tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67092635408335499912024-02-19T11:59:10.099-05:00National NoticeNoticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-918428185237639502023-12-23T18:54:00.001-05:002023-12-23T19:06:30.138-05:00Are Our Prohibited Conversations Multiplying?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW-K3mv7kz0a6efc_vlIo7rcb7MiI96g3Cg572F0DPltpZaiqo8e8MZU4bWUNkFPh5TM0l197_ruz9EOMM1d8HERGXG9ZN1i08F5ayh6hxjUwIAarayxSMmsz9o16bC8KIRhi3yS_jWMa-qm2SkSpmUaHFFqXUhfENCsbm5Zlurc5-huWOAFQQzhdbBY9C/s2176/DontTalkAboutThat.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1567" data-original-width="2176" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW-K3mv7kz0a6efc_vlIo7rcb7MiI96g3Cg572F0DPltpZaiqo8e8MZU4bWUNkFPh5TM0l197_ruz9EOMM1d8HERGXG9ZN1i08F5ayh6hxjUwIAarayxSMmsz9o16bC8KIRhi3yS_jWMa-qm2SkSpmUaHFFqXUhfENCsbm5Zlurc5-huWOAFQQzhdbBY9C/w400-h288/DontTalkAboutThat.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Does it seem that our list of things we are not supposed to talk about is growing ever longer?<br /><br />I raise this for a few reasons I will explain in a moment. . . not because this is the season, that with the holiday dinners starting with Thanksgiving we get the inevitable advice columns about what to do when, as extended family members are brought together, our viewpoints clash. (These articles posit that some of your uncles might just be a little <i>`crazy’</i> when it comes to things you don’t really need to talk about.)<br /><br />Here’s one reason I’ve been thinking about what we are not supposed to talk about. The other day I went into Manhattan to participate in a demonstration. Arriving early, it wasn’t immediately apparent where things were going to be, so I started walking around looking. A veteran of quite a few demonstrations, my eagle eye caught a large bag– with the sides of collected foam boards peaking up out of it. It just had to be full of placards.<br /><i><br />“Is that for a demonstration?”</i> I asked the fellow standing beside it.<br /><br /><i>“Yes.”</i> he said, <i>“BUT, it’s a demonstration for . . . .”</i> Mentioning the demonstration.<br /><br /><i>“That’s the demonstration I’m looking for,”</i> I said, <i>“do you know where it’s going to be?”</i><br /><i><br />“I’m not sure. They might be assembling over there,”</i> he said indicating the block across the street. <br /><br /><i>“When you told me what the demonstration was for, why did you say ‘<u>BUT</u>’?”</i> I asked.<br /><i><br />“Because you are wearing that. . button,”</i> was his response. He actually said what kind of button I was wearing that he referred to, but because I want to discuss the principle here, I want to keep this abstract. He said that I must therefore be some kind of . . . The things he mentioned, I actually am not. I’m not even truly conversant with the details of what he might have been envisioning or why it would be viewed as incompatible by him. <br /><i><br />“Actually,”</i> I started to tell him why the button I was wearing might actually mean, not surprisingly, that showing up for the same demonstration, we might both of us be, at least mostly, or very much, on the same page about the important reasons why we both showing up. . . <br /><br />. . . I didn’t get very far. . .<br /><br /><i>“Don’t talk to me!”</i> he said.<br /><i><br />“If you’re here to win people over,”</i> I said, <i>“you should want to reach out to people.”</i><br /><br /><i>“Stop talking to me!”</i> He said.<br /><br /><i>“You’re putting yourself in a bubble, if you’re not willing to have conversations with people,”</i> I said.<br /><br />He covered his ears. <i>“If you keep talking to me, I’m going to scream,”</i> he said.<br /><br />I couldn’t believe it. Everything I was saying I was saying in a quiet, calm and polite voice. <i>“This is not the way to reach out to people and win them over,”</i> I said.<br /><br />It didn’t work. His ears still covered with both hands, the fellow started screaming, <i>“Stop talking to me! Stop talking to me!”</i> He screamed over and over again and he started walking around in circles. It was not a normal scream, but an exceptionally loud and full scream that I figured could probably be heard for at least the length of the block or more. <br /><br />There was nothing more to do. I slowly ambled away, shaking my head as I headed in the <i>“probable”</i> direction that the demonstration might form. As I did, I wondered what the woman who had been standing with this gentleman thought. Leaning against a building, she had remained impassive throughout our exchange.<br /><br />Our numbers quickly grew to a pretty good sized and easy to find demonstration. Presumably lost somewhere in the crowd, I never noticed the fellow again.<br /><br />It’s worthwhile to note that we were there for a cause that, far from being universally popular in this bleeding and forsaken world, sorely needs more converts to be effective in its aims.<br /><br />So I ask this: <i>Have we lost the ability to talk with one another?</i> Are certain topics, an increasing number of them, off limits to more and more people? I wonder. It’s not just topics that are off limits; it’s also <i>who</i> we are <i>not supposed</i> to talk to, or who we are <i>not allowed</i> to talk to. We’ve got a superfluity of categorizations of individuals related to setting up these limitations.<br /><br />It’s worse than that: Now sometimes the people we are not supposed to are people we shouldn’t talk to, because <i>those</i> people have, in turn, already talked to somebody that <i>they weren’t supposed to talk to</i>. We seem to be training ourselves to watch out for disqualifying <i>“associations.” “Guilt by association,”</i> is becoming a quick and ready time saving substitute for disqualifying who we can talk to as opposed to bothering to verify that their <i>“beliefs”</i> are actually dangerously at odds with our own.– And more and more, for other’s people’s beliefs not to be dangerous to own, the people we are willing to talk to have to believe almost everything we believe, rather than just some or most of the things we ourselves believe. <br /><br />If you are surprised at my harangue, here’s more about this that has fixated me in this wondering. At roughly the same time I went to that demonstration, I went to a <i>“Town Hall”</i> discussion about <i>“Free Speech and Censorship,”</i> instigated by journalist Matt Taibbi who is researching and writing about the subject. In a provocative mood, he was looking for advocates of censorship to discuss the topic with. He got some of the action he sought. The Town Hall was in Park Slope’s beautiful old Montauk Club.<br /><br />Taibbi has been directing his attention to copious documentation showing the United States government’s coordination with social media companies to achieve the censorship (in various ways) of information and viewpoints that the government doesn’t like. This includes censoring information and facts that are <i>true</i> but that the government doesn’t like because of the potential influence such <i>true information and facts</i> might have on people.<br /><br />Some of what has been subject to this kind of coordinated censorship involves quashing what should be considered political speech. Again, in order to stick with a focus on principle, I don’t want to get very specific about the appreciable list of topics this coordination was censoring, but suffice it first to say that, as can be readily guessed, the documentation shows that among things, the government doesn’t like is speech that is critical of the wars and military actions that the United States is engaged in or backing.<br /><br />Oh, and once again without being specific, that struggling cause we demonstrated for where the fellow covered his ears and screamed <i>“Stop talking to me”</i>? . . . . Promotion of that very same cause is one of the things our government and the social media companies are censoring strenuously.<br /><br />For purposes of all these coordinations, there are theoretically <i>good</i> points of view and <i>bad</i> beliefs, <i>good</i> guys, and <i>bad</i> guys. <br /><br />Taibbi began his Town Hall by referring back to 1989, when, in August, Milt Ahlerich of the FBI sent a letter to a small independent record label, Los Angeles's Priority Records setting forth a warning criticism of its distribution of the <i>“Straight Outta Compton”</i> album’s hip hop song, <i>“Fuck tha Police.”</i> The letter unacceptable to the FBI the lyrics protesting police brutality and racial profiling. Taibbi noted that, in 1989, this effort at government suppression of speech sparked outrage and that it was widely covered in the liberal media at the time. Then he noted that the government’s coordination to silence points of view it opposes are currently magnitudes greater, the same thing occurring regularly on an ongoing basis, thousands of times over. (Protest of police brutality and racial profiling is more acceptable since 1989, although maybe not to the FBI. It is still targeted for social media censorship.) <br /> <br />Taibbi noted that a vast number of people who consider themselves “liberals,” no longer seem to care, and have abandoned the notion that protecting free speech is still important. One might want to point out that the cause of free speech has been adopted by many on “the right,” except that, in an unprincipled way, when it is speech they don’t like, many on the right are insufficiently antiauthoritarian, and similarly promote censorship.<br /><br />Clearly, with some self selection, there were many in the Town Hall audience that night who sympathetically following along with the points Taibbi was making, but, there were also contrary views expressed. It was suggested that the public may need protection from hearing some kinds of information. There was the notion that when the government has determined that it’s needful for the public to think certain things or get behind certain actions it can be good to suppress true information if that true information may possibly interfere with manipulations to get the public in line. There was also the idea that the government and social media companies need to be on guard to protect sensitive segments of the population, probably mostly minority segments, about whom hateful, critical or perhaps even politically incorrect things might be said.<br /><br />Again, since I want to stick with thinking of these things in terms of principles, I want to steer clear of the specific suppressions and reason for them that were advocated to be condoned. . .<br /><br /> . . . However, we can note that with changes of fashion, and updates that have been urged for societal mores, some in attendance at the Montauk Club that evening hoped for regulating the social media companies into versions of political correctness that could ban lots of communications that used to be (so thoughtlessly?) commonplace in our very recent past.<br /><br />Midway through the evening, there was a fellow expressing a number of these views about how and why speech should be regulated. Maybe he was not for real? Maybe he was a theatrical student trying out a performance on us? After he expressed a number of these views, he said he was going to produce <i>“a wail”</i> for all the poor creatures who would be hurt and injured and maybe die, if they were not protected by a regulated internet. Then he began to produce the wail. Loud, it lasted for maybe the better part of a minute. He had good breath control. I thought of the fellow at the demonstration covering his ears. Then our wailer abruptly picked up and left the meeting, leaving behind a scribbled manifesto of his beliefs. <br /><br />The strongest thing said in favor censorship during the evening was the idea that <i>the internet has changed everything</i>, that we are no longer the same people we were before the internet, that, now, with the internet, everything is out of control in a way that makes free speech threatening in a way that it has never been threatening before. To me, rather than a brand new argument, this sounds like an age old argument, the age old argument that <i>“free speech”</i> is generally good, EXCEPT. . . EXCEPT, EXCEPT– Except for this war, except for that emergency, except for fighting communism, etc.<br /><br />And I am reminded who brought us the internet. It came out of the DARPA and the military. It may be that those who brought us the internet have always been ahead of the rest of us in many respects regarding its uses. Surveillance is certainly one of them.<br /><br />The internet has been the great disruptor. And as is the case with a great many rapid disruptions, much as the example disaster capitalism often furnishes, the seeming chaos of abrupt change reliably gets seized upon and taken advantage of by the power elite who are always alert as to how to amplify their interests.<br /><br />Is it possible that internet, or no internet, the real answers to what is right, wrong, or best for free speech are really still, basically the same as they’ve always been?. . That we are basically the same human beings we have always been . . .<br /><br />. . Or do we really suddenly have a world with which we can no longer cope?<br /><br />Have I given you enough explanation for why I am wondering about how verboten topics seem to have multiplied?<br /><br />I’ll give you another reason I am thinking about this. . .<br /><br />. . Someone senior up in the leadership of the church congregation to which I have long belonged disclosed to me recently that the leadership of the congregation has concluded that the congregation membership is <i>`not very good at handling conflict.’</i> Therefore potentially conflict-inducing subjects, difficult topics, need to be avoided. I won’t say who in the leadership told me this. I won’t specify which congregation. The latter is probably easy to look up anyway. Does it matter? I’ll wager this kind of assessment may be commonplace in congregations these days. – Some of the thinking seems to be that this helps the congregation <i>“grow”</i> – in numbers.<br /><br />I’ve never thought that coddling was religion’s role. I’m extremely wary of religion dictating the answers . . Still, I’ve always thought the work of religion is tackling tough questions to which we seek answers. “Seeking”— Did I use to think my own congregation had a good quotient of “seekers”? Our church’s history is resplendent with notables who didn’t hew to conventionality and valued exploration and curiosity.<br /><br />What does this conflict avoidance mean? Does it mean that congregation members talking to each other about the wrong topics has to be avoided? Indeed, maybe so– At least don’t facilitate such discussions.<br /><br />Even a topic such as the social injustice of censorship and the suppression of free speech may need to be avoided. . . <i>because of where it might lead?</i> So many social justice issues may have to be avoided, because they might be difficult; so let’s only discuss the few justice issues that everyone can safely agree about, which means perhaps those “issues” don’t really need to be thought about, or discussed much at all. . . . <i>unless</i> you are taking time out to pat yourself on the back.<br /><br />It generally means don’t rock the boat for powerful interests.<br /><br />And if discussion of issues that might induce conflict ought to be avoided by the congregants . . . if those exchanges of information and viewpoint amongst congregants can, in fact, be avoided. . <br /><br />. . Sermons can be delivered into the resulting void that more adroitly and expertly sidestep the awkward.<br /><br />There can be soothing sermons that purport to discuss the meaning of life, morality, and/or good and evil, while skirting big issues profoundly affecting most all of us. Sermons that can skip over our connections to many serious things going on in the world even as those things are life and death issues for the less fortunate.<br /><br />The hole in what doesn’t get sermonized about might lead to a certain blandness. Am I a crank to suggest it exalts moral flabbiness? If we aren’t wrestling with the difficult, is it easier to not stumble in concluding that we are “Okay” moral beings? MSNBC, to name just one network, similarly never upsets the apple cart for powerful interests– and it is also good at avoiding many significant topics while sending its audience away convinced that they are endowed with a certain righteousness. <br /><br />I am getting too contentious and I digress too far. The point is that I worry that as a general populace we are losing our ability to exchange ideas, to grow and learn by listening to <i>each other</i>. That leaves the lane wide open for our heads to be filled by the noise of the self-serving, harmful nonsense the corporately owned media continually pumps out. And the powers that be drive home the same messages of how we should shape out ideas via many other channels as well.<br /><br />If the populace is infantilized into incapacity, then those in power have no problem paternalistically stepping in to tell us what to think.<br /><br />Maybe part of the growth, potential adulthood involved in learning from one another, involves evolution where we might <i>change our minds</i> or develop thinking that’s more nuanced and complex?<br /><br /><i>`Changing one’s mind’</i>?: I am not sure whether that is necessarily regarded as either a good or a bad thing these days. . I mean in terms of the off-limits lists.<br /><br />. . . Recently, I had a long conversation at a wedding with a fellow guest who told that me that a certain prominent individual in the news these days was <i>“crazy”</i> and– <i>worst part</i>– notoriously <i>never changes his mind</i>, no matter that facts. When I walked into the Montauk Club’s room for Taibbi’s Town Hall, I found myself almost instantly involved with an individual, somebody there <i>on the side of free speech</i>, who told me that this exact same well known individual was <i>“crazy”</i> and not to be taken seriously, because we was <i>“always changing his mind”</i> so you could never know what that individual thinks.<br /><br />Personal confession: While I may hope that my principles aren't wavering hypocritically, there are important issues where my thinking has changed in some major ways. <br /><br />I am obviously not leaving you guessing: I am the side of conversing with people. Yes, whether or not they agree with me. The buttons I choose to wear announce my availability for such conversations. As you might have been able to easily tell from what I’ve written here, they lead me into a lot of great and very interesting conversations.<br /><br />Are you impatient with views that disagree with your own? Is it distressing when you get angry because others are disagreeing with you, or because others are angry with you because you disagree with them? I have friends who are tired of the headwinds they encounter respecting what they think are clearly mass delusions. They find themselves deciding to give up on talking to those who think differently.<br /><br />It’s oversimplifying and far from the entire answer, but patience is a virtue. And you don’t have to get angry even when someone is angry with you for disagreeing with them. . . Ask people <u><i>why</i></u> they hold the opinions they hold! They might surprise you with some interestingly valid answers. Or they might surprise themselves realizing that they don’t really know exactly why they have decided to think what they told you they think.<br /><br />Among others, I wear <i>“Don’t Sell Our Libraries”</i> buttons, which I’ve been regularly wearing for a long time. The beauty of those buttons is that almost everybody <i>agrees</i> with those buttons— It’s just that they often don’t know about <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2017/12/citizens-defending-libraries-main-page.html">the sale of New York City’s libraries</a>.- Because that’s one more thing the corporate press avoids covering.<br /><br />I’ve been wearing a <i>“Your Government is Lying to You”</i> button. It can startle people, maybe generate a chuckle, maybe a nervous one reflecting some unease about its implications. They might be unsettled about how to direct some possible anger. Nevertheless, most people find they can’t disagree with that button. <br /><br /><i>The buttons I choose</i> <i><u>are for getting into the conversations we are being trained not to have</u></i>.<br /><br />It seems to me that one of the best indicators of exactly what’s most important to talk about is what gets designating as off limits topics and what gets subjected to the most vigorous censorship. There is, of course, censorship that's straight out and vanilla in nature. There is also a greater range of what gets done to silence voices. What gets done includes silencing journalists: We can algorithmically suppress them; we can fire people, deplatform them; we cut them off from collecting funds; we can even imprison them, in some cases murder them; we can target them for execution, sometimes the executions can involve significant numbers of journalists; and, most awful, their family members may be targeted too. . . <br /><br />These are signals which should tell us to pay attention. . . and <i>where</i> to direct out attention.<br /><br />I am not going to get specific about the buttons that I’ve been wearing that are most likely to provoke disagreement. That’s again, for the purpose of keeping this abstract for a focus on principle, but those buttons present subjects that have been made controversial largely because the establishment can be so desperately energetic when trying to keep certain viewpoints down to a minority.<br /><br />I will, nonetheless, specifically mention that I’ve been wearing <i>“Peace”</i> buttons. (<i>“<a href="https://brooklynpeace.org/">Brooklyn For Peace</a>”</i> is a good source of them.) One might hope <i>“peace”</i> wouldn’t be controversial, but recently, I’ve found it important to include more <i>“Peace”</i> buttons amongst those I’ve been wearing. It’s odd, but <i>“Peace”</i> buttons are escalating into the most controversial of the conversation starting buttons one can wear.<br /><br />People, no doubt, are often ready to think that <i>“peace,”</i> abstractly speaking, is a good thing. At the same time they can fret that <i>“peace”</i> can be a problem when if you might be opposed this or that particular new war. Why? Because inevitably, our government promotes our current wars as necessary and good. And, inevitably, it can take time for a lot of us to catch on our government’s latest lies.<br /><br />We may sing about <i>“peace,”</i> during the holiday season, but please let us shun the idea of talking about particular wars that need to be ended to bring peace about.<br /><br />I’ll end by reiterating the question I started with: <i>Does it seem that our list of things we are not supposed to talk about is growing ever longer?</i><br /><br />Hmm, if so, are we, <i>through self-censorship</i>, handing over the formulation and structuring of our narratives to others?<p></p>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-48360728008619071312023-04-01T00:01:00.012-04:002023-04-02T19:03:48.655-04:00Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now, And Rachel Maddow, of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, In Talks About Merging Their Broadcasts<p></p><blockquote><i><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoVi4D3ZXXWiVujlILZYMW0ONLnjhx4WVZqUWwSEO3zDLTVie6nYOtDv26NoSep09OuuLaIlDph4mEHseGeGXEl1ofMzdKVr-33MRN5nx-s-DrZDNGwEVfK4DTmQm8IBm_H40Q4rNjxSWzH63aV6B0BGB7jgfMRBxoPw7RCYoIl4kabYCxESIHZBArTg/s1588/Goodman%20Maddow%2003.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="888" data-original-width="1588" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoVi4D3ZXXWiVujlILZYMW0ONLnjhx4WVZqUWwSEO3zDLTVie6nYOtDv26NoSep09OuuLaIlDph4mEHseGeGXEl1ofMzdKVr-33MRN5nx-s-DrZDNGwEVfK4DTmQm8IBm_H40Q4rNjxSWzH63aV6B0BGB7jgfMRBxoPw7RCYoIl4kabYCxESIHZBArTg/w400-h224/Goodman%20Maddow%2003.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amy Goodman left, Rachel Maddow right<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />It’s not like `continental drift’ although there is a `drift’ to be gotten, . . . and it is drift on a truly monumental scale. People talk about `watching grass grow’ or ‘watching paint dry’ when they talk about things happening slowly so as to go unnoticed. `A watched pot doesn’t boil,’ but when your tea kettle starts whistling, you know that something’s happened.</i></blockquote>These are the words of Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman letting the cat out of the bag about her talks with Rachel Maddow about <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1633129336575258624">merging their shows</a> based on the things they increasingly have more in common. Goodman seems very happy to be the one giving the exclusive <i>`cat out of the bag’</i>- or is it <i>`trial balloon’</i>?- interview. <br /><br /><i>“Look,”</i> says Goodman, <i>“change is part of life.” </i> Goodman seems more relaxed than usual, as though allowing herself to wax philosophically this way is allowing her to speak her thoughts more truthfully in a liberating way. She continues:<br /><blockquote><i>Yes, change is part of life. It was when Rachel was doing Air America radio with Al Franken as a “left–wing,” albeit poorly funded, counter to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, that people got to know who she is. That was then.</i> [2004] <i>Now she, like us, has regular headlines that track well with the lead you can get from the New York Times. Rachel, us, and also pretty dependably the New York Times, we’re true blue behind the powerful narratives of the Democratic Party. When I say that those narratives are powerful, I don’t mean that they are inspiring or attuned to the populace, or to the directions for leadership our populace may yearn and hunger for, what I mean is the power of Democratic party coming from the corporations that the party aligns with and, of course, coming from Wall Street. It’s those alignments that give the selective narratives of the party extraordinary force as they are deployed and can be insisted on. And I am very happy about the whole identity politics thing. </i></blockquote>If, with some migration of platforms, Democracy Now and the Maddow show are going to merge, the reason for their discussion of the possibility is the growing commonality of themes.<br /><br />Goodman points out that the nation’s had an era where the awfulness of Donald Trump made it easy to find common ground, <i>“I mean Donald Trump’s awfulness was so important, that you didn’t need to pay attention to really anything else.”</i> And, she points out there have been a lot of things tying into Donald Trump’s awfulness that were consequently easy to agree on: Russiagate and the way that Russians are nefariously interfering to make this country worse and make Trump more dangerous, January 6th and the way we have to stop insurrectionists from taking away our democracy, which we are realizing really needs to be revered (<i>“January 6th sort of taught me that word `insurrectionist’ and got me thinking about it, before then I doubt I’d thought to know what it meant– did you know it’s right out of the constitution?- Though no law </i><i>under </i><i> it yet”</i>- interjects Goodman parenthetically), the way we have to censor hate speech (including anything an insurrectionist or any of those election deniers might have to say, and then there’s need to regulate speech in our social media Town Squares so that people don’t get depressed by conversational downers.<br /><br />Goodman sips her green tea and goes on: <i>“Rachel is very much against hate speech,”</i> she says, <i>“she’s a firm counter the bad kind of hate speech we both deplore.”</i> Blowing on her tea, she continues:<br /><blockquote><i>We are also aligned by being both on the right side of those divisive cultural issues that the Trump presidency made even easier to checklist for future segment coverage. Thank God Trump changed his position on abortion, thankfully 180 degrees, before taking on his role as a supremely obnoxious president, otherwise it could have been confusing!<br /><br />We were also both perfectly aligned on the Covid narrative thing: "Wear a mask, wear <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/2/18/nermeen_shaikh_10_year_anniversary_co"><u>two</u> masks</a>," we told our Democracy Now audience, "<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/2/17/work_wont_love_you_back_jaffe">it’s an</a> <u><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/7/us_foreign_election_interference_allan_nairn">act of love</a></u>.' (We didn’t get to adding the eye visor thing, but thought about it.- Oh<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/2/17/work_wont_love_you_back_jaffe"> maybe we did</a>) While Rachel was <a href="https://youtu.be/qWLc8dHW0T4?t=53">beautifully firm and emphatic</a>: "Now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person."!<br /><br />The whole Covid thing, the crazy need for lock-downs meant there were a lot of fearful things, numbers and statistics to tumble out before the public in a stream; for a while Democracy Now even changed its mantra slogan from "the war and peace report? to the "quarantine report." When it comes to history and wars waged, history, when it doesn’t repeat itself, at least rhymes.<br /><br />But that Covid fear and what to do about it, that’s another thing where we both agreed about how important it was to be saying the right thing and make sure that people were not allowed to say the wrong thing– That Joe Rogan! Talk about people <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap2r6fGGLUU">who need to be stopped in their tracks</a> with a dose of good old healthy censorship and centrally managed social opprobrium- Imagine saying good things about the <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1484573570936233986">`horse paste’ Ivermectin</a>, </i></blockquote><p> Mentioning Rogan and Ivermectin Goodman wrinkles her nose in disgust.</p><i><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOgHEjfHwcd4XGdKTeX07-hP1S2wVL6867M6tIN_JPWJUXkagUbJr1PSSmhwAfQui5_G6IpKSyLhHUeCxTEB-lsN8Y7q_aV9BN1PKqzwJU9Huw1K2JOQ6QLMS2NmoDPtG7QDNFp5NYqDBg8zs_SXVtMFsb20Pn152EiDN_tICvmfVWn7QXp5UBBxGAlw/s1804/Goddman%20and%20Maddow%2001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="888" data-original-width="1804" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOgHEjfHwcd4XGdKTeX07-hP1S2wVL6867M6tIN_JPWJUXkagUbJr1PSSmhwAfQui5_G6IpKSyLhHUeCxTEB-lsN8Y7q_aV9BN1PKqzwJU9Huw1K2JOQ6QLMS2NmoDPtG7QDNFp5NYqDBg8zs_SXVtMFsb20Pn152EiDN_tICvmfVWn7QXp5UBBxGAlw/w400-h198/Goddman%20and%20Maddow%2001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />“We still have significant differences, Rachel’s show and mine”</i> says Goodman, <i>“so I don’t know where that takes us.”</i><br /><br />She mulls:<br /><blockquote><i>Rachel is more provincial, addressing herself more specifically to what riles Americans living locally in this country, more specifically, her kind of Americans. Democracy Now has an increasingly worldwide audience and worldwide sensibility, for instance, Rachel hasn’t caught up to match me with things like my guttural pronunciations, like when I say“Afghanistan,” or introduce my co-host Nermeen Shaikh. It just isn’t her style, and we can’t expect it.<br /><br />But Democracy Now can’t leave its worldwide audience behind it. If this thing is going to happen, we have to take that worldwide audience along with us in the merger. We at Democracy Now, also spend more time feeling for the victims in this world, which is not exactly the way Rachel likes to keep the energy up, especially when those victims come from far-flung places in the world that Americans have rarely heard of. When the time comes, we at Democracy Now are better positioned to do truly convincing ‘worthy victim’ stories.<br /><br />Some things are going to be very problematic. Democracy Now was originated out of, was incubated out of WBAI, out of the Pacific network of station. We are still carried on that family of stations, still with a reasonably hefty listenership. We’ve established ourselves and Pacifica has cast its lot reporting, with a fair amount of honesty, about the Israeli state’s vile and horrendous treatment of Palestinians. That honesty, on our part and many other Pacifica carried programs, has been determinative in the loss of a certain appreciable amount of funding for Pacifica. Unlike perhaps some other things, that’s something where we can’t now leave our audience behind by backtracking or denying our core DNA. . . <br /><br /> . . But you can imagine what a problem this would be for Rachel. Even if our meld is only accomplished by doing back-to-back shows that could be a toxic proximity for her. The solution, if the time comes, may be to take our cue from her. She deep-sixes those kinds of stories and that kind of reporting. So you also don’t hear anything about our U.S. Saudi Yemen war from her.— Out of sight is out of mind. What we could do, and might do, is just move all of out Israel/Palestine reporting and coverage to our web edition special section. There it would be invisible to the kind of audience that never looks for that kind of thing and justifiably still there for the kind of audience that still does. You know we are all in our individual bubbles these days. So you always have to remember to think in those terms.</i></blockquote>It causes Goodman to sigh.<br /><blockquote><i>But merging these shows is meant to take us counter to that bubble thing. Instead of isolating bubble thinking, we’ll have more people thinking the same things when we get our shows together. But we can’t move too fast. Our audience has to move with us. We do polling and focus groups to make sure we don’t get too far out in front of them. We are alert for feedback. And, for instance, at Democracy Now we’ve recently had to go back and do some stories to illustrate that we are still anti-war and ant-US imperialism, like what’s expected of us from our past. Like, for instance, with that particular segment of the audience that still listens to us on Pacifica stations, those we haven’t yet pulled away to listen to us just through the disintermediation of <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-to-listen-to-democracy-now-mind.html">our multiple internet platforms</a>, it can a bit jarring right now if our content is too different from other Pacifica shows. <br /><br />We want to be on the same page with Rachel and crew about things like the Ukraine war</i>, [Goodman catches herself and doubles back]. . <i>The `Russian provoked’ Ukraine war</i>, [she emphasizes]<i>, but our audience can get a little unnerved by the idea we are on the brink of possible nuclear annihilation of the world and wonder if we really are still sincerely for peace enough if we are to expect them to keep following us where we go. An easy way to offer reassurance, like we just did, is to use the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war, ahem, U.S. invasion of Iraq, and reiterate where we stood on that twenty years ago. The past is a place where you can anchor the trust you hope to keep getting in the future. So people will keep following into whatever Heraclitian storms may toss us on the waves in that future.<br /><br />Look, I believe that `in solidarity there is strength.’ For progressivism to win, we have to be rowing in the same direction. When we marched into wars, the Democrats were once thought of as the anti-war party. Now we have two war parties, but it’s clear that the Democrats are now taking the lead. The Republicans have a few isolationists who are against our bringing democracy-enhancing regime change to other countries. . . The name of our show is Democracy Now, something to remember, when we try to keep our bearings. </i></blockquote>The interview can’t end without posing one obvious question: <i>Why not PBS or NPR instead</i>? Goodman smiles, shaking her head as if disappointed with the quality or lack of perspicacity of such a question, even if it might be obligatory and expected as inevitable. Goodman speaks slowly and deliberately:<br /><blockquote><i>Merging our audience with PBS or NPR wouldn’t be any kind of achievement. PBS and NPR are already where Rachel and her show are, which is to say, aligned with The Washington Post and New York Times, but PBS and NPR are selling the audience the idea that they are the thinking man’s version and the cultured man’s of media consumption. That pose already successfully siphons audience, say from Pacifica, when the audience is looking for better production values along not so obvious and time-consuming commercials that you get with `commercial’ broadcasts. But sliding over there wouldn’t be an achievement. Because it’s sort of contrary to their brand, PBS and NPR don’t fish for audience indignation, including the Red Team, Blue Team variety of indignation, the way that Rachel and I do,– not so overtly– Rachel does it with her raised-to-the-sky eyebrow and cocked neck, while I put it in my voice. I can do it with slight variations in my tone and I also pick words to drawl out more slowly. Moreover, we at Democracy Now do subtle, not quite subliminal, editorializing with our interspersed music segments, something Rachel doesn’t do. Bringing our audience to MSNBC with skillful drifting would be a much more real achievement. </i></blockquote>One last question to Goodman (but is it too rude?): <i>And the true “achievement” to be aspired to might also be inextricably associated with handsome recompense?— Doesn’t Rachel Maddow get paid <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/maddow-deal-30-million-2024/">something like $30 million a year</a> counting salary and regular bonuses?</i> Goodman simply smiles.<br /><br />Democracy Now and The Rachel Maddow Show are not merging broadcasts just yet. This <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/search/label/April%201st">April 1st</a> interview with Goodman was just to preview how it’s being <i>talked about</i>. Goodman was specific that if it happens it could be a year from now, say next <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/search/label/April%201st">April 1st</a>, or two years from now on the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/search/label/April%201st">April 1st</a> after that.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUol_1A0Er1ARC560fL4WGqabREX3cVBlyiJZL1Seufk1IoF__cvPy3_wRrad_JWbAuWOOLMt82hF09x8xbiCSzwtwu_dshPgxE539TwJ5mWH7wHDL0FY1RxqgTptmeak1I3y0a9_3xdCc6rR7mwzp0xvISZoUOJHtqHdaaWeFQhmU_cIhYDVFrjRlNA/s1696/Goddman%20and%20Maddow%2002.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="888" data-original-width="1696" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUol_1A0Er1ARC560fL4WGqabREX3cVBlyiJZL1Seufk1IoF__cvPy3_wRrad_JWbAuWOOLMt82hF09x8xbiCSzwtwu_dshPgxE539TwJ5mWH7wHDL0FY1RxqgTptmeak1I3y0a9_3xdCc6rR7mwzp0xvISZoUOJHtqHdaaWeFQhmU_cIhYDVFrjRlNA/w400-h210/Goddman%20and%20Maddow%2002.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-66606031640358619412022-07-04T00:01:00.001-04:002022-07-04T00:01:00.201-04:00The Fourth of July- Quashing The Independence of Other Countries Day!- What We Now Celebrate: Enough Said?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4Jy_FlbmJi-Bbtpdr8ZbCtIrk6DAY3fDvLv6yrV6JOx2uMB9jCdnWIHASQNhVCyJLOkw-RtZwLUTFWbZ_OnpwjxfKz50x034qxtLQ8hTVsFa5fcjRvBBdO6ml0cth3DcClo70hPnvCH2/s1543/US-Fourth-Flag-Animated.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="1543" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4Jy_FlbmJi-Bbtpdr8ZbCtIrk6DAY3fDvLv6yrV6JOx2uMB9jCdnWIHASQNhVCyJLOkw-RtZwLUTFWbZ_OnpwjxfKz50x034qxtLQ8hTVsFa5fcjRvBBdO6ml0cth3DcClo70hPnvCH2/w400-h211/US-Fourth-Flag-Animated.gif" width="400" /></a></div><p> </p>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-2747177958592070032022-04-01T00:01:00.001-04:002022-04-01T00:01:00.193-04:00Attaining A New Level of Global Nuclear Weapons Security, Weapons Will Be Purchased For Transfer Away From Belligerent Countries To New Private Peace Keeping Consortium<p><i></i></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRwoKm9o10ZsyOpeHsCkB0cPzD1i5LhYgzKO1klgTXCsY7i_iDlSOUkI4t2w-jSeWnUpxSsON21KW3XJxe1s5RuTUNRLjWiLrtuEoKdvzzOQwlz9zoo8_PCLF5sfdt-Rgw1YJqfqBkhAOl2Xf_q2he9_WVtj_slW9nZHnMZevJZFqlMvq4TC9ifV4S6g/s1629/FourGuysWithBombBezosGatesMuskZuck2022-03-30_164549.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1141" data-original-width="1629" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRwoKm9o10ZsyOpeHsCkB0cPzD1i5LhYgzKO1klgTXCsY7i_iDlSOUkI4t2w-jSeWnUpxSsON21KW3XJxe1s5RuTUNRLjWiLrtuEoKdvzzOQwlz9zoo8_PCLF5sfdt-Rgw1YJqfqBkhAOl2Xf_q2he9_WVtj_slW9nZHnMZevJZFqlMvq4TC9ifV4S6g/w400-h280/FourGuysWithBombBezosGatesMuskZuck2022-03-30_164549.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Four Bien Guys Peace Project: Bezos, Zukerberg, Gates and Musk<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><i><br />“Blessed are the peacemakers”</i> is what the Bible’s New Testament tells us Jesus told his assembled flock in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:9): <i>“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”</i> Blessed once were also the <i>“Peacekeepers,”</i> missiles made by Martin Marietta, the LGM-118 being the most modern ICBM in the United States Air Force inventory (designed primarily for nuclear weapons delivery- one or more thermonuclear warheads, third-generation) for almost 20 years before it was retired in 2005 as a result of arms reduction treaties.<br /><br />Once we had nuclear weapons called <i>“Peacekeepers”</i>; Now its time for all the nuclear weapons on our earth to all to be called the <i>“Peacemakers,”</i> because that’s what their new owners have decided they will all be renamed upon transfer of title. And this will signify the purpose of a new plan being executed to attain a new maximum level of procured global nuclear weapons security. Heretofore, nuclear weapons have all been very undependably held by various belligerent countries, holding those devices out of fear and hostility towards one another. But this is an inherently dangerous situation and, as recent years have made clear, few things are as unstable as the governments of all the countries across the world, basically each and every one of them: Any madman can be elected to head almost any one of them. (Let’s leave out the word <i>“almost.”</i>)<br /><br />Moreover, there is another problem: Nuclear weapons like ICBMs fly through outer space. As everyone knows, the space race and space exploration has been taken over by the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, and their private companies who, for their purposes of being in outer space in the first place, want serenity and order in our starry skies. Who wants a belligerent nation’s ICBM whizzing past their telecommunications satellite? Or zooming within impact zones of their lower altitude hovering (LEO- “Low Earth Orbit”) <i>“internet of all things”</i> 5G tracking monitors? <br /><br />And things have gotten dangerously worse: The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 set outer space aside for peaceful purposes. For decades, it precluded any nation from deploying weapons in space or waging war there. But, much to the consternation of other nations, including China and Russia, the United States <a href="https://fair.org/home/we-would-be-opening-the-heavens-to-war/">walked away from the treaty</a> even as Trump launched <a href="https://fair.org/home/karl-grossman-on-space-force-evan-greer-on-net-neutrality-cyber-fraud/">Space Force</a>, a new branch of the U.S. military specifically to fight in outer space. <br /><br />To people like Bezos and Musk, and to their friends who think like them, Bill Gates and Mark Zukerberg most specifically, the answer for the world was simple, basically more of the same that came with privatizing space flight: <i>“Why share?”</i> If the heavens are to be privately theirs for all other purposes of regular space frontier dominance, why share any last lick of the heavens for the potential destructive interference of weapons flying through the stratosphere and beyond, maybe catastrophically even leaving behind the clutter of exploded debris that would be impossible to deal with? <i>“If the orbit of our planet is filled with a debris field,”</i> says Musk, <i>“it will be impenetrable and we will never be able to leave earth to go elsewhere as should be humanity’s destiny.”