Corona virus, China major city lockdowns, etc.

[Shaggy Hiker]

what I dont understand is how people believe in the government.
when in time, and in history the government was working for the benefit of the working man?
it has always been for the elite, for the benefit of the rich and powerful.

That's a common misperception. The rich don't care. They're rich. The powerful care, if the source of their power is political. But it tends to be the middle class in most countries. The poor have no power, the rich don't need to bother, but the middle class have both the means and the necessity to drive society. That group might also be thought of as "the merchant class" in many countries. In the US, the definition would have to be pretty broad.

Where money comes into the picture, in the US, is to sway the middle class one way or another. That is a remarkably weak lever. It's strong and capable, but it can be broken off with ease. One of the bigger, on-going, fights in the US is about keeping that lever functioning. Financial disclosure, or stronger campaign financing laws, would remove that lever or make it much harder to use. Instead, we have generally drifted in the opposite direction.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Going in circles is what we do best here
Shaggy did not specify, so get your correction now! 1+1 = 10 .

Darn you Sappy!! Here I was, setting up a perfectly good conundrum, and you go and mess with it. I went back and forth as to what answer I'd put in there. I started with 481, then I went to 1, then to 11, and finally back to 1. Each of those answers has a case to be made for it, but 10???? I'm not even sure what case there is to be made for that one.

You made a mockery of my mockery!

[wes4dbt]

but 10???? I'm not even sure what case there is to be made for that one.

Could be binary for 2.

[sapator]

Yes, siree . Binary.
As for creating a virus. The easiest might be a computer one. That is cheap to make would benefit in extortion, industrial espionage etc but you really cannot say that you created it by mistake and it got away. Well maybe but you can look at the source code more easily and without a doctors degree.
The medical virus as shown here requires a lab and funding so not just a kid can do so, also we have been ranting for 10 pages now if it was deliberate or not. Either way the medical companies got billion and will continue to get billions. If it was an accident then it was a very suspicious accident. I mean they create vaccines every year for flu , do they gain billions? Does the stock market sky rocket, do the government is pushing you to do it?
Other types of viruses are more dangerous but they tend to kill the host at a higher rate so they cannot spread that fast and for that long. If I where a conspiracy theorist and wanted to guess what was the best way to create a virus that will stay afloat and will bring some people billions, I couldn't have though it better. So was the fluecus funded? Most definitely. Was it intended to get away and do what it did? We can't be sure but as the Chinese that ate that darn lab bat said.... I'm Batman!!

[Shaggy Hiker]

Ah, binary. Yes, that makes sense. That would be a worthy addition to the hypothetical answers I provided.

As for creating a virus, I'm not sure that the cost is all that high. It's not CHEAP, but...I remember back in the early 2000s when my boss was looking for a PCR machine...and looked on Craig's List. Now, I'm not sure if that's an international thing, so it may be that not everybody knows what that is. The thing is, he found some.

What you'd need is a machine that strings together nucleotides in a predictable sequence. Those are probably in the tens of thousands of dollars range. You'd then need a means to get the resulting mRNA into something like an attenuated adenovirus. I don't know what that would cost, but I'd bet that the cost is lower than people think, these days. That's been an area where costs have been dropping and capabilities increasing...kind of like computers, but with a smaller market.

As for making money. You are probably aware that the mRNA vaccines were being created to target cancer. The tech had already been worked out, so when COVID came along, they just had to swap the payload. Without all that preliminary work, the mRNA vaccines wouldn't have been ready, even now. The adenovirus ones would have, but not the mRNA vaccines.

However, when it comes to making money, COVID is small potatoes. If you want to really scare people, how about cancer? Does anyone take that lightly? I don't personally know anybody who died of COVID, but my mother died of cancer, I have a few friends who have had it, and my father may have had it. All of us will get it eventually if we don't manage to die of something else, first.

Better still, you could create different vaccines for different cancers. Sure, COVID could have booster shots. Perhaps you might be able to sell a bunch each year, but with cancers, you have the potential to sell dozens to each person.

The only thing COVID did for the mRNA vaccines is provide a first use case. It's just mRNA. It's essentially a code that you string together and put in a ball of fatty acids. You can code for whatever you want to guard against, so long as you can figure out something worth attacking. It's a money machine. You don't NEED to manufacture anything to prime THAT pump. It's primed. It's ready to go.

