Leftists say they don't want a deeper police state... Then a deeper police state is created.
Who could have possibly predicted this.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC Jan 9, 2021·Twitter for iPhone
As the Vice Chair of the Oversight subcommittee who ran investigations into domestic terror laws, I respectfully disagree. Our problems on Wednesday weren’t that there weren’t enough laws, resources, or intelligence. We had them, & they were not used. It’s time to find out why.
Norman Ornstein @NormOrnstein
The House must as an immediate step pass a domestic terrorism statute, with a focus on white supremacist terrorism, and send it to the Senate.
https://archive.vn/XRwE6 https:// www. thedailybeast. com/after-the-capitol-riots-the-last-thing-we-need-is-another-war-on-terror
The Last Thing We Need Is Another War on Terror
NO SEQUEL OPINION
The U.S. government does not need new domestic terrorism laws to stop white insurrectionists. It needs the will to confront a violent and deeply American legacy on the march.
Spencer Ackerman Senior Nat’l Security Correspondent
Published Jan. 13, 2021 4:57AM ET
“Last week’s events were traumatizing—not least for the Members of Congress and Capitol staff who were onsite. But we must not give into fear or allow ourselves to be terrorized by those who seek to harm us. The answer is not a broader security structure, or a deeper police state,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) told The Daily Beast.
Throughout the Trump era, there have been understandable but misguided calls to pass a domestic terrorism law expanding an investigative dragnet around Radical White Terror. Every law needed to combat Radical White Terror already exists. Further empowering law enforcement is more likely to give the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and local police tools to target people who meant to donate money to legitimate right-wing causes and religious charities—after which, in keeping with historical practice, they will have an expanded domestic ambit to target nonwhite and left-wing groups, causes and enterprises. The very police entities that would be empowered tend to make common cause with those they ostensibly target.
“We should not lose sight of our disgust at the double standards employed against white protesters and Black ones, or against Muslims and non-Muslims,” Omar told The Daily Beast. “But at the same time we must resist the very human desire for revenge—to simply see the tools that have oppressed Black and Brown people expanded.”
Never forget Spencer "Call Them Racists" Ackerman from Journolist:
https://archive.ph/Riacr https:// www. wsj. com/articles/SB10001424052748703724104575379200412040286
'Call Them Racists'
How "journolists" tried to suppress the news.
By JAMES TARANTO
Updated July 20, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET
Most damning is a long quote from a Spencer Ackerman, who worked for something called the Washington Independent:
I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It's not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright's defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger's [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.
And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us. Instead, take one of them--Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares--and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes them sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.
https://archive.ph/gEUwH https://nypost.com/2021/04/10/ca-podcaster-gets-visit-from-police-after-aoc-tweet/
CA podcaster gets visit from police after ‘lightly’ criticizing AOC on Twitter
By Dana Kennedy April 10, 2021 | 4:52pm | Updated
Ryan Wentz, who goes by the Twitter handle @queeralamode, said the plainclothes California Highway Patrol officers came to his door Thursday, after he posted video of some vague remarks made by Ocasio-Cortez on Israel and Palestine and criticized her comments as “incredibly underwhelming.”
AOC was not behind the police visit to Wentz, who is the cohost of the left-wing podcast “Left Bitches,” the Capitol Police said in a statement.
“USCP investigates all threats that are reported by Congressional offices,” the department said. “The Department also monitors open and classified sources to identify and investigate threats. This is standard operating procedure for the Department. As it pertains to this incident, the Congresswomen (sic) did not request that USCP initiate an investigation.”
Robert Barnes @barnes_law 6 Jul 2021
Guess which federal police force is completely exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, completely outside executive branch control & completely beholden to most corrupt members of Congress. The same one extending its authority to the whole country, w/ cross-country offices.
Los Angeles TimesVerified account @latimes
U.S. Capitol Police announced that the agency is opening regional field offices in California and Florida to investigate threats to members of Congress in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
https://archive.ph/PxNN5 https:// www. latimes. com/politics/story/2021-07-06/u-s-capitol-police-to-open-california-office-following-jan-6-attack
U.S. Capitol Police to open California office following Jan. 6 attack
By SARAH D. WIRE | STAFF WRITER JULY 6, 2021 UPDATED 1 PM PT
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday announced that the agency was opening regional field offices in California and Florida to investigate threats to members of Congress in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“At this time, Florida and California are where the majority of our potential threats are,” a department spokesperson said in a statement. “The field offices will be the first for the Department. A regional approach to investigating and prosecuting threats against Members is important, so we will be working closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in those locations.”
The police agency rarely provides information to the public on how it operates, citing security concerns and member safety. For example, unlike other government agencies, the internal watchdog’s reports are not publicly available.
A spokesperson did not answer questions Tuesday about how many staff would be hired or what the cost to taxpayers would be.
The spokesperson said other regional offices were expected.
(Also on t_d: https://patriots.win/p/12jJPyTvDt/ )
So Americans have 2 problems:
-
Leftists leaving their crime-ridden, high tax, freedom-hating, blue, Democrat-controlled cities, like California and New York. And moving to your crime-free, low tax, more free, Republican-voting red states. Then lefties change your state with lefty politics until it turns into Neo-California or New New York.
-
Non-leftists are too retarded and unmotivated to go out and do activism. Which was why California turned from mostly apple farmers, to a leftist-run shithole where antifa beats street preachers to the ground in Los Angeles.
I offer a solution, with a fun name called Operation STAY BLUE:
Buy ads and billboards, spread FUD to reinforce the inherent leftist victim complex and paranoia to shame leavers. Then stroke the lefty ego to praise stayers.
This should reduce the leftist exodous, letting blue shitholes remain blue shitholes, while red states remain red.
-
Run ads/billboards with anti-conservative FUD. Shame leavers as betraying the progressive cause and turning into bigoted Trumpkins.
-
Run ads/billboards with praise for blue states and encourage stayers. Add "solidarity" and "unity" undertones to activate the leftist's unconscious Marxist sympathies and simple NPC conformity.
How do I spread anti-conservative FUD, and stroke the leftist ego?
It's very simple.
- How to spread anti-conservative FUD. Accentuate leftist biases against non-lefties. There's already "attack ads" Democrats ran against Republicans in the past. Study and copy these, call blue city leavers, traitors that enjoy the company of American flag-waving racist Trumpkins.
https://archive.ph/vy9TH https:// www. washingtonpost. com/opinions/lbjs-1964-attack-ad-daisy-leaves-a-legacy-for-modern-campaigns/2014/09/05/d00e66b0-33b4-11e4-9e92-0899b306bbea_story. html
LBJ’s 1964 attack ad ‘Daisy’ leaves a legacy for modern campaigns
The "Daisy" or "Peace Little Girl" ad attacking Barry Goldwater's advocacy of nuclear weapons was aired only once in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson's campaign, but it inspired many future campaign ads. (The Living Room Candidate)
By Drew Babb September 5, 2014
Fifty years ago, on Sept. 7, 1964, a political ad called “Daisy” aired on behalf of President Lyndon Johnson. The commercial opened with a little girl in a meadow, then a horrific nuclear blast filled the screen. We’ve been feeling the fallout ever since.
It was only a minute long. The paid ad ran on national television only once, and only on one network, NBC. But that’s all it took.
The takeaway? Johnson’s Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater, was a crazed, trigger-happy cowboy. If his finger were ever on the nuclear button, the world would blow up. We’d all die.
But “Daisy” was a full-throated, gloves-off, take-no-prisoners negative message. Arguably, and for better or worse, it’s the Mother of All Attack Ads.
To execute the spot, the creative types didn’t just run still photos with a crawl of type. They used every weapon in their arsenal. They grabbed for viewers’ hearts with an adorable little girl (commercial actress Monique Corzilius). They tapped into viewers’ greatest nightmare with footage of a huge mushroom-shaped cloud. (Remember, this was less than two years after the Cuban missile crisis.) They reinforced the visuals with intrusive sound effects (provided by the genius sound engineer Tony Schwartz). They had Johnson read a snippet of spiritual poetry (by W.H. Auden). And they hired a voice-of-God baritone (sports announcer Chris Schenkel) to wrap things up.
https://archive.ph/WFCYg https:// www. washingtonpost. com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-ad-features-minority-kids-chased-by-truck-with-gillespie-sticker-confederate-flag/2017/10/30/7311fdda-bd6f-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story. html
Virginia ad features minority kids chased by truck with Gillespie sticker, Confederate flag
By Fenit Nirappil October 30 at 1:53 PM
Latino Victory Fund, a Democratic group on released a video ad featuring a pickup truck flying a Confederate flag and sporting a bumper sticker for Republican Ed Gillespie chasing a group of minority children. (Latino Victory Fund)
https://archive.ph/uUc51 https:// www. washingtonpost. com/local/virginia-politics/latino-victory-fund-pilloried-for-truck-ad-says-northam-win-is-vindication/2017/11/09/020f7c1e-c591-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story. html
Latino Victory Fund, pilloried for truck ad, says Northam win is vindication
By Fenit Nirappil November 9, 2017
In the last week of Virginia gubernatorial campaign, Republicans howled with outrage over an attack ad against gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie that featured a white man in a pickup truck bearing a Gillespie bumper sticker and a Confederate flag menacing minority children.
Some predicted conservatives and independents would be offended by the ad, titled “American Nightmare” and vote for Gillespie in protest.
That backlash didn’t materialize; Democrat Ralph Northam won by nine points. And the organization behind the ad, the Latino Victory Fund, says it will continue to take a confrontational approach in future elections.
“For the first time ever, a Latino organization pushed back aggressively in defense of our community. When we faced vicious, racist attacks, we turned the other cheek,” said Cristóbal J. Alex, president of the Latino Victory Fund. “This time, we threw a jab to the throat. And we will continue to do so.”
The backlash was so strong that the Latino Victory Fund had to shut off its phones.
“The truth hurts, and so they lashed out,” Alex said.
https://archive.ph/qRg7X https:// www. theguardian. com/books/2021/jun/20/last-best-hope-by-george-packer-review-shrewd-analysis-of-americas-ruptures
Last Best Hope by George Packer review – shrewd analysis of America’s ruptures
George Packer finds the US caught in a ‘cold civil war’ between incompatible versions of the country after its ‘near-death experience’ with Donald Trump
Peter Conrad Sun 20 Jun 2021 02.00 EDT
The need for salvation became urgent before the election last November when Packer, having moved his family from Brooklyn to a Covid-free rural retreat, noticed a sign beside the road on a neighbouring farm. His car headlights flashed across a red rectangle branded with five white capital letters. Even here, Packer realised with a shudder, he was not safe.
Tom Elliott @tomselliott 8 Jun 2021
NYT/MSNBC’s @MaraGay: In Long Island last weekend, I saw “dozens of American flags,” which was “just disturbing”
2:34 1.02M views
Mara Gay: 'Disturbing' Seeing ‘Dozens of American Flags’ in L.I.
"I was on Long Island this weekend ... and I was really disturbed. I saw, you know, dozens & dozens of pickup trucks w/ expletives against Joe Biden ... Trump flags, and in some cases, just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing"
“Essentially the message was clear: ‘This is my country. This is not your country. I own this.’"
https://archive.ph/N2CzB https://nationalfile.com/jerusalem-post-uses-photo-of-white-men-with-confederate-flags-to-describe-rise-of-the-moors-militia-movement-for-black-men/
Jerusalem Post Uses Photo Of White Men With Confederate Flags To Describe ‘Rise of the Moors’ Militia Movement For Black Men
Jerusalem Post uses a photo of white men to describe a black militia group called "Rise of the Moors" represented by a man named Jamhal Talib Abdullah Bey
by TOM PAPPERT — July 3, 2021
https://archive.ph/AyA0l https:// www. nytimes. com/2021/07/03/nyregion/american-flag-politics-polarization. html
A Fourth of July Symbol of Unity That May No Longer Unite
In a Long Island town, neighbors now make assumptions, true and sometimes false, about people who conspicuously display American flags.
Peter Treiber Jr., a farmer, said he was taken aback that a customer thought he was conservative because of the flag painted on his potato truck. Credit... Johnny Milano for The New York Times
By Sarah Maslin Nir July 3, 2021 Updated 4:32 p.m. ET
This "FUD" is not propaganda, nor hyperbole, nor division, nor exaggeration. It is, as Cristóbal J. Alex, president of the Latino Victory Fund told us, "The truth hurts, and so they lashed out". This is what leftists already believe.
Claim: The US government was supposedly going to crack down on antifa, socialists, the left in general.