</i><br /><br />The answer was not to put the nuclear arms industry out of business (potentially unending the world’s economies), but to expand and bring the weapons under private ownership. For this purpose a new peace keeping or peace making consortium has been formed by a small group of four Big tech colossuses, Musk, Bezos, Gates and Zuckerberg. Into this private consortium will be conveyed all the world’s nuclear weapons. These four men are four of the ten wealthiest men <a href="https://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2022/01/upward-transfer-of-wealth-alert-upward.html">who just doubled their wealth</a> during Covids’ two years. As these four are taking the lead for the public’s benefit here, they are naming the consortium the Four-Bien Guys Project. (<i>“Bien”</i> is French, a not too foreign word for <i>“good.</i>”) <br /><br /><i>“It’s a natural next step for private ownership,”</i> says Bill Gates who has been <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/07/08/bill-gates-global-health-policy/">privatizing</a> the worldwide health delivery schema along with worldwide thought patterns about it, while buying up farmland to become the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/2021/01/14/americas-biggest-owner-of-farmland-is-now-bill-gates-bezos-turner/?sh=4d1c8b2c6096">biggest owner</a> of it in the United States. Gates amplified:<p></p><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Since governments are increasingly less dependable, corporations are increasingly taking things into their own hands in other areas, privatization of intelligence agency work, private military forces, schools, etc. <br /><br /> Nuclear weapons are just another subset of science, which, as you see with medicine, pharma, the private ownership of the internet and most of the electronic technology that serves us, plus all the patent joint-venturing investments of our universities, has all been privatized already.– The arc of history is long, but it bends toward privatization. It bends toward neoliberalism. It bends toward `liberalism’ actually-- I don’t know why we have to put that “neo” in before the word, except to assure conservatives that what we are talking about is actually compatible with, and essentially what they also believe in.</i> </blockquote>The four guys said that they will be calling in their chits with other oligarches around the world to make sure the plan happens with the necessary responsiveness from– not naming any names- <u><i>all</i></u> their respective countries. <br /><br />Bezos and Zukerberg both say that they feel at ease with their assumption, via the consortium, of responsibilities that, before transfer, once had a military flavor. Bezos pointed out that he built up the gigantism of his entire Amazon empire based on skillful and knowledgeable use of the internet and that his maternal grandfather and mentor, Lawrence Preston Gise was one of those who, <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2018/11/interesting-to-think-that-it-all-began.html">at DARPA</a> launched and set the internet in motion, plus, he said, he was now doing a lot of work with the CIA and also acquired and owns a newspaper that is one of the most important in the country for telling American what to think about USA’s military conflicts. Zukerberg noted that the nuclear weapons sharing under NATO was certainly a foremost means by which such weapons were deployed throughout the world and that he had a lot of experience and was very comfortable working with NATO’s Atlantic Council think tank <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2018/05/coming-june-1st-forum-second-where-do.html">to regulate</a> Facebook sharing and news popularity and permissions on the platform. <br /><br />The weapons will be paid for. Title to the weapons will transfer to the consortium at the very outset, whereupon their renaming as <i>“Peacemakers”</i> will take place, but payments will be made over an extended period, which may or may not be keyed to the time frame during which the weapon’s incorporated isotopes are expected to remain radioactive. A loan will be provided to the Four-Bien Project Consortium by the Fed.<br /><br />The U.S. Space Force and all its employees will also be simultaneously transferred to the consortium. Gates said, “we need them to feel secure in space and these days we can only depend on ourselves to make sure they get paid.” Commanding the Space Force after transfer will be Comdr. Newt Rippley who has expressed assurance that experiences resulting from the privatizations will be good. <br /><br />The various governments of the world have agreed to pay (or as the case may be, will be required to pay) to the consortium a caretaking fee. But, while the agreed upon and the to-be-specified amounts are more than enough to pay the loan, Gates is not sure that payments can always be expected to come in on time: <i>“If governments were that dependable, we wouldn’t have to step into so many situations continually to take over.”</i> He says that taking care of nuclear materials is also very expensive and could take thousands of years.<br /><br />Because humans lack longevity and are not exactly so perfect for the job, keeping the weapons will be turned over to robots and there is fanfare about this as an opportunity to unroll the most start-of-the-art AI, that will also apply to clear algorithms about <i>how</i> and <i>when</i> and <i>what</i> would apply if there is ever a question of whether any weapons needed to be used. This is one reason Gates was solicited as a principal to participated in the consortium. <i>“This is really most desirable”</i> says Bezos of the robots, <i>“because, after all, who would want just a few oligarchs deciding what is best when it comes to matters that concern the fate of the entire world.– No, says Gates, we will be keeping ourselves out of these decisions.”</i><br /><br />So <i>“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the divine children of our gods.”</i> A memorandum of understanding to effect the plan is being signed today, <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/search/label/April%201st"><i>April 1st</i></a>, with a consummation date for full transfer specified as one year from today, also <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/search/label/April%201st"><i>April 1st</i></a>.<p></p>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-90424073966516440342022-02-12T15:46:00.006-05:002022-02-12T18:29:47.842-05:00Government Covid Policies Are Doing A Great Job of Dividing The “Progressive” Left, Making It The “Anti-vaxers” vs. The “Faithful Pfizerite Fauci Followers.”<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmPACguZMzDS7bNwEjXecYzagPJdoJEBJWqwnEOTgqanzXoCGNOhB68VxjRloFHzOZMBzkw6b4cBDPCflHOrDFwuXpiaX1u7Ym6M13dG7T6r9c2SFH38_BwFOY_JQNn1NsNa4N6Q3MVUnvy3Z7PeQm-N446IFAaYf5q9eGwOukz03qSCyemLgzN5wH8A=s2090" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1410" data-original-width="2090" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmPACguZMzDS7bNwEjXecYzagPJdoJEBJWqwnEOTgqanzXoCGNOhB68VxjRloFHzOZMBzkw6b4cBDPCflHOrDFwuXpiaX1u7Ym6M13dG7T6r9c2SFH38_BwFOY_JQNn1NsNa4N6Q3MVUnvy3Z7PeQm-N446IFAaYf5q9eGwOukz03qSCyemLgzN5wH8A=w400-h270" width="400" /></a></div><br />Maybe you’ve been noticing this too?: How vaccination mandates and government Covid policy, accompanied by barbs all over the place about <i>“misinformation,”</i> is doing a great job of dividing what we’ve considered the progressive left. Now what <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%40NatNotice%20Pfizerite&src=typed_query">we get</a> is the so-called <i>“Anti-vaxers”</i> vs. the <i>“Faithful Pfizerite Fauci Followers,”</i> even though most who are <i>“anti-mandate”</i> or even who have questions about these particular (EUA- <i>“Emergency Use Authorization”</i>) vaccines aren’t exactly always 100% <i>“anti-vax,”</i> and even though the <i>“Fauci Followers”</i> of the left, however <i>faithful</i> they are at the moment, usually distrust Big Pharma and official government information. Whew!<br /><br />Why is the left always so good at getting divided and conquered? Or maybe it’s just that there are people out there who are more intent on seeing that kind of division get done <i>to the <u>left</u></i><u> </u>than to any other group! Basically, if you’re paying attention, dividing and conquering the public is a long-standing tradition in this country. Those who have an interest in doing so can best be described as the power elite. Oh yes, and if you want to know where the <i>power</i> is, <i>money</i> is pretty measure of where it resides.<br /><br />The potent presence of this new fracturing force (is there no end to Covid’s ills?) really hit home for me when I heard about how government policy over mandates is probably going to break up New York State’s Green Party this year, perhaps pretty much wipe it out of existence- We’ll see. Will that <i>“third”</i> party fade so entirely in New York so as to become just a ghostly relic of an alternative to the corporate duopoly that people once held significant hope for? <br /><br />But then, after thinking about the Green Party, I realized that we are seeing this fracturing in various ways all over what has been traditionally been considered the progressive left. Did you think that the way that people were holing up and sequestering during Covid was anti-social enough?; well now people are walking away from age-old relationships over this. In some cases, it’s like they don’t even recognize the very basic principles that once steadfastly connected them. <br /><br />What, no possibility for a united middle ground here if the two sides were dialoguing?<br /><br />Maybe not. If not, the issues of government handling of Covid and the corporate media blasting those polices non-stop into the culture are doing a truly superb job of weakening and annihilating coalitions that were already comparatively weak, poorly populated, and ineffective in trying to deal with the pervasive corporatism dominating society. <br /><br />I could observe that between these two sides, one side might be a little more open minded and have a better, more tolerant understanding of the other’s point of view and its origins, while saying, conversely, that other side may be more prone to shutting down dialogue and information exchange, and it may be a side much more prone to argue for or to demand censorship and to advocate for a totalitarian treatment of others. One side in this debate is <i>anti-authoritarian</i>, the other is <i>not</i>. . . With the split, both sides are going to try to claim the mantel of <i>“true left,” “true progressive”</i> thinking.– <br /><br />– One of the sides in this split will claim that mantel by saying that it is <i>anti-social</i> for those on the other side to <i>“downplay”</i> the menace of Covid by questioning whether the public’s fear is proportional to the illness's actual threat, and <i>anti-social</i> if those on the other side <i>“gullibly”</i> wonder if, in fact, there might be measures and treatments going unadvertised and unpromoted that could ward off illness, fortify healthy resistance and that could treat Covid in ways that diminish the terribleness of what we've been worrying about 24/7 non-stop– (Shouldn't we rest assured that the health industry has always acted in the best interests of the public?) That side will think that those who make arguments for personal freedoms or who venture to explore ideas that might diminish the perceived peril of Covid and the prescribed vigilance it certainly requires are selfish violators of the Star Trek principle of needed self-sacrifice we heard enunciated in that once climactic exchange between Kirk and Spock: <i>“It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, . . . or the one.”</i><br /><br />While the left further fractures into the splintered shards of increasingly small, self-contained, self- referential bubbles (as is the problem with the country in general). . . (Sorry that’s not an internally consistent metaphor) . . . . <i>Something else interesting is happening. . .</i><br /><br />Anti-authoritarian sentiment and a belief in personal freedoms is uniting one side of this split left with people on the right, with libertarians, with independents, definitely with lots of varieties of anti-corporatists, even with people across the spectrum who may consider themselves to have no basic political philosophy, only perhaps to have pragmatic instincts about things they feel are askew. Maybe, like Occupy Wall Street and The Tea Party, who concurred on this, they are against what they view as the corruption and crony capitalism that occurs when corporations capture the government.<br /><br />Is the broad spectrum uniting of all these elements in what <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDLBYjDPkSg">may be termed</a> the <i>“Medical Freedom Movement”</i> frightening to those in power? It’s suggested <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4dFHzIZ_Y">that it is</a> and that an example of the growth of these new alliances that could be troubling to them was the recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDLBYjDPkSg">anti-mandate rally</a> in January in Washington D.C.. The anti-mandate event in D.C. was just days after another rally by the D.C. mall’s monuments. The earlier event was a <i>“March for Life”</i> anti-abortion rally, greatly diminished in attendance from prior years. That rally from several days before, made the front page of the New York Times above the fold. The anti-mandate event at the Lincoln Memorial did not get such conspicuous coverage by the Times.<br /><br />Time Magazine, not downplaying or disparaging the anti-mandate rally the same way the Times did, choose to admonish and forebodingly scold that this coming together of folk of different political stripes under an anti-mandate banner represented something in the nature of Svengali-like hypnotism. Their January 26 headline was: <i>“<a href="https://time.com/6141699/anti-vaccine-mandate-movement-rally/">How the Anti-Vax Movement Is Taking Over the Right</a>.”</i> I don’t know what the photo they used to underscore their headline was actually intended to illustrate: <i>Right-wingers</i> being taken over, or the <i>“anti-vaxxers”</i> who are taking over the right. . . <br /><br />.. . I feel that it is usually destructive to pigeonhole people, but, for the sake of de-pigeonholing those featured in the photo Time chose, I can assure you that the group depicted, including the woman putting her hands together in a prayer clasp, were a group of non-corporatist, left-of-democratic-party-mainstream Democrats (or at least recent Democrats), including, if you look, one who wore a big <i>“Black Lives Matters”</i> button. If you know what I look like, you’ll know why I can speak with authority on that subject.<br /><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijrQWmw0-MHKLLsBTR9DqI4L0-gnLy6N6wIZYoFnZf0IO9wQhVjzUbWVoQmdSTgcmWks9mkxS54RWIu_rn1BsXB-zzycc9mQff54Cqv2nHAFgMgqJ9uL309buxhdgb0Ov0eTLezdtToR1esytTU1T7EY2t_sfsDtzs0LJxOcfrW1oDyqbFx0JWCKu8aw=s800" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="635" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEijrQWmw0-MHKLLsBTR9DqI4L0-gnLy6N6wIZYoFnZf0IO9wQhVjzUbWVoQmdSTgcmWks9mkxS54RWIu_rn1BsXB-zzycc9mQff54Cqv2nHAFgMgqJ9uL309buxhdgb0Ov0eTLezdtToR1esytTU1T7EY2t_sfsDtzs0LJxOcfrW1oDyqbFx0JWCKu8aw=w318-h400" width="318" /></a></div>This coming together of people from different walks of political life could have
long-range significance; not just on this single issue, but only
multiple issues of utmost concern. As I have <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/05/everybodys-realizing-it-now-political.html">written about before</a>,
there is a long list issues of foremost concern to Americans that
supermajorities merging both left and right agree on, more than a score. While those are
things the vast majority of Americans want and that we, as a country,
could easily have, the political establishment is not willing to provide
them. Collusively, the corporate media downplays them all and does its
best to instead divide us with Red Team/Blue Team squabbles about things
that are generally far less important.<p>I’ve also <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/01/on-political-spectrum-we-are-told-that.html">written about how</a> we have to get away from the <i>“Red Team/Blue Team”</i>
divisions, since both the Republican and the Democrat parties are
controlled by corporatist money and interests; viewed with the slightest
bit of perspective, the two parties can be seen to work more like a tag
team pursuing the same goals than anything else. </p><p>I wrote about how <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/01/on-political-spectrum-we-are-told-that.html">we need</a> a new political <i>“color.”</i> Unfortunately, <i>“purple”</i> has already been grabbed by the “<i>Purple Project,”</i> which while purporting to be a populist styled erasure of Red/Blue differences, is actually just more top-down corporatism for those realizing that the <i>“Red Team/Blue Team”</i> stuff is total mishegoss. I wrote then that <i>“green”</i> with its connotations of environmentalism wasn’t the best choice because it was already taken by the Green Party. Now if the Green Party is one more of those groups going to further fracture its pursuit of principles in the face of the Covid policies coming from government and Big Pharma, that just confirms the need for a new color for new emerging alliances.</p><p><b></b></p><blockquote><b>PS:</b> Here is the Monday, December 13, 2021 statement of the National Black Caucus of the Green Party, <i>“<a href="https://www.blackcaucusgreens.org/we_say_no_to_mandates">We Say No To Mandates</a>,”</i> that explains the political stance and direction they are taking. I am unaware that the Greens in New York State on the other side of this split have articulated their position or the ways in which they disagree and can’t go along with what the Black Caucus expressed here.</blockquote><br /><br /><p></p>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-33907587993557189862022-01-18T10:55:00.001-05:002022-01-18T10:55:42.508-05:00Upward Transfer of Wealth Alert! Upward Transfer of Power Alert! Look What Just Doubled! Enough To Make Everyone Sick!<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUNM8yAhfWCRjuqGIOy3xS419Xo9fB1YSB0P9Tn49ITe3NiHDmm8NhvJCAQa7qMU-6H4mR-QN6AKVfwTtcibcGUOQyu-4-HpngmWPzCJ7soYomx1T1f7b_xtYSyZHohByZhx4b96hd81YjLAUrcdpnmP2AvwmEJhDyTLRySENcD-hAqG5DHf7lkgWylw=s1485" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="969" data-original-width="1485" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjUNM8yAhfWCRjuqGIOy3xS419Xo9fB1YSB0P9Tn49ITe3NiHDmm8NhvJCAQa7qMU-6H4mR-QN6AKVfwTtcibcGUOQyu-4-HpngmWPzCJ7soYomx1T1f7b_xtYSyZHohByZhx4b96hd81YjLAUrcdpnmP2AvwmEJhDyTLRySENcD-hAqG5DHf7lkgWylw=w400-h261" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stories from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/17/world-10-richest-men-see-their-wealth-double-during-covid-pandemic">The Guardian</a> and <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/07/08/bill-gates-global-health-policy/">Grayzone</a><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />There are different variations to the story, but almost everyone has heard one version of it or another. A king or raja offers a reward to someone who has done him a favor, or won a bet, or game of chess. Maybe the king offers anything that they might ask, even up to half his realm. The offer is declined, seemingly modestly, with a request for just a grain of rice (or a grain of wheat) p<a href="https://purposefocuscommitment.medium.com/the-rice-and-the-chess-board-story-the-power-of-exponential-growth-b1f7bd70aaca">laced on the square of a chess board</a>, two grains on the next, four on the next, etc. Or the doubling of the amount is to occur <a href="http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/EMT668/EMAT6680.F99/Martin/instructional%20unit/day4.exponential/excel/grainofrice.html">daily for 30 days</a>. The point is the same: With a simple doubling the promise of the doubled grains far exceeds everything the king of raja has to give.<br /><br />Look what just doubled!– The <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2022/1/18/headlines/worlds_richest_saw_their_wealth_double_as_pandemic_pushed_160_million_people_into_poverty">wealth of the world’s richest 10 men doubled</a> since the start of the 2-year pandemic (as 160 million more people were pushed into poverty). That’s according to Oxfam in a <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/ten-richest-men-double-their-fortunes-pandemic-while-incomes-99-percent-humanity">just released report</a> <i>“Inequality Kills.”</i><br /><br />The ten wealthiest men in the world have collectively singed a letter of thanks to the Corona Covid-19 virus— <i>Just kidding</i>, but I leave it to others to figure out exactly how the response to the pandemic around the world has helped bulk up the wealth of the wealthiest. One of the men, <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/07/08/bill-gates-global-health-policy/">heavily invested in pharmaceuticals</a>, is a poster boy for recommended virus response: Bill Gates. It’s also obvious why <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2018/11/interesting-to-think-that-it-all-began.html">Jeff Bezos</a> made money on the pandemic. And Mark Zuckerberg’s role in what information flows about our tactics responding to the virus is obvious.<br /><br />The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/17/world-10-richest-men-see-their-wealth-double-during-covid-pandemic">ten wealthiest men in the world</a> are:<br /><br /> 1. Elon Musk<br /> 2. <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2018/11/interesting-to-think-that-it-all-began.html">Jeff Bezos</a><br /> 3. Bernard Arnault & family<br /> 4. <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/07/08/bill-gates-global-health-policy/">Bill Gates</a><br /> 5. Larry Ellison<br /> 6. Larry Page<br /> 7. Sergey Brin<br /> 8. Mark Zuckerberg<br /> 9. Steve Ballmer<br /> 10. Warren Buffett<br /><br />Use the link if you want to get specifics about their windfalls.<br /><br />Important to recognize that, along with that upward transfer of wealth goes a more or less equivalent upward transfer of power. Wealth is power. The question is often asked, beyond a certain point where wealth takes care of your every need, why want or pursue more? What good does it do you? One answer is that what is being pursued is really just more power. <br /><br />It’s a lot of power. Remember that doubling the grains of rice exercise?<br /></p>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-84989586855646738322022-01-17T19:41:00.003-05:002022-02-24T19:20:12.796-05:00 Reuters and AP, Associated Press, Issue Simultaneous Fact Checks: “Mass Formation Psychosis” or “Mass Psychosis” Does Not Exist As a Legitimate, Academically Recognized Theory<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgf1LPhADYvDZ6ltaPEPGLhyTAtGTyYVxjPeaRAwhMMjAQOE0GBQOUxqZyNyjKTqQNug66ukqbssXPPJIIwE8skEQkTnKpgkGXl09eG-FMWAGKStLsM_NX59cPVlKRbjMKjGvWXMu-1Mv-PTCi-zkZw_6LQmDhWEft8XZW9YXlXwY2pVHqeDLTxvuVDVw=s1928" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1386" data-original-width="1928" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgf1LPhADYvDZ6ltaPEPGLhyTAtGTyYVxjPeaRAwhMMjAQOE0GBQOUxqZyNyjKTqQNug66ukqbssXPPJIIwE8skEQkTnKpgkGXl09eG-FMWAGKStLsM_NX59cPVlKRbjMKjGvWXMu-1Mv-PTCi-zkZw_6LQmDhWEft8XZW9YXlXwY2pVHqeDLTxvuVDVw=w400-h288" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two of these three above caused Reuters and AP to issue fact check articles that there is no such thing as "<i>Mass Formation Psychosis</i>"<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />More or less simultaneously, a day apart, Reuters and AP, the Associated Press, issued fact check articles announcing that <i>“Mass Formation Psychosis”</i> or <i>“Mass Psychosis”</i> is an <i>“unfounded,”</i> <i>“discredited”</i> theory; that the <i>“concept has no academic credibility,”</i> is <i>“not officially recognized” “is not supported by evidence, and is similar to theories that have long been discredited”</i> and that the term does not appear as a classification in medical reference dictionaries. See: <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-psychology/fact-check-no-evidence-of-pandemic-mass-formation-psychosis-say-experts-speaking-to-reuters-idUSL1N2TN1RE">Fact Check-No evidence of pandemic ‘mass formation psychosis’, say experts speaking to Reuters</a>, By Reuters Fact Check January 7, 2022, and (AP) <a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-health-joe-rogan-ap-fact-check-a87b1044c6256968dcc33886a36c949f">FACT FOCUS: Unfounded theory used to dismiss COVID measures</a><br />By Angelo Fichera and Josh Kelety, January 8, 2022.<br /><br />According to professor John Drury quoted by both articles the theory is a <i>“notion”</i> that <i>“has been discredited by decades of research.”</i> He says that <i>“no respectable psychologist”</i> now <i>“agrees with these ideas.”</i><br /><br />Reporting this delivery of the verdict of “psychology experts,” Reuters and AP both say that they talked with <i>“numerous psychologists”</i> and <i>“multiple experts.”</i><br /><br />Both Reuters and AP quote some of those experts, between them a total of six. Both Reuters and AP quote:<br /><blockquote> • <b>John Drury</b>, Professor of Social Psychology and Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Sussex<br /> • <b><a href="https://thepostmillennial.com/ap-writer-fact-checked-mass-formation-psychosis-theory-encouraged-cajoling-covid-compliance?utm_campaign=64483">Jay Van Bavel</a></b>, Associate Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University, who says “I’ve been studying group identity and collective behavior for nearly two decades<br /> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1497000863554056195"><b>Steven Reicher</b></a>, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of St Andrews, who has studied crowd psychology for more than 40 years. (<a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1497000863554056195">and important update 2/14/'22</a>)<br /></blockquote>In addition, Reuters quotes:<br /><blockquote> • <b>Chris Cocking</b>, Principal Lecturer at the School of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences at the University of Brighton</blockquote>And AP additionally quotes <i>two</i> other experts:<br /><blockquote> • <b>Steven Jay Lynn</b>, a psychology professor at Binghamton University in New York<br /> • <b>Richard McNally</b>, a professor of clinical psychology at Harvard University- He is not quoted as saying the theory does not exist, only as offering the opinion that the way that public is responding to Covid is a rational response <i>“to the arguments and evidence adduced by the relevant scientific experts.”</i></blockquote><i></i>As one can tell from the above, there are theories of <i>“crowd psychology,” “group identity and collective behavior”</i> that these experts, who were tapped to offer these opinions, believe exist. But as Professor Drury explains, he distinguishes and dismisses concepts, such as <i>“mob mentality”</i> and <i>“group mind,”</i> where <i>“when people form part of a psychological crowd they lose their identities and their self-control”</i> and where <i>“they become suggestible, and primitive instinctive impulses predominate.”</i><br /><br />The fact checks were, of course, picked up and republished elsewhere. <b>ABC affiliate-</b> <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/fact-focus-unfounded-theory-dismiss-covid-measures-82151857">FACT FOCUS: Unfounded theory used to dismiss COVID measures</a>, <b>NBC affiliate- </b> <a href="https://nbc16.com/news/coronavirus/fact-check-doctor-uses-unfounded-theory-used-to-dismiss-covid-measures-on-rogan-podcast">Fact Check: Doctor uses unfounded theory to dismiss COVID measures on Rogan podcast, by Angelo Fichera and Josh Kelety Associated Press</a>, Tuesday, January 11th 2022,<b> CBS affiliate-</b> <a href="https://www.cbs46.com/fact-focus-unfounded-theory-used-to-dismiss-covid-measures/article_54576913-c324-5e19-ba77-871c9cf1c08c.html?block_id=994631">FACT FOCUS: Unfounded theory used to dismiss COVID measures</a>, Jan 8, 2022, <b>Yahoo News- </b><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/no-academic-credibility-experts-debunk-175434230.html">‘No academic credibility’: Experts debunk mass psychosis Covid theory floated by doctor on Joe Rogan podcast</a>, Gino Spocchia, January 9, 2022.<br /><br />All the other publications don’t matter so much since Google’s algorithms ensure that these fact check articles, and/or the points they make, Google high.<br /><br />The fact check articles both identify themselves as being a quick response to Dr. Robert Malone speaking about the theory on the Joe Rogan Show about a week before:<br /><br />AP:<br /><i><blockquote>The term gained attention after it was floated by Dr. Robert Malone on “The Joe Rogan Experience” Dec. 31 podcast. Malone is a scientist who once researched mRNA technology but is now a vocal skeptic of the COVID-19 vaccines that use it.</blockquote></i>Reuters:<br /><blockquote><i>Dr Robert Malone . . told The Joe Rogan Experience that “mass formation psychosis” is a phenomenon that occurred in 1920s and 30s Germany when a highly educated population “went barking mad”.</i></blockquote><p><i></i></p><blockquote><i>“And that is what’s happened here,” he said, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic (here).<br /><br />According to Malone, the condition occurs when a society “becomes decoupled from each other and has a free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don’t make sense… And then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis.”<br /><br />. . . . . They will follow that person – it doesn’t matter whether they lie to them or whatever, the data are irrelevant.”</i></blockquote>Aside from the fact checks saying that the theory does not exist, Big Tech media responded to Malone’s speaking about this notion by immediately taking down the Joe Rogan YouTube clip of Malone talking to Rogan about this idea. See: <b>NY Post-</b> <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/01/04/youtube-scraps-joe-rogan-podcast-episode-over-nazi-comparison/">YouTube scraps Joe Rogan podcast episode over Nazi Germany comparison</a> By Ben Cost, January 4, 2022 and <b>NY Daily News</b>- <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/snyde/ny-joe-rogan-youtube-covid-vaccine-20220103-d5yqeqkzfbadppkefp4m3rnkbi-story.html">Joe Rogan video taken down by YouTube for anti-vax content</a>, By Brian Niemietz, January 03, 2022.<p></p><p>The same week Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/moll_aj/status/1476264346326032385">cancelled</a> Dr. Malone’s account banning him from Twitter’s platform, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0bt5CHPwAQ">the reasons for which are analyzed here</a>. Likewise, LinkedIn <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/free-speech/autumn-johnson/2022/01/08/vaccine-scientist-banned-linkedin">cancelled</a> Dr. Malone’s LinkedIn account.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, somebody mustered a group that includes professors, some health professionals, some scientists, some doctors, etc. to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/14/spotify-joe-rogan-podcast-open-letter">sign a letter</a> demanding that the top-rated Joe Rogan Show be cancelled from Spotify because Joe Rogan interviewed vaccine expert Dr. Malone about Covid.<br /><br />The unfounded <i>“Mass Formation Psychosis”</i> theory is more or less a variation, with the overlay of certain extra manifestations that take it in a more extreme direction, of what has been described as <i>“<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink">Groupthink</a>.” “Groupthink”</i> hales back to a seminal article written by William H. (Holly) Whyte published in Fortune magazine in 1952. The <i>“Groupthink”</i> theory was built upon and further developed, by Irving Janis, a research psychologist from Yale University in ensuing years. Features of the Groupthink theory involve a dysfunctional deterioration of critical, independent, and quality thinking and decision making as people within an <i>“ingroup”</i> are pressured to think similar things. There is an intolerance of other ideas and the <i>“ingroup”</i> is likely to get an inflated sense of the correctness of their own decisions that goes along with <i>“illusions of invulnerability.”</i> This is likely to go along with denigration of anyone in an <i>“outgroup”</i> and that can often cause members of the <i>“outgroup”</i> to be treated in a <i>dehumanized</i> way. The theory includes the observation that <i>“groupthink”</i> often arises or is more likely in situations where there is <i>a high level of stress or anxiety from external threats</i>.<br /><br />As for the <i>“Mass Formation Psychosis”</i> theory itself, one good expression of what it is Reuters and AP were able to fact check as being unfounded is this cartoon illustrated After Skool/Academy of Ideas presentation: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M">Mass Psychosis - How an Entire Population Becomes Mentally Ill</a>, August 3, 2021. Cartooning ideas can be extremely influential: it could easily be argued that Whyte’s Fortune Groupthink article would never have been as influential without the accompanying illustrations by Robert Osborn. This After Skool/Academy of Ideas presentation is incredibly similar in approach to the recent <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/12/09/cancel-debt-jubilee/">“Your Debt Is Someone Else’s Asset,”</a> a cancel debt with a jubilee advocacy video up at the Intercept (December 9 2021) by Kim Boekbinder, Jim Batt, illustrations by Molly Crabapple, except that the illustrator is somebody different from <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/using-forged-emails-progressive-journalists-smear-challenging-syria-groupthink/261972/">Molly Crabapple</a>.<br /><br />If you want something more talky and academic, less streamlined, to review this (talking, for instance, about breaking down human bonds), there is an interview available here with Professor Matthias Desmet, Professor of Clinical Psychology Ghent University, Belgium, a psychoanalyst and who also has a degree in statistics: <a href="https://odysee.com/@pandemicpodcast:c/compliance:2">Why Do So Many Still Buy into the Narrative?</a> Professor Matthias Desmet, September 21st, 2021.</p><p>Human brains and human thinking are strange. For instance, there is the famous story of Tolstoy’s challenge (<a href="https://warbletoncouncil.org/por-que-no-podemos-bloquear-pensamientos-oso-blanco-tolstoi-4392">originally from his older brother?</a>) to stand facing a corner and <a href="http://www.brainblogger.com/2009/12/09/white-bears-the-paradox-of-mental-suppression/">not think</a> of a <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1497003228034220037">white bear</a>. It’s almost impossible.<br /></p><p></p>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-78338686670308502192021-10-27T16:26:00.001-04:002021-10-27T16:26:36.996-04:00Looking For Clarity On The Situation In Lebanon? You Won’t Get It From Democracy Now Where Its Question Is: “Can you respond to the World Bank saying Lebanon is in one of the worst economic collapses in the last 150 years?”<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8jP-Y-1ERPQhh626qdseyV_jMuWsK9xDFQpoQhUJDjfXxQgCT0EKk9T5vp-HKRuLEdK7N4_SIjjeelc5khjxjLayDzd0gtQd_ziKJWJPXtr0g0IbbEuCFS2xW_HjV551VhGqH_N9SJMwF/s1968/EverythingWorldBankLebanon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1360" data-original-width="1968" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8jP-Y-1ERPQhh626qdseyV_jMuWsK9xDFQpoQhUJDjfXxQgCT0EKk9T5vp-HKRuLEdK7N4_SIjjeelc5khjxjLayDzd0gtQd_ziKJWJPXtr0g0IbbEuCFS2xW_HjV551VhGqH_N9SJMwF/w400-h276/EverythingWorldBankLebanon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Democracy Now pitches the question: "<i>respond to the World Bank saying Lebanon is in one of
the worst economic collapses in the last 150 years"</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Want to get clarity about what might possibly be happening now in
Lebanon? You are not going to get it from the reporting of Democracy
Now, or as we might better call it these days, <i>Democracy Not Now What It Once Was</i>
(“DNNWIOW” or #DNNWIOW). What you’ll get from DNNWIOW is that the
situation in Lebanon is confused, awful, pretty much impossible to
explain and just about anything that happens next will probably be
alright, maybe perhaps better, or at least acceptable. Like it might be
acceptable if Lebanon was one more country subjected to the kind of
externally provoked regime operations we conduct? OK if its government
is replaced by a puppet subservient to our interests? Or maybe, not really so bad if, like Lybia or a number of other countries where were
we have meddled, Lebanon was just kept in perpetual chaos?<br /><br />In other words, DNNWIOW’s <i>`there is terribly confusing awfulness in Lebanon you’ll never understand’</i>
reporting is very much the same thing that you get from mainstream
corporately owned media all the time about Israel and Palestine; it’s
the kind of befuddlement building that then allows Israel, without
significant protest from the American populace, to continue carrying out
its persecution and removal of Palestinians from what was their
country.<br /><br />In other words, I make the case that DNNWIOW’s reporting
on Lebanon, similar to the New York Times reporting on Lebanon, is just
a useful conduit of the narrative that the United States Government
wants put out there. Or to cut through the crap: <i>It’s pure propaganda</i>.<br /><br />We
are talking right now about DNNWIOW’s first segment, its opening
segment, on Thursday, October 14, 2021, an interview of more than 20
minutes of Lara Bitar, the editor-in-chief of The Public Source, what
DNNWIOW described as <i>“a Beirut-based independent media organization.”</i><br /><br />Probably
the interview question that most quintessentially captures the flavor
and content of the interview is when DNNWIOW host Amy Goodman asks
Bitar: <i>“Can you respond to the World Bank saying Lebanon is in one of
the worst economic collapses in the last 150 years, a bit further
explain?” </i>(Much of the interview was conducted by co-host Nermeen Shaikh, but Amy Goodman chose to step in to ask this question herself.)<br /><br />Gee, Lebanon is suffering <i>`an economic crisis’</i>?
That’s what’s going on? The World Bank says so? The World Bank’s
assessments and characterizations of what are going on are referred to a
half a dozen times in the interview and any offered understanding of
Lebanon’s plight basically stops there. <br /><br />To read or watch the interview: <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/14/lebanon_political_economic_crisis">Snipers Fatally Attack Protesters in Beirut as Lebanon Reels from Devastating Economic Collapse</a>, October 14, 2021.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg83LrbmqKgA39uTxake905NKkGxKVV_h49oOyWlWjXHHFhrMQCM5JWS4rpm8s-UeFs_wSyzofTkB-oYOBZE-nX1bSi_XgEwK8nN6WQPH5g7eCIktoci1UFHGDPXc-WJkovNfCDCwjyQ68G/s1600/LebanonAmyGDN.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="897" data-original-width="1600" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg83LrbmqKgA39uTxake905NKkGxKVV_h49oOyWlWjXHHFhrMQCM5JWS4rpm8s-UeFs_wSyzofTkB-oYOBZE-nX1bSi_XgEwK8nN6WQPH5g7eCIktoci1UFHGDPXc-WJkovNfCDCwjyQ68G/w400-h224/LebanonAmyGDN.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amy Goodman on left, Lara Bitar on right <br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>The
DNNWIOW propaganda is basically the subtle kind of propaganda that
relies on misdirection and what is tactfully, or, as a matter of
tactics, left out of the picture rather than being an attempt mounted to
sell unadulterated and obviously false misinformation. The best way to
recognize what DNNWIOW was providing as the propaganda, is to hold it
up against some actually good, context-setting reporting that will give
you a very clear view of the situation in Lebanon. I recommend that,
for that contrast, you go to another interview about what is happening
now in Lebanon– Again it is two women. Again it’s a female show host
doing the interview, and again, the interviewee is a woman residing in
Lebanon. I’ll make the case, that in this instance, the dialogue
between these two women and their ability to analytically present
relevant facts does a much better job to qualify each of them as competent
and sincere journalists.<br /></p><p><br />The interview is conducted by Mnar
Muhawesh, founder and editor-in-chief of MintPress News, interviewing
Rania Khalek an American journalist living in Lebanon. Ms. Khalek,
writing under her <a href="https://raniakhalek.com/tag/breakthrough-news/">Breakthrough News</a> brand, was on my <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/04/spectacular-female-alternative.html">National Notice list</a>
of the many alternative media female journalists well worth paying
attention to these days. Ms. Muhawesh should have been on my list also;
sorry I missed her. <br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY127X0R9lpGhETAhPoYVBdEAHqRisEBGPFaTWEL-0s9FZkvsyHtyCAEserzFRLJUi_OhnA-_LA031Ui4cBzGSPuhywlYbmeLnbjyMbAx6rySVxh_taVsoERmqd83UUV0WyErnPmkVmZSB/s1096/RaniakhlekAndMnar.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="1096" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY127X0R9lpGhETAhPoYVBdEAHqRisEBGPFaTWEL-0s9FZkvsyHtyCAEserzFRLJUi_OhnA-_LA031Ui4cBzGSPuhywlYbmeLnbjyMbAx6rySVxh_taVsoERmqd83UUV0WyErnPmkVmZSB/w400-h226/RaniakhlekAndMnar.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mnar
Muhawesh on left, Rania Khalek on right<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />Here is the interview via <a href="https://twitter.com/MintPressNews/status/1423343176832622596">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/MintPressNews/status/1423343176832622596">MintPress News' Facebook post</a>, and via <a href="https://www.pscp.tv/w/1ynKOBaDPwWxR">PSCP TV</a>: <a href="https://www.pscp.tv/w/1ynKOBaDPwWxR">Lebanon
economic crisis, US Sanctions wars & Israeli resource exploitation
in the Middle East region with @mnarMuh & RaniaKhalek</a><br /><br />What do we learn from this interview that explains and puts Lebanon’s crisis into perspective?- We learn the following:<br /></p><blockquote>
• Lebanon, a small country of about six million people, is mostly
bordered by Syria a country that’s now war-torn nation in the throws of a
regime change violence and destruction largely set in motion by the
U.S. government. Syria is naturally an important trading partner for
Lebanon (Syria supplied about 10-15% of all of Lebanon’s power- now lack
of power is another critical shortage Lebanon deals with), and because
of US sanctions against Syria, Lebanon, locked in, cannot now trade
across this crucial border.<br /> • The other country bordering
Lebanon is Israel on Lebanon’s southern border. But Lebanon is on a
continuing war footing with Israel so it cannot trade across that other
border either, and instead must deal with continued threats by Israel, a
country which previously invaded it.<br /> • The only other access
to Lebanon is the Mediterranean Sea, but a year ago last August there
was a huge destruction in the port of Lebanon from a truly
extraordinarily massive explosion. Khalek does not assert she exactly
knows the explanation for the explosion that involved stored fertilizer,
but can give important background about it and she can expertly recite
what she refers as the many politicized theories offered to explain what
actually happened. <br /> • The structure of the Lebanon government
(set up in compromise when its civil war ended in 1991 and with the
intention that the government be <i>“intentionally weak”</i>) carefully
divides and shares power between different factions, different sects. A
substantial portion of the government, part of its majority coalition,
is allied with Hezbollah and for that reason that portion of the
government is the subject of US sanctions. The sanctions have the effect
of hamstringing the entire country in its dealings with the rest of the
world. Plus the US backed and Saudi financed sect has worked in an
adversarial fashion to make the harmful US sanctions apply more and
cause more harm than they have to.<br /> • Lebanon desperately needs
fuel and power, it affects just about everything. Iran was willing to
supply oil to Lebanon, but that help was blocked by other US sanctions,
the US sanctions against Iran.<br /> • The US also got involved to
block help to Lebanon from China, Russia, and from Qatar. At the same
time the West is generally pulling back and refusing to help. One
excuse is that they want Lebanon to change the structure of its
government, which is not about to happen. <br /> • The US and its
banks and financial institutions are allied with Lebanese elites and
with the International Monetary Fund and they, through this alliance,
set up the Lebanese financial systems institutions that are now failing.