[sapator]

Yet with what you said about the virus you need a lot of money and a lot of knowledge. I could make a computer virus tomorrow with just the cost of my PC (ban alert!).
Also I stand by my opinion that, that type of virus was ideal for money making.I don't take in consideration MR.nay, it could just be a vaccine combined with something else, like the dead virus, people don't do it for MR.Nay, they do it because they are told that it's good for them. You can't possibly compere to cancer with possible 99.99% mortality rates to a fluecus and you are forgetting one thing, if the vaccine does come out, they could not possibly withhold the recipe, it's not a simple flue thing, you don't just have cancer and go to bed with a cup or orange juice. Also if I was a conspirator I would say that maybe millions of deals and jobs, vaccine tests, machinery, chemo, hospital wings, donations, rounding around cancer treatment would be lost in a snap of the fingers if a cure was found. You must believe that cancer would be caught again and again in mutations in order for the vaccine circle to keep on going, else less and less will cancerize. It's one shot per people or I don't know, multiple shots but a flu can get to billions of people per year. We already have 3 doses of the vaccine and we are talking about the 4th and another 3 for omega and one or two every year after.
Having said that I wish a cancer vaccine would be found but I asked you again. Do Mr,Nay vaccines cure cancer right now? I did not get an answer and as this is a delicate subject I should leave that as it may.

[jpbro]

Ok children, gather round. It's time for me to come clean.

I've been testing you to discover those of you on the enlightened path of the real truth, and those of you who are sheep. You have all failed, but some more than others. I will say though that I have been pleasantly surpised by a few of you - you know who you are.

Before I get ahead of myself, let's take a look back.

In 2019, China (henceforth "C") hosted the Military World Games in Wuhan (henceforth MWG). No big deal, right? Beyond wrong. I mean absolutely deathly wrong. At MWG, C delivered an early version of the novel Coronavirus (henceforth C-Virus) via a simple aerosol spray. Sound familiar? Delivery was much in line with the fairly recent Novichok poisonings in the UK that were perpetrated by Russia (henceforth "R").

The hilarious part is that C played the USA like a fiddle by getting them to fund the very Gain of Function (henceforth GOF) research that would eventually be used directly against them. Fauci puts on a brave face in public, but I assure you that in private he is in shambles.



The smartest among you have already thought "why would C do this against their own military?" Simple. C had an antidote "in the bank" for the modified virus *before* they deployed it. You only need to look at C's C-Virus death totals for this to become clear. C is categorically NOT under-reporting as most people believe.



Do your own research and compare the above chart with anywhere else in the world.


Believe it or not, it gets worse. In tandem with the virus, C has also been involved in a multi-year disinformation campaign against the USA.

In late 2017, Tencent (a C mega-corporation) invested in Spotify as part of a "strategic collaboration". Only two years later Spotify bought Joe Rogan's podcast and moved it to their platform. This was at the behest of C/Tencent, taking a page out of R's playbook on how to defeat a more militarily powerful nation through programming the population. That is, brainwashing them. I hope I'm not wasting your time by telling you something you already know, but this strategy was eloquently decribed to the West by KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov back in 1984. The goal - whether employed by R, C, or anyone else - is to break a once unified society into separate polarized tribes. These tribes will reject facts in favour of the narratives that fit their now programmed reality. This is how media personalities like Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, etc... have become weaponized. Feminists versus the Manosphere, BLM versus Proud Boys versus Antifa, Transexuals versus "CIS" Gendered men and women. Eventually everyone in the West will become radicalized and siloed, and in fact it has already happened to most of you. Once the tipping point is reached, there will be no way back. I hope that the point of no return hasn't been crossed already.

The chilling effects of this onslaught keep me up at night. C is a key player in R's Primakov Doctrine - an attempt to prevent a uni-polar world led by the USA in favour of a multi-polar one with R & C being the primary players. Once multi-polarity has been achieved, the playing field will be levelled and countries like R and C will be able to eventually tilt the balance in their favour without costly military actions. Has the penny dropped yet?

Now before I go, I want to quickly address those of you going on and on about Big pharma (BP). Where did you park the DeLorean? BP hasn't been the major concern in more than a decade. BP is peanuts in all of this. They're working with billions while the R&C's oligarchs and dictators are working with trillions. They're worried about the next quarter while R&C are plotting out the next century.