Ford Fischer @FordFischer 18 Jun 2021
Joe Biden’s new anti-terrorism initiative classifies “anarchist violent extremists” that “oppose all forms of capitalism, corporate globalization, and governing institutions, which are perceived as harmful to society” as “domestic violent extremists.”
https://archive.ph/GiHZy https:// www. dni. gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/UnclassSummaryofDVEAssessment-17MAR21. pdf
Glenn GreenwaldVerified account @ggreenwald 19 Jun 2021
From Russiagate to online censorship to increased powers vested in the security state to battle "domestic extremism": it's amazing how the US Govt & DNC has succeeded in inducing parts of the left to cheer the exact weapons to be used against them if they get too threatening:
In March, I reported on the illegal involvement of the CIA in gathering data to create the new Homeland Security plan against domestic extremists. It was clear then that the targets are not just anti-authority groups on the right but also the left. Look:
In April, @lwoodhouse wrote a freelance article for my Substack -- "The Targets of Biden's War on 'Domestic Extremists' May Not Be Who You Think" -- on how they target anyone on the right or left against the ruling class. First: animal rights activists.
Ken KlippensteinVerified account @kenklippenstein 22 Jun 2021
New US military training document calls socialists a "terrorist" ideology and lists them alongside "neo-nazis" amid Pentagon crackdown on domestic extremism, per counterterrorism training material leaked to me:
If you're military and have any info about its new domestic extremism trainings, text me at [redacted] (use Signal for security). You can remain anonymous.
https://archive.ph/NRu0w https:// theintercept. com/2021/06/22/socialists-counterterrorism-political-terrorists-navy-antifa/
U.S. MILITARY TRAINING DOCUMENT SAYS SOCIALISTS REPRESENT “TERRORIST” IDEOLOGY
A Navy training document asks, “Anarchists, socialists and neo-nazis represent which terrorist ideological category?”
Ken Klippenstein June 22 2021, 6:14 p.m.
A NAVY COUNTERTERRORISM training document obtained exclusively by The Intercept appears to conflate socialists with terrorists and lists the left-wing ideology alongside “neo-nazis.”
A section of the training document subtitled “Study Questions” includes the following: “Anarchists, socialists and neo-nazis represent which terrorist ideological category?”
While the right has been vocal with its concerns about being unfairly targeted for political opinions, media coverage of the Biden administration’s focus on domestic extremism has paid considerably less attention to what it might mean for movements on the left, including Black Lives Matter, antifa (short for anti-fascists), and the environmental movement. In fact, internal FBI documents I reported on in 2019 specifically list anarchists and environmental extremists among its counterterrorism priorities.
Reality:
Jack PosobiecVerified account @JackPosobiec 19 Jun 2021
I see @ElijahSchaffer @MrAndyNgo and @TianaTheFirst filming Antifa take over the street in Denver, harass women, threaten wanton violence I don’t see @DenverPolice in any of these videos
Tiana LoweVerified account @TianaTheFirst· 11h11 hours ago 18 Jun 2021
Physical brawling breaks out in front of the Western Conservative Summit at a Denver Hyatt after members of Antifa threatened to break my phone for reporting on their protest.
Antifa now surrounding the lobby of the Hyatt and shining retinal-burning lasers into the building. This comes after a standoff with dozens of cops
Antifa members are now banging the windows of the Denver Hyatt hosting the Western Conservative Summit. No sign of the cops on this side of the building.
Andy NgôVerified account @MrAndyNgo 3 Jul 2021
“Get the camera, get the camera!” Antifa assaulted and & beat a videographer, among others, in Los Angeles today. Note the antifa flag they fly during the assaults. cc @uspresstracker, @spj_tweets, @pressfreedom. Video by @TomasMorales_iv:
Tomas Morales 0:58 253K views
Andy NgôVerified account @MrAndyNgo 3 Jul 2021
Antifa assault street preachers who tried to attend the Wi Spa protest in Los Angeles. Several people have been assaulted today but police don’t appear to be responding at all.
Sean Carmitchel 2:11 166K views
https://archive.ph/vL9g0 https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-antifa-militants-assault-conservative-demonstrators-reporters-at-la-spa-protest
Jul 3, 2021 8:43 PM EST
BREAKING: Antifa militants assault conservative demonstrators, reporters at LA spa protest
Antifa assaulted demonstrators and reporters at a protest Saturday outside a Los Angeles spa where a customer complained last week that a transgender individual's male genitals were exposed to women and girls in the female section.
Mia Cathell The Post Millennial July 3, 2021 8:43 PM 7 Mins Reading
https://archive.ph/iX60p https:// meaww. com/andy-ngo-blames-antifa-for-violence-outside-wi-spa-in-la-internet-roasts-him-with-memes
Andy Ngo blames Antifa AGAIN, now for violence outside Wi Spa in LA, Internet hits back with memes
Nobody was arrested at the scene of the violence in LA but at least five people were injured and Andy Ngo blamed Antifa for it
By Pathikrit Sanyal Published on : 08:33 PST, Jul 4, 2021
Conservative journalist Andy Ngo claimed on Twitter on Saturday, July 3, that as demonstrators clashed outside a Koreatown spa after a transgender woman apparently disrobed in an area reserved for women, members of Antifa were responsible for the violence.
Reportedly, nobody was arrested but at least five people were injured — three by assault and battery and two by assault with a deadly weapon, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Nicholas Prange said one person who was assaulted sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to a medical facility in a private ambulance.
Bonus meme:
Brandy ZadroznyVerified account @BrandyZadrozny 21 Aug 2020
Dropping a piece shortly with @oneunderscore__. Turns out antifa wasn't coming to your suburbs, but QAnon is about to roll through.
And its here.
https://archive.ph/FUpUk https:// www. nbcnews. com/tech/tech-news/qanon-looms-behind-nationwide-rallies-viral-hashtags-n1237722
QAnon looms behind nationwide rallies and viral #SavetheChildren hashtags
Rallies planned on Facebook by QAnon supporters or sympathizers that have brought the conspiracy theory offline and into the town squares of dozens of cities in recent weeks.
Aug. 21, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC / Updated Aug. 21, 2020, 10:26 PM UTC
By Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins
https://archive.ph/TTshc https:// www. politico. com/news/2021/06/23/top-general-fires-back-criticism-military-woke-495703
Top general fires back at 'offensive' criticism of military being 'woke'
Milley's comments are some of the most pointed in defense of the military, which has come under heavy criticism from Republican lawmakers and right-wing personalities for what they argue is leadership aiming political bias against conservatives.
By CONNOR O’BRIEN 06/23/2021 02:54 PM EDT
The military's top officer on Wednesday pushed back against GOP lawmakers who said the Pentagon's efforts to combat racism and promote diversity have made the armed forces too "woke."
Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley gave a fiery defense of open-mindedness in the ranks during a House Armed Services hearing, saying he's offended at the accusation that those efforts have undercut the military's mission and cohesiveness.
"I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military ... of being 'woke' or something else because we're studying some theories that are out there," Milley said.
The four-star general told lawmakers that service members should be "open-minded and be widely read" because service members "come from the American people" and said he wanted to better understand racism as well as the climate that led to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
"I want to understand white rage — and I'm white," Milley told lawmakers "What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America?
"I've read Mao Tse Tung. I've read Karl Marx. I've read Lenin. That doesn't make me a communist," Milley continued. "So what is wrong with understanding, having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?"
Milley's comments are some of the most pointed in defense of the military, which has come under heavy criticism from Republican lawmakers and right-wing personalities for what they argue is leadership being "woke" and aiming political bias against conservatives at the expense of defending the U.S.
Gaetz claimed opposition to the stand down is "the No. 1 issue" raised in his conversations with troops.
"Thanks for your anecdotal input," Austin shot back. "But I would say that I have gotten 10 times that amount of input, 50 times that amount of input, on the other side that has said, 'Hey, we're glad to have had the ability to have a conversation with ourselves and with our leadership.'"
Gaetz also accused Austin's senior adviser on diversity issues, Bishop Garrison, of being a "critical race theorist" and cited past tweets. The defense secretary responded that Gaetz's questioning was the first time he'd heard Garrison described as a subscriber to critical race theory.
"We do not teach critical race theory. We don't embrace critical race theory, and I think that's a spurious conversation" Austin told Gaetz. "We are focused on extremist behaviors and not ideology, not people's thoughts, not people's political orientation."
https://archive.ph/5DHoT https:// theintercept. com/2021/05/17/military-pentagon-extremism-social-media/
PENTAGON PLANS TO MONITOR SOCIAL MEDIA OF MILITARY PERSONNEL FOR EXTREMIST CONTENT
The military has previously balked at surveilling service members for extremist political views due to First Amendment protections.
Ken Klippenstein May 17 2021, 8:25 p.m.
An extremism steering committee led by Bishop Garrison, a senior adviser to the secretary of defense, is currently designing the social media screening pilot program, which will “continuously” monitor military personnel for “concerning behaviors,” according to a Pentagon briefing in late March. Although in the past the military has balked at surveilling service members for extremist political views due to First Amendment protections, the pilot program will rely on a private surveillance firm in order to circumvent First Amendment restrictions on government monitoring, according to a senior Pentagon official. Though the firm has not yet been selected, the current front runner is Babel Street, a company that sells powerful surveillance tools including social media monitoring software.
https://archive.ph/mfsf6 https://web.archive.org/web/20210506040841/https://www.revolver.news/2021/05/bishop-garrison-pentagon-hatchet-man/ https://www.revolver.news/2021/05/bishop-garrison-pentagon-hatchet-man/
Meet Bishop Garrison: The Pentagon’s Hatchet Man in Charge of Purging MAGA Patriots and Installing Race Theory in The Military
May 5, 2021 (25m ago)
If you’re in the military, it appears that Bishop Garrison’s CEWG will scour your Internet history, making sure to target “gray areas, such as reading, following and liking extremist material and content in social media forums and platforms.”
A leaked 17-page DARPA memo from March 27, 2021 entitled “Extremism and Insider Threat in the DoD” provides a clue as to what new categories of lawful thoughts, associations and reading materials are likely to be scanned and banned by Bishop Garrison’s CEWG. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency colloquially known as “The Pentagon’s Brain,” recommended a brand new category called “Patriot Extremism,” which occurs when a citizen believes “the US government has become corrupt” or “has overstepped its constitutional boundaries”:
“Patriot Extremism” is completely distinct from “White supremacy,” which DARPA maintains as a wholly separate category.
But DARPA’s “Symbols of Extremism” collage on page 6 clearly reveals their intended target: the collage includes 12 “far-right” symbols, versus just two Antifa symbols, and just one for ISIS. “Extremist” “far-right” symbols include Pepe the Frog, the OK hand gesture, “Come and Take It” guns-rights memes, and the “Q” in QAnon:
https://archive.ph/qRg7X https:// www. theguardian. com/books/2021/jun/20/last-best-hope-by-george-packer-review-shrewd-analysis-of-americas-ruptures
Last Best Hope by George Packer review – shrewd analysis of America’s ruptures
George Packer finds the US caught in a ‘cold civil war’ between incompatible versions of the country after its ‘near-death experience’ with Donald Trump
Peter Conrad Sun 20 Jun 2021 02.00 EDT
George Packer’s incisive, deftly argued book about the moral and political quandary of the United States begins and ends with his declaration: “I am an American.” The statement is self-evident but also self-congratulatory: Americans regard their citizenship as a spiritual credential, a gesture of faith in the country that has always claimed to be the last, best hope of beleaguered mankind. Packer’s native land, however, no longer deserves to be quite so certain of its exceptional virtue or its automatic pre-eminence.
The need for salvation became urgent before the election last November when Packer, having moved his family from Brooklyn to a Covid-free rural retreat, noticed a sign beside the road on a neighbouring farm. His car headlights flashed across a red rectangle branded with five white capital letters. Even here, Packer realised with a shudder, he was not safe. He doesn’t need to say what the letters spelled out: they were as succinctly satanic as the number 666 – the mark of the beast in the Book of Revelation – which made Nancy Reagan alter the street address of a house where she and the retiring president were due to live in Los Angeles.
"Packer, having moved his family from Brooklyn to a Covid-free rural retreat" - George Packer, city-dwelling bourgeoisie aristocrat, oppressor of the Ancien Régime, hides amongst the rural ghettos of the Trumpian sans-culottes to escape the plague-ridden city.
"the letters spelled out: they were as succinctly satanic as the number 666 – the mark of the beast in the Book of Revelation" - Writer George Packer and the Guardian's Peter Conrad, not hysterical fuckwits.