<br /> • The US and Western powers are also interfering with local
Lebanese politics by providing support for both fascist and failing
parties and factions in Lebanon. The many factions in the country
provide ripe opportunities for co-optation, which the US takes
advantage of and tries to weaponize.<br /> • The US, and Israel
along with it, wants, dominance and hegemonic power in the region. The
US, and Israel along with it, is therefore directing much of its energy
toward trying to quash Hezbollah in Lebanon, but Hezbollah is immensely
popular particularly in certain parts of the Lebanon because, <i>‘as a force of protection’</i>
for the country, Hezbollah defeated and evicted Israel when Israel
invaded, plus Hezbollah was critical in repelling ISIS and Al-Qaeda when
they came into the country, with Hezbollah then pushing ISIS back even
into Syria because of its threat.<br /> • <i>Continued chaos</i> is
probably what the US and its allies want in Lebanon, because the
probably emerging alternative would be Hezbollah running the country.<br />
• The formerly praised structure of the now collapsing Lebanese
financial system that was set up with US banks involved was always
something of a Ponzi scheme. Hezbollah was shut out of participation in
and creation of that now collapsing defective financial system. <br />
• Not that it is high on the list of causes for the current crises
and power shortage, but Israel repeatedly bombed Lebanon’s power
stations in the past decade.<br /> • Lebanon is also dealing with climate change and wild fires.<br />
• Toward the end of the discussion, all this was related to how
have an overall strategy of promoting sectarianism, balkanization and
division in the entire region to the extent the US and Israel actually
promote and fund right-wing religious fundamentalism. (Reminder: Israel
was the first sectarian state in the region.) Without this regional
debilitation, Lebanon might, through its relationships with its
neighbors might have a much stronger and resilient economy. <br /></blockquote>Much
of what is important above is pure fact. Some of it ventures into characterizations with a point of view. It is not necessary to
agree with all of the characterizations above- some might choose to
dispute a few (but everything said seems pretty on target to
me)-- Still these points all go a long way in explaining a lot and to
provide much needed clarity.<br /><br />By contrast, the 20-minute Democracy Now report (pardon, that's the <i>"DNNWIOW report"</i>)
mentions absolutely none of the facts set forth above. Its only
allusion to Lebanon’s long border with war-torn Syria is to note
passingly that for some reason there is a bad situation with destitute
Syrian refugees (as well as Palestinian and <i>"other"</i> refugees) who
for some reason now live in Lebanon. Nowhere is Israel mentioned nor
the threat posed by it at the southern boarder. There is no mention of
any of the sanctions imposed by the US or their effect, not the
sanctions against trade involving neighboring Syria, not the sanctions
blocking aid from Iran, not the sanctions against Hezbollah nor their
effect on the rest of the country. Hezbollah does get mentioned, but
only to describe the political party that's part of the government as trouble making and a source of
problems being faced.<p>When it comes to trouble making in
Lebanon, there is no mention of any covert involvement of the US to manipulate things or how,
when there is mysterious trouble making, it is hard to know whom to pin
the blame on.<br /><br />Simply put, coming to it with some understanding,
the DNNWIOW report is so inadequate it’s virtually the most laughable of
jokes. Unfortunately, this is not a laughing matter. The people at whatever this new Democracy Now is cannot be
unaware of the deceptive nature of their Lebanon reporting. This
certainly includes chief show host, executive producer, and long term figurehead for the program, Amy Goodman herself. They must obviously be aware of the
deceptive nature of their reporting because Democracy Now for decades,
since its early origins out of WBAI 99.5 FM New York, has a long and
distinguished history of covering Israel and its occupation of Palestine
in a way that was a meaningful counter on that subject to exactly that
kind of reporting about that situation emanating from the US corporate media.<br /><br />What is the thinking of those working at DNNWIOW when they
work to put out this kind of misleading reporting? Is the thought that
by acquiescently conduiting mainstream US State Department narrative
one day, they'll get an improved chance at doing something good in the
world the next? Is the thought that they will please their big money
foundation funders by going along to promulgate these narratives so that
they can later go on later, with good, glitzy production values, to <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-week-of-reporting-important.html">accurately</a> cover other more important controversial, <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/27/steven_donziger_judicial_harassment_from_chevron">undercovered</a>, stories they want to deliver to a big audience on later occasions? . . Maybe?</p><p>Maybe,
but if that is the case, DNNWIOW is getting to be an insidiously
dangerous program to watch. That’s because you’ll never know when you
are getting reliable reporting on an important story and when you are
getting a spiel of establishment propaganda. Moreover, as DNNWIOW keeps
promoting itself as <i>“independent global news”</i> and <i>“the war and peace report,”</i> and has a fabled and reputable history, and as DNNWIOW wears its social justice <i>“heart”</i>
on its sleeve, unsuspecting members of the public are all the more
likely to be confused when these ruses in reporting are subtle
enough.<br /><br />Confused?. . . Here, as just that sort of example- the <u><i>next</i></u>
story DNNWIOW was reporting that day on October 14, 2021 (about our
withdrawal from a senseless 20-year war) was this- see if you find any
of its slant identifiable and suspicious:<br /></p><blockquote><b><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/14/afghan_interpreter_aman_khalili_biden_admin">Afghan Interpreter Who Rescued Biden in 2008 Is Evacuated from Afghanistan with His Family</a>-</b>
<i>After weeks of pleading for help, an Afghan interpreter, who helped
rescue then-Senator Joe Biden when he was stranded 13 years ago in
Afghanistan, has finally escaped Afghanistan. Aman Khalili describes his
journey out of the country, and we speak with the reporter who broke
the story. “I was in the safehouse for 15 days,” Khalili tells Democracy
Now! Khalili is “representative of a group of people that are still
appealing for help from America. </i></blockquote>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-44391923895395072232021-07-25T12:48:00.006-04:002021-11-02T22:29:24.099-04:00A Week of Reporting Important Conspiracy Theories Respecting The Pharmaceutical Industry, Including Participation of One of The Major Covid Shot Manufacturers in One of Those Conspiracies<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwDLl2QdicvIkE-tALbjBbDVTmaN6Zjiy0-sjGeJ0EzfKPPHOKiBvydc1iirdMxKqSpFvxSiJW7tAJxch_WeVTEsvwO9F5sNGG1yUapGJuHpisTMU8CosizywVpQ3cQcD4KoHXcpCzTcjX/s1897/NYTImes+Opiod+03TwoTimesStories.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1266" data-original-width="1897" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwDLl2QdicvIkE-tALbjBbDVTmaN6Zjiy0-sjGeJ0EzfKPPHOKiBvydc1iirdMxKqSpFvxSiJW7tAJxch_WeVTEsvwO9F5sNGG1yUapGJuHpisTMU8CosizywVpQ3cQcD4KoHXcpCzTcjX/w400-h268/NYTImes+Opiod+03TwoTimesStories.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two stories in the New York Times the same day published across from each other on a double page spread both about the pharmaceutical industry conspiring with government officials and deceiving the public, one about a bogus "Alzheimer's" drug, the other <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/health/opioids-distributors-settlement.html">about</a> selling the public addicting heroine pills, the ingredients supplied by Johnson & Johnson.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>It’s been an interesting week in terms of seeing <i>two</i> conspiracy stories published about the pharmaceutical industry and its collusion with government regulatory agencies to put out dangerous and harmful drugs whose supposedly beneficial effects were misrepresented in order to foist them onto an unsuspecting public. Yes, there are <i>two</i> of these stories out this week, at least two of them where the outlines of the conspiring seem to be endorsed by outlets like that paper of record, the New York Times. One of the stories prominently features as a wrong-doer, Johnson & Johnson, a company elsewhere very much in the news these days as a top tier manufacturer of Covid vaccine shots. <br /><p><br />The alleged suspicious collusion with government in these stories also involves the way that pharmaceutical industry wrong doers are getting off practically scot-free for their misdeeds, and are being allowed to ultimately profit by keeping their ill-gotten gains. That may be ascribed to state attorneys general not being sufficiently aggressive (or just being feckless stage props?) while courts friendly to the pharmaceutical corporations and the wealthy opiod-manufacturing Sackler family steer things in the direction of ensuring the wrong doers are protected from paying any real price. Fiendish collusion? Amounting to conspiratorial behavior? <br /><br />Here is what is being reported. <br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi83utTxJvcx_KGoetjYhnCbHmJk6OvPWWwfM7KENEuVgLQxKiXzHn2mRTrnp4B3-IXe0j1ty5OcjRr9FQqcqc9VwSM6ZD-ODhW4rk2gkS9SQFztcEhyphenhyphenSMgguVkjyyvO5APhZ1cOuJdGNk0/s2016/NYTImes+Opiod+05FDACollaboratesWothlessAlzheimersDrug.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi83utTxJvcx_KGoetjYhnCbHmJk6OvPWWwfM7KENEuVgLQxKiXzHn2mRTrnp4B3-IXe0j1ty5OcjRr9FQqcqc9VwSM6ZD-ODhW4rk2gkS9SQFztcEhyphenhyphenSMgguVkjyyvO5APhZ1cOuJdGNk0/w320-h240/NYTImes+Opiod+05FDACollaboratesWothlessAlzheimersDrug.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>In the smaller scale, less notorious of the two stories, a very expensive ($56K per annum) multi-year drug, aducanumab, that Biogen wanted to market for Alzheimer’s even though there was insufficient evident that it worked and might instead have harmful side effects (brain swelling or brain bleeding) was approved by the FDA., with the FDA involving itself to work and closely collaborate with Biogen to help the company deal with the fact that they were asking for approval of a drug that shouldn’t be approved given that the evidence wasn’t there that it worked. (That FDA assistance reportedly included at least one secret off-the-record meeting.) Oh well, whatever the medical side effects, what’s more important to everyone, bad actors included, is that Biogen would be soaking Medicare and, via expensive co-pays, families desperate to treat their Alzheimer’s suffering family members . . . The what-the-heck approach to someone with Alzheimer’s apparently being<i> `what they don’t know can’t hurt them’</i>?<br /><br />I recommend the coverage that comes from FAIR in its second segment of their weekly half-hour <a href="https://www.wbai.org/program.php?program=209">Counterspin program</a>: <a href="https://fair.org/home/chris-bernadel-on-haitian-assassination-michael-carome-on-fda-alzheimers-investigation/">Chris Bernadel on Haitian Assassination, Michael Carome on FDA Alzheimer’s Investigation</a>, July 16, 2021.<br /> <br />Here is the program segment summary:<br /></p><blockquote><i>Cronyism between pharmaceutical companies and their ostensible government regulators is an infuriating fact of US life, along with the unsurprisingly obscene cost of drugs. Yet somehow the story of aducanumab takes it to a new level. We talk about what pharma and the FDA call a breakthrough Alzheimer’s drug, and what public advocates call an example of all that’s wrong with the FDA, with Michael Carome, M.D., director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen.</i></blockquote>In that interview Dr. Michael Carome ends by laying blame squarely at the feet of Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting head of the FDA. He calls for her resignation as commissioner. He says, that for three decades she was director of the center of the FDA that reviews and approves new drugs and asserts that over her three decades she has:<br /><blockquote><i>fostered an ever cosier relationship between her agency and pharmaceutical companies and that has resulted in regulatory capture of the agency by the pharmaceutical industry. She regularly refers to the agency as being a partner with industry, a partner– that they work with, you know, collaboratively– and she actually defended the collaborations that occurred between her agency and companies like Biogen.</i></blockquote>Dr. Carome says she needs to be replaced by someone who is more aligned with protecting public health instead of the interests of the pharmaceutical industry.<br /><br />The more notorious of the two stories during the week is about the pharmaceutical industry and the Sackler family’s responsibility, again working with the FDA (yes, recently and within that last three decades), for drug approvals that have led to an estimated 500,000 opiod addiction deaths in this country. Most recently, in just the 12-month period ending in November, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures show that drug overdoses were soaring during Covid (egged up by Covid despair?) causing deaths just shy of another hundred thousand (<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/6/30/drug_overdose_deaths">92,000</a>) ascribed to the <i>“increasing availability of synthetic opioids”</i> like fentanyl. Now for the last year of 2020 the figure is stated to be up to <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/7/19/opioid_crisis_documentary_alex_gibney">93,000</a>. Compare that to the figures offered the national toll offered for Covid since it was first announced. They are actually in the same neighborhood. <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCxdFDvwuek88gzH_LSg_fqdlF8Ap4ZBd5139bTCSNgJTRdeyaygTXW6oR6jSUK5GHr8GN0Crm9RqhTTIh3Mr_VnfrFhe5jUreZZuFKPV3QJb6ZPBBQyR6GCW28Eh8_5tEsu9O4xg_7hlp/s1599/Alex+Gibney+on+Democracy+Now+Opios+and+Sacklersjpg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="1599" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCxdFDvwuek88gzH_LSg_fqdlF8Ap4ZBd5139bTCSNgJTRdeyaygTXW6oR6jSUK5GHr8GN0Crm9RqhTTIh3Mr_VnfrFhe5jUreZZuFKPV3QJb6ZPBBQyR6GCW28Eh8_5tEsu9O4xg_7hlp/s320/Alex+Gibney+on+Democracy+Now+Opios+and+Sacklersjpg.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />Among others covering this story during the week was <a href="https://www.wbai.org/program.php?program=49">Democracy Now</a>, giving time to documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney who has a new documentary out about the collaborative and highly coordinated misconduct generating all that opiod addiction sickness and death. According to Gibney there were all sorts of <i>“terrible incentives, where the incentive is not to cure the patient.”</i> See: “Crime of the Century”: <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/7/19/opioid_crisis_documentary_alex_gibney">How Big Pharma Fueled the Opioid Crisis That Killed 500,000 and Counting</a>, July 19, 2021<br /><br />According to Democracy Now’s story <i>“overall, drug overdoses accounted for more deaths in 2020 than car crashes, gun violence and HIV/AIDS combined.”</i><br /><br />In the Democracy Now segment it is described how with the Sackler family’s oxycodone marketed by their Perdue Pharma involved selling <i>“drugs that are essentially heroin pills.”</i> Gibney says that <i>“Purdue didn’t have any evidence that the drug was safe,”</i> so the company obtained help from a medical officer at the FDA to deal with that. <i>Is this, perhaps, beginning to sound familiar?</i> Gibney says that, working with an FDA officer, Perdue took actions that <i>“really coalesce around the idea of fraud”</i> and <i>“launched that fraud with a drug called OxyContin”</i> working with the FDA official to <i>“write the review of their own application.”</i> They got <i>“inserted into the package insert, the paper that comes along with a prescription,”</i> what Gibney observes were two very consequential falsehoods:<i> “one, that it</i> [the drug] <i>wasn’t terribly addictive, and, two, because of the time-release mechanism, the Contin system, it wasn’t prone to abuse.”</i><br /><br />According to the Democracy Now story, when Purdue was pursued by the authorities, the company <i>lied under oath</i>. Moreover, when there were efforts to hold the pharmaceutical companies <i>“accountable,”</i> the companies <i>“decided to change the statute,”</i> changing the rules rather than their behavior. It’s not just regulatory capture of federal agencies, it’s also insanely cooperative law making legislators.<br /><br />Beyond the pharmaceutical companies and the Sackler family playing its part, the unfolding of the opiod addiction crisis permeated many aspects of the industry, a legion of doctors complicit in prescribing pills, pharmacies or <i>“pill mills”</i> filling the prescriptions. The Democracy Now interview goes into financial incentives that drove this permeating complicity, vacation jaunts, payments (including for <i>“speaking”</i> fees) and, for instance, job promotions that made it clear that Purdue knew what it was doing. Not everyone in the industry was directly involved, of course, but with something so widespread and effects that must have been widely evident, one wonders where the whistleblowers were. Was everyone else just a passive bystander? Of course, we know that whistleblowers pay prices. And with all the interlocking ownership and interconnected interests, you never know whose toes you might be stepping on, so you have to be careful before taking any risks.<br /><br />Running a big scale heroine selling racket sounds a lot like what we tend to classify as the work of organized crime. If fact, Amy Goodman, the Democracy Now host, noted that Gibney’s documentary <i>“describes the Sackler family, Purdue Pharma, as a kind of crime syndicate”</i> and Gibney says it’s a <i>“blurry line between licit pharmaceutical sales and, essentially, cartel sales,”</i> that “they’re not so very different.” <br /><br />But there is more to this conspiracy tale of collusive bad behavior; the final part of it is the kind of intricate coordination that got the Sacklers and other wrong doers off essentially scot-free. This is part of exchange between Goodman and Gibney on that about the Sacklers using political <i>“muscle”</i> from those high up the government ladder to escape liability and keep their misdeeds secret:<br /><blockquote> AMY GOODMAN: <i>So, Alex Gibney, in fact, while you talk about Insys, people there were jailed. The Sackler family — and this goes to the recently settled lawsuit, and I’m wondering if you could comment on this — 15 states recently abandoning their fight to block the bankruptcy plan of Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin; in exchange, Purdue releasing tens of millions of documents, paying a settlement expected to reach $4.5 billion, but the Sackler family agreeing to cede ownership of Purdue but will not have to admit responsibility.</i><br /><br /> ALEX GIBNEY: <i>Yeah, it’s really — that settlement was designed to sound good, like, “Oh my gosh, $4.5 billion, that’s a lot of money.” It is a lot of money. But the Sacklers have about $11 billion. And that $4.5 billion gets paid over nine years. So, if you’re taking in at least 5% on your money, it’s really not affecting the principal at all.<br /><br /> But I think the larger thing here goes to a failure of accountability. You know, Purdue was investigated by the federal government back in 2006, and indeed found guilty. But that investigation, which was a very robust investigation, really laid out the roadmap for how Purdue did what it did. And the attorneys were arguing for very extensive felony convictions. Ultimately, Purdue used its muscle to go above those attorneys and have the charges knocked way back to misdemeanors and a fine. And most importantly — and this gets to the current episode — they were able to seal all the records relating to the prosecution. So the most important evidence was buried, which meant that all of us, the public, couldn’t see what had really happened, in order to be able to stop it.</i></blockquote>If you want to hear essentially this same assessment of the Sacklers’ escape act repeated you can read it in an New York Times opinion piece of the week by Patrick Radden Keefe, who says <i>“it is difficult to overstate the fiendish brilliance”</i> of how the Sacklers manipulated the court system to come out still ultra-wealthy and essentially unscathed: See: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/opinion/sackler-family-opioids-settlement.html">How Did the Sacklers Pull This Off?</a> July 14, 2021.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ST3-tfoGo1cujytlOjbD3-Vr0GHtyPZxr5mxfGMEFu8qg7MLQmXnON8gntLWBu0Xag39QTN4q_G3QCHIEM85bKBzfAc0s2IAk8eSd6lxtS6lxrCEMyEoawlAze_KdyVOwJtVEBN-JdLp/s2016/NYTImes+Opiod+04HowDidSacklers.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="2016" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ST3-tfoGo1cujytlOjbD3-Vr0GHtyPZxr5mxfGMEFu8qg7MLQmXnON8gntLWBu0Xag39QTN4q_G3QCHIEM85bKBzfAc0s2IAk8eSd6lxtS6lxrCEMyEoawlAze_KdyVOwJtVEBN-JdLp/s320/NYTImes+Opiod+04HowDidSacklers.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />He notes:<br /><blockquote><i>American corporations can pick the jurisdiction where they file for bankruptcy and, thus, often the judge who determines their fate. Even though Purdue has never had any real business presence in White Plains, N.Y., that is where it filed its bankruptcy case. Purdue has maintained that this choice was driven by proximity to the company’s headquarters in Stamford, Conn. But it may also have been relevant that only one federal bankruptcy judge presides in White Plains: Robert Drain. In the past, he indicated a willingness to shield from litigation certain parties who had not even filed for bankruptcy in his court. He promptly granted the request, temporarily protecting the Sacklers from those suits.<br /><br /> * * * *<br /><br /> . . Their offer: $4.5 billion, with no admission of wrongdoing by the family and permanent immunity from any future civil liability related to the opioid crisis.<br /><br />That may seem like a lot of money, but billionaire math can be deceptive. The Sacklers proposed to pay the $4.5 billion out over nine years. Their current fortune is estimated to be at least $11 billion. Conservatively, with interest and investments, this means they can expect a 5 percent annualized rate of return on that fortune. If that’s the case, they’ll be able to pay the fine without even touching their principal. When they’re done paying in 2030, they will probably be richer than they are today.</i></blockquote>It’s not just about the Sacklers. Especially, now, today, we should notice that, along with others in the industry it is also about a top-tier Covid vaccine manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson who got a similar settlement. Here is Gibney, again on Democracy Now:<br /><blockquote><i>one thing I would like to point out, as much as we talk about the Sacklers — and it’s very important to talk about them and Purdue — we shouldn’t be naive and think that that was the only company that was making extraordinary profits out of the opioid crisis and indeed didn’t know better. I mean, you know, </i>[the huge companies distributing the drugs]<i> knew very well that their pills, their opioid pills, were being diverted in ways that were causing massive addiction, but they didn’t do anything about it. And indeed, they ended up influencing Congress to pass a law which made them even less accountable, because they used the power of the revolving door to rig the rules. Johnson & Johnson, you know, famous for baby shampoo, was one of the biggest manufacturers of a potent kind of opioid, produced in Tasmania, that actually supplied Purdue Pharma with all the oxycodone that they needed in order to be able to market their drug. They wouldn’t have been able to do it without Johnson & Johnson. . . .</i></blockquote>The amount of the settlement, Johnson & Johnson paid for their role working with Purdue in fueling the opioid crisis?: <i>A paltry <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/johnson-johnson-agrees-to-pay-230-million-to-settle-new-york-opioid-claim/">$230 million</a></i> to New York State announced the end of June, and, bore broadly, in a settlement announced this week affecting other of the big pharmaceutical companies alongside of which it acted badly, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/health/opioids-distributors-settlement.html">$5 billion over nine years</a><i>.</i> In other words, it wasn’t it wasn’t meaningful.<br /><br />Maybe there will be those who say that this could have been all for the best if Johnson & Johnson, after paying dividends to its shareholders, managed to squirrel away extra cash from the profits it made from selling opiods to Purdue Pharma* on the theory that the extra cash might have helped the company come out with their Covid vaccine. That’s the same sort of the thinking behind the idea of what makes it OK for the CIA to self-finance off the books through its engagement over the years with the illicit drug trade.<br /><blockquote>(* <i>Johnson & Johnson also famously made money <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsonandjohnson-cancer/">knowingly selling asbestos laced baby talcum powder</a>.</i>)</blockquote>What a week! <i>Two</i> conspiracy theories at the same time about Big Pharma being engaged with government officials to cause harm to the public by marketing drugs that are misrepresented and shouldn’t have been approved– And one of those conspiracy theories extends to secrecy and coverups aided by more government officials outside the FDA and the politically very high up? And that conspiracy theory involves one of the most prominent of the Covid vaccine manufacturers? Are we allowed to believe in such conspiracy theories? Well the New York Times in subdued, grey lady, respectful-of-power fashion is endorsing <i>both</i> of them. <br /><br />For an official answer on the question of what we are allowed to believe, we could consult Cass Sunstein, an expert on conspiracy theories, an expert on what should, and should not, be censored by the media and a man who is also in charge of World Heath Organization group charged with steering what the public should think about Covid. See: <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2021/04/samantha-power-humanitarian-hawk-is.html">Samantha Power, “Humanitarian Hawk,” Is Married To Cass Sunstein, “Libertarian Paternalist”: They Both Advocate Censorship– Should That Advocacy Be On WBAI “Free Speech” Radio 99.5 FM?</a> <p></p><p></p><blockquote>(<b>Note:</b> Both FAIR's <a href="https://www.wbai.org/program.php?program=209">Counterspin</a> and <a href="https://www.wbai.org/program.php?program=49">Democracy Now</a> are programs who reporting is cited here air on WBAI radio 99.5 FM in New York City. I am currently a member of the WBAI Local Station Board and urge people to donate to the station.)</blockquote><p><b>Postscript:</b> After this article was posted <i>July 25, 2021</i>, Democracy Now ran another story <i>July 28, 2021</i> about how the pharmaceutical industry is corruptly and incestuously connected to government to make decisions that shortchange and fleece the public, decisions that are definitely contrary to the public’s interest and decisions that put Big Pharma profit and payoffs to the government officials they work with ahead of actually attending to the public’s healthcare needs. See: <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/7/28/joe_manchin_west_virginia_heather_bresch">Workers Beg Joe Manchin to Save West Virginia Pharma Plant as His Daughter Walks Away with $31M</a>, July 28, 2021.<br /><br />The story probably ran getting the prominence it did, because it is comfortably in the current vein of other let’s make Joe Manchin the villain (calling him “the most powerful man in Washington”) stories, so we have a someone to blame and a distraction from the rest of lawmakers as a whole should be held accountable as they deliver, both the Republican and the Democrats doing it, the spoils that the corporatist interests that placed them in office expect. Nonetheless, this story is valuable as another window into how brazenly connections can be in place between the pharmaceutical companies and government officials that conflict with the public interest, allowing what are pretty clearly payoffs so that government officials don’t protect the public’s health.<br /><br />In this story we learn that Joe Mansion’s daughter Heather Bresch, heads a pharma company in his state of West Virginia, Viatris, and formerly Mylan. Pfizer is involved because Viatris, which Ms. Bresch heads and was thereby able to recently pocket $31 million, was created through a merger involving Pfizer in December 2020. Ms. Bresch is likely mainly qualified for the job and to pocket such sums (in 2014 as head of Mylan she pocketed $25 million) via her relationship with her father. There was a scandal concerning how her MBA had to be revoked by West Virginia University. She had been given the now revoked degree right after Manchin became governor, (before he became senator) without doing the course work on the basis of doctored transcripts.<br /><br />As Mylan’s chief executive, Senator Manchin’s daughter was famous for her company’s raising by 400% the price of its life-saving EpiPen, used by millions who are vulnerable to reverse fatal allergic reactions. And more in the family: Mansion’s wife, Gayle Conelly Manchin was on a school commission that was trying to get the U.S. government to mandate that schools purchase the EpiPen at the insanely inflated price.<br /><br />The Democracy Now story reports about how Viatris is, with government, Biden and Mansion all doing nothing about it, shutting down its West Virginia plant (that should be designated <i>“vital infrastructure”</i>) and moving manufacturing operations abroad although according to Katherine Eban, author of the book <i>Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom and Dangerous Doses: A True Story of Cops, Counterfeiters, and the Contamination of America’s Drug Supply</i>:<br /><i></i></p><blockquote><i>We have seen five years of congressional reports, policy reports and bipartisan agreement that we need to make as many of our own pharmaceuticals as possible. We know from data, from reporting, that the drugs that are made overseas can be full of carcinogens and toxic impurities. There is all kinds of data fraud and other quality questions that the plants overseas are riddled with, including Viatris’s own plants, which are operating in India under an official action indicated warning from the FDA. So, why, in the middle of a pandemic, are we going through this exercise that every single report has told us is absolutely counterindicated to public health and our national interest?<i></i> <br /></i></blockquote>Ms. Eban says there is a:<br /><i><blockquote>sort of cone of silence that has come down over this shuttering of this critical manufacturing plant in West Virginia. It seems like it is both pharmaceutical and national security suicide to close this plant.</blockquote></i><i></i><p></p><p></p>
<b>PS #2- Democracy Now October 22, 2021-</b> Remember the TPP? The Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty? It was a proposal to use a <i>“treaty”</i> between countries to override national laws and invert the relationship between government and corporations; government would become subservient to and accountable to corporations rather than the traditional vice versa; corporate contracts would tell governments what laws could be passed. Democracy Now did a story about how, during Covid, Pfizer has used contracts with countries worldwide to exactly that. . . Contracts that put Pfizer in charge so that the Pfizer corporation tells the countries what they can do when conducting what would normally be the province of government. See: <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/22/public_citizen_researcher_exposes_pfizer_vaccines">Public Citizen Blasts Pfizer for Putting Corporate Profit Over Increasing Access to COVID Vaccines</a>, October 22, 2021. That leaves us with a peculiar situation when it comes to these medical matters- Is it government or Big Pharma that we are dealing with? You'll never know <i>which</i> is <i>which</i>. <br />Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-77469169498532621942021-07-04T01:19:00.001-04:002021-07-04T01:21:59.304-04:00The Fourth of July- Quashing The Independence of Other Countries Day!- What We Now Celebrate: Enough Said?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4Jy_FlbmJi-Bbtpdr8ZbCtIrk6DAY3fDvLv6yrV6JOx2uMB9jCdnWIHASQNhVCyJLOkw-RtZwLUTFWbZ_OnpwjxfKz50x034qxtLQ8hTVsFa5fcjRvBBdO6ml0cth3DcClo70hPnvCH2/s1543/US-Fourth-Flag-Animated.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="813" data-original-width="1543" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp4Jy_FlbmJi-Bbtpdr8ZbCtIrk6DAY3fDvLv6yrV6JOx2uMB9jCdnWIHASQNhVCyJLOkw-RtZwLUTFWbZ_OnpwjxfKz50x034qxtLQ8hTVsFa5fcjRvBBdO6ml0cth3DcClo70hPnvCH2/w400-h211/US-Fourth-Flag-Animated.gif" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-14797562575715595232021-04-28T21:22:00.000-04:002021-04-28T21:22:18.493-04:00Samantha Power, “Humanitarian Hawk,” Is Married To Cass Sunstein, “Libertarian Paternalist”: They Both Advocate Censorship– Should That Advocacy Be On WBAI “Free Speech” Radio 99.5 FM?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil-tnUA4qiOisgMz73nQBW5V-j9L29W6_6Yjj_2U7TW-0YiFDfyCULjeDu7ysKoCUisxw8oBZdrGDFBhOTIhopt6PfOeIQ1xAgZLSra2P1QCzsu8JUTGZjMieZaxLw-cZzsDf0i_XhJ5WE/s1890/Cass+Sunstein+Samantha+Power+Harvard+Montage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1093" data-original-width="1890" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil-tnUA4qiOisgMz73nQBW5V-j9L29W6_6Yjj_2U7TW-0YiFDfyCULjeDu7ysKoCUisxw8oBZdrGDFBhOTIhopt6PfOeIQ1xAgZLSra2P1QCzsu8JUTGZjMieZaxLw-cZzsDf0i_XhJ5WE/w400-h231/Cass+Sunstein+Samantha+Power+Harvard+Montage.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With their Harvard professorship and presidential administration connections Samantha Power and Cass Sunstein appeared holding hands as a <a href="https://harvardindependent.com/2020/02/power-couple-samantha-power-and-cass-sunstein/">“Power Couple” in pictures in a “Presidential-Love Issue”</a> of the Harvard Independent.- They both promote censorship of viewpoints that trouble them.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>They are a strange couple. Between them, they probably both wield a lot more power than is immediately obvious or generally acknowledged. Even though they both write books they are both probably largely off the American public’s radar screen for what and who they really are. . .<br /><br />They have each, respectively, been christened with oxymoronic monikers. The fact that they are married almost certainly informs how those monikers should be interpreted: She, Samantha Power is the <i>“Humanitarian Hawk,”</i> (as in <i>war advocacy “hawk”</i>); he, Cass Sunstein, is the <i>“Libertarian Paternalist.”</i><br /><br />They are both out in the world advocating <i>censorship</i>. <br /> <br />Should their advocacy for more censorship be carried on WBAI <i>“free speech”</i> radio? WBAI is the one truly listener supported public radio station in New York City, 99.5 FM. WBAI is part of the Pacifica network. With its record of free speech, WBAI, along with the rest of the Pacifica Network, has a long and venerable history of supplying counternarratives to those official narratives of the American Empire that have taken us to war repeatedly.<br /><br />And if we engage in the kind of increasing censorship Samantha Power and Cass Sunstein propose?: Well then there is an extreme likelihood that free speech and those anti-war narratives would be censored and hollowed out. Accordingly, should such advocacy for censorship be broadcast on WBAI <i>“free speech”</i> radio? <br /><br />Should it?- Good question, and a real one, because I did hear exactly such advocacy for censorship on our <i>"free speech"</i> radio. <br /><br />Unlike Cass Sunstein, I believe that the remedy for dangerous speech, no matter how pernicious, is pretty much always more better speech. We are going to try that very thing in this article. Consequently, I do not believe that Cass Sunstein appearing on WBAI <i>“free speech”</i> radio to advocate for censorship should be censored. . . .<br /><br />. . . Instead, I believe that the remedy is to discuss who Mr. Sunstein and his wife Samantha Power are and the remedy will include exploring what they are really up to.<br /><br />Once you know that Cass Sunstein believes in and studies how to use covert manipulation, then his recent appearance on WBAI can become a learning exercise with which to sharpen your ability to listen for the tactics he uses. Moreover, while I believe that it is essential to reveal who Cass Sunstein is when he appears on WBAI, his choice to present himself in a more covert way is also actually something to learn from. . . .<br /><br />What might be incumbent for Mr. Sunstein to reveal about himself in an interview? We’ll get to consider that here. Ought he be going so far as to tell us he is married to Samantha Power and to tell us who she is? . . . Maybe that’s a little extra, but let’s, in fact, start by discussing who Mr. Sunstein’s wife is.<br /><br /><b>Samantha Power (<i>“Humanitarian Hawk”</i>):</b><br /><br />Samantha Power is in the news right now because President Biden has nominated her to head U.S.A.I.D. (U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID). Biden says that if she is confirmed he will also appoint her to the National Security Council where she will, <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/what-would-samantha-power-s-nsc-role-mean-for-usaid-99446">according to</a> one former national security adviser, contribute <i>“substantively to important interagency deliberations and effectively articulating how USAID is an essential component to help advance U.S. national security interests and to achieve our foreign policy objectives.”</i><br /><br />USAID is generally understood by most moderately aware people to effectively be a semi-covert branch of the CIA. The <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/phillip-cross-the-mystery-wikipedia-editor-targeting-anti-war-sites/250824/">CIA edited</a> Wikipedia currently goes at least this far:<br /><blockquote><i>Some say that the US government gives aid to reward political and military partners rather than to advance genuine social or humanitarian causes abroad. William Blum has said that in the 1960s and early 1970s USAID has maintained "a close working relationship with the CIA, and Agency officers often operated abroad under USAID cover."</i></blockquote>There is <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/what-would-samantha-power-s-nsc-role-mean-for-usaid-99446">hint that</a> Power’s appointment to USAID will entail an increase to the agency’s staff, its portfolio (the <i>“scope of the knowledge”</i> and the information it will be responsible for), and, along with that probably the agency’s budget. We’ll note that, among other things, USAID is currently <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/coronavirus">a channel for</a> <i>“billions”</i> to <i>“to fight COVID-19 in more than 120 countries”</i> with <a href="https://www.usaid.gov/coronavirus/latest-news">a focus that</a> <i>“the Agency must prepare for lasting changes to the development and humanitarian landscape”</i> in a context where <i>“the COVID-19 pandemic threatens security and prosperity at home, challenges democratic governance globally, and has led to adversaries exploiting the pandemic to compete with the U.S.”</i> <br /><br />This USAID role with respect to Covid should be filed away for future reference when we get to discussion of Ms. Power’s husband.<br /><br />The term <i>“high profile”</i> is being widely used to describe Power as the nominee to head USAID it even being said that she <a href="https://www.devex.com/news/usaid-officials-prepare-for-higher-profile-role-under-samantha-power-98909">would be</a> the <i>“among the highest-profile figures to ever occupy that role.”</i> She is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. She was also previously on the National Security Council once before, where, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/samantha-power-biden.html">according to</a> the New York Times, <i>“during the Obama administration she pressed for military intervention to protect civilians from state-sponsored attacks in Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2013.”</i> She was also involved in launching the United States into the illegal war being waged against Yemen. That same New York Times article <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/us/politics/samantha-power-biden.html">tells us</a> that, if confirmed, Power <i>“will confront adversaries by bolstering democracy and human rights,” and that “China is an early focus.”</i><br /><br /><i>“Confronting adversaries”</i> using <i>“human rights”</i> as her excuse is what Ms. Power specializes in. It’s why she is called the <i>“humanitarian hawk”</i>; She leads or manipulates us into wars by selectively focusing on and proposing the premise that we are coming to aid of certain victims. Back in 1988 in their book <i>“Manufacturing Consent,”</i> Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky laid out the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/12/an-open-letter-to-reverend-ana-levy.html">concept of </a>the <i>“worthy victims”</i> of the world versus the world’s <i>“unworthy victims.”</i> It’s a construct that American corporate press routinely aligns with to manipulate the American public into supporting or tolerating American military adventurism. The <i>“worthy victims,”</i> no matter how many or few and no matter how fictionally described, are those victims of regimes we supposedly must go to war with to rescue. The <i>“unworthy victims,”</i> no matter how many, are the direct victims of our country’s imperialist and military activities to whom we are supposed to give little thought to. As we give little though to them, they are often undercounted and unsympathetically described.<br /><br />In 2015 journalist Robert Parry <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/15/samantha-power-liberal-war-hawk/">astutely nailed</a> <i>“interventionist”</i> Samantha Power, very influential within the Obama administration, for exactly these kinds of manipulations; <i>“promoting aggressive strategies that will lead to more death and destruction.”</i> He argued that, with her liberal posing, Power was <i>“laying the groundwork”</i> for <i>“potential ethnic slaughters.”</i> He noted that:<br /><i><blockquote>Though Power is a big promoter of the “responsibility to protect” or “R2P” she operates with glaring selectivity in deciding who deserves protection as she advances a neocon/liberal interventionist agenda. She is turning “human rights” into an excuse not to resolve conflicts but rather to make them bloodier.</blockquote></i>Parry writes that Power <i>“was one of the instigators of the U.S.-supported military intervention in 2011 which was disguised as an `R2P’ mission to protect civilians in eastern Libya”</i> where Obama signed onto <i>“a military mission that quickly morphed into a `regime change” operation”</i> with Gaddafi’s troops being bombed from the air and Gaddafi eventually <i>“hunted down, tortured and murdered.”</i> Parry observes:<br /><i><blockquote>Propaganda and genocide almost always go hand in hand, with the would-be aggressor stirring up resentment often by assuming the pose of a victim simply acting in self-defense and then righteously inflicting violence on the targeted group.</blockquote></i>(See: Consortium News: <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/15/samantha-power-liberal-war-hawk/">Samantha Power: Liberal War Hawk</a>, By Robert Parry, June 15, 2015.) <br /><br />Parry was writing in the late spring of 2015, not that long after Max Blumenthal had also written about how Power is a <i>“dangerous cynic”</i> who is intent on <i>“shrouding”</i> who she really is by dressing herself up as someone who cares about human rights. See: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2014/10/samantha-power-obamas-atrocity-enabler/">Samantha Power, Obama’s Atrocity Enabler</a>, by AlterNet and Max Blumenthal, October 27, 2014. In that article Blumenthal described how Power advanced her career when she theatrically teared up with an <i>“incredible display of pain and emotion.”</i> Blumenthal details how one of Power’s most important roles in the Obama administration was to protect Israel and its occupation of Palestinian territory (<i>“the world’s only active settler-colonial state”</i>) from scrutiny, legal and otherwise, for charges of crimes against humanity in that country’s treatment of Palestinians (e.g. the Goldstone Report).<br /><br />Power’s pose as humanitarian and interested in preventing human rights abuses is based importantly on a book she brought out just after 9/11 (February 20, 2002), <i>“`A Problem from Hell’: America and the Age of Genocide.”</i> <br /><br />Her book makes the case that <i>`decent Americans’</i> inside and outside government should not be so reluctant and refusing to get militarily involved to stop genocides. Jeremy Kuzmarov, writing about Power when she had become <i>“Obama's new ambassador to the United Nations”</i> (she assumed that post August 5, 2013), took on the narrative of Power’s book and her assertions that U.S. policymakers should “intervene more forcefully to prevent human rights crimes” including arguing in this vein as a rationale for promoting the war in Afghanistan. See: History News Network (Columbia and Georgetown)- <a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/153150">Samantha Power: Liberal War Hawk and Second Rate Scholar</a>, by Jeremy Kuzmarov. <br /><br />He notes that <i>“Despite its being advertised as providing a comprehensive analysis of American response to genocide in the twentieth century, Power’s book does not discuss several major genocides of the post-World War II era.”</i> He cites some omissions: the Indonesian genocide of 1965-66 with <i>“between 250,000 to a million people . . slaughtered,”</i> many of them targeted after being <i>“identified through lists provided by US military intelligence”</i>; nearly a billion dollars in economic assistance to Guatemalan General Efrain Rios Montt provided by the Reagan administration while he genocidally killed Mayan Indians who supported left-wing guerrillas; the U.S. military pacification campaigns in Vietnam that killed an untold and vast number of civilians; the Nixon administration's secret 1970 bombing of Cambodia that killed “anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 people” and overthrew the neutralist Prince Norodom Sihanouk, and destabilized the country leading to even more chaos and killing..<br /><br />Kuzmarov says that Power’s book:<i><br /><blockquote>ignores the structural variables underlying most military interventions, including the quest for overseas military bases, access to mineral resources, and the imperatives of the U.S.-military industrial complex. For Power, the U.S. is an innocent country which can only do good. That successive presidential administrations have been complicit in major human rights violations through arms sales, police and military training programs and warfare escapes her notice.</blockquote></i><p>Kuzmarov’s verdict is that Power’s book is <i>“more fiction than history.”</i>