Now listen - I'm not a fan of big pharma or the billionaires invested in the industry, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Right now BP is the only thing keeping the C-virus at bay. Much like the Varicella Zoster virus or Herpes Simplex and other alphaherpesviruses, naturally acquired C-Virus is never completely cleared from your body. It will find a nice wet and warm home somewhere in your meat-space and sit dormant, waiting to be reactivated. What will reactivate it? The exact mechanism isn't yet clear, but there is almost no doubt that it has something to do with 5G cellular networks that have been deployed worldwide by C-based corporation Huawei. There's been a hullabaloo in the Western media about Huawei's 5G network plans, and now you know why! My hunch is that a specially crafted signal will be broadcast from every C controlled 5G tower simulataneously, kicking off a harmonic oscillation in the dormant C-Virus that will refold targeted proteins, awakening it in a new and unbelievably deadly form.

Let me be crystal clear: if you are unvaccinated and you get infected by C-Virus, you are guaranteed to die a horrible death. That is unless C's plan to activate the latent virus can be thwarted by other means. As much as I despise this fact, the seemingly never-ending cycle of BP's vaccines and boosters are the only realistic defence against a unfathomably larger and deadlier foe.

Stay safe out there, and good luck my friends. Don't say I didn't warn you!

[Niya]

Feminists versus the Manosphere

Wow. I never thought I'd ever see this phrase uttered in a extremely "left leaning" community like VBForums.

[dilettante]

Supposedly, the vaccine is free here in the US.

I got my 1st 2 doses for free in a drive-through mass clinic run by my county. A little while back I got a 3rd dose during a doctor appointment, and assume it would also be free.

But I got a statement the other day, and they billed Medicare $50 for it. Medicare paid something like $36 of that and denied the rest... but that's sort of how Medicare billing "works."

Oddly my medical provider has sent me a bill for $20 without saying what it is for. I'll have to check their web site to see if it offers any more detail on that.

Every so often I'll get a bill like that, pay it, then get a check in the mail refunding it. The system is a bit of a mess with inefficiencies everywhere.

[FunkyDexter]

That's a common misperception. The rich don't care. They're rich. The powerful care, if the source of their power is political. But it tends to be the middle class in most countries. The poor have no power, the rich don't need to bother, but the middle class have both the means and the necessity to drive society. That group might also be thought of as "the merchant class" in many countries. In the US, the definition would have to be pretty broad.

...so you're saying that He-Man was middle class...

[TysonLPrice]

Ok children, gather round. It's time for me to come clean.

I've been testing you to discover those of you on the enlightened path of the real truth, and those of you who are sheep. You have all failed, but some more than others. I will say though that I have been pleasantly surpised by a few of you - you know who you are.

Before I get ahead of myself, let's take a look back.

In 2019, China (henceforth "C") hosted the Military World Games in Wuhan (henceforth MWG). No big deal, right? Beyond wrong. I mean absolutely deathly wrong. At MWG, C delivered an early version of the novel Coronavirus (henceforth C-Virus) via a simple aerosol spray. Sound familiar? Delivery was much in line with the fairly recent Novichok poisonings in the UK that were perpetrated by Russia (henceforth "R").

The hilarious part is that C played the USA like a fiddle by getting them to fund the very Gain of Function (henceforth GOF) research that would eventually be used directly against them. Fauci puts on a brave face in public, but I assure you that in private he is in shambles.



The smartest among you have already thought "why would C do this against their own military?" Simple. C had an antidote "in the bank" for the modified virus *before* they deployed it. You only need to look at C's C-Virus death totals for this to become clear. C is categorically NOT under-reporting as most people believe.



Do your own research and compare the above chart with anywhere else in the world.


Believe it or not, it gets worse. In tandem with the virus, C has also been involved in a multi-year disinformation campaign against the USA.