Commenting on an American meritocracy whose sole merit is its luck on the stock market, Packer predicts: “As with any hereditary ruling class, political power will fall into the hands of increasingly inferior people.” To prove his point locally, I nominate slick Sunak, shifty Hancock, Patel the bully and Williamson the schoolroom dunce.
stock market > publicly traded > public > socialist > 'American socialist meritocracy of the stock market' roflmao
https://archive.ph/yozYk https:// www. theatlantic. com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-packer-four-americas/619012/
HOW AMERICA FRACTURED INTO FOUR PARTS
People in the United States no longer agree on the nation’s purpose, values, history, or meaning. Is reconciliation possible?
By George Packer JULY/AUGUST 2021 ISSUE
Tracing the evolution of these narratives can tell you something about a nation’s possibilities for change. Through much of the 20th century, the two political parties had clear identities and told distinct stories. The Republicans spoke for those who wanted to get ahead, and the Democrats spoke for those who wanted a fair shake. Republicans emphasized individual enterprise, and Democrats emphasized social solidarity, eventually including Black people and abandoning the party’s commitment to Jim Crow. But, unlike today, the two parties were arguing over the same recognizable country. This arrangement held until the late ’60s—still within living memory.
"Democrats emphasized social solidarity", like slavery, eugenics, the Ku Klux Klan, FDR and Mussolini's fascism?
Free America draws on libertarian ideas, which it installs in the high-powered engine of consumer capitalism. The freedom it champions is very different from Alexis de Tocqueville’s art of self-government. It’s personal freedom, without other people—the negative liberty of “Don’t tread on me.”
"I NEED 'positive liberty', the state must hand me muh self-control and self-realization." -t. George Packer, a literary genius
The traditionalists were sin-fearing Protestants, orthodox Catholics, southern agrarians, would-be aristocrats, alienated individualists—dissidents in postwar America.
"Where is muh solidarity, muh comnunity, muh collectivism? The state must give me a sense of community while I keep anally dildoing myself in my Brooklyn mansion." - t. George Packer, certainly not an alienated commie retard
Adjacent to the traditionalists were the anti-Communists. Many of them were former Marxists, such as Whittaker Chambers and James Burnham, who carried their apocalyptic baggage with them when they moved from left to right. Politics for them was nothing less than the titanic struggle between good and evil, God and man. The main target of their energy was the ameliorative creed of Eleanor Roosevelt and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., good old liberalism, which they believed to be a paler communism—“the ideology of Western suicide,” Burnham called it. The anti-Communists, like the traditionalists, were skeptics of democracy—its softness would doom it to destruction when World War III broke out. If these hectoring pessimists were the sum of modern conservatism, the movement would have died of joylessness by 1960.
"Eleanor Roosevelt"
"Even Eleanor Roosevelt, more liberal than her husband, privately suggested that a "benevolent dictator" might be what the country needed. The vague idea was not a police state but deference to a strong leader unfettered by Congress or the other inconveniences of democracy. Amid the crisis, the specifics didn't go beyond more faith in government by fiat." - https://archive.ph/QcaL9 https:// www. npr. org/templates/story/story. php?storyId=5525748 - Author Reconstructs FDR's 'Defining Moment' - July 01, 2006 5:17 PM
"good old liberalism"
LMAO
In their insistence on freedom they could claim to be descendants of Locke, Jefferson, and the classical liberal tradition. Some of them interpreted the Constitution as a libertarian document for individual and states’ rights under a limited federal government, not as a framework for the strengthened nation that the authors of The Federalist Papers thought they were creating." Oddly, the most influential libertarians were Europeans, especially the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek, whose polemic against collectivism, The Road to Serfdom, was a publishing sensation in America in 1944, during the most dramatic mobilization of economic resources by state power in history.
"The founding fathers, after defeating an oppressive and strong nation, desired a strong government. Where's daddy Hitler? I miss daddy Hitler's 'dramatic mobilization of economic resources by state power in history'!" - t. George Packer, Hitlerian economics enthusiast
What distinguished libertarians from conventional, pro-business Republicans was their pure and uncompromising idea. What was it? Hayek: “Planning leads to dictatorship.”
George Packer, master of perfectly accurate quotes. No mischaracterization or propagandizing whatsoever.
The purpose of government is to secure individual rights, and little else. One sip of social welfare and free government dies.
George Packer: "Social welfare did nothing wrong."
Thomas Sowell:
Libertarians were in rebellion against the mid-century mixed-economy consensus.
George "Joined Auschwitz because there's a public consensus, heh gamers" Packer
Despite or because of the purity of their idea, libertarians made common cause with segregationists, and racism informed their political movement from the beginning.
"Libertarians are racist", George Packer asserting without evidence.
Their first hero, Senator Barry Goldwater, ran for president in 1964 as an insurgent against his own party’s establishment while opposing the civil-rights bill on states’-rights grounds.
"Their first hero," citation needed.
"Senator Barry Goldwater", literally one person.
" 'opposing the civil-rights bill on states’-rights grounds.' Senator Barry Goldwater, the libertarian Jewish racist." - t. George Packer, a factual persoyn
But libertarianism stretches all the way to the present. James Burnham is mostly forgotten, but I’ve met Ayn Rand fanatics everywhere—among Silicon Valley venture capitalists, at the office of the Tampa Bay Tea Party, on a road-paving crew. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (who read Atlas Shrugged in high school) brought Rand’s pitiless philosophy of egoism to policy making on Capitol Hill. Libertarianism speaks to the American myth of the self-made man and the lonely pioneer on the plains. (Glorification of men is a recurring feature.) Like Marxism, it is a complete explanatory system. It appeals to supersmart engineers and others who never really grow up.
"Lolberts are like Ayn Rand (female), emotionless robots, and also sexist against wombyn." - t. George Packer, totally not making things up
"Real grown ups despise liberty and libertarianism. Grown ups should instead embrace unfreedom like National Socialism." -t. George Packer, totally not retarded
The majority of Americans who elected Reagan president weren’t told that Free America would break unions and starve social programs, or that it would change antitrust policy to bring a new age of monopoly, making Walmart, Citigroup, Google, and Amazon the J.P. Morgan and Standard Oil of a second Gilded Age.
Walmart Inc. (WMT) stock quote
Citigroup, Inc. (C) stock quote
Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) Stock Price
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) Stock Price
JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Stock Price
"With U.S. Steel, Morgan captured two-thirds of the steel market, and Schwab was confident that the company would soon hold a 75% market share.[26] However, after 1901, its market share dropped; and in 1903, Schwab resigned to form Bethlehem Steel, which became the second largest U.S. steel producer." - https://archive.ph/9jdmH https:// en. wikipedia. org/wiki/J._P._Morgan 5 Jun 2019 14:15:59 UTC
"Rockefeller ran the company as its chairman, until his retirement in 1897. He remained the major shareholder, and in 1911, with the dissolution of the Standard Oil trust into 34 smaller companies, Rockefeller became the richest man in the world, as the initial income of these individual enterprises proved to be much bigger than that of a single larger company." - https://archive.ph/6xfV3 https:// en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Standard_Oil 22 Jun 2019 22:01:51 UTC
"Stocks are publicly traded, lolberts love publicly owned syndicates. Also, monopolies never implode in lolbertistan." - t. George Packer, a master of understanding
The shining city on a hill was supposed to replace remote big government with a community of energetic and compassionate citizens, all engaged in a project of national renewal. But nothing held the city together. It was hollow at the center, a collection of individuals all wanting more. It saw Americans as entrepreneurs, employees, investors, taxpayers, and consumers—everything but citizens.
"Where's my soytizens, where's Hitler, where's the king, the high priest? I need these guys." - t. George Packer, requires the state to supply him a community
https://archive.ph/LnlKC https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9686435/Pentagon-start-anti-radicalization-training-departing-personnel-counter-domestic-terrorism.html
White House calls Capitol riot a 'terrorist attack', introduces Pentagon anti-radicalization to stop the 'lethal' rise of 'white supremacy' in the military and pushes to 'purge' the internet of 'extremist content'
Strategy to tackle domestic terrorism to be launched on Tuesday
It follows review that found greatest threat comes from white supremacists and anti-government militants
'We must work to root out the hatreds that can too often drive violence,' said President Biden in foreword
It includes training for people leaving the military to make it harder for radicals to recruit them
And it comes amid high-level concern at the number of veterans or active service personnel arrested after January 6 attack on U.S. Capitol
By ROB CRILLY, SENIOR U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 06:06 EDT, 15 June 2021 | UPDATED: 07:27 EDT, 15 June 2021
'In addition, the Department of Defense is incorporating training for servicemembers separating retirements in the military, who may potentially be targeted by those who seek to radicalise them,' said an administration official.
'Domestic terrorist attacks in the United States also have been committed frequently by those opposing our government institutions. In 1995, in the largest single act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history, an anti–government violent extremist detonated a bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people – including 19 children – and injuring hundreds of others,' the report says.
'In 2016, an anti–authority violent extremist ambushed, shot, and killed five police officers in Dallas. In 2017, a lone gunman wounded four people at a congressional baseball practice. And just months ago, on January 6, 2021, Americans witnessed an unprecedented attack against a core institution of our democracy: the U.S. Congress.'
The strategy will also address the danger of 'insider threats' within the military or security agencies.
'The Department of Defence, Department of Justice, and Homeland Security Department are similarly pursuing efforts to ensure that domestic terrorists are not employed within our military or law enforcement ranks, and that they improve their screening and vetting processes,' said the official.
'Training and resources will be developed for state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement partners as well as for sensitive private sector partners, to enable them to enhance their own employee screening programme, and to prevent individuals who post domestic terrorism threats and being placed in positions of trust.'
https://archive.ph/2yf2p https:// www. washingtonexaminer. com/news/biden-gave-putin-16-critical-infrastructure-entities-must-be-off-limits-cyberattacks
Biden gave Putin list of 16 critical infrastructure 'entities' that must be off-limits to cyberattacks
by Christian Datoc | | June 16, 2021 01:55 PM
Biden, speaking ahead of his press conference following a slate of bilateral meetings with Putin and Russian officials, claimed the topic of cybersecurity was included in a discussion on establishing a "mechanism" for "strategic stability."
"I talked about the proposition that certain critical infrastructure should be off-limits to attack, period, by cyber or any other means," the president stated. "I gave them a list, and I don't have it in front of me, if I am not mistaken, of 16 entities — 16 defined as critical infrastructure, from the energy sector to our water systems."
Biden hammered the need for the two countries "to take action against criminals that conduct ransomware activities on their territory."
"So we agreed to task experts in both our countries to work on specific understandings about what is off-limits and to follow up on specific cases that originate in other countries, and that's either of our countries," he continued.
"We'll find out whether we have a cybersecurity arrangement that begins to bring some order," Biden added later in his remarks. "I looked at him. I said, ‘How would you feel if ransomware took on the pipelines from your oil fields?’ He said, ‘It would matter.’ This is not about just our self-interest."
https://archive.ph/BsU6V https://www.jweekly.com/2021/06/15/stanford-therapists-allege-hostile-climate-for-jews-in-the-workplace/
Stanford therapists allege ‘hostile climate’ for Jews in the workplace
BY GABE STUTMAN | JUNE 15, 2021
Two Jewish mental health professionals at Stanford’s on-campus counseling clinic have filed workplace discrimination complaints after what they call “severe and persistent” anti-Jewish harassment from colleagues.
Dr. Ronald Albucher, a psychiatrist and associate professor in the medical school, and Sheila Levin, a therapist specializing in eating disorders, describe being pressed into joining a “whiteness” affinity group by staffers with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program, being told they were “privileged,” and seeing antisemitic incidents downplayed.
The university responded inadequately to their concerns, made over the course of a year, Albucher and Levin say, thereby fostering a “hostile and unwelcoming environment” for Jewish employees working for Stanford’s Counseling and Psychological Services office (CAPS).
Released publicly on Tuesday, the complaints – filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing – allege violations of state and federal laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
At the follow-up meeting, the complaint says, DEI committee members “addressed the racist and anti-Black content” but did not mention antisemitism or the swastikas.
When Albucher asked about the omission, he was told that the committee “decided to omit any mention of anti-Semitism so as not to dominate the discussion about anti-Black racism,” the complaint says. When he brought it up again, he was accused of “trying to derail” the conversation.
DEI committee members “justified the omission of anti-Semitism,” the complaint says, “by insisting that unlike other minority groups, Jews can hide behind their white identity.” During the meeting, Albucher and Levin say they were “subjected to anti-Jewish stereotypes,” such as that Jews are “wealthy and powerful business owners.”
To discuss “White Fragility,” the complaint says, DEI members split up CAPS staff by race, facilitating “space for white staff” to “process [their] reaction” to it. The group was later named the “Whiteness Accountability group/book club.”
The complaint describes “racially segregated affinity groups that separated CAPS staff members on the basis of race or perceived race. One of these groups was for white staff, and another group was for staff comprising minorities of color.