It says a lot about the world we are living in and its power structures
that, in 2003, Power’s book won her the Pulitzer Prize. That means
very few people will be asking how much of a work of fiction it actually
is.</p><p>Currently, one of the most massive genocides going on is the siege warfare and bombing of Yemen for which the United States is one of the countries that must take principal responsibility. The U.S. is very involved in supplying support and all of the weapons used. Jimmy Dore has taken on Power for being two-faced and hypocritical about Yemen given her role in arming the Saudis and authorizing the war and its funding this and thereafter <i>`criticizing’</i> Trump for continuing the policies she and Obama implemented. See: Jimmy Dore Show- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjR2LNOYtnk">Saudi Arms Deal Exposes Obama Administration’s Jaw Dropping Hypocrisy</a>, May 26, 2017.<br /><br />The mainstream corporate media generally presents a flattering portrait of Samantha Power, but, obviously, right now, if you look on the internet you can find much that is far from flattering and very far from how Power would like to be portrayed when she coaxes us into new wars on humanitarian grounds.<br /><br />Maybe one day she’ll have less of a problem with what people find on the internet: Samantha Power is calling for the internet and its public forums to be more censored than currently. See this MintPress News, By Alan Macleod: <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/obama-era-officials-call-for-more-government-control-of-your-facebook-feed/272300/">Obama-Era Officials Call for More Government Control of Your Facebook Feed- Facebook content is already partially curated by government-linked think tanks, but for Samantha Power and others, that is simply not enough</a>, October 26, 2020.<br /><br />Hers is some of what Macleod has to say: <br /></p><blockquote><i>Writing in the Washington Post, senior Obama-era official Samantha Power has called on social media giant Facebook to do more to crush what she calls conspiracy theories and disinformation circulating on its platform.<br /><br />Describing it as being “overrun with foreign disinformation,” Power demanded Mark Zuckerberg “take far more drastic steps” to “detox” the company’s algorithm. The former United States ambassador to the United Nations compared the viral vitriol circulating on Zuckerberg’s platform to the weaponized disinformation campaigns in the former Yugoslavia, implying that it could help spark a conflict in the United States.</i></blockquote>Go to Macleod’s article to find more about how Facebook, since at least 2017 is already deliberately throttling traffic to left-wing alternative news sites and how the <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2018/05/coming-june-1st-forum-second-where-do.html">militaristic Atlantic Council</a> is involved in such censorship while promoting war-promoting narratives the Atlantic Council would prefer not to have contradicted with facts.<br /><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYYz4VxdFWsYXQC8b1dNg4VCt-JMTKWLVwY-V7nDIuygjIFZqW-VnFH5UmGuOYOL3JLYJpYZ4paGzcftPjiwYxPL6x9h4wo6seaqyIXmWUVAq1y0vLMq3gIzy8sCcYyjiClqhqeJdJtEYe/s1079/Samantha+Power+Atlantic+Council.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="1079" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYYz4VxdFWsYXQC8b1dNg4VCt-JMTKWLVwY-V7nDIuygjIFZqW-VnFH5UmGuOYOL3JLYJpYZ4paGzcftPjiwYxPL6x9h4wo6seaqyIXmWUVAq1y0vLMq3gIzy8sCcYyjiClqhqeJdJtEYe/w400-h279/Samantha+Power+Atlantic+Council.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the Macleod <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/obama-era-officials-call-for-more-government-control-of-your-facebook-feed/272300/">article</a>,
Samantha Power who advocates censorhsip at an event of the militaristic
Atlantic Council, an organzation charged with censorhsip
responsibilities<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Samantha Power, an interesting woman; she likes power and war and likes to be seen as something other than she is; she advocates censorship for more control as she wields such power. Who would like to marry her?<br /><br />That’s what we get to next! In 2008, it was on <i>July 4th</i>, Samantha Power married Cass Sunstein. <i>July 4th? The Fourth of July</i>?<br /> <br /><b>Cass Sunstein (<i>“Libertarian Paternalist”</i>):</b><br /> <br />Sunstein and Samantha Power are said to have married in 2008 after they met working on Barrack Obama’s campaign.<br /><br />That year, during the campaign, right around the time Sunstein and Power were married, Sunstein demonstrated himself to be a friend of illegal surveillance and of George W. Bush and those in his administration along with the telecommunications companies they had worked with to engage in such post 9/11 abuses of power. Constitutional law professor Cass Sunstein is said to have been a key influencer who persuaded former Constitutional law professor, now presidential candidate (the presumptive Democratic nominee), Senator Barack Obama to <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/obama-votes-silence-debate-and-pass-fisa/">vote on Wednesday, July 9, 2008</a> to give all of these characters retroactive immunity for the illegal warrantless wiretapping program by which the privacy of the telecommunications corporations customers was violated. (Senator McCain against whom Obama was running skipped the vote.) Obama also voted, <i>“<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/obama-votes-silence-debate-and-pass-fisa/">siding with Republicans</a>,”</i> to prevent debate on the retroactive immunity legislation. <br /><br />Max Blumenthal described it <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2013/06/machines-qaddafi-washington/">this way</a>:<br /></p><blockquote><i>With Sunstein by his side, Obama reversed his initial objections to the NSA’s domestic spying operations, voting as a Senator for retroactive immunity.<br /><br />The vote allowed the NSA to expand its domestic spying operations, clearing the legal hurdles obstructing the creation of PRISM. The stage was set for the second term scandal that would leave Obama reeling.</i> <br /></blockquote>Let us note at this time, that had the incredibly large scale government and telecommunication corporation illegal wiretapping activities not been accidentally discovered by someone willing and courageous enough to report it in a documented way, that to speak about describe the program or imagine it existing would have been to engage in <i>conspiracy thinking</i>.<br /><br />Our intelligence agencies don’t just engage in passive surveillance. Harry Truman, under whom the modern CIA was charted and launched replacing the OSS, regretfully considered that it was a mistake for the CIA to also be allowed to <a href="https://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-trustworthy-is-robert-mueller-and.html">also have</a> a nonpassive operational arm. But that is what we must contend with when it comes to dealing with our intelligence agencies.<br /><br />Cass Sunstein also believes in covert intelligence agency type operations. And in 2008, along with advocating retroactive immunity for illegal surveillance, he was expressing his belief in such covert activities.<br /><br />Project Censored is an organization that works to bring to light news, information and important narratives that are going unreported in the mainstream press. It delves, in a media literate way, into the reasons those things are going unreported. As part of its work, every year Project Censored publishes a list of the top 25 stories of the year that are not being reported. In 2010 one of those stories involved Cass Sunstein. (Project Censored also, in the recnt decade, has an ecellent <a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/category/the-project-censored-show/">hour-long show</a> that airs weekly on the Pacifica Network.) <br /><br />Cass Sunstein was a member of the Obama administration in October of 2010. The official title he’d been appointed to by President Obama was head the Office of Information. Number 14 on Project Censored’s list of unreported stories October 2010 was, to a significant extent, about how in 2008 Cass Sunstein wrote a paper calling for groups with views unacceptable to the government (<i>“extremist”</i>) to be <i>cognitively infiltrated</i> by the government because <i>“refuting these groups in public is not productive.”</i> <br /><br />The Project Censored article <a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/14-increased-tensions-with-unresolved-911-issues/">noted that</a>:<br /><i><blockquote>Sunstein is essentially calling for a return of the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) from the cold war days when agents of the US government covertly infiltrated antiwar and civil rights groups with the intent to disrupt and discredit their activities—provoking violence or planning illegal acts themselves in order to bring groups up on criminal charges.</blockquote></i>Glen Greenwald (in his pre-Edward Snowden reporting days, before the Snowden PRISM program revelations) had already caught on to the danger of what Sunstein was proposing and he wrote about it in January, prior to publication of Project Censored’s list that year. See his piece in Salon: <a href="https://www.salon.com/2010/01/15/sunstein_2/">Obama confidant's spine-chilling proposal- Cass Sunstein wants the government to "cognitively infiltrate" anti-government groups</a>, By Glenn Greenwald, January 15, 2010. <br /><br />Greenwald wrote: <br /><i><blockquote>Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama's closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs." In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. <br /><br /> * * * *<br /><br />Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, online social objurgates, or even real-space groups." He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called "independent" credible voices to bolster the Government's messaging (on the ground that those who don't believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). This program would target those advocating false "conspiracy theories," which they define to mean: "an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role." </blockquote></i>Greenwald’s January 15, 2010 Salon article linked to <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1084585">the abstract of</a> Sunstein’s January 2008 paper. A visit to that link indicates that on January 18, 2010, three days after Greenwald’s article, revisions were made to the page presenting Sunstein’s article. <br /><br />Sunstein’s abstract, which scolds <i>“conspiracy theories,”</i> starts out:<br /><i><blockquote>Many millions of people hold conspiracy theories; they believe that powerful people have worked together in order to withhold the truth about some important practice or some terrible event.</blockquote></i> Yes, the idea that <i>`powerful people would act secretly in their own interests contrary to the public’s’</i> is a typical, serviceable definition of a conspiracy theory. As such, there is brazen Orwellianess to paradoxically propose that beliefs in conspiracy theories are <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/conspiracy-theories-are-a-threat-to-democracy/ar-BB1bydyW">somehow</a> <i>“antidemocratic”</i> or <i>“<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/03/conspiracy-theories-are-dangerous-threat-our-democracy/">dangerously</a> <a href="https://napavalleyregister.com/opinion/editorial/conspiracy-theories-are-a-dangerous-threat-to-our-democracy/article_a6830436-8d7c-5044-8217-59604b221a39.html">threaten</a>”</i> democracy. Nonetheless, that’s a message we are being <a href="https://www.bing.com/search?q=Conspiracy%20theories%20are%20a%20dangerous%20threat%20to%20our%20democracy&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=conspiracy%20theories%20are%20a%20dangerous%20threat%20to%20our%20democracy&sc=0-59&sk=&cvid=7B607AC3A4404E9C877FA2FBBB3739C6">bombarded with</a> now. In another Orwellian turn, we are also being told that <i>“free speech”</i> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/magazine/free-speech.html?searchResultPosition=7">is an enemy</a> of democracy. In yet one more <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnXDiANvQ-I">paternalistic</a> <i>`leave democracy in the hands of the experts and establishment powers’</i> gambit, it is now being argued that we <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/opinion/fake-news-media-attention.html">shouldn’t think too much</a> about challengingly complex matters (so-called <i>“<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/opinion/fake-news-media-attention.html">rabbit holes</a>”</i>), but instead go to and rely on more mainstream official sources whenever there are controversial matters to be evaluated.<br /><br />Sunstein, writing in 2008, asserts that <i>“conspiracy theories”</i> are the result of <i>“cognitive blunders”</i> by those who <i>“suffer from a crippled epistemology.”</i> This was long before QANON’s the recent mysterious and heralded arrival on the scene as the embodiment of a strawman foil perfectly tailored to bolster Sunstein’s argument. When Sunstein wrote in 2008, he <a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/14-increased-tensions-with-unresolved-911-issues/">cited 9/11 conspiracy theories</a> as his principal target for excoriation saying that those who subscribe to such theories offer <i>“serious risks”</i> of <i>“violence”</i> and raise<i> “significant challenges for policy and law.”</i> <br /><br />Sunstein would undoubtably <u><i>not</i></u> be pleased by the Architects and Engineers For 9/11 Truth having just produced <i>“<a href="https://www.ae911truth.org/seven">Seven</a>”</i> the new 45 minute documentary about the engineering and mysterious <i>"collapse"</i> on 9/11 of the <u><i>third</i></u> building, World Trade Center Building 7. Sunstein certainly wouldn’t be happy with the way their film forthrightly questions a key part of the official narrative about 9/11, nor would he be pleased that the Architects and Engineers have carefully, and patiently assembled evidence, including taking three years for a two pronged computer assisted engineering study of Building 7, given that their meticulously sober conduct fails utterly to conform to Sunstein’s preferred portrait of conspiracy theorists.<br /><br />The tactic of scorning and dismissing conspiracy theories in a ridiculing manner is generally, by those who have examined the question, traced back to a <a href="https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=53510#relPageId=3&tab=page">CIA memo</a> <a href="http://www.jfklancer.com/CIA.html">dated</a> April 1, 1967 with instructions about how best to counter widespread public belief that the official stories about the assassination of John F. Kennedy weren’t to be trusted. Yes, that memo was actually dated <i>April 1st , <u>April Fool’s Day</u></i>. But there's was no April fooling about its existence.<p></p>The notion that the CIA’s April 1st memo launched a now time honored tradition of trying to derogate <i>“conspiracy theories”</i> as <i>“crazy”</i> has, itself been dismissed as a <i>“conspiracy theory”</i>
if you would like to accept the judgement of Snopes rather than treat
Snopes as suspect. The CIA memo came out after the February 21, 1965
assassination of Malcolm X where government and police were involved in
the plot that killed him. Part of the CIA’s 1967 memo’s suggested
argument for dismissing JFK assassination conspiracy theories was that
Robert F. Kennedy would not have allowed such a conspiracy to remain
hidden. June 6, 1968 brought the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy,
which itself came hard on, just months after the April 4, 1968
assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., which was just a year after
the CIA memo. December 4, 1969, Fred Hampton was murdered by Chicago
Police officers who plotted with the FBI to set up his execution. <br /><p><br />Snopes <a href="https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/03/16/did-the-cia-invent-the-term-conspiracy-theory/">asserts that</a> it’s a <i>“conspiracy theory”</i>
to claim that the CIA launched the tactic term in 1967 to disqualify
those who questioned the official version of John F Kennedy’s
assassination, because:</p><p></p><blockquote><i>the actual term “conspiracy theory” emerged much more recently. It was only a few decades ago that the term took on the derogatory connotations it has today, where to call someone a conspiracy theorist functions as an insult.</i></blockquote>Actually, Snopes is wrong: On January 3, 1968, the New York Times ran a story closely tracking the instructions of the then recent CIA memo saying “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1968/01/03/archives/educator-scorns-plot-on-kennedy-johnson-aide-is-critical-of.html?searchResultPosition=2">Johnson Aide Is Critical of Conspiracy Theorists,</a>” in which conspiracy theorists were <i>“dismissed as ‘marginal paranoids’”</i> April 11, 1968, the New York Times ran a story “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/11/archives/false-police-reports-of-chase-after-dr-kings-death-give-impetus-to.html?searchResultPosition=1">False Police Reports of Chase After Dr. King's Death Give Impetus to Conspiracy Theories</a>.”<br /><br />If Sunstein’s 2008 urging has been followed, that covert agents should by stealth <i>"cognitively infiltrate"</i> online groups, websites, activist groups, chat rooms, online social networks, and even real-space groups, and, if his goals of discrediting “conspiracy theorists” had been borne in mind, then who and what we are dealing with whenever we encounter almost anybody gets called into question. As one critical example, who knows, what to make of so-called QANON?<br /><br />Aside from giving government a fairly free hand with illegal surveillance and advocating covert and cognitive infiltration and Sunstein has other ideas, as we will get to (censorship and clever techniques for choice manipulation) that he backs for controlling the behavior of his fellow citizens. We need to mention one of the important things Sunstein is doing now and we should also mention what else he has been doing more recently . . .<br /><br />We know from the short form summary bio information often posted in connection with Sunstein appearing in various places, that <i>after 2012</i>, <i>after</i> Sunstein was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, he served on: 1.) the President's Review Board on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, and 2.) on the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board. Sunstein’s <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/csunstein/">LinkedIn profile</a> doesn’t have information about either of these two positions and neither does the relatively complimentary Wikipedia page about Sunstein. Each of these positions sound like they’d be ideal for Sunstein to continue to pursue his ideas about manipulating public debate, but they were not exactly the same thing.<br /><br />Although it isn’t easy to find information about Obama’s Review Board on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, it issued a report at the end of 2013 that was partly a quick <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/4903/highlights-prgict/">response to</a> the Snowden revelations in the spring of 2013. The Washington Post, having just been acquired by <a href="https://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2018/11/interesting-to-think-that-it-all-began.html">Jeff Bezos</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-shouldnt-keep-phone-database-review-board-recommends/2013/12/18/f44fe7c0-67fd-11e3-a0b9-249bbb34602c_story.html">described</a> the report as advocating <i>“curbing”</i> surveillance. The ACLU accepted it <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/nine-things-you-should-know-about-nsa">at face value</a> as proposing surveillance reforms. It was <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/011413RecordSub-Sessions.pdf">opposed by some</a> as proposing that surveillance be too severely restricted.<br /><br />The report recommended the solution, which you may remember from the time, that instead of having the government collect private data on citizens, that this function be done by private third-party companies who would then be ready to turn such data over to the government when the government sought it. That solution, entrusting third-party companies like <i>Google</i> and <a href="https://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2018/11/interesting-to-think-that-it-all-began.html"><i>Amazon</i></a> to collect private data is actually founded on a line of court cases that make the spying and data collection arguably Constitutional. It is also consistent with the general trend pursuant to which most of the government’s surveillance operations have been <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2016/12/articles-about-library-privacy-and.html">privatized</a> by contracting those activities to the private sector. (See: Tim Shorrock’s 2008 book “<a href="https://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2018/11/interesting-to-think-that-it-all-began.html">Spies for Hire- The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing</a>,”)<br /><br />Sunstein <a href="https://sagaciousnewsnetwork.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-jeff-bezos-cass-sunstein-join-pentagons-defense-innovation-board/">joined</a> the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board in July of 2016 the <a href="https://sagaciousnewsnetwork.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-jeff-bezos-cass-sunstein-join-pentagons-defense-innovation-board/">same time</a> that <a href="https://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2018/11/interesting-to-think-that-it-all-began.html">Jeff Bezos</a> was added to the board. Already on the board to greet them <a href="https://sagaciousnewsnetwork.com/neil-degrasse-tyson-jeff-bezos-cass-sunstein-join-pentagons-defense-innovation-board/">was</a> Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google’s Alphabet Inc.. Sunstein’s bio posts refer to his being on that board in the past tense and it is unclear to me what the usual tenure on the board is. Schmidt, on the board when Sunstein arrived that July 2016, <a href="https://insidecybersecurity.com/daily-news/former-google-chief-schmidt-departs-head-pentagon%E2%80%99s-defense-innovation-board">reportedly</a> stepped down four years later in September 16, 2020.<br /><br />The Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board does things like make <a href="https://innovation.defense.gov/Recommendations/">recommendations</a> about <a href="https://futurist.law.umich.edu/pentagon-takes-a-stab-at-machine-morality-whats-new/">what makes</a> Artificial Intelligence warfare ethical. Meanwhile we find Sunstein participating (November 2020) in a <i>“colloquium on AI Ethics”</i> that is, among other things <i>“part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities”</i> (i.e. <a href="https://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/search/label/Stephen%20A.%20Schwarzman">Stephen A. Schwarzman</a> who has been involved as a NYPL trustee in <a href="https://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2020/03/as-michael-bloomberg-runs-for-president.html">dismantling NYC libraries</a>), where it was being discussed why it is <i>“<a href="https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/algorithms-eliminate-noise-and-very-good">very good</a>”</i> when algorithms eliminate the noise of <i>“variability in judgments that should be identical.”</i><br /><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjETX4MzzYuD2NxPbcDAxGhQF34-ZyOerSn3xP5PHXORO3vhR1705DLWvTGyR9fbQrk1heJ_mGo2j6OlZuQa33VqLZrfyR_3ybc133Dm6bnYE1_M3YhzSzqKGL4zkvUBdefB61r45s3CppE/s1518/Cass+Sunstein+WHO+Behavior.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="1518" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjETX4MzzYuD2NxPbcDAxGhQF34-ZyOerSn3xP5PHXORO3vhR1705DLWvTGyR9fbQrk1heJ_mGo2j6OlZuQa33VqLZrfyR_3ybc133Dm6bnYE1_M3YhzSzqKGL4zkvUBdefB61r45s3CppE/w400-h224/Cass+Sunstein+WHO+Behavior.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cass Sunstein is <a href="https://twitter.com/_whitneywebb/status/1317093040226508800">leading the WHO advisory group</a> (seen here) on <i>“how best to increase”</i> Covid-19 vaccine demand</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Our news these days is 24/7 about Covid-19. Therefore it’s of the utmost importance that right now Cass Sunstein is the Chair the <a href="https://www.who.int/our-work/science-division/behavioural-insights/TAG-on-behavioural-insights-and-sciences-for-health-biographies">World Health Organization’s Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health</a>, which is <a href="https://twitter.com/_whitneywebb/status/1317093040226508800">working and giving advice under his leadership</a> on <i>“how best to increase”</i> Covid-19 vaccine <i>“demand in settings with high virus transmission & low demand, & to forewarn on risk reduction & equity.”</i> Does the `WHO affiliation' make this recent Sunstein role sound innocuous? That’s a probable reaction for many, unless, as is unlikely, they have read the <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/07/08/bill-gates-global-health-policy/">Grayzone’s article</a> of last July, about how the WHO has, through various financial machinations, become more or less a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bill Gates who, himself is now strangely in charge of leading the world’s Covid response.<br /><br />All that in mind, let us think back now to remember that Sunstein’s wife, Samantha Power, will be in charge dealing with the U.S.’s interactions concerning Covid with other countries worldwide if and when she’s appointed to head USAID.<br /><br /><b>Cass Sunstein Takes The Argument For Censorship To “Free Speech” Radio</b><br /><br />Some months ago, I tuned in recently to listen to one of the Pacifica Network’s West Coast stations and was perturbed to hear what I thought were fairly naive arguments for more vigilant and aggressive censorship of so-called <i>“fake news”</i> by the big tech companies. I was troubled, because, after all, the Pacifica Network stations do brand themselves as <i>“free speech”</i> radio. <i>`That would never happen on Pacifica’s New York Station, WBAI,’</i> I told myself. <u><i>Full disclosure</i></u>, I am a member of WBAI’s local station board, my wife also.<br /><br />Then on a recent Sunday, I tuned into WBAI in the middle of a program and I heard a very similar argument for censorship of so-called <i>“fake news.”</i> Muttering, I predicted than when we came to the end interview identity of the advocate for such censorship would be announced to be one of the amply paid professors whom I have been compiling into a list: These professors seem to have been seeded in colleges across the country as <i>`experts’</i> on controlling <i>`fake news.’</i> These <i>“experts”</i> seem always to be expert at teaching their students, like children at a playground, to ridicule and deride <i>“conspiracy theories”</i> as fake news, . . But they never, ever seem to teach about the <i>fake news</i> involved in <i>“Manufacturing Consent”</i> (typically for war), as carefully analyzed with great scholarship and erudition by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. One of these professors featured <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/opinion/q-anon-conspiracy.html">recently</a> in the New York Times as a <i>“pioneering scholar of misinformation and media manipulation”</i> is <a href="https://twitter.com/natnotice/status/1319678998717280263?s=21">Joan Donovan</a>. Like Sunstein and, his wife Samantha, Donovan can boast of being yet another Harvard professor. <br /><br />Oh my!. . <br /><br />. . When the name of the interviewee advocating censorship on WBAI was finally announced, I was stunned to find that it was none other than Cass Sunstein himself. . . </p><p> The program was <a href="https://wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=21144">City Watch, Sunday, April 18, 2021, 10:00 AM</a>. Officially Sunstein was on this program that deals with New York politics and political affairs to discuss his book, <i>“Liars: Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception.”</i><br /><br />Analyzing it closely, the WBAI interview serves to teach us a lot about Sunstein’s modus operandi.<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYz3ea2Avrg9frW5IRDHpxN3tzumsx9LWCfl0TkNfCBivskL1elYFD1YqcHJlO_4jX7JRLWXaAkycr6ICE0I3q-HboT2RbD0mMIiqydYOUAzUs7VmpLHm2zY0tTHDqUYXrlHvtcgOh1sEn/s955/Cass+Sunstein+WBAI+City+Watch.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="940" data-original-width="955" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYz3ea2Avrg9frW5IRDHpxN3tzumsx9LWCfl0TkNfCBivskL1elYFD1YqcHJlO_4jX7JRLWXaAkycr6ICE0I3q-HboT2RbD0mMIiqydYOUAzUs7VmpLHm2zY0tTHDqUYXrlHvtcgOh1sEn/w320-h315/Cass+Sunstein+WBAI+City+Watch.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/JackHites/status/1382868017391017985">annoucing that</a>
Cass Sunstein is going on WBAI "free speech" radio- can you guess from
this that it will be to advocate changing the Constitution to allow for
greater censorship?<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /><b>Background:</b> The structure of the Cass Sunstein interview is interesting in terms of whether it incorporates formulae Sunstein has advocated for manipulating choice. As set forth in the Amazon summary for Sunstein’s earlier, more famous 2008 book, <i>“Nudge”</i> (supposedly about <i>“Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness”</i>) Sunstein considers <i>“that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and that we are all susceptible to biases”</i> and that <i>“by knowing how people think”</i> and <i>“choice architecture”</i> we can push people into making decisions that those in charge think best <i>“without restricting our freedom of choice.”</i> His <i>“Nudge”</i> book was published <u><i>April 8, 2008</i></u>, just months after he published his paper advocating covert cognitive infiltration to manipulate groups.<br /><br />Because Sunstein seeks first to manipulate instead of actually restricting <i>“freedom of choice,”</i> he gets, as we have already noted, the seemingly oxymoronic moniker of a <i>“libertarian paternalist.”</i> But he is not libertarian: He is about top-down societal control. To reiterate, he and his <i>“humanitarian”</i> war advocating wife <i>both</i> advocate <u><i>censorship</i></u> and banning information whenever it its necessary to control thought and choice if manipulation fails. He is, if you will, about starting out with <i>`gentler’</i> more subtle forms of control and then graduating to stronger, more forceful controls. Given that he has advocated what is essentially an updated version of the covert COINTEL program, it is unclear where he draws any line, if, in fact he ever does.<br /><br />The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDPrpKDjQ5U">CIA edited</a> Wikipedia says that the following criticism of Sunstein’s <i>“Nudge”</i> book (co-authored with Richard H. Thaler) has been offered by American law professor Pierre Schlag: that framing their issues, Sunstein and Thaler neglect a number of important questions: <i>“(1) What to optimize? (2) When is a nudge a shove? (3) Should we prefer experts? and (4) When do we nudge?”</i> Most important, and left off Professor Schlag’s list, is (5) <u><i>Who</i></u> is doing the “nudge” manipulation, and (6) <u><i>What is their motivation</i></u>, do they really want what is best for the person being manipulated, or, as with the example of Samantha Power, Sunstein’s wife, are they pushing for wars or other ill-advised things to generate cooperate profit? Lastly, (7) does resort to this “nudge” approach value and <i>encourage dumbing down the public</i>– Thus will it lead to unexamined lives where the public doesn’t reflect on important decisions or engage in complex thinking about complex issues, leaving all such thought to those who are in power? <br /><br />The Guardian thought Sunstein’s book <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/12/nudge-book-review">was a</a> <i>“jolly” “romp.”</i><br /><br />Sunstein’s Nudge concepts are not just <i>theory.</i> He puts it into practice. For example, Sunstein serves as <a href="https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/algorithms-eliminate-noise-and-very-good">an adviser to</a> the Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom. From the Deloitte consulting firm <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/public-sector/government-trends/2020/government-nudge-thinking.html">we learn</a>:<br /><i></i></p><blockquote><i>In 2010 [i.e. two years after publication of Sunstein’s Nudge book and cognitive infiltration paper], the United Kingdom’s Behavioural Insights Team became the first governmental “nudge unit” to study and harness behavioral patterns for more informed policymaking and improved government services. Since then, there has been a proliferation of formal and informal nudge groups within government agencies, as hundreds of countries, states, and cities have applied the concepts of nudge thinking to improve outcomes.</i></blockquote>It's something he might even proudly acknowledge: Cass Sunstein is an obvious inheritor of the mantle of Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud's nephew, the <i>“grandfather of spin, public relations.”</i> Mickey Huff of Project Censored has pointed more than once to this <a href="https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/exclusive-interviews/anthony-wile-mickey-huff-on-project-censored-the-reality-of-world-government-and-the-masquerade-of-a-free-press/">significant Bernays quote</a> (<i>with ellipses</i>) from Bernays 1928 book <i>"Propaganda"</i> (he thought <i>“propaganda”</i> was a good thing): <br /><i><blockquote>The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country . . . We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society . . . In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.</blockquote></i>Sunstein’s concept about manipulating decisions (because he asserts people have <i>`two systems of thinking’)</i> is that when decisions are complex, or are not simplified and presented as complex, people can be pushed to make decisions based on emotional and reflexive biases. <br /> <br />So-called <i>“nudge theory”</i> gets into the possibility of lots of little<i> “micronudges”</i> (cumulative?) And <i>microtargeted designs</i> targeting specific groups of people broken down differently. It is important to think about the extent that all of this is already integrated thoroughly into the technological ways big tech, including all of social media, now provide most of our means to interface with world and the public square. Now even more so with the Covid lock down <a href="https://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/03/reflections-on-what-it-means-to-be.html">forcing on us</a> more technology to interface with the world.<br /><br />Although the WBAI Sunstein interview <u><i>never</i></u> mentions or even hints at Sunstein’s chairmanship of the WHO Behavioural Insights groups that is working to increase demand for Covid injections, the WBAI interview is to a large extent about Covid and controlling information about Covid.<br /><br />The highly politicized subject of Covid has gotten to be a touchy one, i.e. also an emotional one. When we get to reviewing the WBAI Sunstein interview in a minute, you will see how the touchiness of what people are supposed to, or not ask supposed to, ask questions about in this regard plays a factor in the arguments Sunstein makes for censorship. <br /><br />Comedian and political show host Jimmy Dore (who has been advocating that people wear masks to protect themselves) has presented a number of clips of Dr. Anthony Fauci on his show demonstrating that Fauci cannot be relied upon to tell the truth and that Fauci has contradictorily changed, sometimes even during the course of an interview, what he is saying and clearly will dissemble.