subjects, they failed miserably and participated in cultivating the climate that enabled this nightmare. No simple apology will suffice. They need to make a real sacrifice to balance their scales, if that is even possible.
If they mean it, they will go out on that gangplank and take ALL the slings and arrows and not flinch. Why? Because if they believe it is right, then their compass should guide them, not their ambitions or their careers. Until then, I don’t believe it because it is too facile and convenient.
No more bullshit.
As well as getting things wrong, there are the "sins of silence"... and these people are still being silent or downplaying things that are happening right now... this doesn't demonstrate they have learned much... in a years time, will they also be asking for amnesty on having not spoken out now. e.g. silence on question why are governments and scientists not working on getting to the bottom of, and stopping, all the ongoing excess deaths and decreased birth rates we are seeing all over the western world, and why is the media silent on this, when during the peak fear mongering period, they were reporting every single death within 28 days of a positive test every single day as a tragedy that needed draconian measures? Why, suddenly, don't lives matter?
Right on! Keep kicking over the money-lending tables.