“No affinity group was ever created for members of Jewish ancestral identity,” it continues. “As a result, there was no ‘space’ in the DEI program for Dr. Albucher and Ms. Levin to safely express their lived Jewish experience.”
On May 30, 2020, Levin emailed a DEI leader asking how she could support the program. According to the complaint, the person responded that “as a Jewish, White cis woman you have immense power and privilege. It is important to understand how you are a part of the systemic racism and oppression that takes place in this country.”
On June 24, 2020, the complaint alleges that during a seminar that Levin attended, participants “lamented that the group was comprised of privileged people,” specifically “white, pass for white and Jewish people.”
That August, Levin and Albucher notified Stanford’s HR department about the “hostile climate” they were experiencing in the DEI program, the complaint says, and the HR department tried to facilitate a mediation session between the parties. Neither Albucher nor Levin felt satisfied with the outcome, and in the fall of 2020 Levin stopped participating in the “white affinity group” because of “ongoing hostility she experienced on the basis of her race and Jewish ethnic identity,” the complaint says.
Megyn KellyVerified account @megynkelly· 11h11 hours ago
(Another) Spence parent pulls her kid after grossly racist episode attacking white women is forced on girls in class on last day of school. We just left this school bc of its growing far-left indoctrination. This is a place we’ve loved-breaks my heart they’re doing this.
Aurelian of Rome @AurelianofRome 15 Jun 2021
Students have rights. This is illegal under federal law in all fifty states. File lawsuits.
https://archive.ph/hixUL https:// conceptualdisinformation. substack. com/p/james-lindsay-v-critical-race-theory
James Lindsay v. Critical Race Theory
#ConceptualDisinformation Vol. 1
Samuel Hoadley-Brill May 3
What is critical race theory (CRT)?
To attempt a rough, one-sentence summary: CRT is an approach to legal scholarship that works from the premises of pervasive racial inequality and a social constructionist (i.e. anti-essentialist) conception of race; challenges the idea that the superficially colorblind nature of the law means the law is race-neutral; and seeks to explain how landmark civil rights legislation of the 1960s failed to deliver on its promises of equality for the racial minorities it was supposed to uplift.
As my professor Charles Mills explains in the epilogue of Black Rights/White Wrongs: The Critique of Racial Liberalism, critical race theorists take up two tasks. The first is descriptive: “to recognize and theorize the centrality of race and white supremacy to the making of the modern world”; and the second is prescriptive: “[to recognize and theorize] the implications for normative theory and an expanded vision of what needs to be subjected to liberatory critique to achieve social justice.”
It is important to note here that Mills is using white supremacy to denote racial domination of whites over non-whites, not the ideology of white supremacist groups like the KKK, which I would call white supremacism. Racists believe in racism; white supremacists believe in white supremacism. Anyway, back to the subject at hand.
- Critical race theory challenges ahistoricism and insists on a contextual/ historical analysis of the law. Current inequalities and social/institutional practices are linked to earlier periods in which the intent and cultural meaning of such practices were clear. More important, as critical race theorists we adopt a stance that presumes that racism has contributed to all contemporary manifestations of group advantage and disadvantage along racial lines, including differences in income, imprisonment, health, housing, education, political representation, and military service. Our history calls for this presumption.
At first glance, this may look a failure to recognize that correlation does not entail causation. But what the authors are claiming is not the naive thesis that every racial disparity is attributable to racism. The claim is that, given the history of the United States’ treatment of racial minorities—coupled with the commitment to social constructionism about race—we can safely make a defeasible assumption that a complete causal analysis of any particular (dis)advantage along racial lines will include some racist policy or practice.
https://archive.ph/34dSc https:// www. latimes. com/california/story/2021-06-14/california-struggling-marijuana-industry-cash-grants-budget
California offers $100 million to rescue its struggling legal marijuana industry
Marijuana-growing businesses would get help in meeting environmental review requirements for state licenses under a $100-million proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom that has been supported by legislative leaders. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
By PATRICK MCGREEVY | STAFF WRITER
JUNE 14, 2021 4:15 PM PT
SACRAMENTO — The California Legislature on Monday approved a $100-million plan to bolster California’s legal marijuana industry, which continues to struggle to compete with the large illicit pot market nearly five years after voters approved sales for recreational use.
Los Angeles will be the biggest beneficiary of the money, which was proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to be provided as grants to cities and counties to help cannabis businesses transition from provisional to regular licenses.
The governor’s proposal to extend provisional licenses has drawn objections from a coalition of seven environmental groups including Sierra Club California, Defenders of Wildlife and the Nature Conservancy.
They said in a letter to Newsom that the proposal allowing the extension of provisional licenses and interim alternatives to CEQA rules goes against what voters were promised and is “wholly inadequate to protect local communities and the environment.”
Each cannabis grower must provide evidence that they met the requirements for environmental review. If their city and county do not provide the required document, the applicants must prepare one, which often means hiring environmental consultants.
A bill by state Sen. Anna Caballero (D-Salinas) would have allowed the state to extend provisional licenses six years until 2028, but she shelved it after it drew opposition from the coalition of environmental groups.
The groups sent a letter to lawmakers saying that the bill “does not provide adequate environmental protection.”
1988, 2014:
https://archive.ph/SoRiL https:// www. huffpost. com/entry/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person_b_5269255
Gina Crosley-Corcoran, Contributor
Author and advocate behind TheFeministBreeder. com
Explaining White Privilege To A Broke White Person
05/08/2014 12:57 pm ET | Updated Dec 06, 2017
So when that feminist told me I had “white privilege,” I told her that my white skin didn’t do shit to prevent me from experiencing poverty. Then, like any good, educated feminist would, she directed me to Peggy McIntosh’s now-famous 1988 piece “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.”
After one reads McIntosh’s powerful essay, it’s impossible to deny that being born with white skin in America affords people certain unearned privileges in life that people of other skin colors simply are not afforded. For example:
“I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.”
“When I am told about our national heritage or about ‘civilization,’ I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.”
“If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.”
“I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.”
1988:
https://archive.ph/4EWXW http://web.archive.org/web/20150930025427/http://amptoons.com:80/blog/files/mcintosh.html
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Daily effects of white privilege
Elusive and fugitive
Earned strength, unearned power
"I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group"
Peggy McIntosh
Daily effects of white privilege
I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.
- I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
...
- I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
Although systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and, I imagine, for some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned. What will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we will choose to use unearned advantage, and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily awarded power to try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.
Peggy McIntosh is associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women. This essay is excerpted from Working Paper 189. "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies" (1988), by Peggy McIntosh; available for $10.00 from the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Wellesley MA 02181 The working paper contains a longer list of privileges. This excerpted essay is reprinted from the Winter 1990 issue of Independent School.
2002:
https://archive.ph/gBeBg https:// www. harvardmagazine. com/2002/09/abolish-the-white-race. html
THE BROWSER | OPEN BOOK
Abolish the White Race
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2002
This excerpt from When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories, edited by Bernestine Singley, appeared in 2002 as part of Harvard Magazine’s coverage of recent books by Harvard affiliates. The excerpt concerns author Noel Ignatiev’s role in launching a journal “to chronicle and analyze the making, remaking, and unmaking of whiteness.”
Many of those engaged in this Herculean task are white, Bell notes, among them Noel Ignatiev, Ed.M. '85, Ph.D. '94, C.A.S. '95, author of How the Irish Became White and a fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, who writes:
2015:
https://archive.ph/wCCgn https:// journals. sagepub. com/doi/abs/10. 1177/1469540515602302
Disney’s pedagogies of pleasure and the eternal recurrence of whiteness
Jennifer A Sandlin, Julie Garlen Maudlin
First Published September 2, 2015 Research Article
Abstract
In this article, we examine how Disney participates in an affective economy through an analysis of how it engages with pleasure, and ask questions about what Disney’s manufacturing and selling of pleasure does, pedagogically. We posit that Disney’s pedagogies of pleasure, which operate from the notion that escape is attainable via the pleasurable experiences offered at Disney parks, teach us how to be particular kinds of Disney subjects who escape into safe and controlled forms of pleasure – these escape fantasies offer a way for consumers to disavow the racism and white supremacy that characterize Western humanist and colonialist projects. Then, through a reading of Escape From Tomorrow, a recent surrealist horror film that explores the “dark side” of the “Happiest Place on Earth,” we analyze how pleasure and the false promise of escape from conflict are illustrated in the film. We take up Nietzsche’s concept of “eternal recurrence” to explore the inescapability of our own complicity in the perpetuation of white, heteropatriarchal narratives through our repetitive affective engagements with Disney. Finally, we explore how an acceptance of inescapability demands that we acknowledge how we are complicit in the perpetuation of white supremacy through our engagements with Disney’s pedagogies of pleasure. We argue that this acceptance is not a nihilistic trap that suggests only an unbearable despair but an active choice that holds productive potential for acknowledging and exposing the racist myths of Western humanism perpetuated through Disney’s pedagogies of pleasure.
2020:
https://archive.ph/eEWK8 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8460059/Cambridge-University-backs-academic-tweeted-White-Lives-Dont-Matter.html
Cambridge University backs academic who tweeted 'White Lives Don't Matter' - and PROMOTES her to professor - after she received barrage of abuse and death threats
Dr Priyamvada Gopal was hit by a wave of abusive messages and death threats
The academic tweeted: 'I'll say it again. White Lives Don't Matter. As white lives.'
Cambridge University defended rights of academic to express lawful opinions
By BHVISHYA PATEL FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 12:04 EDT, 25 June 2020 | UPDATED: 05:43 EDT, 26 June 2020
https://archive.ph/nFA0S https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2020/09/07/heres-where-rioters-learn-their-hate-watch-trainer-say-all-white-people-are-racists-not-human-n902810
Here's Where Rioters Learn Their Hate: Watch 'Trainer' Say 'All' White People Are 'Racists,' 'Not Human'
BY VICTORIA TAFT SEP 07, 2020 10:36 PM ET
In a presentation, Ashleigh Shackelford (who currently goes by Hunter Ashleigh), the speaker and “trainer” espoused all manner of racist thought before a progressive crowd.
All white people are racists. So, I put this up because I really want any white person in the room to know up front that this is what we’re dealing with. That it’s not going to be this coddling of white tears. And we’re not going to discuss, “oh, maybe some of us are going to work it out.” No, you’re always going to be racist, actually. So even when you’re on your path to trying to figure out how to be a better human being, I believe that white people are born into not being human [laughs]. Like people of color and black folks being dehumanized, that actually everyone is dehumanized [unintelligible] off white supremacy, that y’all are born into a life to not be human. And that’s what y’all are taught to do, be demons [laughs]. So in this particular way, white people are all racists, so I just want y’all to know that up front.
2021:
https://archive.ph/7QxBp https:// bariweiss. substack. com/p/the-psychopathic-problem-of-the-white
'The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind'
A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale's Child Study Center spoke about 'unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way.'
Katie Herzog Jun 4
A few weeks ago, someone sent me a recording of a talk called “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” It was delivered at the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center by a New York-based psychiatrist as part of Grand Rounds, an ongoing program in which clinicians and others in the field lecture students and faculty.
This is the cost of talking to white people at all. The cost of your own life, as they suck you dry. There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil. (Time stamp: 6:45)
I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body, and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a fucking favor. (Time stamp: 7:17)
White people are out of their minds and they have been for a long time. (Time stamp: 17:06)
We are now in a psychological predicament, because white people feel that we are bullying them when we bring up race. They feel that we should be thanking them for all that they have done for us. They are confused, and so are we. We keep forgetting that directly talking about race is a waste of our breath. We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero, to accept responsibility. It ain’t gonna happen. They have five holes in their brain. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall. It’s just like sort of not a good idea. (Time stamp 17:13)
We need to remember that directly talking about race to white people is useless, because they are at the wrong level of conversation. Addressing racism assumes that white people can see and process what we are talking about. They can’t. That’s why they sound demented. They don’t even know they have a mask on. White people think it’s their actual face. We need to get to know the mask. (Time stamp 17:54)
Here’s the poster from the event. Among the “learning objectives” listed is: “understand how white people are psychologically dependent on black rage.”
We’ve uploaded the lecture so you can listen to the whole thing yourself. Apologies for the less-than-stellar audio quality.
The talk, which was delivered via video in early April, was open to the public. But after it was delivered, Yale made the tape available only to those with a school ID. It was posted along with a trigger warning for “profanity and imagery for violence.”