<br /><br />Dore ran Fauci clips like that as part of his <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-jimmy-dore-show-21082/episode/nancy-pelosis-human-sacrifices-83360763">April 22, 2021 program</a> and, at the end of that program (<a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-jimmy-dore-show-21082/episode/nancy-pelosis-human-sacrifices-83360763">53:50</a>), noted that when he first ran such a clip of Fauci lying about wearing masks, he was called in to meet with the General Manager and the Program Director of KPFK, the Los Angeles station that is part of the Pacifica network where his program was airing for over ten years. Asked by them about his Fauci reporting, Dore said he told the GM and Program Director that his reporting was accurate and that if they had a problem with the facts he reported they should let him know. Dore was oblique about what happened next and it is not entirely clear (although Dore opined that the station was moving a McCarthy-censoring way to the neocon right). But Dore said that he was off KPFK's air soon after. (His show continues as a not yet censored internet podcast.)<br /><br />KPFK’s website has a <a href="https://www.kpfk.org/blogs/programming-highlights/post/thank-you-to-the-jimmy-dore-show/">January 29, 2021 post</a> consisting of Jimmy Dore’s brief <i>“Thank you”</i> to Pacifica Radio and KPFK, saying in part:<br /><i><blockquote> It was an honor to uphold a proud heritage.<br /><br /> Being a voice against War,<br /> being a voice against Cold-War McCarthyism,<br /> being a voice for The People,<br /><br /> Dissenting journalism that questions Establishment narratives will be needed more than ever now.</blockquote></i> Knowing Sunstein’s penchant for manipulation and control and the subtlety of some of the techniques he espouses, it is interesting to see the extent to which the WBAI interview follows formulae for manipulation. Here is the structure of the interview. It is a very tight 22 minutes commencing the show that appears to have been carefully scripted on both sides (it would be interesting to know more about that scripting): <br /><blockquote> • Nice relaxed folksy guitar intro.<br /> • <b>Host-</b> A friendly, <i>`Hope you’ve got your coffee.’</i><br /> • The host then needs to slide into the subject because the program is about to go outside of its usual lane of covering New York affairs. The host explains that the show has <i>focused on health and that the Covid and death rate in NYC remains at a high level- `on Friday 58 more New Yorker died of Covid, 35 in New York City’.. But now 50 or older can get vaccines.</i><br /> • A `concerned’ <b>host</b> speaks more about the danger to his listeners: <i>I realize it is a personal choice and among our listeners there are people who do not believe in vaccinations, but I also worry about your health, and the fact that the virus is still mutating and there are recent discoveries of more contagious versions around the world.</i><br /> • The <b>host</b> links that danger to misinformation and asks for their trust: <i>I also worry about misinformation and who we listen to, where we get the information that we trust, and trust is an important word. - Who we treat as credible.</i><br /> • The <b>host</b> asserts he is broad minded:<i> I watch multiple TV shows consume a lot of media and read both liberal and conservative media so I can hear different political observations.</i><br /> • Now the <b>host </b>sets up the dichotomy to manipulate listeners about who they are going to trust: <i>“We just finished a presidency</i> [Trump!] <i>where it was clear that depending on what you watched you ether believed that at the outset of the virus it was under control and nothing to worry about</i> [Trump!],<i> or you felt that this was an imminent threat and we needed to act quickly or more quickly to rein in this virus and ultimately save more lives</i> [I’m on the life-saving side]<br /> • Now the <b>host</b> invokes another listener-hated right wing person to ensure the audience will respond emotionally and to cue the listeners that what is about to be presented as an alternative is more in line with their own political leanings, and thus ought to be more readily accepted: <i>Just a few days ago Tucker Carlson said that perhaps the Covid vaccine doesn’t work </i>[There are actually multiple “vaccines” or more accurately "shots"] <i>and they are simply not telling you that.</i><br /> • The <b>host</b> tells the audience: <i>This is despite clinical trials</i> [conducted by big Pharma and excluding normal FDA oversight] <br /> • The <b>host</b> invokes Dr. Fauci as a trusted figure while dissing conspiracy theories: <i>And Dr. Anthony Fauci has called this a “crazy conspiracy theory.”</i><br /> • <b>Host</b> posits falsehoods and equates them with danger: <i>So when we think about distortions and lies, at what point do they become dangerous?</i><br /> • <b>Host</b> makes a pitch for the safety of paternalism: <i>Especially if we ourselves are incompetent in deciphering fact from fiction?</i><br /> • The subject of censorship is broached with a less threatening euphemism: <i>Should there be some type of a sanction</i> [censorship]?<br /> • <b>Host:</b> <i>That brings me to my guest <b>Cass Sunstein</b>- Sunstein gets presented with happy sounding, noncontextual, and reassuring credentials:</i><i></i><blockquote> • <i>Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard<br /> • He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. <br /> • A prize </i>[from the lovely, reliable country of Norway] <i>described as the “equivalent of the Nobel Prize for Law and the Humanities</i> [very reassuring]<br /> • <i>He’s the author of dozens of books that you’ve heard of.</i> [i.e. you know who he is and he’s a safe authority.]<br /> • <i>His wrote the “Citizen’s Guide To Impeachment”</i> [He’s against Trump and on your side!]<br /> • <i>His newest book is about “liars”</i> [i.e. he’s not one and wants to do something about them] <i>and how we should deal with “false speech” in the modern era and how we should deal with it given the problem</i> [“problem”?] <i>of protection of free speech as a Constitutional principle to deal with.</i><br /> • <i> He “explores these issues with a creative and rich set of perspectives.”</i> [Certainly, an invitation to be creative and share his "perspectives."]</blockquote> • The intro <u>doesn’t reveal</u> that Sunstein has argued for covert infiltration and manipulation to control thought. It <u>doesn’t say</u> that his wife is Samantha Power who has played a key role in manipulating the United States into several major wars. It <u>doesn’t say</u> that Cass Sunstein is chair of World Health Organization World Health Organization Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights & Sciences and as head thereof is actually tasked with the responsibility to steer behavior to accept the Covid-19 narrative and vaccinations. It <u>doesn't mention</u> his work on the Pentagon advisory board alongside the big tech guys.<br /> • <i>The <b>Host</b> suggests that fake news comes from hated figures like Trump and not, for instance from those who want to steer us into wars: The book is “timely” right now because of the four years of Trump</i> [raise emotional hackles?] <i>and how it raises the issue of “fake news” and “alternative facts.”</i><br /> • <b>Host</b> links "lies" to death: <i>In this last year, as you worked on the book, lying had “deadly</i> [oh my!] <i>consequences.</i>”<br /> • <b>Sunstein</b> makes the case that lying is different than it used to be and also more fearsome:<i> Last few years the omnipresence of falsehoods, sometimes intentional, and they can spread to a lot of people in a hurry, has become clearer than ever.</i><br /> • <b>Sunstein:</b> <i>These might be lies about the source of the virus</i> [<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html">more and more</a> we are seeing revisions in the official story about the source of the virus leading us to a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzwmtICyOCs">new official narrative</a> that the source was a lab leak- officially an accidental one, which means that the first official stories about the source were actually false],<i> lies about existence of the virus, lies about responses to the virus. These lies, not hyperbolically speaking are literally dangerous [reptile brain], they can and have cost lives.</i><br /> • <b>Host</b> goes back t<i>o anchor this in rejections of Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity- And goes back, based on this dichotomy to ask the question of who to trust.</i><br /> • <b>Host</b> and <b>Sunstein</b> <i>play a game of “rating” the danger “from one to ten” and then don’t actually.</i><br /> • <b>Sunstein</b> <i>suggests that he has statistics that Carlson’s viewers were safer than Hannity’s viewers because Carlson was more in line with the official narrative.</i><br /> • <b>Host</b> then says that <i>there is a second chapter to <b>Sunstein’s</b> book that provides an official grid for determining when to censor people.</i> Host <i>encourages listeners to study the grid to assess the level of possible harm.</i> Sunstein <i>says the second chapter is his favorite and then supplies an anecdote that it was included at the suggestion of a friend.</i><br /> • <b>Sunstein</b> says that the grid <i>“helps break the logjam” between those “who think `freedom of speech, freedom of speech, freedom of speech,’- God Bless them</i> [curtly dismissive- `freedon of speech’ - blah, blah.] <i>and those who think `danger’ exclamation point.” </i>[Appealing to simplistic thinking] <i>He says “we are concerned about four things, just four; it’s not that complicated”</i> [It’s not that complicated unless you ask whether the censor in charge of censoring is acting with good intentions. Sunstein thereby has totally shifted the discussion away from whether the statements are true or need to be considered.] <br /> • The <b>host</b>, making the Constitution seem unpleasant, asks: <i>“Is there a constitutional right to lie”?</i><br /> • S<b>unstein</b> says <i>we are “really at the frontiers now: He dismisses the 2012 Supreme Court decision that there is no Ministry of Truth</i> [Stolen Valor case] <i> as from a bygone era that is so “Brittany Spears.”</i> [i.e. he is encouraging that traditional value of free speech be discarded simply to keep pace with those new fashions your peers are probably moving on to- don’t be left behind.] <br /> • <b>Sunstein</b><i> says you shouldn’t be able to sell health nostrums that don’t actually help heart disease.</i> [A potential inoculation, because people who focus first on natural paths for maintaining their health might be among those more apt to question certain pharma-based narratives about Covid.] <br /> • <b>Host</b> again makes the case that <i>traditional values don’t apply because lying is now new and different, not what it used to be: We are in this age where it is so much easier to lie and where lies spread more quickly and widely through doctored videos, social media.</i><br /> • <b>Sunstein</b> says were are <i>“on a precipice”</i> [frightening] <i>and we need to do something about it!</i> [i.e. living, like we used to, in a world like your grandparents and parents lived in, where everyone is aware that people lie, is no longer acceptable- action has become imperative]. <br /> • <b>Sunstein</b> explains <i>the “truth bias” paradox that you can’t state a negative without invoking the positive and lodging that positive in people’s consciousness as a likely fact.</i><br /> • <b>Sunstein</b> then <i>says falsehoods tend to spread more rapidly than truth, maybe because they are more vivid and jarring and scary- This drives falsehoods to have comparatively more power than truth</i> [That’s scary and vivid!].<br /> • <b>Sunstein</b> belittles <i>as silly `homilies’ what people traditionally believed about addressing falsehood: Social media companies shouldn’t resort to “homilies” about how the best remedy for false speech is more speech.</i><br /> • Giving <b>Sunstein</b> extra validation, the <b>host</b> takes this opportunity to <i>say he is glad that <b>Sunstein</b> will now <u>tell</u> the listeners about the “responsibility” that social media has to “censor or respond to” clear falsehoods.</i><br /> • <b>Sunstein</b> says the <i>social media companies should censor what they deem to be false content according to the guidance of his grid.</i> [sounds so reliably scientific!] He manages to sound sage and considered by saying s<i>ome cases will be easy cases to decide, some will be hard and in some cases reasonable people may differ.</i><br /> • The <b>host</b> asks again about <i>“counterspeach” as a remedy</i> [previously alluded to by Sunstein as a `homily’]. Sunstein says <i>it is generally a remedy, but he says that “with fear and trembling” it isn’t a full remedy.</i><br /> • The <b>host</b> then goes sideways to get into the case for paternalism. He asks <i>whether the lies are hurting society or causing people to become more astute, ‘better learners” who are about to discern falsehood.</i><br /> • <b>Sunstein</b> says that <i>the lying is hurting us “a lot.”</i> He says its<i> “all very well to talk about freedom of speech,” but with the “vivid” example of health and safety and if you have “say 200 people dead from a health related matter that’s a tragedy, and not an abstraction. </i>.[even though he had just offered “say 200 dead” as a theoretical] . really causing damage, and we all need to think what to do about it”<br /> • <b>Sunstein</b> tells us <i>our law and Constitutional law needs to be reassessed. To make this less scary he says “not radically.” </i><br /> • AND <b>Sunstein</b> tells us<i> “the practices of our social media platforms website operators need to be reassessed.”</i> [In other words the entire internet world that now constitutes our public square and most of the basis for interfacing with anyone else these days needs to be reassessed fro how it is used- By people like Sunstein?] <br /> • Then <b>Sunstein</b> does something really cute: <i>As to whether or not people are smart and learning to deal with fake news, he says its an empirical question with no data, but he divides up the public saying there’s “a lot of diversity out there.” </i> The division? Getting specific on two fronts, he refers to <i>“all of us have heard from friends and family something crazily preposterous, that they actually believe and they tell us that crazy preposterous thing.”</i> This is an oblique, but fairly obvious reference particularly to the QANON convenient strawman foil. (Remember that Cass Sunstein advocated squelching what he defined as “conspiracy theories,” long before QANON’s arrived as a serviceable strawman to mock them.) Then Sunstein offers his other category, that <u>some</u> people are “astute and cautious” [that allows listeners to self-flatter by imagining themselves in this category- it also allows them to imagine themselves as being part of the paternalistic elite who will do the censoring]. He also says that it can be a question about what people want to believe. <br /> • The last thing <b>Sunstein</b> signs off with as the host concludes is to say that if you put his name into Google you’ll find what his Harvard employer website says, which, he jokes, is <i>“mostly truthful”</i> and <i>“you will find a lot of falsehoods about me.”</i> [I don’t know if the WBAI show host was intrigued enough to look to see what falsehoods Sunstein was referring to, but it does not appear to be easy to find internet falsehoods about Sunstein, only the true things that are out there.] </blockquote><p></p><br /><p></p><p></p><p><b>Conclusion:</b></p><p>WBAI and Pacifica were key in opposing and publishing reliable information about the war in Vietnam when that war was underway. WBAI, Pacifica and its listeners are therefor naturally acutely aware of the COINTEL program that infiltrated and worked to debilitate the antiwar movement, not to mention also the civil rights movement and groups like the Black Panthers. It would be naive to think that WBAI and Pacifica did not experience some of that debilitating infiltration itself. Sunstein being the advocate, with very limited gloss to it, of what is essentially a modern day continuation of the COINTEL program, there is perhaps a certain hubris on Sunstein’s part to also venture onto WBAI’s <i>"Free Speech"</i> radio and advocate for censorship based on the idea that those, like him, put in charge of the censoring, will know best. . . <br /><br />. . . His visit as a guest on the station is almost like a reconnaissance mission into enemy territory to see if he will be recognized. It is even more like a traipse into enemy territory given that Pacifica and WBAI continue to be critical of the wars and the false narratives that lead the American empire into them. We are talking about the kind of narratives that Sunstein’s wife, Samantha Power is so much a part of.<br /><br />True hubris?: Or is Mr. Sunstein guessing that he will be recognized and simply trying to provoke a reaction? <br /><br /><b>PS:</b> I have a coda to this article that I will publish separately concerning whether Pacifica’s flagship news program, incubated out of WBAI, has been affected by Mr. Sunstein- But that is another article, for later publication.</p><p></p>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-21274143680403887932021-04-01T00:01:00.005-04:002021-04-01T00:01:00.378-04:00PBS And The Muppets To Partner With The Wall Street Journal And HBO To Bring More Content To The Public With The Launch Of Its PBS “Passport Two” Service<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfVm16Y0E0asWpQTGG7LxGtUYZPbE32VdlpcNGrEy0_kldDCkLmc1pbDyweTDHgpzF36RF5YLYq63GgJ9O5yncf8Zb95kMrmsIJqaCweC-o9O4PuVtHNqCIBu28omelqCKBmJyBsBoIQwp/s692/Elmo+Maher+and+WSJ.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="692" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfVm16Y0E0asWpQTGG7LxGtUYZPbE32VdlpcNGrEy0_kldDCkLmc1pbDyweTDHgpzF36RF5YLYq63GgJ9O5yncf8Zb95kMrmsIJqaCweC-o9O4PuVtHNqCIBu28omelqCKBmJyBsBoIQwp/w400-h309/Elmo+Maher+and+WSJ.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bill Maher interviewed Elmo the Muppet about the new Passport Two service partnership, PBS, HBO, the Muppets and the Wall Street Journal<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Something new is coming! A more better version of Public Broadcasting in the form of PBS’s new <i>“Passport Two”</i> access.<br /><br />It’s been six years since PBS and all its member stations launched its “freemium” Passport service, a new membership streaming service in order to do a better job at, and bring more of its Public Broadcasting Station content to the public by providing video-on-demand to members of the public paying a subscriber’s fee. (See: <a href="https://current.org/2015/12/pbs-passport-serves-up-on-demand-content-for-public-tvs-members/">PBS Passport serves up on-demand content for public TV’s members</a>, by Jill Goldsmith, Contributing Editor, December 15, 2015.)<br /><br />Also, at that time, in a parallel move, PBS’s Muppets inked another “freemium” deal with HBO to help bring more and better Muppet content to public broadcasting. (See: <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/08/13/sesame-street-hbo_n_7984574.html">Sesame Street Is Moving To HBO In 5-Year Deal That Will Give PBS Free Episodes</a>, by Lynn Elber, August 13, 2015)– Point of fact- It’s actually not correct to say it’s “PBS’s Muppets”: Though long closely associated with PBS and although Big Bird testified before Congress to protect PBS funding, PBS having been the network through which the Muppets became universally identified as the children educating, family friendly and very amusing puppets that they are, PBS does not actually own the Muppets.– The deal inked with HBO allowed the subscribers of HBO’s premium services to see newly made Muppet episodes first and then let HBO pass the episodes along for rerun on PBS air after a nine-month exclusivity window. (See: <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/8/13/9149091/sesame-street-hbo-pbs">Sesame Street's move to HBO, explained</a>, by Emily VanDerWerff, January 16, 2016)<br /><br />With the launch of its original Passport service in 2015, PBS leapt into <i>“the age of on-demand viewing”</i> and <a href="https://current.org/2015/12/pbs-passport-serves-up-on-demand-content-for-public-tvs-members/">aimed</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><i>to deliver a one-two punch that will dazzle station donors with significant upgrades to their digital viewing experiences. Executives also hope the new service will entice younger viewers to watch more public TV programs and become members.</i></blockquote>Now, with new partnerships, and a pivotal partnership with the Wall Street Journal, PBS and the Muppets collaborating together will be launching their new Passport Two service to deliver more of that <i>“one-two punch.”</i> It’s obviously important since digital on-demand streaming is the obvious future, the destiny that is fast replacing what used to be watched as regular television. The freemium availability of extensive PBS content only to those who are donating as subscribers is an obvious update of traditional station contributor perks: As was <a href="https://current.org/2015/12/pbs-passport-serves-up-on-demand-content-for-public-tvs-members/">noted</a>, in 2015 when Passport was launched, <i>“an ecstatic Daniel Greenberg, chief digital officer at New York City’s WNET, a station that piloted Passport”</i> said that this freemium availability of the extensive PBS content only available to viewers who donate should be seen as <i>“a contemporary version of the tote bag.”</i><br /><p><br />With the help and involvement of the Wall Street Journal PBS and the Muppets will be able to produce much higher quality, better informed, and better sourced content. Among the offerings will be upgraded nightly news programs and a regular new stock market program on the days the stock market is open. Passport Two subscribers will be able to see the news programs live and on demand anytime thereafter. Station contributors who continue as regular Passport station members will be able to see the news the next morning after a twelve-hour window. News programs will be available on the air for any and all members of the public twenty-four hours after origination. During elections, Passport Two will adhere to a generous practice now already followed by the Wall Street Journal: News content about the elections and providing people with insight and information about how they should vote will be open and supplied to all immediately. <br /><br />The partnership with the Wall Street Journal is expected to bring in many new members and high donation contributors, luring them in from the Wall Street Journal’s reader base and from Wall Street and financial industry in general. To make sure that Passport Two gets a good kick off in this regard, anyone who has paid steadily to get behind the Wall Street Journal’s paywall over the past two years will automatically be gifted a year and half of Passport Two access. This will enure that insider conversation gets Passport Two talked about and paid attention to by those who swing power. <br /><br />Passport Two will most times go by the simple, sweet, short name of <i>“Passport Two,”</i> but various times and in the smaller print on the logo for the service it will be more fully inclusive of its entire official name: <i>“Passport Two- PBS/WSJ.”</i> Mr. P. Rite Gold of the Wall Street Journal said that the initials “WSJ” should implicitly be understood to represent the Wall Street Journal and its involvement, but that they would also, in the context of Passport Two, be promoting “WSJ” to mean <i>“Wellness and Social Justice,”</i> a focal mission of the service.<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPN07Q4J8-F-iiNPbg2iDPdZBDjlinGvmaiiPviQ9KsseQT1lj5_jARaYupb86guW9Gv2WP5FtV44zYhpJ_lyjsqdgVJhIj5XTSRaMib_-q5LE1-nPtUbT0cwFt0P1No6h22aYSj0GVhGS/s600/PBS+Passport+Two+WSJ.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="600" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPN07Q4J8-F-iiNPbg2iDPdZBDjlinGvmaiiPviQ9KsseQT1lj5_jARaYupb86guW9Gv2WP5FtV44zYhpJ_lyjsqdgVJhIj5XTSRaMib_-q5LE1-nPtUbT0cwFt0P1No6h22aYSj0GVhGS/w320-h170/PBS+Passport+Two+WSJ.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Passport Two logo- "WSJ"= <i>"Wall Street Journal" </i>and <i>"Wellness and Social Justice"</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />Concept and design plans for the Passport Two service were developed with seed money from the Wallace and Pace Summer Foundation. Wally Summer Jr, who now heads that foundation said that denizens of Wall Street would definitely understand the intended Passport Two set up without any problem. Summer said that on Wall Street, where everyone is welcome to invest, the value of timely information and the ability to act on it quickly is well understood. That was why, he said, Wall Street firms were willing to pay exorbitantly for computers with downtown Manhattan locations whose connection would be micro-seconds closer to the Wall Street stock exchange in order to be able to execute trades faster.<br /><br />How do Sesame Street and the Muppets benefit from the new Passport Two partnerships? To answer that question, Elmo went on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher to engage in a charming interview with Bill Maher about what Passport Two will mean for the future of educating and communicating with kids. <br /><br />Elmo explained to Maher that some of the new Muppet Passport Two productions will slant upwards to start taking in a somewhat maturing juvenile audience that’s more capable of absorbing the kind of content that Wall Street Journal has extraordinary mastery of. To this end, Sesame Street’s Muppets world will introduce a new character, Alfalfa, whose most distinguishing characteristic will be his funny pubescent Muppet voice crack. (The Muppets recently acquired the rights of the Hal Roach Studio <i>“Our Gang,” “Little Rascal”</i> films from ViacomCBS and Sonar Entertainment. That means the Little Rascals are now also indirectly owned by Disney, which acquired the Muppets in <a href="https://www.forbes.com/2004/02/18/cx_da_0218ton.html?sh=74265dec773e">February of 2004</a>. Muppeteer Jim Henson, their creator, died May of 1990.)<br /><br />Elmo told Maher that, echoing a little of the approach of the defunct <i>“<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekly_Reader">My Weekly Reader</a>”</i> of the days of yore, new Muppet shorts would be produced to make juveniles aware of, and conversant with, current world events and educate them about civics issues. Elmo said that a segment was in the works titled, <i>“Why We Should Go To War With Iran”</i> and there was a related short feature involving <a href="https://youtu.be/hOudBT4S4y0?t=337">a cartoon yellow submarine</a> titled “<a href="https://youtu.be/hOudBT4S4y0?t=337"><i>How We Can Go To War With Iran</i></a>.” Several editors from the WSJ editorial page are volunteering their time to contribute ideas. One short segment, focused on civics, completed with the help of the editors is already complete: <i>“Why A Socialist Venezuela Threatens American Values.”</i> <br /> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWGcr0Ee5Ab1xCbozff-JkQy_fnPrVAr78HoAbJYaIvjkDA8AFwIcFb-JC1R07A5cwroiMp8_N4ryJgaMiLfPUCwY0sxJw6sbS5RjmH8KFLkHCINNbnqBsIRHxF_BzBjpkXjgl-0wWTr4W/s2048/Maher+Elmo+Submarine.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="2048" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWGcr0Ee5Ab1xCbozff-JkQy_fnPrVAr78HoAbJYaIvjkDA8AFwIcFb-JC1R07A5cwroiMp8_N4ryJgaMiLfPUCwY0sxJw6sbS5RjmH8KFLkHCINNbnqBsIRHxF_BzBjpkXjgl-0wWTr4W/w320-h184/Maher+Elmo+Submarine.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In his interview Elmo told Bill Maher about the cartoon segment using a submarine to teach about relationships with Iran<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Chuckling, Maher responded, <i>“You Tickle me, Elmo,”</i> an obvious indication that Maher’s Covid era challenged writers are not up to producing their best material right now. Contributing, statements for HBO to a press release announcing Passport Two, Maher said, <i>“HBO’s willingness to join with the Muppets, the Wall Street Journal and PBS provides a firm answer, a resounding negative answer to the question</i> (See: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/business/media/att-handle-hbo.html">Will AT&T Be Able to Handle HBO?</a> By John Koblin, June 14, 2018) <i>of whether ATT’s 2018 acquisition of HBO and Time Warner would result in detrimental changes to HBO.</i>”</p><p></p><p>Maher’s press release statements asserted that with the media corporation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/27/business/media/mergers-streaming.html"><i>“Game of Thrones”</i> style wars</a> competing for complete content dominance, ATT had been a<i> “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/business/media/hbo-att-merger.html">nonpassive corporate parent</a> insisting that HBO <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/business/media/hbo-att-merger.html">must get bigger and broader</a>.”</i> Thus, “yes,” he said, with the acquisition <i>“there have been changes”</i> and <i>“HBO has been developing less expensive, shorter length content suitable for the modern era of today’s challenged attention spans,”</i> but that <i>“those changes have all been good.”</i> <br /><br />PBS says that it is not the only charity participating in the Passport Two paywall project, that PBS’s own participation had induced additional partners to be included, particularly an expansion of HBO’s recent partnerships with libraries around the country that includes NYPL, the New York Public Library, and the Brooklyn Public Library. (See: <a href="https://www.infodocket.com/2018/05/29/new-york-public-library-and-hbo-partner-on-national-readingislit-campaign/">New York Public Library and HBO Partner</a>, by Gary Price on May 29, 2018 and <a href="https://www.bklynlibrary.org/calendar/elena-ferrante%E2%80%99s-our-virtual-20200504">Brooklyn Public Library Partners With HBO To Promote HBO Subscription Content Offering “My Brilliant Friend- “The Blue Fairy”</a>, April, 2020) <br /><br />Explaining the Passport Two participation partnership to the NYPL trustees, NYPL president Tony Marx said <i>“HBO is providing some great video talent”</i> and it is providing that <i>“great video talent”</i> just when it’s going to be ever more important for the internet streaming and internet digital availability that, like Covid, is ushering us away from books and physical libraries. Brooklyn Public Library spokesperson Les Izmur, said the BPL heartily agreed. <br /><br />The new CEO of HBO, Constance Ailes (daughter of Roger who died in May of 2017), who was recently hired by HBO president John K. Billock to replace former CEO Richard Plepler, says HBO is jubilant about its partnering with the libraries: <i>“The libraries are repositories of so many stories no longer subject to copyright that, through creative retelling, we can make our own so that Passport Two will be an ever more essential part of life.”</i><br /><br />Wally Summer of the Wallace and Pace Summer Foundation said that partnerships like these are so important to ensure that PBS will continue to be <a href="http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/12/with-big-bucks-out-to-hijack-truth-and.html">commercial free</a>. He noted that these partnerships were even more fruitful in that regard in that Disney, as a proud <i>“<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/business/media/hbo-att-merger.html">nonpassive corporate parent</a> was pumping even more money into the Passport Two partnerships than the Muppet episodes were costing.”</i> In recognition of this, PBS will run sponsorship acknowledgment spots thanking Disney with brief clips from <i>“The Mandalorian,” “Black Panther,” “Hamilton,”</i> and <i>“Avengers: Infinity War,”</i> referencing Disney’s new <a href="https://www.disneyplus.com/welcome/the-mandalorian?cid=DSS-Search-Google-71700000059616279-&s_kwcid=AL!8468!3!500473667711!b!!g!!%2Bthe%20%2Bmandalorian&gclid=Cj0KCQjw9YWDBhDyARIsADt6sGZ-6Xho-5_lmKxkLKAJX9ybJv6hHjALOYKo33mHtR-k4GkSJxKZDqEaAp1TEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds">Disney+</a> steaming service.<br /><br />Passport Two will launch at an initial monthly fee of just $89. However, in a public health and cross-cultural event supporting move, the Passport Two will promote <i>`Passport’ awareness</i> in general by initially offering Passport Two for the reduced cost of $29 monthly for those who have obtained <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-vaccine-passport-program-issues/">Covid Passports</a>, the proof that concert and cultural event goers are going to be getting that they have been double vaccinated in order to allow then be able <a href="https://nj1015.com/would-nj-ever-require-a-vaccine-passport-for-concerts-events-restaurants/">to resume normal cultural activities</a> like attending the Broadway Theater when it reopens.<br /><br />Not all of PBS’s content will be run exclusively behind the Passport Two paywall for prescribed windows of time: PBS’s <i>“Frontline,”</i> regularly a joint venture with the New York Times will continue, as always, to be available to the public from the first date of publication. Although it will continue to be free and available as before, it will now be available through the Passport Two apps as an enticement for Passport Two membership. The New York Times, currently uses the freemium model of allowing a certain number of articles to be read free each month, after which a subscription to the Times is needed to be able to read more. In contradistinction, the Times/PBS <i>“Frontline”</i> production however has always been entirely free, permanently posted on the internet <a href="https://www.unz.com/article/view-the-frontline-documentary-on-gaza-that-pbs-pulled/">except for one episode</a> about Israel and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.<br /><br />“Frontline” producers said that <i>“Frontline’s”</i> messages about <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/05/everybodys-realizing-it-now-political.html">how divided the American public is, making it impossible for our country to agree upon</a> or effectively address issues, together with Frontline’s subtle appeals to the PBS intelligentsia in favor of war and interventionism were too valuable and important to put behind a paywall. Times spokesperson <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockingbird">Mimidae Passerine</a> said that for the New Times to continue to lead the national dialogue, signaling and blessing the important narratives with what is referred to as <i>“<a href="http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/2011/06/page-one-inside-new-york-times-reviewed.html">The Times Effect</a>,”</i> it was the <a href="http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php">kind of</a> propaganda that needed to get out immediately and unimpeded.<br /><br />The Passport Two service launches today, the <i>first day of April, <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/search/label/April%201st">April 1st</a></i>.<br /></p><br />Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-46752685926187623112020-11-20T14:00:00.003-05:002020-11-20T14:10:04.647-05:00Bullet Point Thoughts On 2020 National Election- The Most Bizarre Ever?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-VB6ylXpH8gXTEQBXF7rKTnwJYWOzbsfqXEFNvCv_zLHwHdPzthDnAVfLgjGSW7__luvNoxVf8zb6YjhAs1po8lIBgKlkkIKJQ3UYWJNXHpWp_hjtD86gEbWLelYYNXYTr2gwfHUXgpvF/s1020/Biden+Trump+Debate+Dots.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="689" data-original-width="1020" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-VB6ylXpH8gXTEQBXF7rKTnwJYWOzbsfqXEFNvCv_zLHwHdPzthDnAVfLgjGSW7__luvNoxVf8zb6YjhAs1po8lIBgKlkkIKJQ3UYWJNXHpWp_hjtD86gEbWLelYYNXYTr2gwfHUXgpvF/w400-h270/Biden+Trump+Debate+Dots.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>I thought I'd offer some bullet point thoughts on 2020 National Election. . . And wasn't it the most bizarre ever? <br /><p></p><p>These bullet points are mostly collected from National Notice tweets (hence the hyperlinks*) as I reacted to the unfolding of the election. Collecting them caused me to think, generation a few more for the collection. (Most of these bullets/tweets are my authorship, but a few extra thoughts were so prevalent in the twitterverse that I just picked their expression in tweets from others.-- I think you'll be able to tell which are which.)</p><p></p><blockquote>(<b>* Note:</b> <i>In many of cases clicking through to the tweet will take you to links to the facts or an article upon which the tweet is based.</i>)</blockquote><p></p><p>"<i>Bullet Points</i>" refers to the convention of preceding short thoughts with a 'bullet" <i>dot</i>. National Notice often gets quite a few compliments for "<i>connecting the dots</i>." Today we won't be trying so hard to do so. Mainly, we hope that each of these bullet points presents some pith that is worth spending some time with in reflecting on the big picture of the election overall. But that shouldn't prevent you from experimenting; you are welcome to experiment on your own in connecting <i>"the dots."</i> </p><p>We are coming out of an election cycle where people, very invested in seeing things certain ways, have often been censoriously impatient with wider ranging viewpoints. Hopefully, with my offers of things to think over without telling you <i>what</i> to think, you won't reject the thoughts <i>here</i> as just being too <i>"dotty."</i> <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327023597538467841" target="_blank">Why were the polls so very, very wrong, predicting a Biden landslide and huge Democratic victories? Certainly there’s been analysis loquaciously offered. And none of that we’ve seen is at all satisfactory</a>. <br /><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327030700734881792" target="_blank">When the polls are so very wrong (i.e. predicting Biden
landslide, huge Democratic victories) two contrary explanations can both
be a bit true together: 1.) The polls misled, 2.) Votes went
uncounted.- Warning: Any distrust of this election makes you a Trump'
conspiracist.</a> . . (<i>These questions apply to the polls being wrong in 2016 as well.</i>) </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1324695641214357509" target="_blank">As we fascinate over how wrong the national election polls were, it is interesting to ask ‘what did Google know’ and could Google ever have been that wrong? And if Google had information, where did it go?</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> •
<a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1323993817612230656">Democrats running as Republicans lost ground to the Republicans even when the Republicans should’ve been especially vulnerable. Guess the Republicans do it better</a>. <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1324045485682941952" target="_blank">Given that the polls were so very, very wrong, predicting a Biden landslide and huge Democratic victories, questions never got asked about why Biden and the DNC were running such a lousy campaign when they were running it and it would have made a difference</a>.<br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • (<i>If you can believe the polls</i>) <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327355631372734469" target="_blank">The support racist misogynist Trump got from White men declined. 26% of his votes were from non-white voters: 32-35% of Latino vote, doubling his support from Black women from 4% to 8%, White women went from 53% to 55%, and Black men went from 13% to 18%</a>. <br /><br /> •
<a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327357261174419458" target="_blank">Not since 1960, in other words, not for 60 years, has a Republican gotten as high a percentage of the non-White votes as Donald Trump did in this 2020 presidential election. Support from the LGBTQ community doubled from 14% to 28%.</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1325074390913048577">More
people voted for Trump in 2020 than 2016. In almost all traditionally
Democratic voting cohorts greater percentages voted for Trump, but this
was made up for by greater Democratic turnout, which may have been due
to new Covid-inspired voting procedures. If no Covid, then what?</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327019358523158528" target="_blank">Two
reasons to suspect Covid prevented 2020 Trump win: 1.) Dems lost
percentage of base but won b/c of turnout facilitated by easier voting,
& 2.) Media constantly berated Trump on virus handling.</a> <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • @RaniaKhalek <a href="https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1324022952694845440" target="_blank">It’s pretty crazy to think that if it wasn’t for Covid-19 Trump would have likely won by a lot... </a><br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327398905592549377" target="_blank">Fox
News exit poll: 72% of voters want change to government run health care
system, 78% racism is a problem, 70% pathway to citizenship for
immigrants, 72% concerned about climate change, 70% increased spending
on renewable energy . AND. .60% say government should do more (at 42:00)</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU39pabHI5ap0T79BnPkTxbrCucLmnBYimBExe-ousLMUCx9pAsrxq5r1Cix3SmEOVYuXCHDGzpJLkfVKx8dCAvEonP5qmDf3byXChL3xngR87C9aBqqwrtNp1SJdYIUK9zXuXeNodD1hz/s901/Fox+News+Voter+Exist+Poll.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="486" data-original-width="901" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU39pabHI5ap0T79BnPkTxbrCucLmnBYimBExe-ousLMUCx9pAsrxq5r1Cix3SmEOVYuXCHDGzpJLkfVKx8dCAvEonP5qmDf3byXChL3xngR87C9aBqqwrtNp1SJdYIUK9zXuXeNodD1hz/w400-h216/Fox+News+Voter+Exist+Poll.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • @krystalball <a href="https://twitter.com/krystalball/status/1324095006802501633" target="_blank">Nov
4 Fox News exits had 70% backing govt healthcare and big majorities for
climate action. Florida passed $15 minimum wage with 60% of vote. Dems
could have run on these things but instead they chose some vague
sanctimonious soul of the nation bullshit</a>. </div><p></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327344417703911425" target="_blank">During
this election the economic effects of a worldwide pandemic were
stripping people nationally of their jobs and healthcare, but both
candidates for president were opposing providing healthcare for all,
Biden promising to veto Medicare for All if passed</a>. <br /><br /> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327348344855928834" target="_blank">We
had w/ Black Lives Matter, perhaps the “Largest Movement in U.S.