In late 2017, Tencent (a C mega-corporation) invested in Spotify as part of a "strategic collaboration". Only two years later Spotify bought Joe Rogan's podcast and moved it to their platform. This was at the behest of C/Tencent, taking a page out of R's playbook on how to defeat a more militarily powerful nation through programming the population. That is, brainwashing them. I hope I'm not wasting your time by telling you something you already know, but this strategy was eloquently decribed to the West by KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov back in 1984. The goal - whether employed by R, C, or anyone else - is to break a once unified society into separate polarized tribes. These tribes will reject facts in favour of the narratives that fit their now programmed reality. This is how media personalities like Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, etc... have become weaponized. Feminists versus the Manosphere, BLM versus Proud Boys versus Antifa, Transexuals versus "CIS" Gendered men and women. Eventually everyone in the West will become radicalized and siloed, and in fact it has already happened to most of you. Once the tipping point is reached, there will be no way back. I hope that the point of no return hasn't been crossed already.

The chilling effects of this onslaught keep me up at night. C is a key player in R's Primakov Doctrine - an attempt to prevent a uni-polar world led by the USA in favour of a multi-polar one with R & C being the primary players. Once multi-polarity has been achieved, the playing field will be levelled and countries like R and C will be able to eventually tilt the balance in their favour without costly military actions. Has the penny dropped yet?

Now before I go, I want to quickly address those of you going on and on about Big pharma (BP). Where did you park the DeLorean? BP hasn't been the major concern in more than a decade. BP is peanuts in all of this. They're working with billions while the R&C's oligarchs and dictators are working with trillions. They're worried about the next quarter while R&C are plotting out the next century.

Now listen - I'm not a fan of big pharma or the billionaires invested in the industry, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Right now BP is the only thing keeping the C-virus at bay. Much like the Varicella Zoster virus or Herpes Simplex and other alphaherpesviruses, naturally acquired C-Virus is never completely cleared from your body. It will find a nice wet and warm home somewhere in your meat-space and sit dormant, waiting to be reactivated. What will reactivate it? The exact mechanism isn't yet clear, but there is almost no doubt that it has something to do with 5G cellular networks that have been deployed worldwide by C-based corporation Huawei. There's been a hullabaloo in the Western media about Huawei's 5G network plans, and now you know why! My hunch is that a specially crafted signal will be broadcast from every C controlled 5G tower simulataneously, kicking off a harmonic oscillation in the dormant C-Virus that will refold targeted proteins, awakening it in a new and unbelievably deadly form.

Let me be crystal clear: if you are unvaccinated and you get infected by C-Virus, you are guaranteed to die a horrible death. That is unless C's plan to activate the latent virus can be thwarted by other means. As much as I despise this fact, the seemingly never-ending cycle of BP's vaccines and boosters are the only realistic defence against a unfathomably larger and deadlier foe.

Stay safe out there, and good luck my friends. Don't say I didn't warn you!

FYI...

I stopped reading after this:

I've been testing you to discover those of you on the enlightened path of the real truth, and those of you who are sheep. You have all failed, but some more than others. I will say though that I have been pleasantly surpised by a few of you - you know who you are.

[Schmidt]

Ok children, gather round. It's time for me to come clean.

If you think stuff like that is helping... it doesn't.

The whole "put them all into a conspiracy-box"-thing is quite the "honeypot",
because it's so utterly convenient to apply, isn't it?
When you hear it long enough, it'll bring even educated people to a point, where they:
- start "throwing out the baby with the bathwater"
- or "shoot the messenger outright - on sight"

Problem is, when you act this way (dismissing people, who often enough dived "too deep into a rabbit-hole") -
you're missing out on the *valid* information-parts... which is exactly the goal of this scheme:
- to "taint valid information"
- leaving you only with the half-truths (or outright lies), which came over the "corporate-channels"

Olaf

[sapator]

Sheep or Lamp?

[Schmidt]

Sheep or Lamp?

That doesn't really help either, because it "deepens the divide"
(and thus you're doing exactly as you're supposed to).

Sure, there's extremes on both ends but most people operate on a grey-scale.

If we'd cut each other some more slack - it'd keep us all more "healthy and somewhat more in the middle"
(which is probably where "the truly real truth"™ is located).

Olaf

[jpbro]

If you think stuff like that is helping... it doesn't.

I wasn't trying to help, just having a bit of fun with a creative writing exercise.

The whole "put them all into a conspiracy-box"-thing is quite the "honeypot",
because it's so utterly convenient to apply, isn't it?