Katie Herzog, who wrote yesterday about the spread of wokeness in medicine, interviewed the psychiatrist who delivered the talk, Dr. Aruna Khilanani.
https://archive.ph/k0D5E https:// journals. sagepub. com/doi/abs/10.1177/00030651211008507?journalCode=apaa
Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
On Having Whiteness
Donald Moss
First Published May 27, 2021 Research Article Find in PubMed
https://doi. org/10. 1177/00030651211008507
Article information
Abstract
Whiteness is a condition one first acquires and then one has—a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. The condition is foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world. Parasitic Whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse. These deformed appetites particularly target nonwhite peoples. Once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate. Effective treatment consists of a combination of psychic and social-historical interventions. Such interventions can reasonably aim only to reshape Whiteness’s infiltrated appetites—to reduce their intensity, redistribute their aims, and occasionally turn those aims toward the work of reparation. When remembered and represented, the ravages wreaked by the chronic condition can function either as warning (“never again”) or as temptation (“great again”). Memorialization alone, therefore, is no guarantee against regression. There is not yet a permanent cure.
https://archive.ph/upvd2 https:// internationalpsychoanalysis. net/on-having-whiteness-with-donald-moss-at-nypsi/
“On Having Whiteness” with Donald Moss at NYPSI
By Tamar Schwartz | January 12, 2020 | Categories:EVENTS |
NYPSI The 1041st Scientific Program Meeting: “On Having Whiteness” Tuesday, January 14, 2020 8:00 – 10:00 pm Presenter: Donald Moss, M.D. Discussant: Dorothy E. Holmes, Ph.D.
2021, "Roberts is having delusions and a disconnect from reality":
https://archive.ph/AjRzJ https:// www. ledger-enquirer. com/news/local/crime/article252097433. html
‘I had to have him.’ Columbus police say weekend shooting spree was racially motivated
BY TIM CHITWOOD JUNE 14, 2021 11:19 AM,
UPDATED JUNE 14, 2021 11:36 AM
The 39-year-old man charged in a weekend shooting spree told Columbus police his assaults were racially motivated, targeting white men he felt had taken from him all his life, a detective testified Monday.
Though police allege Justin Tyran Roberts was involved in three separate assaults that wounded five people Friday and Saturday in Columbus and Phenix City, he was in Columbus Recorder’s Court to face charges in just one of those incidents, a shooting around 2 p.m. Saturday under the Oglethorpe Bridge at Broadway and Fourth Street.
That’s where a man was shot in the back as he was getting into his vehicle in a parking area under the bridge, said Detective Brandon Lockhart, who quoted Roberts as telling police, “I had to have him.”
“Basically, he explained throughout his life, specifically white males had taken from him, and also what he described as ‘military-looking white males’ had taken from him,” the investigator said.
Roberts also claimed that such men were “shooting at him in a wooded area with a slingshot,” and the wounds had infected his skin, Lockhart testified. Police saw no injuries to substantiate that, he said.
When police patrolling the downtown area found Roberts about two hours after the Oglethorpe Bridge shooting, he was sitting on steps outside 425 Third Ave., Lockhart said. They found he had a Taurus 9-millimeter pistol that had been stolen on Thursday, the detective said.
King asked Judge Julius Hunter to order a mental health evaluation for Roberts: “The officer’s testimony has demonstrated that Mr. Roberts is having delusions and a disconnect from reality,” she said.
https://archive.ph/te7he https://humanevents.com/2021/06/09/washingtons-stasi-mentality-turns-attention-to-scotus-seeks-to-determine-if-travel-papers-are-in-order/
Washington’s Stasi Mentality Turns Attention to SCOTUS, Seeks to Determine if Travel Papers are in Order
By Human Events Staff | June 09, 2021
Two senators have asked the U.S. Marshals Service for information on the travel of U.S. Supreme Court justices over the last decade, claiming that it would improve transparency.
“The justices of our highest court are subject to the lowest standards of transparency of any senior officials across the federal government,” Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and John Kennedy wrote in a letter dated June 4.
Coincidence?
https://archive.ph/j01YA https:// www. reuters. com/business/legal/us-supreme-court-limits-police-power-enter-homes-with-no-warrant-2021-05-17/
May 17, 2021 3:44 PM UTC
Legal U.S. Supreme Court limits police power to enter homes with no warrant
Andrew Chung
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to make it easier for police to enter a home without a warrant for reasons of health or public safety, throwing out a lower court's decision to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a Rhode Island man after officers entered his home and confiscated his guns.
The 9-0 ruling directed the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider Edward Caniglia's lawsuit accusing police of violating his constitutional rights by bringing him to a hospital for a mental health evaluation and taking away his guns without a warrant after a 2015 argument with his wife.
Embrace the clown.
Context:
https://kotakuinaction2.win/p/12j08P9cqu/uks-pro-immigration-and-pro-musl/c/
UK’s Pro Immigration and Pro Muslim party attacks Boris as too Pro Immigration. ? ?
posted by SophiesBoyfriend
https://archive.ph/uzMfz https:// alexeiarora. substack. com/p/how-uk-labour-lost-the-working-class
8 May 2021 19:40:10 UTC
How UK Labour Lost the Working-Class
By taking for granted its Working-Class voters, Labour migrated towards young, educated & Professional-Class voters. As its new voter-base became repulsed by the old, the Tories picked up the Red Wall
Alexei Arora May 7
So what did Starmer do? He returned to unpopular Blairite economics by promising fiscal restraint (yes, a center-left party promising this as the center-right party engages in deficit spending), while walking a tightrope between supporting British patriotism (which had been taboo under Corbyn) and supporting radical liberal groups like Black Lives Matter. By half-heartedly pandering to moderates and progressives, while showing signs of abandoning popular economic policies, it is no wonder that Starmer (who was a key proponent of the second referendum) has been falling in approval ratings even as Coronavirus ravaged Britain.
The Labour Party is no longer the party of the working-class. It must first accept this fact before it charts out a path forward. Currently, Labour’s voter base consists of socially liberal, college-educated and professional-class urban voters who hate their country. They consider themselves global citizens rather than British citizens; their cultural policies are at odds with lower and middle-class Brits, and their economic policies assert their class dominance while at best throwing crumbs at workers.
Blue Labour —a Labour party pressure group which is culturally conservative and economically socialist— has a chance of making significant inroads into the party, should it choose to. Currently its institutional support is weak, and it only has one Lord (Maurice Glasman) who supports this vision.
Glenn GreenwaldVerified account @ggreenwald 13 Jun 2021
This person with serious anxiety disorders and other emotional problems passed on her disorders to the "pandemic dog" she adopted as a lockdown toy, then killed her because she couldn't figure out how to fix the beagle's aggression. Monstrous:
Dogs react to the people they're around. They're extremely perceptive and sensitive, especially in a new and stressful situation like being taken by unknown people to a new home. Many, many most of, my dogs react differently to people based on how they behave.
Nick Cole@RealNickCole
A Window into how They think. A metaphor for what will be done about “dogs that bite.” They are Children. Horrible, murderous, Children. And they want to be absolved of all responsibility, and told they are gods. Buy guns.
https://archive.ph/kNO0H https:// slate. com/human-interest/2021/06/dog-bite-training-behavioral-euthanasia. html
When Bonnie Came Home
Just before Christmas, I adopted a 6-year-old beagle. She was adorable—and violent. I found a resolution many choose but few acknowledge.
BY MADELINE BILIS
Even if I did somehow find someone to take Bonnie, I wondered whether it would just exacerbate her already crippling anxieties. As the weeks went by and no new options appeared, I realized I had a choice: I could send her off with a stranger one day—someone she would certainly injure, and who would perhaps end up euthanizing her anyway—or I could allow her to leave this terrifying world peacefully with someone she loves.
Behavioral euthanasia is not a decision made out of convenience. Typically, it enters the conversation once the safety situation with a dog, cat, or other animal deteriorates beyond an acceptable level of risk, said Christopher Pachel, a veterinary behaviorist with Instinct Dog Behavior & Training. There isn’t a universal approach to every situation. Often, if the police aren’t involved, it’s up to a pet’s owner to decide what level of risk they can live with.
My heart rate slowed, and something clicked. Lady was a healthy dog. Clearly, Bonnie was not. I couldn’t possibly picture her acting so carefree. I miss Bonnie dearly—and desperately wish I could’ve watched her dart around my parents’ backyard—but there’s solace in knowing she isn’t afraid anymore.
https://archive.ph/7QxBp https:// bariweiss. substack. com/p/the-psychopathic-problem-of-the-white
'The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind'
A psychiatrist lecturing at Yale's Child Study Center spoke about 'unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way.'
Katie Herzog Jun 4
A few weeks ago, someone sent me a recording of a talk called “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” It was delivered at the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center by a New York-based psychiatrist as part of Grand Rounds, an ongoing program in which clinicians and others in the field lecture students and faculty.
When I listened to the talk I considered the fact that it might be some sort of elaborate prank. But looking at the doctor’s social media, it seems completely genuine.
Here are some of the quotes from the lecture:
This is the cost of talking to white people at all. The cost of your own life, as they suck you dry. There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil. (Time stamp: 6:45)
I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body, and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a fucking favor. (Time stamp: 7:17)
White people are out of their minds and they have been for a long time. (Time stamp: 17:06)
We are now in a psychological predicament, because white people feel that we are bullying them when we bring up race. They feel that we should be thanking them for all that they have done for us. They are confused, and so are we. We keep forgetting that directly talking about race is a waste of our breath. We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero, to accept responsibility. It ain’t gonna happen. They have five holes in their brain. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall. It’s just like sort of not a good idea. (Time stamp 17:13)
We need to remember that directly talking about race to white people is useless, because they are at the wrong level of conversation. Addressing racism assumes that white people can see and process what we are talking about. They can’t. That’s why they sound demented. They don’t even know they have a mask on. White people think it’s their actual face. We need to get to know the mask. (Time stamp 17:54)
Here’s the poster from the event. Among the “learning objectives” listed is: “understand how white people are psychologically dependent on black rage.”
From the failing NYT:
https://archive.ph/TjZIz https:// www. nytimes. com/2021/06/06/nyregion/yale-psychiatrist-aruna-khilanani. html
A Psychiatrist Invited to Yale Spoke of Fantasies of Shooting White People
The Yale School of Medicine said the tone and content of a lecture by Dr. Aruna Khilanani, who has a private practice in New York, were “antithetical to the values of the school.”
Yale University has restricted access to an online video of a talk given by Dr. Aruna Khilanani, in which she said that talking directly to white people about race was a “waste of our breath.” Credit...Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times
By Michael Levenson
June 6, 2021, 11:16 a.m. ET
https://archive.ph/eesNr https:// www. thelancet. com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext
CORRESPONDENCE|ONLINE FIRST
Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19
Charles Calisher, Dennis Carroll, Rita Colwell, Ronald B Corley, Peter Daszak, Christian Drosten et al.
Published: February 19, 2020• DOI: https:// doi. org/10. 1016/S0140-6736(20)30418-9
We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 as have so many other emerging pathogens.
https://archive.ph/GVskv https://web.archive.org/web/20210609164326/https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1402407551375794180
Alexandros Marinos @alexandrosM 7 Jun 2021
The Lancet letter of Feb 18, 2020, sent a message to scientists the world over: Investigate a lab leak, and you will be tarred as conspiracy theorist. Was it a honest outpouring of support? Or astroturfing? To start, of the 27 signatories, 7 were affiliated with EcoHealth...
Concerning info about the long-time editor of The Lancet seems to be coming out: When contacted this January by The Paris Group to publish a pro-lab leak letter signed by 14 experts, he rejected it without review: "we have agreed to uphold our original decision to let this go"
He told South China Morning Post in May 2020 it was "unfair", “not helpful”, “not scientific” to seek a patient 0 and such efforts could be “highly stigmatising and discriminatory”. We shouldn't allow "conspiracy theories to contaminate our thinking".
In August 2020, he wrote in The Guardian that "This wave of anti-China feeling masks the west's own Covid-19 failures". Make of it what you will, but I would not choose this man as the referee of the COVID origins question.
Horton, in a 2017 article "Medicine and Marx", opens with a Xi Jinping quote and closes thus: "As the centenary of his birth approaches, we might agree that medicine has a great deal to learn from Marx." It is as even keeled as you imagine.
https://archive.ph/4eOsr https:// www. scmp. com/news/china/science/article/3082606/its-unfair-blame-china-coronavirus-pandemic-lancet-editor-tells
It’s unfair to blame China for coronavirus pandemic, Lancet editor tells state media
Catherine Wong Published: 8:51pm, 2 May, 2020
The editor-in-chief of The Lancet has said it is “not helpful” and “unfair” to blame China for being the source of the Covid-19 pandemic in an interview with Chinese state media.
Richard Horton said the international community should instead work with the Chinese authorities in dealing with the outbreak.
“China didn’t want this epidemic,” Horton said during Friday’s interview with state broadcaster CCTV when asked about the mounting pressure China has been under to take responsibility for being the origin of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. “China isn’t responsible for this pandemic. It’s happened.”