History” w/ the majority of U.S voters supporting it by a 28-point
margin, and we elected president the author of the 1994 mass
incarceration crime law and the “Top Cop” Kamala Harris?</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327342956408426496" target="_blank">Worthwhile
to remember: Notwithstanding that we’re facing existential threats,
this was the least issue-based national election for any of us living
today. That includes the 2016 where Trump addressed issues more often
than Hillary Clinton.</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="ackluster-election-results-down-ballot https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329562715766009857" target="_blank">Correlations: Democratic cosponsors of Medicare for all won, opponents got defeated; Green New Deal cosponsors likewise win. “The more Democrats in swing districts ran on the Right, the fewer votes they were likely to receive.”</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUwPs9lnJNdz899TbS5ChVBV4wA1zQ57uGG8ArYCGvqxdh7QytnyXeFmUTon95OL40AwAF6JNYJyOYcUlZ2IZ721-r6kyMJsNJE6tdX1kLwTlsOp86B-uRNKxU542eNpUX13lul07TPpap/s972/Correlation+Medicare+For+All+Ballot.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="972" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUwPs9lnJNdz899TbS5ChVBV4wA1zQ57uGG8ArYCGvqxdh7QytnyXeFmUTon95OL40AwAF6JNYJyOYcUlZ2IZ721-r6kyMJsNJE6tdX1kLwTlsOp86B-uRNKxU542eNpUX13lul07TPpap/w400-h239/Correlation+Medicare+For+All+Ballot.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> •
@jacobinmag <a href="https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/1327174367009234946" target="_blank">The Democratic leadership went into this election with a strategy: stick to the center, avoid the Left, and promise bipartisanship. When the results proved disastrous, guess who they decided to blame: the Left</a>. </div><p></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href=" https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329556487216226305" target="_blank">NPR signals us to go right?: Is NPR too dutiful a conduit for mainstream media “wisdom” that Biden won laudably as a centrist while the Democrats lost ground this election b/c the swing votes and regions needing to be won “are simply not that progressive”?</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329565924723134464" target="_blank">NPR
began this segment discussing the purported need for the Democrats to
move Right with a quote to that effect from Democratic House member
Abigail Spanberger not noting she's a former CIA operative or how badly
she just did in her own campaign.</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/10/933548681/who-are-the-candidates-to-become-bidens-treasury-secretary " target="_blank">Following declaration of a Biden win, NPR teaches its listeners that “progressives” such as Elizabeth Warren are too “polarizing” plus scary to the financial industry to put in the Biden cabinet</a>. <br /><br /> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329525959616319488" target="_blank">NPR showcases kindly offered Republican advice that Democrats wouldn’t have lost electoral ground if only they had run more to the right. Who’s expected to swallow that poppycock?: Democrats? NPR Listeners?</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329805951008903171" target="_blank">Dashing hopes, reducing expectations: NPR (thank you very much) cautions that Biden will be constrained in addressing climate change because of gridlock and the countervailing force of the Republicans who prevailed in this election.</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/473522-biden-no-party-should-have-too-much-power https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1325870282196865024" target="_blank">Remember?: Biden worried (Iowa- Dec.) that the Dems might get too many seats in election w/ Republicans “clobbered.” "I'm really worried that no party should have too much power. . You need [the GOP as] a countervailing force."- Guess he got his wish!</a></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/business/stock-market-2020-election-biden-trump/index.html https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327337753399484423" target="_blank">Wall Street is very happy with the election: Biden the president with a Republican Senate and reduction of Democrats in the House as an excuse for gridlock and Biden to deliver on his promise that NOTHING WILL CHANGE</a>. </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1325068243829186561" target="_blank">Stragedy? Is “stragedy” the right word to describe how the DNC corporate Democrats strategically connive to set it up that they always “have to” concede to Republican demands?</a> <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz Oct 28, 2020 <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1321582639170674689" target="_blank">US presidential elections are often very close because the US populace is deliberately kept evenly split between two ideological camps with a lot of emotional hostility and very little policy difference, ensuring they're kept divided against each other and united for the machine</a>. </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329810367850156036" target="_blank">Retweeting 5/11/'19 National Notice article as reminder: While a “divided” America excuses government inaction, the vast majority of Americans, supermajorities, are actually united on what they want to see done with respect to most of the top, most important issues</a>. <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2020/03/as-michael-bloomberg-runs-for-president.html https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329465552096595968" target="_blank">Assessing 2020 as most bizarre presidential campaign race
ever, we're duty bound to remember the primaries w/ mucho shenanigans
pulled to squelch Bernie & Republican Michael Bloomberg (seller of
NYC libraries) ran as a Democrat collecting Dem's voter data</a>. <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1325071726636568581" target="_blank">It
almost seems as if the more tedious suspense there is in the networks
declaring a presidential winner, the more one is supposed to emotionally
invest in rooting for Biden whom we (Bernie supporters) never liked in
the first place. Is it supposed to work that way?</a> <br /><br /> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1325622190763601920" target="_blank">Seeing Biden election jubilation several multiples of Obama ‘08, yet Obama promised (didn’t deliver) hope and change and voted against Iraq war; Biden says “no fundamental change”+ manipulated us into Iraq war. Why do we accept these shifting expectations? And with joy?</a> <br /><br />
• @yashalevine <a href="https://twitter.com/yashalevine/status/1325244896001761280" target="_blank">entire cities cheering for a rightwing neoliberal bully with dementia. what a time to be alive. not a time to not be heavily medicated</a>. <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • @aaronjmate <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1324873834252656647" target="_blank">Two months ago, Kamala told CNN that Russian interference --
undefined, of course, because who needs details? -- could cost Biden the
election. Since Biden won, expect us to now hear zilch about "Russian
interference." It's outlived its partisan utility</a>. <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • @LeeCamp <a href="https://twitter.com/LeeCamp/status/1325107429735018499" target="_blank">This is how you know the “Russian interference” crap was a lie all along</a> - <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327043305557921793" target="_blank">Being skeptical or suspicious about our elections (for a huge segment of the population) is out of fashion for 2020. 2016 we had a conspiracy theory about Russia influencing the election (wrong reason for suspicion). 2020 we trust in the system</a>. <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1328135967992057857" target="_blank">Department
of Homeland Security: election was "most secure" in U.S. history";
elections ensure technology is not "a single point of failure"; measures
ensure "your vote is counted correctly"; You should have confidence
their integrity, don't "overreact."</a> <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • Super-tweeter Tim Wu tweeted that George W. Bush <a href="https://twitter.com/superwuster/status/1325655322254598145" target="_blank">had done a <i>"solid"</i></a> by official recognition of Biden's election with congratulations. Our National Notice response: <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1325775927993917440" target="_blank">Eager to extricate Trump from the 24/7 news cycle or not, this has too strange a resonance given that when all is said and done G. W. Bush did not win Florida in 2000. It should be enough for Biden to have simple won on the votes, not via GWB pronouncements of congratulation</a>. <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329818120396083200" target="_blank">Still relevant Democracy Now headline from Oct 21, 2020: Joe Biden Vets Republicans for Cabinet Positions, Won’t Disclose Names of Major Fundraisers</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BusmxznLDOo" target="_blank">BIDEN's Cabinet Looking WORSE Than Expected! (Jimmy Dore)</a></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329813710655938560https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329813710655938560" target="_blank">Still relevant and not all that dated: Krystal and Saagar: Biden’s Floated Cabinet Is RETURN Of The Clinton-Obama Swamp (Oct 14)</a>. <br /><br /> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329813884736299009" target="_blank">Panel: Floated Biden Cabinet Like West Wing Episode From Hell (Nov 9 from Krystal and Saagar).</a> <br /><br /> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329815160777822213" target="_blank">Saagar Enjeti REVEALS How The SWAMP Will Run Top Levels Of Biden White House (Nov 19)</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • @RaniaKhalek <a href="https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1327362492608225283" target="_blank">Michele Flournoy [proposed Pentagon Chief] sits on the board of Booz Allen & helped negotiate tens of millions of $$$ in military contracts at Boston Consulting Group. Susan Rice [proposed Secretary of State] backed handing over Libya and Syria to a collection of extremist groups that literally brought back slavery! Is this a joke?</a> <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/joe-biden-department-of-defense-pentagon-transition-team-weapons-industry-military" target="_blank">One
Third of Biden's Pentagon Transition Team Hails From Organizations
Financed by the Weapons Industry- The president-elect is drawing from
hawkish think tanks funded by arms companies</a>. </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329443180392148996" target="_blank">If
you think of war as a racket, then all the military appointments to
administrations such as Biden’s (Trump’s too) are just more examples of
more swampy conflicts of interest. . . Absolutely no better than the
other examples and in other ways tragically much worse.</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327744933948760066" target="_blank">Doors Revolve- Going to work alongside what’s shaping up as Biden’s hawk & Wall Street cabinet: Corporate Blue Broadcaster MSNBC & CNN “news” staff; 1 MSNBCer who was already secretly writing Biden’s speeches, plus at least another MSNBC 3 and 1 from CNN.</a> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1327746538173509632" target="_blank">Cecilia Muñoz, Who Defended Family Separations Under Obama, Joins Biden Transition Team- “Muñoz often justified Obama’s harsh immigration enforcement policies, including the administration’s deportation of thousands of Central American children”</a> <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329463035828822016" target="_blank">Climate
Activists Condemn Biden’s Appointment of Rep. Cedric Richmond, a Major
Fossil Fuel Ally- Sunrise Movement: A betrayal- one of Biden’s first
hires “has taken more donations from the fossil fuel industry . . than
any other Democrat.”</a> <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329445710538878977" target="_blank">Does continuing preoccupation, and being on tenterhooks with concern about whether Trump will be successfully ushered out of office tend to make off limits dismay about how Biden’s cabinet is shaping up as swampy, corporate, and militaristic?</a> <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329829170470326273" target="_blank">Will the two Senate runoff races in Georgia help Democrats regain balance of power?: Both Democratic candidates oppose Medicare for All and Green New Deal although polls say Georgia voters want those things.</a> <br /><br /> • <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1329831267949441024" target="_blank">Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll: Nearly two-thirds of Georgia voters, about 63%, believe the U.S. is not doing enough and should do more to combat climate change. But the two Democratic candidates in Senate runoff elections don’t support the Green New Deal.</a> <br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"> • @politico <a href="https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1324734006126997505" target="_blank">Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her top lieutenants had a stark warning for Democrats today: swing too far left and they’re all but certain to blow their chances in the Georgia runoff that will determine which party controls the Senate</a>. <br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-37466673804118520942020-07-27T11:51:00.012-04:002022-02-05T16:57:06.219-05:00You, Your Dog and the Coronavirus— Let’s Be Canny About Canine Covid. A Guide To . . . . [?]<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc-9FyvGxRXKQSZleZzJhSIFnqcNyeJXWiu0N3rnGK8Y_VzYKLrPRADrL45WMFsnoKWcfMiMfgJRbNloHJhpZl2S9mzVtrcqIVhsOYE6ZTd8NdxukcRJWRFgsftr9g0ms81eUY4D0rV6sm/s1600/Dog+Covid+Mask.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="852" data-original-width="1459" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc-9FyvGxRXKQSZleZzJhSIFnqcNyeJXWiu0N3rnGK8Y_VzYKLrPRADrL45WMFsnoKWcfMiMfgJRbNloHJhpZl2S9mzVtrcqIVhsOYE6ZTd8NdxukcRJWRFgsftr9g0ms81eUY4D0rV6sm/s400/Dog+Covid+Mask.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
You've probably seen things written about <u><i>children</i></u> as coronavirus spreaders. . .<br />
<br />
Children get the coronavirus just like everyone else, but almost never have symptoms and it's exceedingly rare that children experience any harmful effects. But human children can spread the virus just like everyone else.<br />
<br />
That much as a given, we see mask wearing parents strolling down the street with maskless toddlers charging off in front of them lurching happily in variously directions, or we see a parent or caretaker pushing a stroller with two maskless young ones craning their necks as they exercise their lungs with complaining wails, or perhaps a Covid masked parent carries an infant in a front pack that places the infant's unmasked face forward, directly right in front of their own.<br />
<br />
The dictates of etiquette to wear a mask are pretty strong these days (and somehow polarizingly politicized as well), but the etiquette for our children as virus spreaders is different.<br />
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So you've probably seen things published about children as virus spreaders. Published often, or maybe often enough? Whether it's been often enough, it's been more often than you have seen anything published about our <i>pet dogs</i>, who also widely accompany us, as potential virus spreaders. Back in April, writing about Covid-19, I wrote <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/04/despite-all-information-flung-around.html">asking</a>: <i>What about dogs as virus spreaders</i>? I was waiting to finally read something about the subject in the general press. Nothing ever turned up. I finally decided that it was time to go research the subject, that there must be something to be found.<br />
<br />
The guidance and information that follows below is sourced mainly from: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)<br />
• The American Kennel Club<br />
• American Veterinarian Medical Association</blockquote>
There is also some minor fill-in of additional information on the fringe of the subject added in from the New York Times, and a few other sources, Wall Street Journal, Healthline, etc.<br />
<br />
Before you begin to read, you should know that the CDC, the American Kennel Club, and the Veterinarian Medical Association, all preface their offered advice with basic reassurances telling dog owners not to worry about their dog's transmission of Covid, <b><u><i>but</i></u></b> then they go on. . .<br />
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Here is a compilation of their guidance, and we can further discuss what it may mean in terms of the big picture after its presentation:<br />
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* * * * *<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>You, Your Dog and the Coronavirus</b><br />
<b>Let’s Be Canny About Canine Covid</b></blockquote>
The first thing to remember is that the Covid-19 coronavirus arrived on the doorstep of the human race through interspecies transmission. The fact of the zoonotic origin of the virus was determined virtually day one of the pandemic’s emergence with knowledge of the <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/9/delia_grace_zoonotic_diseases_un_report">zoonotic origin</a> immediately communicated widely to the public.<br />
<br />
<b>Not only can dogs get Covid (and test positive for it), you can get Covid from your dog, and your dog can get Covid from you.</b> The same is true of cats (including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/science/india-tigers-coronavirus.html">tigers</a>*), which are about as closely related to humans as dogs. Dogs, like cats are much more closely related to human beings than either the exotic wet market <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/science/pangolin-coronavirus.html">pangolins</a> or Chinese <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-coronavirus.html?searchResultPosition=9">bats</a> that are believed to have helped the virus to make the first crossovers of species infections.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>(* <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/04/tiger-coronavirus-covid19-positive-test-bronx-zoo/">Eight tigers</a> at the Bronx Zoo were infected by just one asymptomatic person.)</i></blockquote>
In addition to their original shared genetic heritage with humans, dogs have been co-evolving with humans since their first domestication <a href="https://www.livescience.com/27691-dogs-domesticated-oldest-skull.html">33,000 years ago</a>. This engenders a host of similarities, including things like diet. Because of the similarity of dog physiology to humans, beagles are, for example, <a href="https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/animals/life-research-beagle">an animal of choice</a> as a medical stand in for the human species for researchers, like those at the Columbia Presbyterian medical center, when they test drugs to potentially be used on humans to treat inflammation or experiment with organ transplants. The Covid-19 respiratory disease is, notably, partly an inflammatory illness.<br />
<br />
<b>If you have Covid:</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• Isolate yourself from your dog and any other pets who may associate with your dog.<br />
• Avoid all contact with your dog such as petting, snuggling, being kissed or licked, sleeping in the same location, and sharing food or bedding. Do not let your dog come into areas where you have been.<br />
• Act prudently to keep your dog separate and away from members of other households on the assumption your dog may have become infected.<br />
• If your pet becomes sick, do not take your pet to the veterinary clinic yourself. </blockquote>
<b>If your dog gets Covid:</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• Isolate your dog. It is recommended to confine your dog to a designated “sick room.”<br />
• Do not pet your dog, snuggle, kiss, share food or bedding, or allow yourself or anyone else to be licked by your dog.<br />
• Wear a cloth face covering and gloves when in your dog’s presence, and wash your hands thoroughly and frequently.<br />
• If you are at higher risk for severe illness from Covid, turn your dog’s care over to another person, preferably a household member.<br />
• If you must walk your dog, limit it to short bathroom breaks only and be extra careful to pick up your dog’s waste with gloved hands (dispose immediately in sealed bag), plus avoid all interactions with other pets and people. Ideally, infected dogs should be walked in an area that can be readily sanitized in a dedicated area separate from other animal populations.<br />
• Disinfect bowls, toys, with an EPA-registered disinfectant and carefully launder items such as towels, blankets, and other bedding.<br />
• Do not visit veterinary hospitals without calling the veterinarian first. Veterinarians and their staff should adhere to biosafety and biosecurity protocols for infectious diseases to ensure the safety of their patients.<br />
• Pets with confirmed Covid infections should remain in isolation until a veterinarian or public health official has determined that they can be around other pets and people.<br />
• <b>Caveat:</b> If your dog gets Covid you are unlikely to know it, because dogs who get Covid almost never show symptoms (as many as <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/50-percent-of-people-with-covid19-not-aware-have-virus">80% of humans</a> may also be asymptomatic and unaware when that are infected with Covid.- If your dog has symptoms, monitor them.) </blockquote>
<b>General precautions against Covid spread applicable to your dog at all times:</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• Treat your dog as you would any other human family members – do not let dogs interact with people or other dogs outside the household.<br />
• Walk dogs on a leash keeping them socially distant from other people, dogs and pets. It is estimated that infectiousness from exhaling Covid virus without a mask (staying potentially infectious <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-can-travel-further-and-longer-in-the-air-11587564001">for hours</a>) can travel up to perhaps <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/covid-19-virus-wind-carry-6-feet">18 feet</a>, particularly in an exercise or panting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/well/move/running-social-distancing.html">situation</a>– Recognize that some extendable leashes can add many additional feet to that for dogs inclined to roam.<br />
• Avoid taking your dog public places where a large number of people gather, or narrow streets that force close proximity. If necessary, keep dogs indoors when possible. Avoid, for instance, visits to parks (including dog parks), markets, or other gatherings such as festivals.</blockquote>
<b>Additional notes:</b><br />
<br />
• The companionability of your dog can be a valuable antidote to the anxieties that dealing with Covid-19 24/7 evokes. With isolation and quarantine, reducing those anxieties can have a beneficial impact on human health.<br />
• There have been no <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/05/is-new-york-times-offering-misleadingly.html">random testing studies</a> for Covid antibodies for dogs in New York City or elsewhere to determine whether any herd immunity is developing for that subpopulation.<br />
• There have been no tests to determine the <a href="https://news.ki.se/immunity-to-covid-19-is-probably-higher-than-tests-have-shown">prevalence</a> of Covid-19 <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53248660">T-cell immunity</a> in the canine species as a possible factor in developing canine <a href="https://off-guardian.org/2020/07/07/second-wave-not-even-close/">heard immunity</a>. </blockquote>
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* * * *<br />
<br />
When I found what I found as guidance on the sites of CDC, the American Kennel Club, and the American Veterinarian Medical Association I compiled it and set it forth as I did above to share with you the impression that I personally got as I bounced and shuffled around the various pages where they offered their suggested guidance: The demanding hypervigilance of it all seems like a satirical recipe for anxiety in contrast to the assurances with which they casually started. Although compiled all together in one place, the <i>dos and don'ts </i>above are all pretty much all exactly their words, not mine, so I'm not making anything up. <br />
<br />
It obviously raises questions about where to draw the line. And maybe reviewing and considering these questions in the context of dogs can refresh our perspective as we consider everything else we are doing as the news about Covid batters us 24/7 and, in response, we preoccupy ourselves about what to do to keep safe. The mask thing is now a thing more than ever, and it's probably the most symbolically visible in terms of signals of social etiquette, but does the gloves thing still apply? How many times are we supposed to wash our hands every day and for how many minutes? Do you spray your shoes and your entryway with Lysol every time you return from the great <i>outdoors</i> (where everything is supposed to be safer than <i>indoors</i>)?. .<br />
<br />
. . . We may all certainly feel more personally vulnerable and stimulated to undertake increased protections when the New York Times writes about how even the strong and mighty <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/22/science/india-tigers-coronavirus.html">tigers </a>of India, with whom none of us live, are sorely threatened by the virus, but if media outlets published similarly prominent stories warning us to curtail our cuddling with the pouches who jump into our beds at night and who provide us with sanity preserving quarantine companionship, some of us might rebel. Some of us might push back to say that lines being drawn were becoming far too strict. Nevertheless who is to say that the canine Covid infection is really less a story than tigers strickened in remote jungles? It's soothing and preferable to be told not to worry about Fido.<br />
<br />
Bridling at, and perhaps questioning where lines are being drawn is not to say that Covid is not a real thing or that Covid is somehow ripe to be made light of. Like all medical illnesses it continues to deliver multiple personal tragedies to those unfortunate enough to suffer its worst effects. New York City, once considered the center of runaway infection in the U.S., has experienced, according to the New York Times figures as of this writing (July 7, 2020), an estimated 22,970 deaths attributed to Covid infection going back to about mid-March. More recently, since the time of George Floyd's May 25th Memorial Day murder, the bell curve for New York City deaths has been trailing off. New infections in the city were once estimated to exceed 6,000 a day (that was <i>before</i> more widespread testing and <i>after</i> <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/05/is-new-york-times-offering-misleadingly.html">more than 20%</a> of New Yorkers in the city were already antibody positive according to random testing), but, on this side of the bell curve the virus still takes a toll. As of this writing, the New York Times reports 225 new NYC cases of coronavirus yesterday (with a seven-day average of 334 new identified cases per day) and 9 new deaths attributed to Covid (with a seven-day average of 11 deaths per day).<br />
<br />
No one wants anyone to die from the virus.<br />
<br />
If you are in suspense and still wondering, if you go to the guidance that served as my sources, you will see that, in all of it, nobody advises putting a mask on your dog. They all advise against it. . . Decide now what you will about young toddlers and babies wearing masks.<br />
<br /><div>
On last very big picture thing to mention: As all these safety preoccupations concern us to whatever extent they may, the new coronavirus is simultaneously being used callously and opportunistically as an excuse for one of the <a href="https://twitter.com/krystalball/status/1263467921449287681">biggest transfers</a> of even more <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnkMC4WjzGM">trillions of wealth</a> to the wealthiest that we have ever seen and for other significant restructurings of our society, while, meanwhile, we do nothing about existential threats like global warming and climate change.</div><div><br /></div><div>PS: (<i>added August 1, 2020</i>) Since this article was published, the New York Times ran a story about a virus infection research study about the likely infectiousness of children saying that <i>"Infected children have at least as much of the coronavirus in their
noses and throats as infected adults, according to the research"</i> and <i>"children younger than age 5 may host up to 100 times as much of the
virus in the upper respiratory tract as adults, the authors found." </i> (See: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/health/coronavirus-children.html">Children May Carry Coronavirus at High Levels, Study Finds</a>, By Apoorva Mandavilli, July 30, 2020.) The news to us was not how very likely it is that children are as infectious as adults, but the news that anyone ever thought that maybe they weren't. At best there was little research on the proposition generating <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/jul/16/are-schoolchildren-not-vectors-covid-19-florida-go/">inconclusive</a> indicators. . . That's except for an article published in the Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-children-schools.html">just days before</a> that this new one was now <i>contradicting</i> (whiplash anyone?) <br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC_DII66G65-HdSQfHcTlFO0OCrDTqFstKdUhg_-qNgpPCddnj0zYrkGnEd2CallBLSREYN12wRxS_0bpl2LZH0TxWEkEmM2sW0zX_ZUHxhZZIUpVdHFwjzaxygFtoNAxSm3eyt_QLCuE6/s640/Children+Higher+Virus+Levels.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC_DII66G65-HdSQfHcTlFO0OCrDTqFstKdUhg_-qNgpPCddnj0zYrkGnEd2CallBLSREYN12wRxS_0bpl2LZH0TxWEkEmM2sW0zX_ZUHxhZZIUpVdHFwjzaxygFtoNAxSm3eyt_QLCuE6/w410-h307/Children+Higher+Virus+Levels.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div><b>More Updates:</b> </div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/8/19/headlines/world_health_organization_says_young_people_are_driving_coronavirus_outbreaks" target="_blank">August 19, 2020</a>- Democracy Now Headline-</b> <i>"World Health Organization Says Young People Are Driving Coronavirus Outbreaks"</i><br /><br /></div><div>Democracy Now (<b><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/9/18/dr_monica_gandhi_face_masks" target="_blank">September 18, 2020</a></b>) and New York Times (<b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/health/covid-masks-immunity.html" target="_blank">September 8, 2020</a></b>): Testing with mask-protected Hamsters infected with Covid shows that it can work like an inoculating <i>“crude”</i> vaccine if masks let just a little bit (and not too much) of infecting coronavirus through.</div><div><br /><b><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/11/5/headlines/denmark_to_kill_millions_of_mink_infected_with_mutant_coronavirus" target="_blank">November 05, 2020</a>-</b> <b>Democracy Now:</b> Denmark officials ordered millions of mink to be killed because of concerns that they could transmit an evolving strain of the novel coronavirus back to humans. <br /><br /><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/health/coronavirus-ferrets-vaccine-spray.html" target="_blank">November 5, 2020</a>- New York Times</b>: Experiments are showing that a nasal spray that acts a bit “like a vaccine” is able to protect ferrets from getting the SARS-CoV-2 virus. If the spray also works in humans, “it could provide a new way of fighting” the coronavirus pandemic. Ferrets are used for these experiment by scientists “because they can catch viruses through the nose much as humans do.” (<a href="https://www.amcny.org/blog/2020/04/29/covid-19-sars-cov-2-what-is-the-difference/" target="_blank">SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes the disease COVID-19 in humans. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in humans. In animals, the disease is referred to as SARS-CoV-2.</a>)</div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/24/world/covid-mutation.html" target="_blank">November 24, 2020</a>- New York Times</b>: A <i>“host of new research”</i> including <i>“with hamsters”</i> supports the view that a newer, increasingly prevalent mutated version of the coronavirus is more transmissible and thus better at <i>“infecting people more easily”</i> and going<i> “more easily from person to person and making the pandemic harder to stop.”</i> Hamsters were <i>“more quickly”</i> infectious of others with this variant.</div><div> </div><div><b><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html" target="_blank">January 4, 2021</a></b>- <b>New York Magazine</b> (the cover story). <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html" target="_blank">The Lab-Leak Hypothesis For decades, scientists have been hot-wiring viruses in hopes of preventing a pandemic, not causing one. But what if …?</a> By Nicholson Baker (Nicholson Baker is a hero to us as a brilliant writer/researcher who independently broke very important ground reporting on the suspiciously wasteful destruction of huge amounts of information in our libraries). In the New York cover article he provides some coronavirus history: <i>“Beginning in the 1970s, dogs, cows, and pigs were diagnosed with coronavirus infections; dog shows were canceled in 1978 after 25 collies died in Louisville, Kentucky. New varieties of coronaviruses didn’t start killing humans, though, until 2003 — that’s when restaurant chefs, food handlers, and people who lived near a live-animal market got sick in Guangzhou, in southern China, where the shredded meat of a short-legged raccoonlike creature, the palm civet, was served in a regional dish called “dragon-tiger-phoenix soup.” The new disease, SARS, spread alarmingly in hospitals, and it reached 30 countries and territories. More than 800 people died; the civet-borne virus was eventually traced to horseshoe bats.”</i></div><div><i> </i></div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/science/covid-mink-vaccine.html">January 22, 2021</a>- <b>New York Times</b>- The Coronavirus Kills Mink, So They Too May Get a Vaccine- The pandemic has been a powerful reminder that there is no clear barrier between viruses affecting animals and people. By James Gorman<br /> <br /><i>"At least two American companies, as well as Russian researchers, are working on coronavirus vaccines for mink. The animals have grown sick and died in large numbers from the virus, which they have also passed back to people in mutated form.<br /><br />. . .the mink infections in the United States do pose a threat to public health. At least two minks that have escaped from the farms have tested positive. And one wild mink tested positive. Scientists worry that if the virus spreads to more wild mink or to other animals, it could become established in natural populations and form a reservoir from which it could emerge, perhaps in mutated form, to reinfect humans at another time. . .<br /><br /> . . . although the Agriculture Department is not now considering any applications for vaccines for cats and dogs, that is a possibility that the companies are considering."</i><br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/world/europe/russia-covid-vaccine-animals.html">March 31, 2021</a>- <b>New York Times</b>- Russia claims to be the first country to develop coronavirus shots for animals. By Andrew E. Kramer <i>"Russia’s state veterinary service said on Wednesday that it had become the first regulator in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine for animals, intended for use on fur farms or for pet cats and dogs. . . The agency said it had developed the vaccine for animals in part as a public health tool, lest the virus spread from animals to humans or — in a worst-case scenario — mutate in animals and then spread back to humans in a more virulent form. .. . . The Russian agency noted four reports of pet infections just in the last week, in Italy and in Mexico. It that said a vaccine for pets was needed as insurance against variants that might spread more easily."</i><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/05/20/996515792/a-newly-identified-coronavirus-is-making-people-sick-and-it-s-coming-from-dogs?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20210523&utm_term=5410546&utm_campaign=best-of-npr&utm_id=1149608&orgid=&utm_att1=">May 20, 2021</a>- <b>NPR Morning Edition: Infectious Disease</b>- New Coronavirus Detected In Patients At Malaysian Hospital; The Source May Be Dogs Scientists at Duke University say they have discovered what may be the latest coronavirus to jump from animals into people. And it comes from a surprising source: dogs.<br /><br /><i>"In the past 20 years, new coronaviruses have emerged from animals with remarkable regularity. In 2002, SARS-CoV jumped from civets into people. Ten years later, MERS emerged from camels. Then in 2019, SARS-CoV-2 began to spread around the world. . . For many scientists, this pattern points to a disturbing trend: Coronavirus outbreaks aren't rare events and will likely occur every decade or so. . .Now, scientists are reporting that they have discovered what may be the latest coronavirus to jump from animals into people. And it comes from a surprising source: dogs. . . "</i></div><div><i> </i></div><div><u>March 2021 and August 2021</u>- <b>Nature:</b> <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02110-8">The coronavirus is rife in common US deer- Survey results show that many white-tailed deer, a familiar sight on US lawns and golf courses, have antibodies to the virus that causes COVID-19</a>. by Smriti Mallapaty, August 2, 2021, <b>National Geographic:</b> <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/wild-us-deer-found-with-coronavirus-antibodies">Wild U.S. deer found with coronavirus antibodies- White-tailed deer, a species found in every U.S. state except Alaska, appear to be contracting the coronavirus in the wild, - 40%</a>, by Dina Fine Maron, August 2, 2021, Popular Science/MSN: <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/white-tailed-deer-test-positive-for-covid-19-in-lab-studies/ar-BB1eVuLU">White-tailed deer test positive for COVID-19 in lab studies</a>, Dave Hurteau/Field & Stream 3/24/2021:<br /><i><blockquote>COVID-19 has been known to pass from humans to ferrets, mink, dogs, cats, and other animals, and this cross-species transmissibility has prompted researchers to test other creatures. The latest: whitetail deer.<br /><br />* * *<br />In a pair of studies, researchers gave whitetail fawns strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, including the most common human strain. </blockquote></i><b>Bow Hunting: </b><a href="https://www.bowhunting.com/article/whitetail-deer-are-contracting-covid-19/">Whitetail Deer Are Contracting Covid-19- a Preliminary Study Shows as Much as 40% of the Wild White-tailed Deer Population May Have Contracted Covid-19.- A study published this week indicates that wild whitetail deer are contracting SARS-CoV-2 and developing the antibodies used to fight off the infection</a>. By Justin Zarr, August 3, 2021, <b>Field and Stream:</b> <a href="https://www.fieldandstream.com/hunting/covid-19-hits-whitetail-deer-population/">COVID-19 Hits Wild Whitetail Population- Forty percent of nearly 400 wild deer tested were positive for COVID-19. The deer seem unharmed,</a> by Tom Keer, August 5. 2021. </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/15-rescue-dogs-including-10-puppies-killed-by-council-in-australia-over-covid-19-concerns/ar-AANEboV">August 23, 2021</a>- MSN/USA Today: 15 rescue dogs, including 10 puppies, killed by council in Australia over COVID-19 concerns, by Jordan Mendoza<br /><br /><i>A local government in the state of New South Wales in Australia faced criticism after reports surfaced they ordered 15 dogs killed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among shelter workers.<br /></i><br /><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/austraila-covid-rescue-dogs-killed-controversy_n_6122f3c3e4b0e8ac791f346d">August 23, 2021</a>- Huffington Post: Furor Erupts After Australian Officials Kill Rescue Dogs Over COVID-19 Fears- One of the female dogs had reportedly just given birth to a litter of puppies. By Mary Papenfuss<br /><br /><i>“We are deeply distressed and completely appalled by this callous dog shooting,” Animal Liberation activist Lisa Ryan told the Herald.<br /><br />“We totally reject council’s unacceptable justifications that this killing was apparently undertaken as part of a COVID-safe plan.”</i><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH1u1GIPU2A&ab_channel=Dr.JohnCampbell">January 6, 2022</a>- <b>Dr. John Campbell’s YouTube Channel:</b> Omicron from mice, <br /><i><br />Given that genetic analysis shows that Omicron diverged from the B.1.1 lineage roughly in mid-2020, without any of its evolved mutations found in versions of the virus that infected the human population, including Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta, there is a theory that the many accumulate Omicron mutations could have evolved in and been transmitted back from another mammalian host, prime candidate perhaps being mice.</i></div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2022/1/19/headlines/japan_sets_new_curbs_hong_kong_culls_2_000_exposed_hamsters_as_asian_nations_see_covid_surges">January 19, 2022</a>- <b>Democracy Now:</b> Japan Sets New Curbs, Hong Kong Culls 2,000 Exposed Hamsters, as Asian Nations See COVID Surges.<br /><br /><i>In Hong Kong, authorities started confiscating small animals from pet shops after announcing it would cull some 2,000 hamsters and other small mammals after a dozen of imported hamsters tested positive for COVID-19.</i> </div><div> </div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/magazine/spillback-animal-disease.html?searchResultPosition=5">January 19, 2022 Updated January 25, 2022</a>- <b>New York Times:</b> Animals That Infect Humans Are Scary. It’s Worse When We Infect Them Back.- Mink farms threaten to become a source of new coronavirus variants — and an object lesson in how ‘spillback’ can make deadly diseases even deadlier. By Sonia Shah<br /><br /><i>The farmer wore thick leather gloves to protect his hands from the minks’ powerful bites, but he did not wear a mask. I was fully vaccinated and had tested myself to ensure I wasn’t infected, but he didn’t ask me about my vaccine status nor did he ask me to wear a mask. (Masking on mink farms, like vaccinations and testing, were not legally required.) Before I left, I asked if I could take his photograph. He reached into a cage, grabbed a mink by the torso and held it up for the camera. The mink opened its mouth, inches from the farmer’s grinning face, and screeched in terror.<br /><br />* * *<br />Spillbacks confound our containment strategies. In theory, we can tame pathogens that prey exclusively on Homo sapiens. . . . But once a pathogen spills back from humans into wild animals, those options slip away, for we have even less control over the behavior of nonhuman animals than we do over our fellow humans. <br /><br />* * * <br /><br />Pathogens that rely on social contact often evolve toward lower virulence as a trade-off for greater transmissibility, but spillback allows them to escape that virtuous circle, with potentially devastating consequences.<br /><br />Saif said the coronaviruses that preceded Covid-19 dynamically cycled through species, including sparrows, pigeons, bats, pigs, alpacas, cows, chickens, chimpanzees, dogs, cats and humans, in a dizzying history stretching back centuries. The eruptions she described were much more than human pandemics. They were multispecies events. The Covid-19 pandemic may become one, too. Perhaps it already is.</i></div><div><i> </i></div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/world/africa/lions-covid-south-african-zoo.html?searchResultPosition=8">January 20, 2022 Updated January 22, 2022</a>- <b>New York Times:</b> <i> </i>A South African study of infected zoo lions spurs worries about the virus spreading in the wild. By Lynsey Chutel<i></i></div><div><i><br />JOHANNESBURG — Lions at a South African zoo that caught the coronavirus from their handlers were sick for more than three weeks and continued to test positive for up to seven weeks, according to a new study that raised concerns about the virus spreading among animals in the wild.<br /><br />* * * *<br />Scientists warn that “spillback” infections of humans infecting animals — as have occurred with mink, deer and domestic cats — could ravage whole ecosystems in the wild.<br /></i> <br /></div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY5gN59nMew">January 25, 2022</a>- <b>The Hill:</b> Kim Iversen: Did Omicron Come From RATS? Can’t Vax Our Way Out Of Pandemic When ANIMALS Spread Covid<br /><br /><i>Omicron may have originated in rats. . .what about the otters that have found to be infected, and hippos, what about the rats?. . . Viruses . . . that infect other animals, we’ve been unable to eradicate. . .people slaughtering animals. . Even Australia; they put down the dogs, but they also put down a bunch of hamsters; people were adopting hamsters. They found out there was Covid outbreak where they bought the hamsters. The Australian government actually ordered everyone to bring their hamsters back to be terminated. </i></div><div><i> </i></div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/health/coronavirus-wastewater-new-york.html">February 3, 2022</a>= <b>New York Times:</b> In New York City Sewage, a Mysterious Coronavirus Signal- For the past year, scientists have been looking for the source of strange coronavirus sequences that have appeared in the city’s wastewater. By Emily Anthes<br /><br /><i>Last January, a team of researchers searching for the coronavirus in New York City’s wastewater spotted something strange in their samples. The viral fragments they found had a unique constellation of mutations that had never been reported before in human patients — a potential sign of a new, previously undetected variant.<br /><br />For the past year, these oddball sequences, or what the scientists call “cryptic lineages,” have continued to pop up in the city’s wastewater.<br /><br />researchers . . some . . suspect that the lineages may be coming from virus-infected animals, possibly the city’s enormous population of rats. <br /><br />“To date we have not seen these variants among clinical patients in N.Y.C.,” said Michael Lanza, a spokesman for New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.<br /><br />Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have found similar sequences in one California sewershed. . .<br /><br />* * *<br />Laboratory experiments suggest that these lineages may also be able to evade some antibodies.<br /><br />* * *<br />“To have something in a sewershed that you’re detecting, you need a fair bit of it around,” said Dr. Adam Lauring, a virologist at the University of Michigan, who was not involved in the research.<br /><br />Dr. Johnson, the Missouri virologist, agrees. He favors the hypothesis that the sequences are coming from animals . . .<br /><br />* * * <br />The researchers initially considered a diverse array of potential hosts, from squirrels to skunks. “This is a very promiscuous virus,” Dr. Johnson said. “It can infect all kinds of species.”<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Dr. Johnson has been considering rats, which roam the city by the millions. <br /><br />* * * <br />Scientists have repeatedly found that humans can pass the virus to animals, especially pets, zoo animals, farmed mink and others with which they are in frequent contact. That has raised concerns that the virus might establish itself in an animal reservoir, where it might mutate and get passed back to humans.</i><br /><br /><i><b>See also</b></i>, from the prior day <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/02/opinion/covid-variant-air-sewage.html">February 3, 2022</a>: <b>New York Times</b> Guest Essay- The Clues to the Next Variant Surge Are All Around Us- . <i>. there are places to look that may help scientists find new variants even faster: sewage and the air. </i><br /></div>Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-14101206117993746692020-05-29T12:47:00.000-04:002020-07-02T12:16:10.959-04:00Is the New York Times Offering A Misleadingly Bleak Depiction of Status of “Herd Immunity” in New York City?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzSaA6_uvRVzeoYuyrxedYo4ps6zNnAimuZwAeoO0xV7J85AJfXOlCkx982XsrON6dXIVjbdRPHSid1Be6YjbyhYB8zxmxz3MHW5mqBc5HfowaeECxzuk3rqQNdJi4jCldqe7kOVeFpON/s1600/Petri+Dish+Hope+Far+Away.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="629" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzSaA6_uvRVzeoYuyrxedYo4ps6zNnAimuZwAeoO0xV7J85AJfXOlCkx982XsrON6dXIVjbdRPHSid1Be6YjbyhYB8zxmxz3MHW5mqBc5HfowaeECxzuk3rqQNdJi4jCldqe7kOVeFpON/s400/Petri+Dish+Hope+Far+Away.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Today's New York Times front page featuring a petri dish chart for its home city of New York, saying that those with antibodies in the city are scarce, while it describes the potential of herd immunity as a "<i>distant objective</i>" and cautions that there is no safety from the spread. But,the presentation of its NYC statistic is suspiciously inaccurate.</td></tr>
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[<b>NOTE:</b> <i>This article was updated July 2, 2020 to refer to the estimated lag times it takes for Coronavisrus antibodies to develop thus making it important to look back and consider April's random testing of New York City residents as being a snap shot of the status of the infection's spread earlier in the month of April.</i>] <br />
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Front page, above the fold, upper right there is a big prominent chart in the physical copy of today’s New York Times to go along with the headline: “<i><a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/04/despite-all-information-flung-around.html">In battling Outbreak, Herd Immunity, Remains Distant Objective,</a></i>” by Nadja Popovich and Margot Sanger-Katz May 28, 2020. (The Times internet version of its headline is currently “<i>The World Is Still Far From Herd Immunity for Coronavirus</i>”)<br />
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That chart has a dramatic petri dish-looking dot diagram labeled to say that it shows that in New York City <i>19.9% of the population</i> have covid antibodies and in the smaller print adding “<i>May 2nd</i>.” The chart has its own bold headline label: <i><b>"Still not Safe From The Spread."</b></i><br />