The thing is, it's how some people in this thread sound, though maybe not quite so extreme. Anyway, I think it's a communication problem for the messenger to solve, not the recipient. If the argument can't be delivered in a way that the recipient will be receptive to, then that's the messenger's failing. Calling people sheeple/vax-babies/zombies/whatever isn't exactly a great way to open a dialog with someone you're trying to get to understand your new and potential subversive (to their worldview) ideas.

Problem is, when you act this way (dismissing people, who often enough dived "too deep into a rabbit-hole") -
you're missing out on the *valid* information-parts... which is exactly the goal of this scheme:
- to "taint valid information"
- leaving you only with the half-truths (or outright lies), which came over the "corporate-channels"

I don't think I've been dismissing anyone, like I said that post was just a bit of fun. Some of the links lead to pretty interesting stuff, and not all of it is false. I just wanted to take a holistic look at some scattered info, and run a bit too far in the opposite direction with it. Now that I think of it, that can be a good way to try to get to understand an opposing view, everyone with a strong opinion on one side or another should try it some time.

I also don't get much of my information from "corporate-channels". I don't have cable, don't watch TV news (except when I'm at the dentist or something). I browse the headlines of some corporate newspapers to make sure I'm not missing out on anything immediately life threatening, but I get most of my (mis)information in other ways and try to cobble it all together into a bigger picture myself. Just like you I think, but we've come to some different conclusions. And that's OK

[jpbro]

FYI...

I stopped reading after this:

Then you missed all the fun!

[Shaggy Hiker]

Some tests are better to fail. Some clubs are better to be left out of.

Still, at a higher level view, I do think that C and R would love to end up in a different world. Of course, so did the USA. We have an unfortunate tendency to coast, though. The US never does well without an opponent.

[baka]

maybe fun for u.
it sounded more condescending.

[jpbro]

It was just a story baka, please don't let it hurt your feelings.

Anyway, I don't think there's any convincing or mind changing left to be had. Even if the unvaccinated could convince the vaccinated to change their minds, it's too late - you can't de-vaccinate yourself. The pro vaccine camp has very little chance to change an unvaccinated person's mind at this late stage I would reckon. So life goes on, and we'll see where it gets us. I was being sincere about this part though: "Stay safe out there, and good luck" I hope we all make it through to the other side of this thing. Hooray for another Christmas in lockdown! Oh wait, they're calling it a "circuit-breaker" now, that's bit more palatable than a lockdown

[jpbro]

Still, at a higher level view, I do think that C and R would love to end up in a different world. Of course, so did the USA. We have an unfortunate tendency to coast, though. The US never does well without an opponent.

From the outside it often looks like you guys are your own biggest opponent these days (D vs. R though).

[jpbro]

Looks like we'll have to update our vaccine bingo cards:

https://www.defenseone.com/technolog...riants/360089/

https://www.army.mil/article/252890/...pment_strategy

[Schmidt]

I think it's a communication problem for the messenger to solve, not the recipient.

I think (reading your whole reply), that this is basically the only thing, where we have a different opinion.

Sometimes you have to get your (mis-)information from "sources you never heard of",
just to find some more background-info on some topics (because the official channels don't mention them).

To give an example, when baka was posting this link here:
https://www.oann.com/fauci-hhs-offic...from-oct-2019/
... I never thought that he was under any obligation, to "verify the source for me" (that's my job) -
or to "present it better".

Though it was *immediately dismissed* by some guys here, because "the source was dubious"
(personally never heard of "OAN" to this day, nor am I reading "QAnon"-sites) -
though nevertheless did I listen to the *content* they discussed there
(which was not "produced by OAN" nor was it "manipulated by OAN").

The original source is the "Milken Institute", with the full lenght video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kFJijSgXnQ

To me, neither the cut version which was commented on the OAN-site,
nor the original, longer video (without any "biased interpretation by OAN"),
was fullfilling any criteria which made me think, that the whole thing was a "plandemic" -
but it certainly was "disturbing enough, to watch these guys talk" - two month, before the matter hit the fan...
(all primarily concerned about "big enough budgets" to be able to "help humanity"...
thinking up all kind of different ways, "how to make the flu sexy again").

Olaf

[TysonLPrice]

From the outside it often looks like you guys are your own biggest opponent these days (D vs. R though).