The editor of the British-based medical journal offered a strong defence of China during the CCTV interview, saying that while it is important to understand the origin of the virus, it was “not helpful” and “not scientific” to seek for a patient zero and such efforts could be “highly stigmatising and discriminatory”.
“It’s very important to understand the origin of this virus and to study those origins scientifically and not to allow such conspiracy theories to contaminate our thinking,” he said, adding that these would only “risk destabilising our response to this virus”.
https://archive.ph/IqQIN https:// www. theguardian. com/commentisfree/2020/aug/03/covid-19-cold-war-china-western-governments-international-peace
Opinion China
The threat of Covid should kindle global cooperation, not a new cold war with China
Richard Horton
A wave of anti-China feeling, fostered by western governments, is rising. But it is misplaced – and threatens international peace
Mon 3 Aug 2020 07.09 EDT Last modified on Mon 3 Aug 2020 07.42 EDT
This approach to China is deeply mistaken. My experience of working in China, collaborating with world-class Chinese scientists and physicians, and cooperating with the Chinese government over its extraordinary efforts to strengthen its health services, tells me that China is a complex nation and that binary verdicts of guilt or innocence misunderstand its intentions.
The Chinese perspective is very different. The “century of humiliation”, when China was dominated by a colonially-minded west and Japan, only came to an end with the Communist victory in the civil war in 1949. The country grew erratically and with terrifying mistakes under Mao Zedong, who aimed to establish relatively secure national borders. Deng Xiaoping created the conditions for economic expansion, lifting as many as 800 million people out of poverty.
Every contemporary Chinese leader, including Xi Jinping, has seen their task as protecting the territorial security won by Mao and the economic security achieved by Deng. Many of China’s policymakers will argue that the government’s actions should be seen not as aggressive, but as defensive.
In the case of Covid-19, China’s scientists acted decisively and responsibly to protect the health of the Chinese people. They advised early lockdown to cut the lines of viral transmission. They implemented strict physical distancing policies to reduce social mixing. And they built temporary hospitals to expand bed capacity and to enable triage of the sickest patients to intensive care.
https://archive.ph/zNjVu https:// www. thelancet. com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)32805-2/fulltext
COMMENT| VOLUME 390, ISSUE 10107, P2026, NOVEMBER 04, 2017
Offline: Medicine and Marx
Richard Horton
Published: November 04, 2017• DOI: https:// doi. org/10. 1016/S0140-6736(17)32805-2
When President Xi Jinping addressed the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China last month, he spoke of “the scientific truth of Marxism-Leninism”. Marxism (with Chinese characteristics), as President Xi went on to set out, is to be the foundation for a Healthy China. Who would dare today in the West to praise Karl Marx as the saviour of our wellbeing? Marx is long dead. He died physically on March 14, 1883. He died metaphysically in 1991, as the Soviet Union ebbed away into a newly independent Russian state. The Communist experiment had stuttered, faltered, and finally failed. It's legacy? As Michel Kazatchkine wrote in The Lancet last month, the health system in the Soviet era “rapidly deteriorated” in its later years, leading to “inadequate availability of medical drugs and technologies, poorly maintained facilities, worsening quality of health care, and falling life expectancy”. But is it fair to consign Marx to the margins of the history of health? May 5, 2018, is the centenary of Marx's birth. It is a moment to reappraise Marx's contribution to medicine and to discover if his influence is quite as harmful as contemporary wisdom would suggest.
Disclose.tv @disclosetv 31 May 2021
JUST IN - Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says Russia is monitoring the persecution of those behind the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, hints at violations of human and opposition rights.
Liveuamap 0:35 139K views
https://archive.ph/HnVzb https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/17/shawshank-for-january-6-detainees/
Shawshank for January 6 Detainees
The government argues the events of January 6 along with the defendants’ skepticism about the outcome of the 2020 election are evidence the accused are a threat to society.
By Julie Kelly May 17, 2021
“I’ve been in solitary confinement for a hundred days now and haven’t been convicted of any crime with no end in sight.”
That was part of a lengthy message Jacob Lang sent to his father, Ned, the last week of April. Jacob was arrested on January 16 in New York and charged with several crimes related to his activity in Washington, D.C. on January 6. Lang, who turned 25 while incarcerated, is accused of assaulting police officers using a dangerous or deadly weapon. The government’s evidence against him appears to be strong. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
https://archive.ph/S2UYz https:// justthenews. com/government/local/dc-jail-treatment-capitol-riot-defendants-draws-bipartisan-outrage
D.C. jail treatment of Capitol riot defendants draws bipartisan outrage
"It was a well-thought-out strategic plan" to transfer inmates to D.C., where they can be "mic'd in a cage," lawyer says.
By Greg Piper Updated: May 10, 2021 - 8:37am
A short drive from the U.S. Capitol, 1,500 inmates are stuck in their jail cells 22 hours a day. Until last month it was 23, and they were also barred from going outside.
A smaller group of inmates may have it even worse: those awaiting trial for alleged crimes in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. They've been placed in "restrictive housing," a maximum-security designation.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) also cited the Post report in an April 22 floor speech against D.C. statehood. Alleging the city has been "essentially torturing inmates" for more than a year, Higgins said: "That is ultimately a violation of the 8th Amendment ... Is this what we can expect from a D.C. state?"
Comer requested but has not received a briefing with Mayor Muriel Bowser about jail conditions, prompting him to demand Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney hold an emergency hearing on "these gross abuses that are happening right at our doorstep."
Both Bowser and Maloney "have refused the requests asked of them," according to Comer. A spokesperson for Maloney connected Just the News with an Oversight staffer, who has not responded, while Bowser's spokesperson has not responded.
A Department of Corrections spokesperson did not answer email questions and declined to speak on the record in a phone interview.
"Solitary confinement is a form of punishment that is cruel and psychologically damaging," Warren told Politico a month later. The Massachusetts Democrat fears the Jan. 6 defendants are being singled out to "punish" them or "break them so that they will cooperate" with federal prosecutors.
Durbin was surprised to learn about the restrictive housing. It should be a "rare exception" with a "clear justification," the Illinois Democrat told the news outlet, to be used in "very limited circumstances."
Staff for Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Warren, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, did not respond to queries for an update on their efforts to get better treatment for the Jan. 6 defendants.
Why is the Cheka here?! I voted for Joe Biden! -t. this fucking guy
Heath Mayo @HeathMayo 28 May 2021
We don’t have $6 trillion. Where are we going to get that kind of money? Same place we always do: you, China, and the Federal Reserve. These are real costs. The tab eventually comes due.
Heath Mayo @HeathMayo 30 May 2021
You’re damn right I voted for Joe Biden—and I would do it again in a heartbeat, especially after what we saw on January 6th. 2020 was about conserving the republic & I did as much as I could with my vote to do that. It was an easy call.
Heath Mayo @HeathMayo
Texan | Conservative | Business Strategy / Law | #PrinciplesFirst: http:// principlesfirst. us
Whitehouse, TX linkedin. com/pub/dir/Heath/… Joined July 2010
How to spot and prepare for hyperinflation:
https://archive.ph/YIPhQ https:// www. youtube. com/watch?v=1HmGLV46L60
Hyperinflation is Already Here – You Just Haven't Realised It Yet.
1,248,354 views •Apr 11, 2021
Economics Explained 1M subscribers
Hyperinflation has been a doomsday scenario for modern economies throughout the last century. In all of these failed countries (Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Hungary, Yugoslavia, etc.) there have been uniform warning signs, the same signs that we are starting to see today in the U.S.
6 trillion dollars:
https://archive.ph/Rf8km https:// www. npr. org/2021/05/28/1000843544/biden-proposes-a-huge-hike-in-government-spending-in-a-6-trillion-budget
Biden Proposes A Huge Hike In Government Spending In A $6 Trillion Budget
May 28, 2021·1:30 PM ET ASMA KHALID
President Biden has proposed a $6 trillion budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, part of a plan to overhaul the U.S. economy that would also mean running up deficits of at least $1.3 trillion a year for the rest of the decade despite new tax increases on the wealthy.
The proposal is the biggest budget in recent history, reflecting the massive government spending plans Biden rolled out this spring in his push to bolster the middle class and make the United States more competitive with China:
- his $1.5 trillion discretionary budget, which would increase funding for education, the IRS, and the CDC, among other things;
- the $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan investing in infrastructure, currently under negotiation with Congress; and
- the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan, which includes spending on universal preschool and two years of free community college.
The White House defends its eyepopping numbers as a a necessary fix after decades of "underinvestment." The added spending, it says, will help build a more productive economy in the long run.
Shalanda Young, the acting director of Biden's Office of Management and Budget, told reporters that declining interest rates "gives us the fiscal space to make necessary up-front investments" in the economy after a decade of budget caps, and said the real cost of federal debt payments would remain below historical averages through the coming decade.
"The president's budget improves the long term fiscal outlook because his policies are more than paid for over the long run," Young said. "That is a sharp departure from unpaid tax cuts under the prior administration that seriously worsened our long-term fiscal problems."
The Biden administration has insisted its jobs and families plans will be fully paid for within 15 years through tax increases.
"This is the right time to invest when we have historically low interest rates, investing now with a plan to pay for it," Biden said in a speech in Cleveland, Ohio on Thursday. "That is the fiscally responsible thing to do."
The White House insists that in later years, when the country faces more daunting fiscal challenges, its budget proposals will actually help reduce the deficit.
https://archive.ph/wip/ur3SJ https://dailycaller.com/2021/05/28/biden-budget-request-jobs-families-plan-spending-deficit/
Biden Unveils Budget Request For $6 Trillion In Spending, Highest Since World War II
ANDERS HAGSTROM WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT
May 28, 2021 2:28 PM ET
President Joe Biden unveiled his 2022 budget request Friday, proposing a $6 trillion spending package that would bring the U.S. to its highest levels of spending since World War II.
Biden’s plan includes funding for his American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, among other major initiatives. The plan calls for an increase in spending to $8.3 trillion by 2031, with each year adding a $1.3 trillion budget deficit. If that rate is maintained, the U.S. would surpass even its sustained spending levels of World War II by 2024.
Take this L, Karl.
https://archive.ph/um5ht https:// www. youtube. com/watch?v=Ev__j30ZRTw
The Free Market Solution 105,715 views Jan 11, 2021
InRangeTV 398K subscribers SUBSCRIBE
For four years InRange has been at odds with the corporate oligarchy of the internet and for four years I've been told that the "free market" will provide. Let's discuss what that free market and what it would take to enact an actually free market solution in 2021 using the recent collapse of Parler as an example.
https://archive.ph/GE3Vs https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hearing-demands-0cf
26 Mar 2021 22:59:53 UTC
Congress, in a Five-Hour Hearing, Demands Tech CEOs Censor the Internet Even More Aggressively
The repressive objective of the Democratic-controlled Congress is to transfer the power to police and censor political discourse from these tech giants to themselves.
Glenn Greenwald 38 min ago
The bulk of Thursday’s lengthy hearing consisted of one Democratic member after the next complaining that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey have failed in their duties to censor political voices and ideological content that these elected officials regard as adversarial or harmful, accompanied by threats that legislative punishment (including possible revocation of Section 230 immunity) is imminent in order to force compliance (Section 230 is the provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that shields internet companies from liability for content posted by their users).
https://archive.ph/mfsf6 https://web.archive.org/web/20210506040841/https://www.revolver.news/2021/05/bishop-garrison-pentagon-hatchet-man/ https://www.revolver.news/2021/05/bishop-garrison-pentagon-hatchet-man/
Meet Bishop Garrison: The Pentagon’s Hatchet Man in Charge of Purging MAGA Patriots and Installing Race Theory in The Military
May 5, 2021 (25m ago)
A leaked 17-page DARPA memo from March 27, 2021 entitled “Extremism and Insider Threat in the DoD” provides a clue as to what new categories of lawful thoughts, associations and reading materials are likely to be scanned and banned by Bishop Garrison’s CEWG. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency colloquially known as “The Pentagon’s Brain,” recommended a brand new category called “Patriot Extremism,” which occurs when a citizen believes “the US government has become corrupt” or “has overstepped its constitutional boundaries”:
“Patriot Extremism” is completely distinct from “White supremacy,” which DARPA maintains as a wholly separate category.