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The print version of this article provides this text:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In New York City, which has had the largest coronavirus outbreak in the United States, around 20 percent of the city’s residents have been infected by the virus as of early May, according to a survey of people in grocery stores and community centers released by the governor’s office. </i></blockquote>
But, in actuality, the study results just described by the New York Times as fixing this percentage in <i>“early May,”</i> were reported in the New York Times <i>April 23rd</i>: "<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/nyregion/coronavirus-antibodies-test-ny.html">1 in 5 New Yorkers May Have Had Covid-19, Antibody Tests Suggest</a>" By J. David Goodman and Michael Rothfeld, April 23, 2020-<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In New York City, about 21 percent tested positive for coronavirus antibodies during the state survey.</i></blockquote>
That article also stated:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>State officials said the test had been calibrated to err on the side of producing false negatives — to miss some who may have antibodies —</i></blockquote>
That April Times article didn’t say then <u><i>when</i></u> in April the study had been conducted, perhaps an unusual skip, saying only that the study had involved tests conducted <i>“over two days, including about 1,300 in New York City, at grocery and big-box stores”</i> that had then been <i>“sent to the state’s Wadsworth facility in Albany”</i> and generated an announcement about its results on Wednesday, April 22, 2020 (publicly discussed by NYS Governor Cuomo the next day). All of this would push back somewhat the unknown date that the random study was actually conducted.-- <br />
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-- Pushing things back further in assessing things is that antibodies for Covid are not said to develop for one-to-three, or even more weeks after becoming infected. That means that the random sample snap-shot involves <i>a lag</i>. If you push things back two weeks plus a few days to compensate for all this, that means that the snap shot may best reflect a date of about Friday, April 3rd. The <i>"confirmed case"</i> for New York City count the New York Times gave on April 2nd was 52,000. May 29th the New York Times gives a <i>"confirmed case"</i> count figure of <i>"<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200529140950/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/nyregion/new-york-city-coronavirus-cases.html">205,854</a>."</i><br />
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While the results of that mid-April random study were intriguing, there seems to be no hint of another updating random study since.<br />
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Reporting on rates of coronavirus infection is a moving target. The virus is capably of spreading at an exponential rate, which is clearly what it did in the beginning in many locations including New York City. At about the time of the NYC random study it had been reported (<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/15/headlines/nyc_coronavirus_toll_tops_10_000_as_thousands_of_uncounted_deaths_added">April 15, 2020 on Democracy Now</a>) that the milestone of 10,000 deaths from the virus in New York City had just been reached. The death toll in New York City is now more than double that number at about 21,000. Increases in and accelerations of the infection rate precede the reported death rate. <br />
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So, if random testing were done, now, at the tail end of May, probably about six or more weeks since the last random tests were conducted, where would the current antibody detection rate in New York City be? That would have to take into consideration that April, followed by the first half of May was the month during which the virus was spreading most rapidly in New York City to create new infections. Would it be more than double the April random test figure the Times splashed on its front page incorrectly saying the figures were from May as it based it article on that? The charts below, <u><i>from the New York Times itself</i></u>, are elucidating in considering this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCjUzjbA8KbpXXMKndjNJAddcCytb6KRGO4FFqn-mnU5Vv2UuzJx_1YXTy1QV8F4q7oelyXPTIBACNPNnQUg17UuVZ98LxZALh6eoy4WJ5vTtTt22oHN38fGyKCkgcpkQxD3m5vXvplfOy/s1600/BellChartsCovidIMG_2023.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCjUzjbA8KbpXXMKndjNJAddcCytb6KRGO4FFqn-mnU5Vv2UuzJx_1YXTy1QV8F4q7oelyXPTIBACNPNnQUg17UuVZ98LxZALh6eoy4WJ5vTtTt22oHN38fGyKCkgcpkQxD3m5vXvplfOy/s400/BellChartsCovidIMG_2023.PNG" width="400" /></a></div>
Remember, when looking at these charts, that although the numbers are consistent for what they are, the <i>"confirmed case"</i> figure is always just a tiny fraction of the number of the people who have actually contracted the virus. That's something that is widely acknowledged. So, for instance, the April 2nd date when there were a reported <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html">about 52,000 confirmed cases</a> is the approximate date when random testing indicates that probably about 21% of New Yorkers had had the virus. By the May 29th date that the New York Times gives a <i>"confirmed case"</i> count figure of <i>"<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200529140950/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/nyregion/new-york-city-coronavirus-cases.html">205,854</a>"</i> for one can expect, following at least somewhat proportionally, a fairly major increase in the actual cases.<br />
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So the question I ask is: Is the New York Times offering a misleadingly bleak depiction respecting the possibilities of when the protections of herd immunity may be kick in for those who live in New York City, the Times' home base? Still a <i>"distant objective"</i> that new Yorkers are <i>"far from"</i>?Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-90147223792714147842020-04-26T18:08:00.000-04:002020-04-26T18:08:02.563-04:00As Digital Technology Steps In To Help Us Connect And Communicate During The Coronavirus Crisis, One Of The Devices Most Exquisitely Designed For Connection And Communication Breaks Down And Fails Us<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLvaLFplY_znthpCTTvtBiTDjMtPK_c-0DX55UVQ8K91d08lkacQ5ABJ7g555wrXY3nmY-yfEBnWCImOg3NV_UXMoDrCSQT4JZAhvliOdWIQmTF5Ld7QzxWfkZRaBGVxt4nJAaHbYiXe0x/s1600/Masked+Felings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1079" data-original-width="1600" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLvaLFplY_znthpCTTvtBiTDjMtPK_c-0DX55UVQ8K91d08lkacQ5ABJ7g555wrXY3nmY-yfEBnWCImOg3NV_UXMoDrCSQT4JZAhvliOdWIQmTF5Ld7QzxWfkZRaBGVxt4nJAaHbYiXe0x/s320/Masked+Felings.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The coronavirus has sent us rushing to technology, most of it relying on the filters of the internet, because, above all else, human connection and communication is important. There are, of course, concerns about the internet, how data is scraped and compiled on us as we are surveiled. I wrote about that and other concerns of where living with the virus was pushing us back in late March. (See: <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/03/reflections-on-what-it-means-to-be.html">Reflections On What It Means To Be Retreating More Into Virtual Existence In Fear Of A Virus</a>.)<br /><br />March was before we all started wearing masks everywhere. Now we’ve started covering our faces. One of the best designed devices for human connection and communication that was ever created is the human face. Now we are masking it. We are not only maintaining our <i>“social distance”</i> physically– think of how, in addition, we are also emotionally socially distancing ourselves by shutting down our ability to communicate with the rest of the world with our faces that were so exquisitely designed for this purpose evolving over the millennia precisely toward this perfection? One facial expression is worth a thousand words. . . <br /><br />. . We communicate with our facial expressions even before we have words. We communicate with our facial expressions when we lose our words. When our words lie, our facial expressions is where the truth still wends out to the world. When we talk about trying to conceal our emotions we talk about <i>“masking” </i>them; that’s a direct reference to hiding our faces, hiding our expressions.<br /><br />As we all amble the streets our in our masks, I thought about <a href="https://www.childtherapytoys.com/products/feelings-poster-english-laminated?gclid=CjwKCAjwv4_1BRAhEiwAtMDLslTsHs23Xv6Scs8G6PMRhq_7QYTRWHl1ax7-xB2EvAY8hfV_qVid2BoCExcQAvD_BwE">the charts</a> that you you often see them magnetically affixed to refrigerators, designed to teach children to recognize their emotions. Adults also enjoy these charts too for the way it encourages and sets them free them to be more relaxed in an easier self recognition of what they are feeling. I was on the street surrounded by masked people when the visual that illustrates this brief post sprang into my mind . . <br /><br />. . . How much less meaningful things are when we lose that face to face contact with others– Unfortunately, I can’t let you tell me that the jerky back and forth of unnaturally lit videos from people feeling confined to their apartments is a substitution for the real same thing. – It isn't, I mean, let's <i>face it</i> (pun intended). <br />Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-90060592393912970542020-04-23T12:00:00.000-04:002020-04-24T18:40:52.371-04:00Despite All The Information Flung Around About The Covid Crisis, The Big Story Is Mostly About What We Don’t Yet Know<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip5xlgRn_gxIcrezxtezEfot-aggmFqnrpEGVHBWERknhaCKPXkh8Qm-QcMvkAdN04DkLU4kY-pSy9eGJdxxFfNi62n_Q-VPTiaXVC6ym1ztUxeUv89naTBdRUYpE0ubFDoozkzY90X7I7/s1600/Ghost+Hood+Virus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1149" data-original-width="1600" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip5xlgRn_gxIcrezxtezEfot-aggmFqnrpEGVHBWERknhaCKPXkh8Qm-QcMvkAdN04DkLU4kY-pSy9eGJdxxFfNi62n_Q-VPTiaXVC6ym1ztUxeUv89naTBdRUYpE0ubFDoozkzY90X7I7/s400/Ghost+Hood+Virus.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I feel like I am being pummeled with information right and left about Covid-19, most of it scary and about deaths and mounting tabulations of people confirmed as infected.<br />
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I find that I have withdrawn even more from the 24/7 news cycle, which more and more seems to be all Covid all the time. It’s not that I am not taking the time to check in periodically to catch up on the news, but its continuing sameness is leaving me with a starved feeling. I am still feeling uniformed. That “sameness” left me confused and uncertain whether, the other day, I had done my daily check of Democracy Now’s headlines— Every day is so much like the other. (Democracy Now, which for decades called itself <i>“The War and Peace Report,”</i> is now calling itself <i>“The Quarantine Report”</i>– At least it rhymes.)<br />
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The New York Times especially seems to love publishing a zillion attention-grabbing charts these days.<br />
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What I find remarkable is that, with all the information that is being directed at us about covid-19, how much we still don’t know in terms of getting an overview.<br />
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Here, listed below, are things we still don’t know. Almost all of these things have been written or reported about somewhere. I am going to dispense with my usual habit about carefully providing documenting links about where these things might have been covered, because, when all is said and done, it is more about what nobody seems to really know. It all comes from what is a mish-mosh of confusion.<br />
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We don’t know:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• <b> How Many People, What Percentage of the Population, Have Been Infected with Covid-19?</b> This is a question that can be asked country by country, region by region. We don’t know because, especially in the United States, there is no testing to find out. If you are in New York City and think you have a Covid-19 virus infection the first thing you will be told when you try to figure out what to do is that you probably should <u><i>not</i></u> try to get tested. New York City is deemed to have perhaps the highest infection rate in the United States. The other day I heard that less than 1% of the United States population had been tested. When I tried to look that up I found a figure that was actually far below that. And the virus has been spreading for a long time, which means that, in terms of knowing things, the situation hasn’t necessarily remained the same for those who tested negative for the virus when they were tested. The numbers we get frequently and relentlessly about the latest calculation of <i>“confirmed cases”</i> in different places throughout the world are mostly measures of how many tests were done provoked because people were recently showing a certain (not even consistent) level of virus infection symptoms. <br />
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• <b>What Percentage of Our Populations Can Be Expected To Ultimately Get Covid19?</b> The effect of Covid-19 will depend on how many people get it. There are estimations that the 1918 “Spanish” flu infected about one-third of the world’s population. Some people have put out information that Covid-19 will infect about twice that percentage.<br />
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• <b>What Percentage of People Who Get Infected Will Be Asymptomatic?</b> The numbers people are offering on this question are wildly all over the place. It seems that, even with a given population trending toward the elderly, at least about 20% will be asymptomatic, but it appears from other reports that in the general population about 50% or more will be asymptomatic. The Washington Post recently reported that 88% of pregnant women in New York who turned out to have the virus were asymptomatic. That particular figure could have something to do with likely ages and general health for women getting pregnant or for differences in the immune system when women are pregnant. Further, in figuring out the percentage for the overall population, what does <i>“asymptomatic”</i> mean?; at what point is a case of infection so mild that the person who gets it pays so little or no attention to it mean that it crosses over the line to what is deemed <i>“asymptomatic”</i>? This question of how many people are asymptomatic also has a lot to do with guessing how many people are possibly out and about passing the virus on to other people.<br />
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• <b>What Percentage of People Who Get Infected Will Have Mild Cases And of What General Character?</b> This question is much like the question about who is asymptomatic, but, without virus testing or after-the-fact antibody testing, who knows? And if we don’t know who has been sick with the virus, who can, with authority, pass on a description of what their personal experience with the virus was like, how harrowing or not it was?<br />
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• <b>What Is the Mortality Rate From The Virus?</b> We are being given lots of figures about people dying from the virus, but without knowing how many people have been infected overall we have no idea of what the mortality rate from the virus is. The New York Times ran a front page story to tell us that it is so hard to know what the mortality rate is that nobody knows. Although the story managed to place some very high possible mortality rates near the beginning of the story, it had covered a very wide range of possible figures, basically covering all bases, by the time it concluded. We don’t even know yet exactly how many deaths to attribute to covid-19; some deaths are not being noted, while other deaths might have happened anyway from co-morbidities. Complicating determination of the percentage is that, even if we know the infection rate, information about mortality necessarily lags information that could someday be collected about rates of infection. Possible mortality rates include rates below 1%. People often seek to compare mortality rates for covid-19 to annual influenza mortality rates, but this can be deceptive because mortality rates for flu can vary; for some annual influenzas it can be very high compared to other years. Also, flu, for which people also frequently get vaccinated, probably affects a much smaller percentage of the population annually.<br />
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• <b>How Long Will The Virus Crisis Last?</b> Nobody knows how long the virus crisis will last, but how long the crisis will last ties in with the idea of <i>“flattening the curve.”</i> The idea of social distancing to <i>“flatten the curve”</i> does not precisely mean that fewer people will get sick from the virus; it mostly means that the same number of people will get sick over a more extended period of time, reducing stress on the capacity of the healthcare system. Pretty much by definition, the more the curve is flattened, the longer it will take for the curve to reduce all the way.<br />
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• <b>When Did Covid-19 Infections Begin, Particularly, In Particular Places Like The United States?</b> To know more about how fast Covid-19 infection is spreading and predict better how it may play out (including the shape of its possible curves), it would be good to know how long it has been around. Did it really start in the United States in mid-January? There is some very credible discussion about whether it was actually being spread in the United States in November and December. Some theories pushing the far end of what is speculated suggest it goes back as far as September.<br />
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• <b>How Much Can We Expand The Healthcare System’s Capacity To Deal With Needs To The Extent That The “Curve” Isn’t “Flattened”?</b> As I heard John Kane pointing out on WBAI radio the other day, the <i>“flatten the curve”</i> graph, which all of us must have seen by this time, has three lines on it: A high bell curve line if social distancing doesn’t slow the rate of infection, a flatter bell curve over a much more extended period of time, and the third line is the line representing the capacity of the healthcare system. The first two lines are the lines generally presented as malleable, subject to change and adjustment, but the third line could also be moved. The question is how much could that third line be moved by responsive investment. At the moment, the covid-19 crisis is serving as justification for spending trillions of dollars in subsidy money to address the economic effects of the crisis. What amount of money would need to be spent to move the line representing healthcare system capacity upward?<br />
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• <b>How Many Lives Will Be Saved By <i>“Flattening The Curve”</i>?</b> <i>“Flattening the curve”</i> can save lives and is expected to, but how will “flattening the curve” save lives and how many will it save? (We are frequently admonishing younger people to socially distance and wear masks to save, not their own lives, but the lives of older, statistically more vulnerable people.) The most important way that <i>“flattening the curve”</i> can save lives is that it might mean, that to the extent that there are medical treatments that will be life saving for infected individuals, flattening the curve will help to avoid any need to triage and withhold such treatment from anyone whose life could be saved. It means, in more basic terms, that someone won’t die just because the healthcare system gets overwhelmed. Postponing when people get the virus could also make a difference if a vaccine is developed (something that may not happen) or if time otherwise allows for the development of superior treatments. Postponing virus deaths also allows people who may ultimately soon die from another cause to live as long as they were otherwise likely to.<br />
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• <b>When The Reported New Infection Or Death Rates Level Off or When They Go Down In Certain Areas, Do We Know Why?</b> In some areas, New York may now be one of them, the increase in new infections and the reported number of daily deaths appear to leveling off, maybe peaking before starting to go down. This will probably also eventually happen in other areas where those numbers are still going up. When these numbers go down, do we know why? I have noticed a certain routineness when it the numbers are reported as going down for those reports to ascribe it to the success of the <i>“social distancing”</i> we are all being encouraged to be engaging in. But the <i>“flattening the curve”</i> model also predicts that, at some point, these numbers will reduce because there are fewer people left, a smaller percentage of the population, to still catch the virus. When do we know that is happening and that lowering numbers in these areas is in part due to where we are on the curve? <br />
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• <b>What Is The Recovery Rate From The Virus?</b> Like calculating mortality, even if we know the infection rate, information about recovery, which can take time, necessarily lags information that could be collected about rates of infection.<br />
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• <b>How Long Does It Take To Recover From The Virus?</b> While some people may seem to recover relatively quickly, how long can it take for others to recover?<br />
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• <b>How Many People Will Suffer Permanent Disabilities Because Of A Bout With The Virus Rather Than Fully Recover?</b> In some cases, death is not the only permanent outcome of a serious virus infection. If permanent lung, organ or brain damage is, in certain instances, the result of infections, that is another thing to be taken into account in terms of the seriousness of what’s being suffered, plus, long-term, the effects of these things may need to be added in to calculate the morbidity rate.<br />
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• <b>When Is Someone Recovered From The Virus?</b> Stories have been written about people who thought they were recovering or had recovered from the virus and then <i>“relapsed,”</i> so they may have not been fully recovered or recovering when they thought. What do we need to know to have our bearings in this respect? <br />
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• <b>How Long After Apparent Recovery Will Somebody No Longer Be Infectious So They Are Safe To Rejoin The Company of Others?</b> The New York Times has published information saying that people who have recovered after a bout with the virus are no longer infectious to others after a very short period of time. Meanwhile studies have come out saying that the advent of the safe period may take weeks longer than the Times published. <br />
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• <b>Does It Matter And Are There Different Ways of Getting Infected?</b> I have seen nothing talked about respecting whether it matters how a person’s body is introduced to the virus when it gets infected. If a healthcare worker tending to a very sick patient gets a faceful of coughed-out virus just as they are deeply inhaling, is that going to have the same probable effects as someone who picks up a pen previously used by an infected person, then puts their fingers to their lips and swallows virus to be taken in by their digestive system? <br />
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• <b>Are Some People Going To Be Immune To Covid-19?</b> This may seem to be a strange question to ask, but do we know all the reasons that an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population did not get the 1918 flu? A friend of mine is one of the individuals who presented himself for study when he was surprised that he had never gotten AIDs. It turned out that he is one of the people in the world with a double set of genes that means he can’t get AIDs.<br />
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• <b>What Makes Some People Particularly Susceptible To The Worst Expressions Of The Virus When They get Infected?</b> While we were initially told that older people and people with a long list of health problems would be those worst affected if they got the virus, it has not turned out that predictions are guaranteed to follow such simple dividing lines. People in their 90s and even over 100 are getting expressed, symptomatic cases of the virus and recovering just fine. Young adults are sometimes dying, succumbing surprisingly quickly. An explanation offered for why some individuals have more problematic responses to being infected with covid-19 than others is that they suffer <i>“cytokine storms,”</i> an over-response of the immune system where the response itself becomes the problem because it isn’t balanced. It is thought that the provocation of <i>“cytokine storms”</i> was the reason that the 1918 flu seemed unusually lethal for young, healthy and strong people. There may be other ways we don’t know that some responses to being infected may be idiosyncratically worse for some individuals. <br />
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• <b>Do We Know All The Reasons That Certain Sub-populations Of Some Communities Are Being Hurt By Covid-19 At Far Higher Rates?</b> The death rate from Covid-19 for blacks and Latinos is far outpacing the rate for other cohorts of the population. To an extent, that would be expected as the result of health and wealth disparities previously in place that create inequities and differences in baseline health, and living conditions. Also, the economic situation facing such populations may prevent people from engaging in the same amount of social distancing, thus pushing them to the front of a less “flattened” curve. While those are things that likely contribute to explanations, have we identified all the reasons for the difference in the effects from the virus? Are these the only ones?<br />
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• <b>Are There Different Strains of The Virus Circulating; To What Extent Are People Getting Sick To Different Degrees Because They Are Not Getting Precisely The Same Version Of The Virus?</b> Are there <i>two</i> strains of the virus? Are there <i>three</i> strains of the virus? Are there <i>eight</i> strains of the virus? I have read assertions that each of those things is true. Is the new coronavirus steadily evolving? Covid-19 is a coronavirus, which puts it in the larger family of viruses that includes the common cold viruses. The common cold viruses constantly evolve and mutate. My understanding is that most coronaviruses do. So do flu viruses. So it is likely that not everyone is getting exactly the same version of the Covid-19 virus now and, in the future, people may get still other versions. One question is to what extent getting a different virus may produce illness more or less likely to be severe. Another question is whether getting one version of the virus can confer immunity or protection against getting another. There could be good news in this if a more benign edition of the virus could confer immunity against the ravages of a more malign version. There could also be bad news in this if different strains of the virus, and a constantly evolving virus, mean it is possible to get infected and suffer effects more than once, particularly if the subsequent infections could be as severe as the first or worse. The difficulty of creating a vaccine for constantly evolving coronaviruses is one explanation for why there has never been a vaccine created to immunize people against the common cold. On the other hand, one theory offered to explain the demise of the 1918 flu is that the flu defeated itself, by evolving itself out of existence by evolving less and less lethal strains that, in essence, served to vaccinate the population. That 1918 flu theory supposes that healthier people were transmitting strains of the viris that were progressively less lethal.<br />
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• <b>Could A “Contact Tracing” Approach Help Deal With Covid-19 Effectively?</b> <i>“Contact tracing”</i> with isolation has been described as an alternative to the <i>“flattening the curve”</i> approach. <i>“Contact tracing”</i> actually tries to prevent and stamp out virus infections rather than just prolonging the period over which people get infections. <i> “Contact tracing”</i> is resource intensive in terms of finding and eradicating the virus. (Not that <i>“social distancing”</i> isn’t having a huge effect on how other resources are being redirected during this time.) <i>“Contact tracing”</i> can work if a disease is just arriving in a population. It works less well when a disease is highly communicable, particularly if that disease is highly communicable throughout a period when it is difficult to identify that people have it. It is not likely to work when a disease has become <i>endemic</i> to a population, i.e. when it is already widely spread and found throughout a population. It starts with testing. That’s something we have been doing very little of, particularly in the beginning when <i>“contact tracing”</i> would have had better odds of being effective. Then, for every case of a disease known and identified because of such testing, you have to identify and trace the contacts of the infected person. Then they need to be tested as well. Then you should be tracing the contacts of those people if they are infected as well. If your tests are not giving you immediate results you may need to start tracing and further testing sooner, based on guesses. All the infected people need to be isolated and quarantined when found.– Finding and tacking all the contacts spreading the disease can be very difficult if, as may be the worst case, people can have spread the Covid-19 virus for up to two weeks before getting sick themselves, there is more than a 50% chance, maybe 60-70% or more chance, of being asymptomatic or having symptoms mild enough people never know they have the virus, and they may be spreading the virus for weeks after having symptoms.– Maybe there are communities in some parts of the United States that have so far been sufficiently isolated and don’t yet have the virus so that <i>“contact tracing”</i> can prevent the disease from gaining a foothold, but for how long will those (rural?) communities have to remain isolated and reliant on “contact tracing” before a virus endemic in the rest of the country dies out and is no longer a threat?<br />
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• <b>What Tests Are Available And How Reliable Are they?</b> <i>“Contact tracing”</i> depends on tests to know who has the virus and who has had the virus. Tests can also put a lot more in perspective, which can help us plan and make decisions. Although there is very little testing going on, there are a number of different tests available and apparently others in development. That makes it hard for the public to know what’s what. To what extent are these tests reliable? Do they provide false positives or false negatives, some more than others? Probably everyone has heard by now the exceedingly odd fact that critical time was lost when the first tests shipped out by the United States government were completely unreliable. (Those tests were the ones shipped because our federal government rejected the test available through the World Health Organization.) There are two kinds of tests: tests for who has the virus, and antibody tests that may be able to determine who has had the virus. It’s necessary to accurately answer both questions for a lot of things like determining mortality rates or tracing.<br />
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• <b>How Communicable Is Covid-19?</b> In the beginning I remember the instructions about the conscientious hand washing that was prescribed to prevent communication of covid-19. Now everyone in New York City is wearing masks. There are signs everywhere in NYC telling people to stay six-feet apart, some of those signs with visuals demonstrating what <i>“six-feet”</i> is. Distances are taped off to show people how far apart to stand while waiting your turn to be one of a limited number of shoppers in a supermarket. But these “be afraid and careful” messages are now being supplemented by new analysis and charts that suggest that the clouds of virus infected people can breath out may go eighteen feet, may go over and under partitions, maybe doorways. We are told that heavy-breathing joggers may send their infected breath farther than others. And we are told that the virus, liking flat surfaces, can sit waiting on metal or shiny plastic for days. So it seems that a jogger or a bicyclists speeding down a New York City street can exhale and spew virus on blockworths of car doors and car door handles that could remain infectious for days? Mothers are all wearing masks as they accompany their children on trips into the breeze and sunshine, but children and babies in New York City almost never wear masks. There are practically no instances of children or babies getting sick from the virus themselves so they don’t need the protection of masks for themselves, but they do get and transmit the virus. Are they spreading the virus? Not wearing masks, we can think of them as little virus spreaders?. . . Recently, someone thought to test household cats for the virus. This was after tigers in a New York City zoo got the virus. Yes, cats get the virus, presumably from their owners and presumably the infection can go the other way too. What about all the dogs being walked on NYC streets that don’t wear masks? However communicable covid-19 actually is, are we doing what would assuredly prevent it from spreading, or are we only diminishing the odds to slow up and space out incidences of transmission to <i>“flatten the curve”</i>? When I go to the supermarket these days, aren't I touching items that others have touched or breathed on? When I pay at the the supermarket or the pharmacy these days in NYC, the store worker I am dealing with is behind a shiny new plexiglass partition, but then I am asked to sign for my purchase using the same stylus as everyone who came before me used and the same payment screen and buttons they used. That’s at the pharmacy where people go to pick up their medicines if they aren't feeling well. That’s if I use my credit card. If I use physical cash to pay (I understand virus connected efforts are afoot want to replace cash with digital currency) I will receive physical change for my currency that has been touched by other people who came to the pharmacy, and others before that.<br />
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• <b>Will There Be A Vaccine In The Near Future?</b> We don’t know whether there will a vaccine anytime soon. The long-term failure to come up with a cure for the common cold, covid’s cousin, doesn’t auger well. On the other hand, there have been some hints that a vaccine might be coming, hints even that some companies have gotten a head start. There is also the question of how long a vaccine might work well if the virus keeps evolving. Aside from a vaccine which could prevent infection, there are other very similar questions about whether we will discover and exchange information about other drugs, treatments and approaches that enable us to deal more effectively with people who get infected. <br />
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• <b>Will There Be Additional Rounds To Go Through With Covid-19 In Future Seasons?</b> Some months from now will we, in the United States find ourselves on the subsiding side of a flattened covid-19 infection bell curve only to discover that we are facing a new wave of covid-19? The 1918 flu came through the United States population in two waves and there are already some predictions that something like this will happen with covid, including that a new wave of covid could coincide with the cold weather that ushers in a new regular flu season with a much more crippling combined effect. One explanation for a covid’s return in a new wave of infections is a theory that the virus might mutate sufficiently by that time to override any previously acquired immunities. If there can be a second wave of covid there is the possibility that there could be more waves after that, a third, fourth, etc. People have therefore asked what should be expected in terms of new normals for how we deal with our health, our economy, our entire culture.</blockquote>
As I said, I am eschewing my usual practice of carefully providing links as I write about the above because there is so much contradictory information about what isn’t yet known. You can Google these things yourself. With things changing every day, you may get better, more up-to-date information, than if I provided particular links.<br />
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I have focused on the big picture unknowns in terms of trying to figure out what we need to deal with, background for deciding what may be a rational response. I am not getting into different ideas of where the covid-19 virus first emerged or where it came from. Nor am I getting into the most political aspects of responding to the situation, like the new <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/03/reflections-on-what-it-means-to-be.html">“stimulus” bills</a> or such things as the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/04/you-already-concluded-coronavirus.html">ridiculous proposals</a> to further subsidize the health insurance industry at this time.<br />
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The fact that I am enumerating so many things here as official unknowns to which we are all subject, hasn’t prevented me from trying to get my personal bearings about where I think we may stand where I live. I live in New York City. Because of fatalities and infections here, New York City has been described as the center of the crisis in the United States.<br />
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Starting almost a week ago, I ran some numbers several different ways. I am not going to share my calculations, because with all the unknowns factoring in, even a small difference in filling in some of the unknown numbers different ways could swing the calculation results very much one way or another.<br />
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Based on what I looked at, I would say that it would not be an unreasonable guess that somewhere nearing one out of every four New Yorkers currently in the city, or at least one in five, either has or has already had the covid-19 virus. That's what I have been telling people since last Saturday and Sunday. That guess is not out of sync with my knowing a lot of people who think they likely had the virus. It is not wildly out of sync with hearing that recently 20% of the city police force was out sick, seven times the normal rate, while remembering that more people may likely be asymptomatic than not. It is not wildly out of sync with a report that, recently, pregnant women in the city were testing positive for the virus at almost a 15% rate (and I don’t think that study was combined with an antibody test). Thus I am looking at my fellow city residents seeing the virus essentially <i>everywhere</i>. I suspect that I am one of the one who has already had it– As advertised, this is an article about how much is not known.<br />
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While there may be a leveling off of new rates of infection in New York City, I am guessing that, for a time, new infections will continue here without declining rapidly. I am afraid, but guessing that we may ultimately have about three times the number of covid deaths in the city that we have already had.<br />
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I have tried to catalogue, as best I can, the panoply of covid-19 unknowns that plague us. There are far too many. I hope that if there are others ahead of us in filling in these blanks we will be informed promptly. It would only be fair to do so.<br />
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In dealing with all these unknowns, I am reminded that the best, scariest monster movies are the movies that never show the monster– Or at least they are the ones that wait as long as possible to do so– Those films, instead, rely on hinting at the monster’s parts moving in the shadows; they show you the scared people screaming in terror in reaction. . . Maybe, like the original <i>Jaws</i>, they, from time to time, suggestively reveal a few chomped on body parts. I feel a little like that now.<br />
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We are living with some other unknowns now too. When we as New Yorkers walk down the street with our masks on, we can’t see whether our neighbors are smiling. Will we forget what it is like to smile at somebody in the street or to smile at someone serving us at the store and get a smile back?<br />
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Living a virtual life via internet connections is not the same thing. What’s more, our substitute existences through the internet are subject to data scraping and surveillance. I reflected and wrote more about that, March 28th here: <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/03/reflections-on-what-it-means-to-be.html">Reflections On What It Means To Be Retreating More Into Virtual Existence In Fear Of A Virus</a>.Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-19683145870022090112020-04-21T20:32:00.001-04:002020-04-21T20:32:35.632-04:00You Already Concluded The Coronavirus Proves Our Healthcare System Is Totally Broken?– Here Are Two More Stories That Make Ultra-clear Our Private Insurance Company-based Healthcare System Is Wack<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDnnCnTeWip7VkjBFtSjIsmCNeyzTyrlMDKI2vvWZC832weSDIu3ndf9JjNiUdK6HbjVHA94gdK_7SRcOeJx32FJF0ep64xmHI-bbsBwb8NPzERM9hg1-VhgpswjjdilQERsMEY-pI1-mY/s1600/Broken+Private+Insurance+Company+Healthcare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="970" data-original-width="1600" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDnnCnTeWip7VkjBFtSjIsmCNeyzTyrlMDKI2vvWZC832weSDIu3ndf9JjNiUdK6HbjVHA94gdK_7SRcOeJx32FJF0ep64xmHI-bbsBwb8NPzERM9hg1-VhgpswjjdilQERsMEY-pI1-mY/s400/Broken+Private+Insurance+Company+Healthcare.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
The <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/03/reflections-on-what-it-means-to-be.html">first time</a> I wrote about the Covid-19 virus I wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
Covid-19 could not be a more perfect and obvious <i>“my health is your health/your health is my health”</i>
argument for Medicare for all. With massive, nationwide layoffs
because of the Covid-19 health crisis, millions of Americans are now
losing their <i>“if you like your private employer health plan, you can keep it,”</i> health insurance right at the time when they need it most. </blockquote>
I thought it was pretty obvious that our private insurance company-based healthcare system is broken when I wrote that. But now there are two more stories that totally torpedo the idea that a private insurance company-based healthcare system makes any sense at all. The two stories must be treated as related in a sisterly way, but it is not clear that everybody is making the connections that need to be made.<br /><br />One story is that the coronavirus crisis is actually driving up the profits for Healthcare insurers because, as a result of the health crisis, the demand for nonessential medical treatment that the insurance companies have to pay for has plummeted. In other words, even as there is a need to channel extra resources in the direction of dealing with the virus, the health insurers get to pocket a windfall because, overall, the entire community of patients is currently getting less to address its health care needs. Even crazier, at the same time health insurance companies are getting to pocket the windfall from these healthcare crisis vicissitudes, hospitals, extra burdened by Covid, are <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/us/coronavirus-rural-hospitals-invs/index.html">facing financial failure</a> as they shutdown other activities and patient treatments they depend on for their financial equilibrium.<br /><br />Here is what Democracy Now <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/17/headlines">reported</a> last Friday, as part of its headlines respecting healthcare insurer profits (probably picking it up from Common Dreams <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/16/thriving-during-pandemic-unitedhealth-group-posts-surge-profits-millions-lose">the day before</a>):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The for-profit health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group reported profits grew by over $160 million during the first quarter of 2020, as demand for nonessential medical treatment plummeted while coronavirus hospitalizations surged. UnitedHealth reported a 3.4% year-over-year increase in quarterly earnings to $5 billion. Former health insurance executive Wendell Potter tweeted in response, “The earnings were so good, the company said it still expects to make as much in total profits this year as they predicted in December … when no one could predict the massive loss of life & jobs caused by the coronavirus. In other words, they’re thriving during a pandemic.”</blockquote>
But it gets worse! Vice News is reporting that Democrats are planning to address the Covid-19 crisis by plowing more money into premiums that will go to the insurance companies. (See: <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kzygq/democrats-big-coronavirus-idea-is-to-subsidize-health-insurers">Democrats’ Big Coronavirus Idea Is to Subsidize Health Insurers- Instead of pushing for public health solutions, Democrats want to cover COBRA premiums</a>.) In other words, Democrats are going to direct Covid-19 `<i>solution money</i>' to where the problem doesn’t exist and where that money can be intercepted and siphoned off as more insurance company profit windfall. By definition, insurance is a game of chance, so that premiums paying for insurance are, as a matter of high probability, paid for people who are likely <u><i>not</i></u> sick and <i><u>not</u></i> needing treatment. . And these days, as noted, those people are probably trying to minimize the medical treatments they are getting that the insurance companies could be expected to pay for.<br /><br />Healthcare planing is one of things I studied back in the 70s to get my Masters of Urban Planning degree. Maybe I didn’t get into it deeply enough at the time, but I certainly don’t remember anything in my studies pointing out that we could have a system this insane.<br /><br />Certainly it’s clear that our private insurance company-based healthcare system is broken and that the solution is some kind of universal healthcare, something along the lines of Medicare for all as was championed by Bernie Sanders. . But as a good indication that another system is broken, our political system, I had to point out the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/03/reflections-on-what-it-means-to-be.html">last time</a> I wrote about the coronavirus that, all of this notwithstanding, Joe Biden stated very recently that if the Democrats pass Medicare for all <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/joe-biden-declares-health-care-should-be-a-right-but-balks-at-signing-medicare-for-all-as-president-how-are-you-going-to-find-35-trillion/">he will veto it</a> if he is elected president.Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-8758336567238663692020-04-20T20:41:00.002-04:002020-04-20T21:53:35.055-04:00Spectacular Female Alternative Journalists, Emerging Leaders In The Field<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjomSh0ZjhFyd976SjHLlbjifaV85t_EseI0eaMni3oE_NFhA_0g9mcGQTwGIi5LMTwjQhZKNZwHf7wqfwPYedOTtwtdAqiamu6bXYP14y-Cn1HnwBPhq7wx7qag3OO7qT411j00GRyKDbU/s1600/Alternative+Women+Journalists.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="935" data-original-width="1600" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjomSh0ZjhFyd976SjHLlbjifaV85t_EseI0eaMni3oE_NFhA_0g9mcGQTwGIi5LMTwjQhZKNZwHf7wqfwPYedOTtwtdAqiamu6bXYP14y-Cn1HnwBPhq7wx7qag3OO7qT411j00GRyKDbU/s400/Alternative+Women+Journalists.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I’ve got a list:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• <a href="https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek">Rania Khalek</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin">Abby Martin</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/krystalball">Krystal Ball</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz">Caitlin Johnstone</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz">Whitney Webb</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein">Naomi Klein</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/anyaparampil">Anya Parampil</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/medeabenjamin">Medea Benjamin</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/naomikaravani">Naomi Karavani</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/NatalieSMcGill">Natalie McGill</a><br />
• <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7w1IkgIBxI">Kim Iversen</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/kthalps">Katie Halper</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/JaneMayerNYer">Jane Mayer</a><br />
• <a href="http://mathbabedotorg/">Cathy O’Neil</a><br />
• <a href="https://twitter.com/GRITlaura">Laura Flanders</a></blockquote>
You may think you know what my list is a list of– but I, myself, am not sure that I have yet figured out exactly what my list represents or even who, exactly, should be on it. You can help me.<br />
<br />
It is correct to observe that my list is all women. We can describe everyone going on my list as a journalist. I started formulating my list as a few significant individuals caught my eye. I grew my list beginning with a core of several women who I realized were getting my attention repeatedly . . journalists I was realized I was regularly wanting to check in with frequently, because I wanted to hear their latest thoughts and perspective on things. And so I was noticing. . . <br />
<br />
Those who <i>should be</i> on my list are doing <i>amazing</i>, <i>spectacular</i> work. So who <i>should be</i> on it? <br />