I think I am witnessing the end of Democracy in this country. All across the country republican states are changing voting laws to favor their constituents. The republican party already stated that if they win 2022 they are going to spend the next two years leading up 2024 investigating the corrupt Biden administration. A large part of the country believes the election was stolen and Biden is not a legal president. The republicans in congress will not support any legislation so the democrats look bad in 2024 therefore change is stagnant in a changing world. Here is a real possibility being discussed by republicans...win the house in 2022 and make Trump the speaker of the house. That would make Trump third in the line of succession of the president. So in theory Trump could be president again in less than about three years without being elected. There went our democracy.

Think I'm kidding? January 6th was just a warm up to the end of our democracy and half the country doesn't believe it happened.

[Shaggy Hiker]

From the outside it often looks like you guys are your own biggest opponent these days (D vs. R though).

Unfortunately, that is spot on.

[FunkyDexter]

I never thought that he was under any obligation, to "verify the source for me"

He absolutely is! If someone's going to cite source in a debate it's incumbent on them to at least check that source is reliable. Anything less is misrepresentation and dishonest.

I think I am witnessing the end of Democracy in this country

Sadly, I agree. I think there's a very real chance you won't have a functional democracy by 2025. And it's not a fringe opinion, it's endorsed by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance

[TysonLPrice]

He absolutely is! If someone's going to cite source in a debate it's incumbent on them to at least check that source is reliable. Anything less is misrepresentation and dishonest.

Sadly, I agree. I think there's a very real chance you won't have a functional democracy by 2025. And it's not a fringe opinion, it's endorsed by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance

Interesting...for those who don't want to click the link it opens with this:

The US has been added to an annual list of “backsliding” democracies for the first time, the International IDEA thinktank has said, pointing to a “visible deterioration” it said began in 2019.

[jpbro]

I think (reading your whole reply), that this is basically the only thing, where we have a different opinion.

Sometimes you have to get your (mis-)information from "sources you never heard of",
just to find some more background-info on some topics (because the official channels don't mention them).

Sure, I agree with that. There is a bandwidth problem though - we only have so much time to sift through all the information we're presented with. I think sometimes we have to outright dismiss certain sources that we've personally determined are too biased or full of you-know-what. Maybe not 100% of the time, as I think it is useful to look from time-to-time at sources we may think are wrong, completely nuts, or otherwise dismissable, but there are only so many hours in the day. It is important to avoid getting trapped in an echo chamber though, as that almost always leads to a mental prison that is very difficult to escape.

The original source is the "Milken Institute", with the full lenght video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kFJijSgXnQ

To me, neither the cut version which was commented on the OAN-site,
nor the original, longer video (without any "biased interpretation by OAN"),
was fullfilling any criteria which made me think, that the whole thing was a "plandemic" -
but it certainly was "disturbing enough, to watch these guys talk" - two month, before the matter hit the fan...
(all primarily concerned about "big enough budgets" to be able to "help humanity"...
thinking up all kind of different ways, "how to make the flu sexy again").

I don't have time to watch the video now, but I will later (there's that bandwidth issue!)

[wes4dbt]

I stopped reading after this:

Me two, well I made it a few lines more but then stopped.

Then you missed all the fun!

Maybe give us a little heads up that your having some fun. Your thread started out just like many before. Dismissive with an air of I'm more intelligent and you can't fool me. I'm all for a good farce, maybe I'll go back and read it.

[Schmidt]

I don't have time to watch the video now, but I will later (there's that bandwidth issue!)

If you do, watching it from minute 30 onwards is enough IMO.

Olaf

[jpbro]

If you do, watching it from minute 30 onwards is enough IMO.

Thanks for the info - saving half an hour is good. I'm definitely guilty of avoiding videos because they are generally less information dense than text and I just don't have the time and patience to sit through many of them.

[jpbro]

I'm all for a good farce, maybe I'll go back and read it.

Sorry, I guess I'm no Jonathan Swift, but it was an attempt at satire.

[FunkyDexter]

Maybe give us a little heads up that your having some fun.

Now here I disagree. I used to occasionally post on BoardGameGeek and the political sub forum used to have rule where you used green text if you were being sarcastic. Honestly, it just lead to really boring and overly earnest discussion. I kinda like that can stick our tongues on our cheeks without having to telegraph it and, if we get the occasional miss-understanding as a result, it's easily cleared up after the event.