But DARPA’s “Symbols of Extremism” collage on page 6 clearly reveals their intended target: the collage includes 12 “far-right” symbols, versus just two Antifa symbols, and just one for ISIS. “Extremist” “far-right” symbols include Pepe the Frog, the OK hand gesture, “Come and Take It” guns-rights memes, and the “Q” in QAnon:
https://archive.ph/OWuzQ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/9/steve-scalise-shooting-damages-republicans-trust-f/
'Suicide by cop': Verdict splinters Republicans' trust in FBI
By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times - Sunday, May 9, 2021
https://archive.ph/S2UYz https:// justthenews. com/government/local/dc-jail-treatment-capitol-riot-defendants-draws-bipartisan-outrage
D.C. jail treatment of Capitol riot defendants draws bipartisan outrage
"It was a well-thought-out strategic plan" to transfer inmates to D.C., where they can be "mic'd in a cage," lawyer says.
By Greg Piper Updated: May 10, 2021 - 8:37am
A short drive from the U.S. Capitol, 1,500 inmates are stuck in their jail cells 22 hours a day. Until last month it was 23, and they were also barred from going outside.
A smaller group of inmates may have it even worse: those awaiting trial for alleged crimes in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. They've been placed in "restrictive housing," a maximum-security designation.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) also cited the Post report in an April 22 floor speech against D.C. statehood. Alleging the city has been "essentially torturing inmates" for more than a year, Higgins said: "That is ultimately a violation of the 8th Amendment ... Is this what we can expect from a D.C. state?"
Both Bowser and Maloney "have refused the requests asked of them," according to Comer. A spokesperson for Maloney connected Just the News with an Oversight staffer, who has not responded, while Bowser's spokesperson has not responded.
A Department of Corrections spokesperson did not answer email questions and declined to speak on the record in a phone interview.
Staff for Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Warren, a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, did not respond to queries for an update on their efforts to get better treatment for the Jan. 6 defendants.
https://archive.ph/HnVzb https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/17/shawshank-for-january-6-detainees/
Shawshank for January 6 Detainees
The government argues the events of January 6 along with the defendants’ skepticism about the outcome of the 2020 election are evidence the accused are a threat to society.
By Julie Kelly May 17, 2021
“I’ve been in solitary confinement for a hundred days now and haven’t been convicted of any crime with no end in sight.”
https://archive.ph/5DHoT https:// theintercept. com/2021/05/17/military-pentagon-extremism-social-media/
PENTAGON PLANS TO MONITOR SOCIAL MEDIA OF MILITARY PERSONNEL FOR EXTREMIST CONTENT
The military has previously balked at surveilling service members for extremist political views due to First Amendment protections.
Ken Klippenstein May 17 2021, 8:25 p.m.
AS PART OF the Biden administration’s crackdown on domestic extremism, the Pentagon plans to launch a pilot program for screening social media content for extremist material, according to internal Defense Department documents reviewed by The Intercept, as well as a source with direct knowledge of the program.
An extremism steering committee led by Bishop Garrison, a senior adviser to the secretary of defense, is currently designing the social media screening pilot program, which will “continuously” monitor military personnel for “concerning behaviors,” according to a Pentagon briefing in late March. Although in the past the military has balked at surveilling service members for extremist political views due to First Amendment protections, the pilot program will rely on a private surveillance firm in order to circumvent First Amendment restrictions on government monitoring, according to a senior Pentagon official. Though the firm has not yet been selected, the current front runner is Babel Street, a company that sells powerful surveillance tools including social media monitoring software.
https://archive.ph/FdsvB https:// www. military. com/daily-news/2021/05/15/space-force-co-who-got-holiday-call-trump-fired-over-comments-decrying-marxism-military. html
Space Force CO Who Got Holiday Call from Trump Fired Over Comments Decrying Marxism in the Military
15 May 2021 Military. com | By Oriana Pawlyk
Lt Col. Matthew Lohmeier, commander of 11th Space Warning Squadron at Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado, was relieved from his post Friday by Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, the head of Space Operations Command, over a loss of confidence in his ability to lead, Military. com has exclusively learned.
"This decision was based on public comments made by Lt. Col. Lohmeier in a recent podcast," a Space Force spokesperson said in an email. "Lt. Gen. Whiting has initiated a Command Directed Investigation on whether these comments constituted prohibited partisan political activity."
Lohmeier told Wood, the podcast host, that the beginning chapters of his book explore the history and foundation of the United States and how critical race theory -- a study of how race and racism impact or are impacted by social and economic power structures and institutions -- plays a role.
"The diversity, inclusion and equity industry and the trainings we are receiving in the military ... is rooted in critical race theory, which is rooted in Marxism," Lohmeier said, adding it should be seen as a warning sign.
In the segment, Lohmeier said his book is not political, and is meant to alert readers to the increasing politicization of today's armed forces, some of which he said he'd seen or experienced firsthand.
More lefty freeze peach:
https://archive.ph/0qO01 https://kotakuinaction2.win/p/11SK2VrZJ8/adamserwer-started-happening-to-/c/
@AdamSerwer: 'started happening to people who share my beliefs, it’s entirely new' Katherine Cross: 'left-wing harassment stem from an honest principle'
https://archive.ph/oFaVu https://kotakuinaction2.win/p/12iNLSQl1d/contrapoints-becomes-pro-free-sp/c/
ContraPoints becomes pro free speech after "YouTube has age-restricted my video". Local Girondin very surprised Robespierre's Montagnards would betray her
https://archive.ph/qQcnF https://archive.ph/lcI5M https://kotakuinaction2.win/p/12iNio4jTw/pe-moskowitz-2019-book-the-case-/c/
PE Moskowitz 2019 book: "The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent" 2021: 'my college students are all terrified of saying the wrong thing and being cancelled...they're all communist-leaning, not conservatives. we have a real problem !!!!'
Jim Manico @manicode 4 Jun 2020
Large group of FBI agents (25) take a knee with protestors near the national archive.
https://archive.ph/dcEGi https:// www. foxnews. com/us/fbi-minneapolis-autonomous-zone-george-floyd-square-derek-chauvin-trial 19 Mar 2021 06:21:35 UTC
FBI to monitor Minneapolis 'autonomous zone' in George Floyd Square amid Derek Chauvin trial
'I'm putting them on notice. Enough's enough,' Minneapolis police chief says about dismantling the autonomous zone
By Danielle Wallace | Fox News
"The current situation at 38th and Chicago is unacceptable and will not and must not be tolerated," Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said at a press conference Wednesday, announcing that the FBI Minneapolis Field Office, U.S. Attorney's Office District of Minnesota, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), St. Paul Field Division have now pledged resources and support.
In 2019, there were three nonfatal victims of gunshot wounds. In 2020, that number increased to 18, Arradondo said, providing statistics to illustrate how grave the situation in George Floyd Square has grown. Regarding shot-spotter activations, in 2019, there were seven activations with about 33 rounds detected, he said. In 2020, there was 185 activations with over 700 rounds detected. That is an over 2,543% increase in activations and an over 2,161% increase in terms of the shots detected from 2019-20.
https://archive.ph/A4xdZ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9617755/Moment-30-gunshots-fired-near-George-Floyd-Square-anniversary-death.html
Moment terrified locals and live TV reporter run for cover as 30 gunshots are fired in parking dispute at Minneapolis' George Floyd Square on anniversary of his death
AP journalist Philip Crowther was shooting live video near the square when shots were heard about a block east of the intersection where he was posted Tuesday
By LAUREN FRUEN FOR DAILYMAIL. COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 13:20 EDT, 25 May 2021 | UPDATED: 16:24 EDT, 25 May 2021
Police said they responded to a reports of gunfire at about 10:10 a.m. at the 3800 block of Elliot Ave. South. Callers told police that a vehicle was seen speeding away from the area.
Soon after, someone went to Abbott Northwestern Hospital with a gunshot wound. The victim was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center and it's believed the injury is not life-threatening.
https://archive.ph/xPyQ0 https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-shots-fired-at-george-floyd-memorial-in-minneapolis
May 25, 2021 4:23 PM EST
BREAKING: Shots fired at George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis
A drive-by shooting appears to have been caught on live television at George Floyd's memorial Tuesday in Minneapolis, on the one year anniversary of his death.
Mia Cathell The Post Millennial
May 25, 2021 4:23 PM 3 Mins Reading
A drive-by shooting appears to have been caught on live television at George Floyd's memorial Tuesday in Minneapolis, on the one year anniversary of his death.
Gunfire was captured during ABC crew's live recording from George Floyd Square. ABC News multiplatform reporter Alex Presha was speaking to the camera when rounds can be heard fired in the background of the live report. "Down down down!" was shouted multiple times on-air.
Associated Press international affiliate reporter Philip Crowther was on the scene as he discussed police reform. He duck beneath the camera as others fled and hid.
A fellow reporter "just had her phone smashed because she took photos of a storefront hit by a bullet," Crowther reported half an hour later.
Another journalist was also robbed and told to never "come back to George Floyd Square." Minneapolis Star-Tribune videographer Mark Vancleave said he had his drone "taken by three dudes working 'security' about a block from 38th and Chicago this morning." That's when he was threatened, he wrote on Twitter.
"And by security I mean the Bloods crew," Vancleave added.
-
since 30 Jan 2020: internet "conspiracy theorists" knew about "Wuhan virus lab leak origin theory"
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for 16 months, lab leak theory gets thoroughly deboonked by media journaloids and soyentists as a "fringe", "false", "far right", "dismissed", "debunked", "extremely unlikely", "conspiracy theory"
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media journaloid hacks, soyentists, CIA, and Media Matters, all aligned with the same anti-Trump, anti-lab-leak message, pure coincidence
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17 May 2021, 16 months later, local NYT journaloid overlord deigns to allow the plebeian masses to speculate on "coronavirus lab leak theory"
Go fuck yourselves, you dirty, dirty smear merchants.
https://archive.ph/tD365 https:// www. bbc. com/news/blogs-trending-51271037
China coronavirus: Misinformation spreads online about origin and scale
By BBC Monitoring And UGC Newsgathering 30 January 2020
'Bioweapon' conspiracies
Another baseless claim that has gone viral online suggests the virus was part of China's "covert biological weapons programme" and may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Ben SmithVerified account @benyt 17 May 2021
A good attempt to depolarize the lab leak arguments
Ben SmithVerified account @benyt
@nytimes media columnist. Fireworks enthusiast. Formerly @buzzfeednews. Beats working for a living. Send me scoops: ben. smith @nytimes. com.
Brooklyn, NY nytimes. com Joined October 2007
https://archive.ph/y5kC0 https:// donaldgmcneiljr1954. vmedium. com/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-lab-leak-theory-f4f88446b04d
17 May 2021 17:04:31 UTC
How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Lab-Leak Theory*
Donald G. McNeil Jr. 6 hours ago·19 min read
For about a year, that was the general wisdom among science writers. The “lab-leak theory” migrated back to the far right where it had started — championed by the folks who brought us Pizzagate, the Plandemic, Kung Flu, Q-Anon, Stop the Steal, and the January 6 Capitol invasion. It was tarred by the fact that everyone backing it seemed to hate not just Democrats and the Chinese Communist Party, but even the Chinese themselves. It spawned racist rumors like “Chinese labs sell their dead experimental animals in food markets.”
China retorting to Trump administration nonsense with nonsense of its own — such as suggesting that U.S. military officers planted the virus during a visit to Wuhan in October 2019 — did not help.
__
https://archive.ph/qTDCO https:// www. cnet. com/features/how-the-coronavirus-origin-story-is-being-rewritten-by-a-guerrilla-twitter-group/
How the coronavirus origin story is being rewritten by a guerrilla Twitter group
The group, known as Drastic, has investigated, corrected, uncovered and agitated in a quest to uncover the pandemic's starting point.
Jackson Ryan April 15, 2021
Minutes after reading the abstract, he posted his find to Twitter, in a long tweet thread tagging members of a loosely defined group known as Drastic, a "Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19." The master's thesis had the potential to rewrite the origin story of the pandemic.
A majority of scientists and experts agree that the coronavirus emerged after jumping from a wild animal to humans somewhere in or around Wuhan, where the first cases appeared in 2019. The pathogen is believed to have lived most of its life inside a bat, before acquiring genetic mutations, potentially through another species, and infecting humans.
But an alternative theory posits that the pandemic began after SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, potentially the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A joint study by the World Health Organization and Chinese scientists in January and February 2021 considered this scenario "extremely unlikely." From the earliest days in the pandemic, it was represented as a conspiracy theory built on misinformation and fear.
But Drastic, and an increasing number of scientists, are convinced it requires further investigation.
In searching for the complete and naked truth surrounding the origins of COVID-19, this motley group of strangers has challenged the prevailing theories of the virus' beginnings by picking apart inconsistencies and trading data in the highly polarized theater of Twitter. This unorthodox approach has seen them branded by scientists and researchers as maniacs, thugs and conspiracy theorists. They've also been accused of racism, and their scientific credentials have been questioned.