To me, neither the cut version which was commented on the OAN-site,
nor the original, longer video (without any "biased interpretation by OAN"),
was fullfilling any criteria which made me think, that the whole thing was a "plandemic"

Then you clearly didn't actually bother to watch the OAN article. I agree with you about the Milken Institute talk. It's a scientific discussion laying out how pandemics are inevitable, that sooner or later we'd experience one on the current scale and, for that reason, we should be developing a general purpose influenza vaccine (because they thought an influenza variant would be most likely) - it's an even handed scientific article.

OAN, on the other hand, spun it such that the opening line of was "Newly uncovered video shows Anthony Fauci and other HHA officials discussing how a new virus from China could be used to enforce universal vaccination back in October 2019". This is dripping with implication of a "plandemic" and is exactly demonstrative of how miss-representative OAN is. It carries on in kind with constant insinuation. You also might notice the subtlety that the never refer to "Doctor Fauci", only "Anthony Fauci", because heaven forbid they acknowledge that he's, you know, an medical doctor and therefore a source actually worthy of your attention. Those of us who are familiar with OAN knew exactly what we were dealing with and were right to dismiss it.

But here's the thing, we did check the sources. We already knew what OAN is. I personally checked Dr David Martin and the story behind the Vor Der Leyens. So your objection is not that we're dismissing source that we know or have verified to be unreliable. Your objection is that we're not blindly accepting them

[wes4dbt]

I think I am witnessing the end of Democracy in this country.

It is under the biggest attack that I've ever witnessed. But democracy has been under attack before. The anti Sedition Act of 1918, the McCarhty hearing and many others. I think it will get worse but I also think it will get better. Once the Republicans take over congress, I doubt all the unhappy people will have there dreams fulfilled and then the Democrats will dangle a carrot for them to chase and the sentiment will swing back in their direction. Also I don't get the feeling that the majority of the younger generation is in this current Republican mindset.

I've said this before, I'm amazed how much damaged one person can due, though it does take an audience willing(maybe even eager) to believe the lies. Why so many people are willing to believe the lies is the problem that needs to be solved.

This has been, Deep Thoughts from Wes

[wes4dbt]

Sorry, I guess I'm no Jonathan Swift, but it was an attempt at satire.

I think it would be more fun if you were Taylor Swift. You could just share your comments in music videos

[jpbro]

I think it would be more fun if you were Taylor Swift. You could just share your comments in music videos

Please don't give me any ideas!

[wes4dbt]

Now here I disagree.

I'm so sorry to hear that.

[FunkyDexter]

I don't get the feeling that the majority of the younger generation is in this current Republican mindset.

I think the concern is that that won't matter. The concern is their vote will be supressed or even outright disregarded so it won't make a difference what their mindset is. I don't think that concern is provable before the event but I can certainly see moves in that direction.

Couple that with the phenomenon that a significant portion of the electorate simply won't accept an outcome they didn't vote for (and I think this is now a "both ways" thing - If the repubs get in without a clear majority on the popular vote in 2024, dem voters are really going to call the validity of the election into question) and you've got a pretty toxic mix set up.

I don't think your democracy id dead, but it is in real danger.


Edit>I just wanted to cite the next bit from that OAN article because it makes my point much more strongly "As many of us have long suspected, this pandemic and all the resulting chaos was never about fighting a new virus and protecting public safety. This entire exercise has been a government sanctioned effort to strip Americans of their rights and force us to follow their orders without question, or else". It's hyperbolic in the extreme and has literally no connection to that Milken Institute talk.

[jpbro]

I think one of the biggest problems with American democracy is that you have only 2 parties that essentially split the vote evenly. A third party would tip the balance, even if they only get a few seats. It would force the other parties to compromise a bit to get things done instead of just stonewalling.

[wes4dbt]

I think one of the biggest problems with American democracy is that you have only 2 parties that essentially split the vote evenly. A third party would tip the balance, even if they only get a few seats. It would force the other parties to compromise a bit to get things done instead of just stonewalling.

There are other parties, like the Independent Party, Libertarian Party. But they are very small compared to the Reps and Dems.

[FunkyDexter]

I'm so sorry to hear that.

Why I oughta!