On Twitter, where access to world-renowned scientists is just a click away, members of Drastic have targeted virologists and epidemiologists who refuse to engage with the lab leak theory, and they've even falsely accused some of working for the Chinese Communist Party. As a result, some scientists have understandably dismissed Drastic's findings and investigation out of hand.
But over the past year the group's discoveries have proven too important to ignore.
Part of the problem is that the origins story has become entangled in geopolitics and conspiracy. Bad actors have seized upon the lab leak theory for political gain, sometimes attempting to shift the blame for catastrophic failures in managing the pandemic. Instead of remaining a scientific debate, the origin story morphed into a political one. For instance, in March 2020, US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo began propagating the idea that SARS-CoV-2 may have leaked from a Wuhan lab. The lab leak became intertwined with Trump, foreign policy and the right. Deigin says Trump weighing in "poisoned" the discussion.
https://archive.ph/I1ZeW https:// www. mediamatters. org/martha-maccallum/fox-news-pushing-debunked-theory-origins-coronavirus
Fox News is pushing a debunked theory on the origins of the coronavirus -- again
WRITTEN BY MADELINE PELTZ PUBLISHED 02/19/20 11:24 AM EST
Two Fox News programs promoted a debunked theory about the origins of the coronavirus disease in Wuhan, China, echoing former White House adviser Steve Bannon and his billionaire benefactor Guo Wengui. The discredited speculation, which The Washington Post labeled a “fringe theory” and PolitiFact identified as “false,” posits that the coronavirus epidemic was engineered in a high-security laboratory housed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard Ebright told the Post that “based on the virus genome and properties there is no indication whatsoever that it was an engineered virus.”
https://archive.ph/bosEd https:// www. sciencemag. org/news/2020/02/scientists-strongly-condemn-rumors-and-conspiracy-theories-about-origin-coronavirus
Scientists ‘strongly condemn’ rumors and conspiracy theories about origin of coronavirus outbreak
By Jon CohenFeb. 19, 2020 , 7:00 AM
A group of 27 prominent public health scientists from outside China is pushing back against a steady stream of stories and even a scientific paper suggesting a laboratory in Wuhan, China, may be the origin of the outbreak of COVID-19. “The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins,” the scientists, from nine countries, write in a statement published online by The Lancet yesterday.
https://archive.ph/2Byk9 https:// www. nature. com/articles/d41586-020-01452-z
27 MAY 2020
The epic battle against coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories
Analysts are tracking false rumours about COVID-19 in hopes of curbing their spread.
Philip Ball & Amy Maxmen
Politics and scams
As the pandemic shifted to the United States and Europe, false information increased, says Donovan. A sizeable part of the problem has been political. A briefing prepared for the European Parliament in April alleged that Russia and China are “driving parallel information campaigns, conveying the overall message that democratic state actors are failing and that European citizens cannot trust their health systems, whereas their authoritarian systems can save the world.” The messages of US President Donald Trump and his administration are sowing their own political chaos. This includes Trump’s insistence on referring to the ‘Chinese’ or ‘Wuhan’ coronavirus and his advocacy of unproven (and even hazardous) ‘cures’, and the allegation by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the virus originated in a laboratory, despite the lack of evidence.
“We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” says The Lancet statement, which praises the work of Chinese health professionals as “remarkable” and encourages others to sign on as well.
https://archive.ph/ELNjU https:// www. scientificamerican. com/article/nine-covid-19-myths-that-just-wont-go-away/
Nine COVID-19 Myths That Just Won’t Go Away
From a human-made virus to vaccine conspiracy theories, we rounded up the most persistent false claims about the pandemic
By Tanya Lewis on August 18, 2020
Myth 1: The novel coronavirus was engineered in a lab in China. Because the pathogen first emerged and began infecting people in Wuhan, China, President Donald Trump has claimed—without evidence—that it started in a laboratory there. Some conspiracy theorists have even speculated it was engineered as a bioweapon, although U.S. intelligence agencies have categorically denied this possibility, stating that the intelligence community “concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.” No credible evidence has emerged to support an accidental lab release either. As Scientific American reported earlier this year, Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli—who studies bat coronaviruses and whose laboratory Trump and others had suggested was COVID-19’s source—compared the pathogen’s sequence against that of other coronaviruses her team had sampled from bat caves and found that it did not match any of them. Zhengli also explained in detail why her lab could not have been the source of the virus in a lengthy response in Science. In reaction to calls for an independent, international investigation into how the virus originated, China has invited researchers from the World Health Organization to discuss the scope of such a mission. But the evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 was not created in a lab.
https://archive.ph/T7VYD https:// apnews. com/article/debunked-coronavirus-myths-survive-212dfb8acbf8c759e869f8b391724873
Debunked COVID-19 myths survive online, despite facts
By AMANDA SEITZ and BEATRICE DUPUY December 17, 2020
MYTH: THE VIRUS WAS MAN-MADE
It was not.
Social media users and fringe websites weaved together a conspiracy theory that the virus was leaked — either accidentally or intentionally — from a lab in Wuhan, China, before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March. The falsehood was espoused by elected officials, including Trump.
The origins of the virus are far less scandalous: It likely originated in nature. Bats are thought to be the original or intermediary hosts for several viruses that have triggered recent epidemics, including COVID-19. U.S. intelligence agencies also concluded the virus is not man-made.
Yet the conspiracy theory continues to travel online, and made a resurgence in September when a Chinese virologist repeated the claim on Fox News.
https://archive.ph/jRYIw https:// www. denverpost. com/2020/12/18/covid-19-myths-debunked/
Here are 5 debunked COVID-19 myths that just won’t die
Misinformation about the coronavirus continues to proliferate online
By AMANDA SEITZ and BEATRICE DUPUY | The Associated Press
PUBLISHED: December 18, 2020 at 3:29 p.m. | UPDATED: December 18, 2020 at 3:39 p.m.
https://archive.ph/tD365 https:// www. bbc. com/news/blogs-trending-51271037
China coronavirus: Misinformation spreads online about origin and scale
By BBC Monitoring And UGC Newsgathering
30 January 2020
'Bioweapon' conspiracies
Another baseless claim that has gone viral online suggests the virus was part of China's "covert biological weapons programme" and may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Many accounts pushing the theory cite two widely-shared Washington Times articles both of which quote a former Israeli military intelligence officer for the claim.
However, no evidence is provided for the claim in the two articles, and the Israeli source is quoted as saying that "so far there isn't evidence or indication" to suggest there was a leak.
https://archive.ph/Wc9mL https:// www. bbc. com/news/world-asia-china-55996728
9 Feb 2021 22:53:01 UTC
Covid: WHO says 'extremely unlikely' virus leaked from lab in China
3 hours ago
International experts investigating the origins of Covid-19 have all but dismissed a theory that the virus came from a laboratory in China.
Peter Ben Embarek, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) mission, said it was "extremely unlikely" that the virus leaked from a lab in the city of Wuhan.
He said more work was needed to identify the source of the virus.
https://archive.ph/sVGcQ https:// www. bbc. com/news/world-52224331
Coronavirus: US and China trade conspiracy theories
By Shayan Sardarizadeh and Olga Robinson BBC Monitoring
26 April 2020
But a number of US politicians and commentators have also made unfounded claims about the origin of the virus.
Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson cited a study raising the possibility that the coronavirus "accidentally escaped from a lab in Wuhan".
And Republican senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz have both raised the same prospect.
Jeremy Konyndyk, who led the US government's response to the Ebola outbreak, tweeted in response to reports about an accidental lab leak: "The science doesn't preclude a lab origin but does indicate it's quite unlikely."
https://archive.ph/4Ti5Y https:// www. npr. org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident
Virus Researchers Cast Doubt On Theory Of Coronavirus Lab Accident
April 23, 2020·7:08 AM ET GEOFF BRUMFIEL, EMILY KWONG
"I will tell you, more and more, we're hearing the story," Trump said on April 15 of the theory that the virus came from labs in Wuhan.
But after corresponding with 10 leading scientists who collect samples of viruses from animals in the wild, study virus genomes and understand how lab accidents can happen, NPR found that an accidental release would have required a remarkable series of coincidences and deviations from well-established experimental protocols.
"All of the evidence points to this not being a laboratory accident," says Jonna Mazet, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Davis and director of a global project to watch for emerging viruses called PREDICT.
(restarted thread to fix title)
A good attempt to depolarize the lab leak arguments
Is to fire every worthless media Walter Duranty hack and soyentist clown.
https://archive.ph/Rc7bv https://mtracey.substack.com/p/as-new-evidence-emerges-for-covid
7 May 2021 20:43:49 UTC
As New Evidence Emerges For COVID "Lab-Leak" Theory, Journalists Who Screamed “Conspiracy” Humiliate Themselves
Michael Tracey 3 hr ago
The New York Times pulled a similar routine by parroting the “conspiracy theory” label, as though that’s the be-all-end-all and no further inquiry on the subject was required:
Unfortunately, I’ve received no reply from Alexandra Stevenson.
Ben SmithVerified account @benyt 17 May 2021
A good attempt to depolarize the lab leak arguments
Ben SmithVerified account @benyt
@nytimes media columnist. Fireworks enthusiast. Formerly @buzzfeednews. Beats working for a living. Send me scoops: ben. smith @nytimes. com.
Brooklyn, NY nytimes. com Joined October 2007
https://archive.ph/y5kC0 https:// donaldgmcneiljr1954. vmedium. com/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-lab-leak-theory-f4f88446b04d
17 May 2021 17:04:31 UTC
How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Lab-Leak Theory*
Donald G. McNeil Jr. 6 hours ago·19 min read
In early spring 2020, I reported an article for The New York Times on which I put the tentative headline: “New Coronavirus Is ‘Clearly Not a Lab Leak,’ Scientists Say.”
It never ran.
For two reasons.
The chief one was that inside the Times, we were sharply divided. My colleagues who cover national security were being assured by their Trump administration sources — albeit anonymously and with no hard evidence — that it was a lab leak and the Chinese were covering it up. We science reporters were hearing from virologists and zoologists — on the record and in great detail — that the odds were overwhelming that it was not a lab leak but an animal spillover.
Frankly, the scientists had more credibility.
The other reason my story never ran was that it was 4,000 words long and full of expressions like “polybasic cleavage site,” “RNA-dependent RNA polymerase gene” and “O-linked glycan shields.” Editors would open it, their eyeballs would bleed, and they would close it and find something else to do.
For about a year, that was the general wisdom among science writers. The “lab-leak theory” migrated back to the far right where it had started — championed by the folks who brought us Pizzagate, the Plandemic, Kung Flu, Q-Anon, Stop the Steal, and the January 6 Capitol invasion. It was tarred by the fact that everyone backing it seemed to hate not just Democrats and the Chinese Communist Party, but even the Chinese themselves. It spawned racist rumors like “Chinese labs sell their dead experimental animals in food markets.”
China retorting to Trump administration nonsense with nonsense of its own — such as suggesting that U.S. military officers planted the virus during a visit to Wuhan in October 2019 — did not help.
Two weeks ago, my former New York Times science news colleague Nicholas Wade wrote an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (and on Medium) arguing that the lab-leak theory deserves a harder look.
It has since been sent to me a dozen times with notes asking “What do you think?”
\My first reaction was dismissive, even though I very much respect Nick as a journalist.** (Some of his work is controversial and he can be cranky, but who am I to criticize anyone on those grounds?) I covered the pandemic from its earliest days and I disagreed with his retelling of how the leak-vs.-spillover debate began.
Also, I was offended by some aspects, such as his attacks on Dr. Anthony S. Fauci of the National Institutes of Health and Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, both of whom I have known for years; I know both are dedicated to saving lives, and they have always told me the truth — or what they honestly believed to be the truth at the time, because evidence sometimes changes. They are now both getting death threats, and that is repulsive.
And more and and more scientists feel misled.
I now agree with Nick’s central conclusion: We still do not know the source of this awful pandemic. We may never know. But the argument that it could have leaked out of the Wuhan Institute of Virology or a sister lab in Wuhan has become considerably stronger than it was a year ago, when the screaming was so loud that it drowned out serious discussion.
I had been skeptical of the “lab leak” theory because animal spillover is such an obvious answer. Genetics has proven that almost every disease mankind has faced jumped from animals: bubonic plague from rodents, measles probably from cows, whooping cough maybe from dogs, and so on.
Also, the leak idea was just too conveniently conspiratorial.
During those first days in Wuhan, a major misconception circulated — that the virus did not spread easily between people. The W.H.O. repeated it, so did we. But that was not necessarily deliberate misinformation. With the market closed, the epicenter had scattered a few dozen cases across a city of 11 million. Very few PCR tests existed, and it was the height of flu season. At such times, it’s hard to know who infected whom with what.