There should be nothing unexpected about women being great journalists. I am male. I’d like to think that I don’t have any bias or preconceptions against women achieving greatness as journalists. I hope not. I come from an extended family <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2011/06/women-are-better-than-men-at-nearly.html">in which</a> there were many women with <br />
notable achievements as journalists, writers and people who were otherwise very involved in publishing and editing. I am not going to mention any of the members of my family here, because this rumination about <i>“my list”</i> and who <i>should</i> be on it is about women who are distinguishing themselves for accomplishing a different category of things. This article certainly isn’t about what women from my family have achieved . . . Plus, frankly, by the criteria I am zeroing in to qualify those to be on this list, I don’t think my family members would measure up to some high standards I think are involved here, whatever the other illustrious achievements the women in my family have as journalists.<br />
<br />
The women I am thinking <i>should be</i> on my list should all be there because they insightfully and adroitly challenge the official narratives offered by the powerful. Thus, it's probably redundant to say that those getting on this list should all probably also wind up being described as journalists from the <i>alternative</i> media. Alternative media is now more important than ever. Although we may have the illusion of many outlets for information throughout our culture, when the behind-the-scenes ownership of these outlets is considered those outlets shrink down to outlets outputting product for <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2018/05/coming-june-1st-forum-second-where-do.html">just a few</a> similarly-minded monpolistic corporate media conglomerates.<br />
<br />
But being an <i>“alternative media journalist”</i> should not, alone, be enough to get included in this list.<br />
<br />
What I like about the journalists that got me started in trying to compile this list, <a href="https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek">Rania Khalek</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin">Abby Martin</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/krystalball">Krystal Ball</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz">Caitlin Johnstone</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz">Whitney Webb</a>, is the kind of swipe-away-the-cobwebs, cut-through-the-crap sense of clarity I experience when exposed to their work. I think this comes from their having a clear world view, anchored by well-informed, reference points that prevents drift when confronted by narrative fictions. They are able to decisively dispense with and dispose of propaganda.<br />
<br />
It is likely that media literacy and the ability to offer trenchant commentary on mainstream corporate media (i.e., like <a href="https://twitter.com/krystalball">Krystal Ball</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek">Rania Khalek</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz">Caitlin Johnstone</a>) when making sense of the news and what needs to be reported, will accompany other talents that get journalists on this list– But it needn’t be <i>de rigueur</i> that such media literacy talent is ostentatiously displayed; it’s enough, I think, for these journalists to be able to keep their bearings in terms of knowing where to find real and/or more reliable information and what nonsense or fluff to discount or to reject out of hand. That makes some of these journalists (e.g. <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz">Whitney Webb</a>) remarkable researchers. <br />
<br />
There are female journalists who would likely want to be on this elevated list, but are <u><i>not</i></u> going to get on it.<br />
<br />
I suspect that Amy Goodman of <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-to-listen-to-democracy-now-mind.html"><i>Democracy Now</i></a> would want to be put on it. Running <i>“Democracy Now”</i> Amy Goodman is running an important news organization that seeks support advertising itself as <i>“independent news.”</i> I recommend its weekday broadcasts, particularly for keeping up with <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-to-listen-to-democracy-now-mind.html">headlines</a>. Once upon a time, I probably would have put Amy Goodman on the list as well. Ms. Goodman would have been a candidate earlier, when Democracy Now was first being incubated out of Pacifica’s WBAI radio station in New York (<a href="http://Laura Flanders">Laura Flanders</a> and <a href="http://Katie Halper">Katie Halper</a> also have connection with WBAI and shows that are broadcast on Pacifica and WBAI like Democracy Now). Early on, Amy Goodman would probably have been on the list for things like the WBAI 2000 Election Day radio interview where she famously reeled in Bill Clinton to defend his record when Clinton called her show to get out votes for the candidates, or when Ms. Goodman was risking her life and was nearly killed reporting in 1991 on the massacre of pro-independence demonstrators in East Timor by the occupying Indonesian government.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, Democracy Now is now a big organization that stays too much within the rails of its own acceptable narratives, limiting its awareness and what it is willing to challenge. Even if it ranges more broadly than the conglomerate-owned networks to challenge U.S. wars, the limits of what DN is willing to discern have given it a sort of gatekeeper function. That means Democracy Now can even be a conduit for official propaganda. As Aaron Maté <a href="https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1248650426104373248">noted on April 10th</a>, and actually took it upon himself to write Amy Goodman about, there was a very sad irony when, right before an interview with Noam Chomsky, Democracy Now continued <i>“to <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/78912/manufacturing-consent-by-edward-s-herman-and-noam-chomsky/">Manufacture Consent</a> in its Syria coverage”</i> with a headline about a new `<i>report</i>' by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) about Syria that, as Maté noted, ignored (as Democracy Now has been doing for months) the OPCW whistleblowers who were pointing out how the OPCW was falsifying the basis for its reports. . . I fervently hope and expect that anybody making it on to the list I am endeavoring to compile would <u><i>never</i></u> let that kind of thing go by. <br />
<br />
Clearly, if the list I am compiling were open to including men, there would be journalists like Aaron Maté, to add to it. Max Blumenthal would probably be on it for his work at the Grayzone. He just married fellow Grayzoner <a href="https://twitter.com/anyaparampil">Anya Parampil</a> as the <a href="https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1240050367800332288">month of March</a> was ushering in quarantines leading <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz">Caitlin Johnstone</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1240055702388785158">to quip</a> that “<i>Their babies are each gonna have their own Bellingcat narrative managers assigned to them at birth</i>.” (If you are not following, <i>Bellingcat</i> is an organization devoted to pushing out twisted propaganda narratives to discredit the kind of journalists you would find on this list while <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/01/business/media/open-source-journalism-bellingcat.html">posing as</a> <i>“internet sleuths”</i> devoted to discovering the truth.)<br />
<br />
If someone is going to mention Rachel Maddow (because she is <i>female</i> and may herself have the temerity to say she is a <i>journalist</i>), you are not understanding what the aspirations are here with respect to this list. Maddow may be bright, capable and she is recognizably very well paid (<a href="https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/how-much-is-rachel-maddow-worth-and-what-is-her-salary.html/">$7 million a year</a>) to be a sell-out, but she is an example of the exact opposite who should be on the list;* she is involved in the kind of propaganda-spewing brain-shut-downs that people who should be on the list would be on the list for countering. Being well-known or well paid as a female journalist, the way that Barbara Walters (who went to Sarah Lawrence like me) was, is not the ticket to get on this list. It's not that easy.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
(* We won’t go back to try to assess Maddow’s earlier Air America days.)</blockquote>
I haven’t concluded who exactly should, or should not, be on this list. I am keeping an open mind. I invite you to make you own additions and subtractions and to feel free to make modifications to criteria as well. <a href="http://Medea Benjamin">Medea Benjamin</a> of CODEPINK has written articles and books; she gives talks and appears on news programs like Democracy Now, but she might be thought of more as an activist because she takes action. (CODEPINK also has a program on WBAI radio and its sister Pacifica station, WPFW.) Nevertheless, I think that most of the journalists on this list are at the activist end of the spectrum. I think that, while they believe that journalism involves an obligation to be truthful, that they do not believe they should maintain false pretenses about their neutrality when they see what they see.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein">Naomi Klein</a> has, at this point, integrated into the mainstream perhaps more than anyone on this list. She has no problem getting onto Democracy Now where she appears quite regularly, and she sometimes makes it onto MSNBC, CNN, things like the Colbert Report, etc. Nevertheless, her videos like on “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-capitalism/">Coronavirus Capitalism</a>” are much like <a href="https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek">Rania Khalek</a>’s Soapbox videos the way that they deflate and counter official narratives. All of Klein's work generally succeeds in this manner.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://twitter.com/JaneMayerNYer">Jane Mayer</a> is similarly accepted in the mainstream. She is still published in the increasingly right-wing New Yorker and she is widely interviewed, but Mayer’s well researched investigative work also tears the veil off the workings of the interrelated political and U.S. economic systems.<br />
<br />
When I began compiling my list, I tried taking a few of the names of some of the most obvious candidates for the list and Google them together. (I was hoping to find the names of more candidates that way.) I was surprised when nothing came up. Maybe now, with the publication of this list, that won’t be the case.<br />
<br />
If you are interested in what these women are doing, I’ve hyperlinked their names to their Twitter feeds, which tends to be one of the easiest ways to find out about them. The ratings for <a href="https://twitter.com/krystalball">Krystal Ball</a>’s “<i>Rising</i>” program, begun on HillTV in 2018 and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=krystal+ball+rising">available</a> through YouTube, are skyrocketing. <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz">Whitney Webb</a> wound up on many people’s radar screen garnering attention with her <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-clinton-and-trump-investigations.html">connect-the-dots series of articles</a> about Jeffrey Epstein, most of those articles written <u><i>before</i></u> his announced death. <a href="https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin">Abby Martin</a> has a <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/gaza-fights-for-freedom-abby-martin-film/261536/">new documentary</a> out about the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip. <a href="https://twitter.com/kthalps">Katie Halper</a> is doing a new <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/rolling-stone/useful-idiots">podcast</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL0ooGQ0asg4upSXzZA1Oinn3ALqVCndA">YouTube broadcast</a> with Matt Taibbi . . Oh, wait- That’s transitioning us back into the subject of <i>male</i> journalists doing this kind of work.– Didn’t mean to do that. Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-22997553399336860262020-04-12T15:28:00.000-04:002020-04-12T15:28:08.202-04:00My Experiment With “Russian Doll” Tweets (Tweets Starting From Bernie Sanders Suspending His Campaign To Michael Bloomberg Being Declared U.S. Treasury Secretary In The Event of Marshal Law– And Back Again!)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUI0R_NDx1J-K6I63ERiYMNwW665YpM6DqLsPv0kLyU6yT-cpzCk0YYGdvQqk3M7__n5vI5w3O94BsfSp1-IPFJI8CHdbjEZmqPhMLHBvCigryMxV8yzMlzJ_FNzBMSHqXAscy66y95ca/s1600/Russian+Dolls+Museuem+And+Tweets.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1064" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUI0R_NDx1J-K6I63ERiYMNwW665YpM6DqLsPv0kLyU6yT-cpzCk0YYGdvQqk3M7__n5vI5w3O94BsfSp1-IPFJI8CHdbjEZmqPhMLHBvCigryMxV8yzMlzJ_FNzBMSHqXAscy66y95ca/s400/Russian+Dolls+Museuem+And+Tweets.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I’ve just experimented with creating a chain of <a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249048276776730624">“Russian Doll” Tweets</a>.<br />
<br />
Maybe it’s cabin fever from spending too much time alone indoors sequestered away from friends and community . . . <br />
<br />
. . . or maybe, it’s that this Russian Doll Tweet exercise I’ve engaged in is solace, providing the illusion of an organized structure for information as we experience overload. The inflow of news and information about coronavirus that spins around us seems so disorganized and unhelpful, at least to me, the 24/7 news cycle pelting us with statistics that inadequately describe multiple unknowns.<br />
<br />
My Russian Doll Tweets (from <a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd">@WhiteMDD</a>, my personal Twitter account, not the <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice">@NatNotice</a> National Notice Twitter account) started with noting that I <u><i>still</i></u> have the option of voting for Bernie Sanders in the primaries (I am a New Yorker), and those tweets went eventually to the observation that Michael Bloomberg’s buying up of Democrats’ voter data (follow the links) might have the outcome of Bloomberg’s being appointed U.S. Treasury Secretary if marshal law is declared in the wake of a <i>“failed”</i> national election. (<i>I apologize for my spelling, which on Twitter I can't go back to correct.</i>). .<br />
<br />
. . Twitter allowed me to create the chain because, with Twitter, you can <i>retweet</i> another tweet <i>"with comment"</i> to make a new combined Tweet.<br />
<br />
But the only way, through Twitter, to open the Tweets and enjoy them <i>Russian Doll style</i> is to start with the <i>last</i> tweet about how Bloomberg becomes U.S. Treasury Secretary and follow it back to how I will still able to vote for Bernie Sanders even if he is not running a campaign I can financially contribute to.<br />
<br />
However, via the posting here, I can give you the choice of enjoying the <a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249048276776730624">Russian Doll tweets</a> in either direction:<br />
<br />
To read them <i>backward</i> you can go to Twitter. . .<br />
<br />
(<i>Also, please note that some of the individual tweets, as you will see, themselves have links embedded in them that can take you to some interesting, informative place</i>s.) <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEjGjyNhJyTqBK_ZWUvmvA57cnabavNKqjNY6hBzxgLwroysXYNBG8WFLchMhCB32KdOmCUVUxraKkbZ_EMGEUy1Db0QSxvO-E1kAa6xW37rjLCqdK9J2bqTT6hsR-C2V5VisCGeVwEair/s1600/Russian+Doll+Tweet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="850" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEjGjyNhJyTqBK_ZWUvmvA57cnabavNKqjNY6hBzxgLwroysXYNBG8WFLchMhCB32KdOmCUVUxraKkbZ_EMGEUy1Db0QSxvO-E1kAa6xW37rjLCqdK9J2bqTT6hsR-C2V5VisCGeVwEair/s400/Russian+Doll+Tweet.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249048276776730624">Tweet</a>: My experiment with “Russian Doll” tweets: Keep clicking on the retweeted tweet and see what I mean. </span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
. . or go to the <b>Part II</b> end of this article. To read them <i>forward</i>, as they were written, from the first, start below with <b>Part I</b>:<br />
<br />
<b>PART I</b><br />
<br />
Here are the Russian Doll tweets in the order they were tweeted.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOP7ryrRzihXxIejxz1q3cANlTf_HFLjTKIuGb44HVGNUo2DaPh8mMBhdjs3s5h9qQaNMoUL3UYvCTo2wkOrR9QqVNcNpoyju1J0pi4sXGQwxnNeuZnU6jBC0pJswbBUUVhG2B3LzBvvx7/s1600/Bernie+Suspends.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="872" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOP7ryrRzihXxIejxz1q3cANlTf_HFLjTKIuGb44HVGNUo2DaPh8mMBhdjs3s5h9qQaNMoUL3UYvCTo2wkOrR9QqVNcNpoyju1J0pi4sXGQwxnNeuZnU6jBC0pJswbBUUVhG2B3LzBvvx7/s400/Bernie+Suspends.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1248250850348134401">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Bernie’s suspension of it means I can no longer contribute $ for him to use in a campaign almost impossible to really run in a virus environment, but b/c he remains on all ballots collecting delegates I can still vote for him as reality continues to endorse him and Biden dements.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXJ6Q0ewcqq1xoG-m9zVADlzS0c95huhrdn0q_dSuYI9RTSqUSgvuyRp69UjG7VseHapRb2wYpMH4x-u5qL9-znL1la2LjUFunTML0oPA7R6kINY2r3oA6qEuTVclMMdySSLOMBxB7P57q/s1600/Regret+Bernie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="829" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXJ6Q0ewcqq1xoG-m9zVADlzS0c95huhrdn0q_dSuYI9RTSqUSgvuyRp69UjG7VseHapRb2wYpMH4x-u5qL9-znL1la2LjUFunTML0oPA7R6kINY2r3oA6qEuTVclMMdySSLOMBxB7P57q/s400/Regret+Bernie.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1248252459472105473">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">And I still regret that Bernie is not more of a fighter, willing to challenge whether Biden really, truly, and honestly gained and holds the delegate lead purportedly given him by the media despite evidence to the contrary such as the highly discrepant exit polls.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDJh7N2W7DwGRDNjM1Ezn-Anp42IWHVw38c-B8ibHAxKEjaP7lbNhshCq0xF2rOw-SR8A90tShyphenhyphenTRELsOplJd8wLfycSEuCDQ1g-1WPllhVi0Ez_eFHm66aG-sAQJqTIV8xoU9dzbyNSil/s1600/Seductive+Suspension+Speech.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="856" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDJh7N2W7DwGRDNjM1Ezn-Anp42IWHVw38c-B8ibHAxKEjaP7lbNhshCq0xF2rOw-SR8A90tShyphenhyphenTRELsOplJd8wLfycSEuCDQ1g-1WPllhVi0Ez_eFHm66aG-sAQJqTIV8xoU9dzbyNSil/s400/Seductive+Suspension+Speech.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249024081237770240">Tweet:</a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"> </a><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">While I fume that Bernie suspended his campaign, I find his “suspension” speech seductively good. Am I just a sucker? Or is my cynical suspicion resulting in a crippling rejection of “hope.” (“Hope”? That was the Obama promise.) https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/9/bernie_sanders_drops_out_of_race</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0CQOYd86xBxiGSiok7zLTfE7-Z77pqXw-JgJcS9i-3Buz-daDe36W35nzJNIrPYtQbr5-sNcnaYx-f9F746cXNGo_1bma1ODIi5EsVjoqjlusxWhCounlkzgqRAMzDP2lHDlmAPkow1i7/s1600/Chomsky+Offers+Hope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="585" data-original-width="859" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0CQOYd86xBxiGSiok7zLTfE7-Z77pqXw-JgJcS9i-3Buz-daDe36W35nzJNIrPYtQbr5-sNcnaYx-f9F746cXNGo_1bma1ODIi5EsVjoqjlusxWhCounlkzgqRAMzDP2lHDlmAPkow1i7/s400/Chomsky+Offers+Hope.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249027522567852033">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">On @democracynow @noamchomskyT offers “hope” that a “Biden” administration would be better than a Trump, even an Obama administration, b/c it would be more susceptible to the influence of a newly assertive left awakened by Sanders campaign; & address . . https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/10/noam_chomsky_trump_us_coronavirus_response</span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCM7sGInuWhN8_Qm_vGy7FN9az2Zojg7bc0ttCCiI13_t10zwxUrTsEwZLgBigMAJPbH5UmhbyN14f6veGXcHDVqan5Uj2UdA5kbQbn1DRfo3R4-fpAh1DuCJk3yiqxzoQDAqMUWQj2O0D/s1600/Would+Biden+Admin+Be+Susceptible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="638" data-original-width="860" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCM7sGInuWhN8_Qm_vGy7FN9az2Zojg7bc0ttCCiI13_t10zwxUrTsEwZLgBigMAJPbH5UmhbyN14f6veGXcHDVqan5Uj2UdA5kbQbn1DRfo3R4-fpAh1DuCJk3yiqxzoQDAqMUWQj2O0D/s400/Would+Biden+Admin+Be+Susceptible.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://Would a “Biden” admin be susceptible (more than Trump’s) to the influence of newly assertive left and finally address climate chaos, income inequality, militarism, etc.- The Sanders list? Biden “conceding” to lower Medicare age to 60 puts him far to the right of other Dems.">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Would a “Biden” admin be susceptible (more than Trump’s) to the influence of newly assertive left and finally address climate chaos, income inequality, militarism, etc.- The Sanders list? Biden “conceding” to lower Medicare age to 60 puts him far to the right of other Dems.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2Caj9ZalDrKpfOqcVOaJg1oiASolzu9il6e1RVKzX4Az-uw_LtvI-YU7PSI_qvFvGpQ5Ph9ESsac8cLnBm0KBJ4eFs8Ts3Bbkcq0EXAGXnI79Ds2pqFfkOOwIcSJA-f5XMuCsfZB6VDa/s1600/Biden+In+Quotes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="845" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2Caj9ZalDrKpfOqcVOaJg1oiASolzu9il6e1RVKzX4Az-uw_LtvI-YU7PSI_qvFvGpQ5Ph9ESsac8cLnBm0KBJ4eFs8Ts3Bbkcq0EXAGXnI79Ds2pqFfkOOwIcSJA-f5XMuCsfZB6VDa/s400/Biden+In+Quotes.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249030932255977472">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">It is time to start referring to a possible “Biden” administration in quotes because with Biden dementing it is far from clear who sent from the DNC would be running things.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSkOqg_ZRP8FVjixEuqrCZDfSwCcQfjEQzLRV0RYYD41ewBS3-iP3V45Kkv3rEwbfbbvuA5c4PkQdn3gMwyGhsT35qiBQJW5sS2VVBguN-vDZZVbB_BxQ3Iqf6iAlrogzmCQxKYj69PpS4/s1600/COG+Concerns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="871" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSkOqg_ZRP8FVjixEuqrCZDfSwCcQfjEQzLRV0RYYD41ewBS3-iP3V45Kkv3rEwbfbbvuA5c4PkQdn3gMwyGhsT35qiBQJW5sS2VVBguN-vDZZVbB_BxQ3Iqf6iAlrogzmCQxKYj69PpS4/s400/COG+Concerns.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249034278056402945">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">But there are those that think rather than wonder about the possibilities of how Continuity of Government (“COG”) concerns would be handled in a demented “Biden” administration we should worry if there will be any national elections at all. https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/09/standing-on-the-precipice-of-martial-law/</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzHbsC1XFMNjuoB9qDzaVaqnpuu6f3kU3ykk84jSH8AxNZR1w_H37XA-Gk8ibrSZSHR6VBDLM0tK9-7r0D8crG7HSCM08QyTvsq0Lv6_YH0c5384Vo3xpNOSgufa1z-R0fKZiaYx4dFIKA/s1600/COG+Whitney+Webb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="844" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzHbsC1XFMNjuoB9qDzaVaqnpuu6f3kU3ykk84jSH8AxNZR1w_H37XA-Gk8ibrSZSHR6VBDLM0tK9-7r0D8crG7HSCM08QyTvsq0Lv6_YH0c5384Vo3xpNOSgufa1z-R0fKZiaYx4dFIKA/s400/COG+Whitney+Webb.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249038777391230976">Tweet:</a> Those worrying that Marshall Law would bring in unconstitutional Continuity of Government changes in the wake of a “failed” election include @_whitneywebb who has been writing of these worries since before the virus arrived. https://twitter.com/blacklistednews/status/1242240104644505600?s=21<span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAcdYGS75FYTGnushgLsZOtRTvGFabXAt1bxrsyKr3ZwDCJ147rALMQenvJPrQNfQ61tofSjjph59z2WFXzS_i__JnHyEcj20V597w4PykzWV57OJhyvDxhtBVU0neNdBcSVnJ2njXZqHl/s1600/National+Unity+Cabinet+From+T+Friedman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="854" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAcdYGS75FYTGnushgLsZOtRTvGFabXAt1bxrsyKr3ZwDCJ147rALMQenvJPrQNfQ61tofSjjph59z2WFXzS_i__JnHyEcj20V597w4PykzWV57OJhyvDxhtBVU0neNdBcSVnJ2njXZqHl/s400/National+Unity+Cabinet+From+T+Friedman.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249041125152874499">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">If Marshall Law is declared in the wake of a “failed” election we might, to give it cover, get something like the absolutely inane “National Unity Cabinet” proposed by bombastic NY Times columnist Tom Friedman! https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/10/bide-a10.html</span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
<span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXmLPDX-H9zeyzV-xP71qoOp3JIgt7GdSRowYipjEN4ygSUS937ausi1UC0WdQ_a5zsrDdgUb44wQFU9AIq205Y_iDMzUUEI98wu00LhafvjLLSLpEIZ-A4kFBdnqQIPjqR6gaxDJ2RB1/s1600/Bloomberg+Treasury+Secretary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="857" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXmLPDX-H9zeyzV-xP71qoOp3JIgt7GdSRowYipjEN4ygSUS937ausi1UC0WdQ_a5zsrDdgUb44wQFU9AIq205Y_iDMzUUEI98wu00LhafvjLLSLpEIZ-A4kFBdnqQIPjqR6gaxDJ2RB1/s400/Bloomberg+Treasury+Secretary.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249045454844723200">Tweet</a>: In the Tom Friedman “National Unity Cabinet” the country might get if Marshall Law is ushered in in wake of a “failed” election, Michael Bloomberg would be U.S. Treasury Secretary in exchange for spending billions to scoop up the Democrats’ voter data. https://twitter.com/whitemdd/status/1249017082987118593?s=21</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEjGjyNhJyTqBK_ZWUvmvA57cnabavNKqjNY6hBzxgLwroysXYNBG8WFLchMhCB32KdOmCUVUxraKkbZ_EMGEUy1Db0QSxvO-E1kAa6xW37rjLCqdK9J2bqTT6hsR-C2V5VisCGeVwEair/s1600/Russian+Doll+Tweet.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="850" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEjGjyNhJyTqBK_ZWUvmvA57cnabavNKqjNY6hBzxgLwroysXYNBG8WFLchMhCB32KdOmCUVUxraKkbZ_EMGEUy1Db0QSxvO-E1kAa6xW37rjLCqdK9J2bqTT6hsR-C2V5VisCGeVwEair/s400/Russian+Doll+Tweet.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249048276776730624">Tweet</a>: My experiment with “Russian Doll” tweets: Keep clicking on the retweeted tweet and see what I mean. </span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>PART II</b><br />
<br />
Here are the Russian Doll tweets in the order they can be followed backward through Twitter.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEjGjyNhJyTqBK_ZWUvmvA57cnabavNKqjNY6hBzxgLwroysXYNBG8WFLchMhCB32KdOmCUVUxraKkbZ_EMGEUy1Db0QSxvO-E1kAa6xW37rjLCqdK9J2bqTT6hsR-C2V5VisCGeVwEair/s1600/Russian+Doll+Tweet.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="850" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEjGjyNhJyTqBK_ZWUvmvA57cnabavNKqjNY6hBzxgLwroysXYNBG8WFLchMhCB32KdOmCUVUxraKkbZ_EMGEUy1Db0QSxvO-E1kAa6xW37rjLCqdK9J2bqTT6hsR-C2V5VisCGeVwEair/s400/Russian+Doll+Tweet.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249048276776730624">Tweet</a>: My experiment with “Russian Doll” tweets: Keep clicking on the retweeted tweet and see what I mean. </span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXmLPDX-H9zeyzV-xP71qoOp3JIgt7GdSRowYipjEN4ygSUS937ausi1UC0WdQ_a5zsrDdgUb44wQFU9AIq205Y_iDMzUUEI98wu00LhafvjLLSLpEIZ-A4kFBdnqQIPjqR6gaxDJ2RB1/s1600/Bloomberg+Treasury+Secretary.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="611" data-original-width="857" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXmLPDX-H9zeyzV-xP71qoOp3JIgt7GdSRowYipjEN4ygSUS937ausi1UC0WdQ_a5zsrDdgUb44wQFU9AIq205Y_iDMzUUEI98wu00LhafvjLLSLpEIZ-A4kFBdnqQIPjqR6gaxDJ2RB1/s400/Bloomberg+Treasury+Secretary.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249045454844723200">Tweet</a>:
In the Tom Friedman “National Unity Cabinet” the country might get if
Marshall Law is ushered in in wake of a “failed” election, Michael
Bloomberg would be U.S. Treasury Secretary in exchange for spending
billions to scoop up the Democrats’ voter data.
https://twitter.com/whitemdd/status/1249017082987118593?s=21</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAcdYGS75FYTGnushgLsZOtRTvGFabXAt1bxrsyKr3ZwDCJ147rALMQenvJPrQNfQ61tofSjjph59z2WFXzS_i__JnHyEcj20V597w4PykzWV57OJhyvDxhtBVU0neNdBcSVnJ2njXZqHl/s1600/National+Unity+Cabinet+From+T+Friedman.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="587" data-original-width="854" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAcdYGS75FYTGnushgLsZOtRTvGFabXAt1bxrsyKr3ZwDCJ147rALMQenvJPrQNfQ61tofSjjph59z2WFXzS_i__JnHyEcj20V597w4PykzWV57OJhyvDxhtBVU0neNdBcSVnJ2njXZqHl/s400/National+Unity+Cabinet+From+T+Friedman.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249041125152874499">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">If
Marshall Law is declared in the wake of a “failed” election we might,
to give it cover, get something like the absolutely inane “National
Unity Cabinet” proposed by bombastic NY Times columnist Tom Friedman!
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/04/10/bide-a10.html</span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzHbsC1XFMNjuoB9qDzaVaqnpuu6f3kU3ykk84jSH8AxNZR1w_H37XA-Gk8ibrSZSHR6VBDLM0tK9-7r0D8crG7HSCM08QyTvsq0Lv6_YH0c5384Vo3xpNOSgufa1z-R0fKZiaYx4dFIKA/s1600/COG+Whitney+Webb.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="603" data-original-width="844" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzHbsC1XFMNjuoB9qDzaVaqnpuu6f3kU3ykk84jSH8AxNZR1w_H37XA-Gk8ibrSZSHR6VBDLM0tK9-7r0D8crG7HSCM08QyTvsq0Lv6_YH0c5384Vo3xpNOSgufa1z-R0fKZiaYx4dFIKA/s400/COG+Whitney+Webb.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249038777391230976">Tweet:</a>
Those worrying that Marshall Law would bring in unconstitutional
Continuity of Government changes in the wake of a “failed” election
include @_whitneywebb who has been writing of these worries since before
the virus arrived.
https://twitter.com/blacklistednews/status/1242240104644505600?s=21</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSkOqg_ZRP8FVjixEuqrCZDfSwCcQfjEQzLRV0RYYD41ewBS3-iP3V45Kkv3rEwbfbbvuA5c4PkQdn3gMwyGhsT35qiBQJW5sS2VVBguN-vDZZVbB_BxQ3Iqf6iAlrogzmCQxKYj69PpS4/s1600/COG+Concerns.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="572" data-original-width="871" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSkOqg_ZRP8FVjixEuqrCZDfSwCcQfjEQzLRV0RYYD41ewBS3-iP3V45Kkv3rEwbfbbvuA5c4PkQdn3gMwyGhsT35qiBQJW5sS2VVBguN-vDZZVbB_BxQ3Iqf6iAlrogzmCQxKYj69PpS4/s400/COG+Concerns.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249034278056402945">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">But
there are those that think rather than wonder about the possibilities
of how Continuity of Government (“COG”) concerns would be handled in a
demented “Biden” administration we should worry if there will be any
national elections at all.
https://off-guardian.org/2020/04/09/standing-on-the-precipice-of-martial-law/</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2Caj9ZalDrKpfOqcVOaJg1oiASolzu9il6e1RVKzX4Az-uw_LtvI-YU7PSI_qvFvGpQ5Ph9ESsac8cLnBm0KBJ4eFs8Ts3Bbkcq0EXAGXnI79Ds2pqFfkOOwIcSJA-f5XMuCsfZB6VDa/s1600/Biden+In+Quotes.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="845" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2Caj9ZalDrKpfOqcVOaJg1oiASolzu9il6e1RVKzX4Az-uw_LtvI-YU7PSI_qvFvGpQ5Ph9ESsac8cLnBm0KBJ4eFs8Ts3Bbkcq0EXAGXnI79Ds2pqFfkOOwIcSJA-f5XMuCsfZB6VDa/s400/Biden+In+Quotes.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249030932255977472">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">It
is time to start referring to a possible “Biden” administration in
quotes because with Biden dementing it is far from clear who sent from
the DNC would be running things.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2Caj9ZalDrKpfOqcVOaJg1oiASolzu9il6e1RVKzX4Az-uw_LtvI-YU7PSI_qvFvGpQ5Ph9ESsac8cLnBm0KBJ4eFs8Ts3Bbkcq0EXAGXnI79Ds2pqFfkOOwIcSJA-f5XMuCsfZB6VDa/s1600/Biden+In+Quotes.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="845" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2Caj9ZalDrKpfOqcVOaJg1oiASolzu9il6e1RVKzX4Az-uw_LtvI-YU7PSI_qvFvGpQ5Ph9ESsac8cLnBm0KBJ4eFs8Ts3Bbkcq0EXAGXnI79Ds2pqFfkOOwIcSJA-f5XMuCsfZB6VDa/s400/Biden+In+Quotes.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249030932255977472">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">It
is time to start referring to a possible “Biden” administration in
quotes because with Biden dementing it is far from clear who sent from
the DNC would be running things.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCM7sGInuWhN8_Qm_vGy7FN9az2Zojg7bc0ttCCiI13_t10zwxUrTsEwZLgBigMAJPbH5UmhbyN14f6veGXcHDVqan5Uj2UdA5kbQbn1DRfo3R4-fpAh1DuCJk3yiqxzoQDAqMUWQj2O0D/s1600/Would+Biden+Admin+Be+Susceptible.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="638" data-original-width="860" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCM7sGInuWhN8_Qm_vGy7FN9az2Zojg7bc0ttCCiI13_t10zwxUrTsEwZLgBigMAJPbH5UmhbyN14f6veGXcHDVqan5Uj2UdA5kbQbn1DRfo3R4-fpAh1DuCJk3yiqxzoQDAqMUWQj2O0D/s400/Would+Biden+Admin+Be+Susceptible.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Would
a “Biden” admin be susceptible (more than Trump’s) to the influence of
newly assertive left and finally address climate chaos, income
inequality, militarism, etc.- The Sanders list? Biden “conceding” to
lower Medicare age to 60 puts him far to the right of other Dems.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0CQOYd86xBxiGSiok7zLTfE7-Z77pqXw-JgJcS9i-3Buz-daDe36W35nzJNIrPYtQbr5-sNcnaYx-f9F746cXNGo_1bma1ODIi5EsVjoqjlusxWhCounlkzgqRAMzDP2lHDlmAPkow1i7/s1600/Chomsky+Offers+Hope.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="585" data-original-width="859" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0CQOYd86xBxiGSiok7zLTfE7-Z77pqXw-JgJcS9i-3Buz-daDe36W35nzJNIrPYtQbr5-sNcnaYx-f9F746cXNGo_1bma1ODIi5EsVjoqjlusxWhCounlkzgqRAMzDP2lHDlmAPkow1i7/s400/Chomsky+Offers+Hope.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249027522567852033">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">On
@democracynow @noamchomskyT offers “hope” that a “Biden” administration
would be better than a Trump, even an Obama administration, b/c it
would be more susceptible to the influence of a newly assertive left
awakened by Sanders campaign; & address . .
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/10/noam_chomsky_trump_us_coronavirus_response</span></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDJh7N2W7DwGRDNjM1Ezn-Anp42IWHVw38c-B8ibHAxKEjaP7lbNhshCq0xF2rOw-SR8A90tShyphenhyphenTRELsOplJd8wLfycSEuCDQ1g-1WPllhVi0Ez_eFHm66aG-sAQJqTIV8xoU9dzbyNSil/s1600/Seductive+Suspension+Speech.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="856" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDJh7N2W7DwGRDNjM1Ezn-Anp42IWHVw38c-B8ibHAxKEjaP7lbNhshCq0xF2rOw-SR8A90tShyphenhyphenTRELsOplJd8wLfycSEuCDQ1g-1WPllhVi0Ez_eFHm66aG-sAQJqTIV8xoU9dzbyNSil/s400/Seductive+Suspension+Speech.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1249024081237770240">Tweet:</a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"> </a><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">While
I fume that Bernie suspended his campaign, I find his “suspension”
speech seductively good. Am I just a sucker? Or is my cynical suspicion
resulting in a crippling rejection of “hope.” (“Hope”? That was the
Obama promise.)
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/9/bernie_sanders_drops_out_of_race</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXJ6Q0ewcqq1xoG-m9zVADlzS0c95huhrdn0q_dSuYI9RTSqUSgvuyRp69UjG7VseHapRb2wYpMH4x-u5qL9-znL1la2LjUFunTML0oPA7R6kINY2r3oA6qEuTVclMMdySSLOMBxB7P57q/s1600/Regret+Bernie.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="829" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXJ6Q0ewcqq1xoG-m9zVADlzS0c95huhrdn0q_dSuYI9RTSqUSgvuyRp69UjG7VseHapRb2wYpMH4x-u5qL9-znL1la2LjUFunTML0oPA7R6kINY2r3oA6qEuTVclMMdySSLOMBxB7P57q/s400/Regret+Bernie.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1248252459472105473">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">And
I still regret that Bernie is not more of a fighter, willing to
challenge whether Biden really, truly, and honestly gained and holds the
delegate lead purportedly given him by the media despite evidence to the
contrary such as the highly discrepant exit polls.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOP7ryrRzihXxIejxz1q3cANlTf_HFLjTKIuGb44HVGNUo2DaPh8mMBhdjs3s5h9qQaNMoUL3UYvCTo2wkOrR9QqVNcNpoyju1J0pi4sXGQwxnNeuZnU6jBC0pJswbBUUVhG2B3LzBvvx7/s1600/Bernie+Suspends.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="872" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOP7ryrRzihXxIejxz1q3cANlTf_HFLjTKIuGb44HVGNUo2DaPh8mMBhdjs3s5h9qQaNMoUL3UYvCTo2wkOrR9QqVNcNpoyju1J0pi4sXGQwxnNeuZnU6jBC0pJswbBUUVhG2B3LzBvvx7/s400/Bernie+Suspends.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteMdd/status/1248250850348134401">Tweet:</a> <span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Bernie’s
suspension of it means I can no longer contribute $ for him to use in a
campaign almost impossible to really run in a virus environment, but
b/c he remains on all ballots collecting delegates I can still vote for
him as reality continues to endorse him and Biden dements.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-27582091628374277662020-04-01T00:01:00.000-04:002020-04-01T00:01:00.196-04:00Boeing Blames Its Two 737 MAX Jet Crashes On U.S. FAA Regulations- Demands Federal Compensation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjheWDC5F7bU4SiyHmo_uXI7bAMdqGk1HftOjr1w034U1F_n165VUbo3V853g2l0ogz1MrymeztRgQpNcMk66fg7EfQaFfnpSI-12NkWApR8ohue-Z5m09aznXuHEkPm0td32peyMolKTYM/s1600/BoeingRegulationsFinal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1237" data-original-width="1600" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjheWDC5F7bU4SiyHmo_uXI7bAMdqGk1HftOjr1w034U1F_n165VUbo3V853g2l0ogz1MrymeztRgQpNcMk66fg7EfQaFfnpSI-12NkWApR8ohue-Z5m09aznXuHEkPm0td32peyMolKTYM/s400/BoeingRegulationsFinal.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Boeing management today released the result of an internally conducted study that found that its two Boeing 737 MAX Jet Crashes were caused by United States Federal Aviation Administration regulations. Boeing demanded immediate action from Congress to compensate their company for all crash losses. Their demand includes asking for Boeing to be compensated for the economic loses and reduced profits Boeing suffered due to worldwide grounding of 737 MAX jets that ensued following the cashes.<br />
<br />
Boeing’s spokesperson for the occasion of the release of the report, Skip Ayres Ohsonize, explained that while everybody knows that regulation of American companies makes them less competitive and thereby weakens them, what the report revealed was something less obvious; that excess federal government regulation can foment unforeseen dangers as well. Mr. Ohsonize explained that federal regulation had essentially forced Boeing into designing a dangerous plane.<br />
<br />
<i>“Boeing, our company, was in an untenable position,”</i> said Mr. Ohsonize. Airbus SE the European multinational aerospace corporation, had moved into a position where it was taking the most airliner orders internationally and was poised to be take over the airliner market with increasing sales of its new A320 airliner. <i>“We weren’t going to stand by and let Airbus steal market share,”</i> said Mr. Ohsonize, <i>“that’s something that an American company has a duty to prevent, and we needed to move quickly.”</i> The main selling point of the new A320 was its fuel-efficient engines. <i>“We appropriately rushed to provide a Boeing alternative,”</i> said Mr. Ohsonize, <i>“that’s when the way in which F.A.A. regulations were unfortunately structured to slow us down if we took certain actions forced us into dangerous airplane design.”</i><br />
<br />
Larger and powerful new engines were the key that was absolutely necessary to provide an airliner that would be able advertise competitive fuel efficiency. Bigger engines to provide this fuel efficiency involve different airplane aerodynamics. Mr. Ohsonize, said, <i>“it is easy to understand that, without F.A.A. regulations factoring in, the obvious best way for us at Boeing to proceed would have been to design a new airliner from scratch.”</i><br />
<br />
<i>“But under F.A.A. regulations, it would have taken a decade to produce a new plane from scratch,”</i> said Mr. Sogh Ahlphaul, an engineer contributing to the report for Boeing. That’s because F.A.A. regulations would have required an extensive review certification process for any new airframe and fuselage, plus a brand new airline design would have required the purchasing airlines to spend millions of dollars on additional pilot training. <i>“Facing competitive pressure from Airbus, we needed to avoid that,”</i> said Mr. Ahlphaul. He further explained:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Under the circumstances and needing to maintain profits, we were forced to go in the direction that F.A.A. regulations were clearly steering us: It was far quicker, easier and cheaper, and would provide almost as much fuel savings to mount larger engines on an existing airframe, and so we used the airframe of the earlier 737 models.</i></blockquote>
In other words, base the MAX would be one more member in Boeing’s <i>“737 family,”</i> a well-known design, rooted in the original 1967 certification of the B737-100.<br />
<br />
Mr. Ahlphaul explained that <i>“the F.A.A., for regulation purposes, would then allow us to say that this airplane was essentially the same as earlier 737 models, making it easy to certify it quickly.”</i> Moreover, this approach would limit any training that regulations might otherwise dictate that pilots could need, thus, he said, <i>“cutting down costs for the purchasing airlines.”</i><br />
<br />
Mr. Ohsonize, said:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Our report <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2019/4/5/profits_should_not_come_before_safety">makes clear</a> how the course the regulations drove us to take at Boeing was not optimal. The old vintage airframe on which the new larger engines were mounted was designed with its wings very low to the ground, requiring more clearance for the larger engines. That clearance could only be achieved by moving the engines forward. Additionally, the landing gears also needed to be moved forward. This altered the aerodynamics of the plane, making it more likely to pitch up in some circumstances. It made it harder to fly and it handled in an unstable fashion, with a tendency for the airplane to buck upward, very different in ways from what pilots, used to the classic 737 workhorse model from the days of yore, were familiar with. These differences were mostly opposite to what pilots might intuitively understand from their previous experience.</i></blockquote>
<i>“That’s why,”</i> said Mr. Ahlphaul, <i>“we interfaced the Artificial Intelligence automated MCAS system to let that robot system fly the plane while allowing pilots to feel like they were flying another plan entirely.”</i> The system would take care of adjustments to the aircraft and its behavior tendencies automatically, like automatic signals to the horizontal stabilizer to push the nose back down when it pitched up. Doing this avoided any need to retrain pilots.<br />
<br />
The pilots could operate the plane the same way they operated prior iterations.<i> “We could not let any designs we created be something where F.A.A. regulations would irksomely drive any new training that required a simulator; That was a first imperative,”</i> said Mr. Ahlphaul.<br />
<br />
Another bad decision the F.A.A. requirements forced, according to Mr. Ahlphaul, was the design of the cockpit instrument panel. He explained:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>When we updated the cockpit, actually ungraded to a digital display, we would have liked to have redesigned the layout of information to give pilots added data so they could have had information to track all the newly layered on idiosyncratic behaviors of the 737 MAX Jet design. We could even have made the panel easier to read. That’s what we would have done absent F.A.A. Regulation, but, once again, when the constraints of F.A.A. regulations had to be considered, such a redesigned panel that did not accord with the notional conceit that, for regulatory purposes, pilots were flying 737 models, not something else, would have triggered an expensive regulatory requirement for new pilot training.</i></blockquote>
<i>“It’s too bad regulations precluded this option,”</i> supplied Mr. Ohsonize with emphasis, <i>“because it could have helped the human pilots fill in some necessary blanks about their situation when the robot MCAS system failed to read sensors, as happened, contributing to the crashes.”</i><br />
<br />
At the press conference where the report was released, Rahz Zellmann, a Boeing Senior Vice President, was on hand to state Boeing’s demands for the compensation it was demanding from the federal government for the damage. First off Mr. Zellmann wanted to be clear that the F.A.A. regulations were not Boeing’s fault. He said that Boeing had been fighting for years <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/business/boeing-737-max-crashes.html">to eliminate such regulations</a>, and that Boeing had even succeeded in pushing through legal changes that reduced F.A.A. regulatory oversight, replacing it with Boeing having the power of self-certification in its factories, with more and more certification responsibilities being handed over to the manufacturers over the years. But Mr. Zellmann said that half-way measures of this kind were not enough.<br />
<br />
Mr. Zellmann said that when self-certifications were coupled with old criteria and standards that remained applicable, Boeing engineers still wound up self-consciously distracted and looking over their shoulders thinking that if F.A.A. technical staff became had been fully aware of designs details and changes (including for instance with the MCAS robot guidance) the agency could likely require additional scrutiny. <i>“Engendering this kind of nervousness,”</i> said Mr. Zellmann, <i>“is not the same thing, as having the totally unencumbered ability you need to design freely and sidestep a meddlesome government.”</i> Mr. Zellmann said that self-certification had, however, allowed Boeing to achieve some benefits, such as determining that certain modern safety tools incorporated into newer editions of other airliners in 737 family, did not need to be included in the MAX because they were <i>“impractical.”</i><br />
<br />
Mr. Zellmann said that Boeing’s demand both for elimination of regulation and for compensation from the federal government ought now additionally to looked at, in an edifying way, through the lens of the Covid-19 coronavius crisis. Zellmann noted that, taking into account the virus crisis, the Environment Protection Agency was <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/27/headlines/epa_indefinitely_suspends_enforcement_of_environmental_laws">indefinitely suspending enforcement of environmental laws</a>. According to Mr. Zellmann, that just goes to show how unimportant these laws actually are for protecting the public. <i>“They are half window dressing,”</i> said Mr. Zellmann said, <i>“and half an excuse for members of Congress to demand campaign contributions from the regulated firms as the expensive price to procure regulatory capture.” </i><br />
<br />
<i>“More important,”</i> Mr. Zellmann said, <i>“the corona virus crisis, comes at a time when it is crucial for the United States to remain strong.”</i> <i>“This means,”</i> said Mr. Zellmann, <i>“that even if Boeing were not identifying the harms and losses Boeing suffered by virtue of the F.A.A. regulation, that at the present moment the federal government should be stepping up to give trillions to Boeing, because Boeing is one of the key military contractors <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2019/03/27/lockheed-martin-boeing-get-most-money-federal-government/39232293/">requiring the most money</a> from the United States to stay on a constant worldwide war footing.”</i> Zellmann made the point that the federal government could not afford to let grounded Boeing MAX jets financially weaken Boeing’s ability to keep the country strong and stand up to other countries during the coronavirus crisis. Mr. Zellmann said that to protect the United States during the Covid-19 crisis it was essential for there to be as many military airplanes manufactured by Boeing to be able to make sure that countries like Iran were cut off from the medical supplies they needed so that the virus could multiple there and not here. <br />
<br />
<i>“We benefit,”</i> said Mr. Zellmann, <i>“if we can assure that virus multiplication means that they have a far worse escalation of infectious cases within their borders than we do within ours.”</i> <i> “It’s the kind of warfare you have to wage when to comes to <a href="https://twitter.com/medeabenjamin/status/1244632071114502144">germs</a>,”</i> said Mr. Zellmann. Said Mr. Zellman, <i>“Boeing’s strong backup is a crucial ingredient to the U.S.’s <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/23/trump-intensifies-murderous-iran-sanctions-during-covid-19-crisis/">intensification of sanctions</a> against Iran to further weaken its healthcare system and economy during the during COVID-19 crisis.”</i><br />
<br />
Mr. Zellmann said that with the Covid-19 crisis <u><i>timing</i></u> is everything: February wasn’t March and everything will certainly be different this <i>coming month</i> from the way it was in March. He noted that Congress was acting quickly, as of a few days ago, to send trillions of dollars in Covid-19 bailout money to big corporations, of which Boeing <a href="https://www.codepink.org/noboeingbailout?recruiter_id=900225">naturally expected</a> its share. Mr. Zellmann said Boeing was releasing it’s report and demands for compensation at the beginning of this month to ensure that Congress didn’t move to unfairly prevent Boeing from getting everything is deserved with some sort of anti-double dipping provision, or anti-triple dipping provision. That’s why, Mr. Zellman emphasized the official release date for the report is today, <a href="https://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/search/label/April%201st?m=0"><u><i>April 1st</i></u></a>.Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-9948058258954493392020-03-28T14:01:00.000-04:002020-04-12T15:30:12.480-04:00Reflections On What It Means To Be Retreating More Into Virtual Existence In Fear Of A Virus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq1oaztAO70Mb9wrUNXW3A94cPRWvWyBwoB9DnzucKFWBGdEHb1n9EqilOronzqU_fxAhCZPlmb__mj0TlQBfhy1j_fcycje1Mq5toZY3lET1unn9NEXHyvjGLhjhGMpc6UTFSOCFgyQFD/s1600/Digital+Virus+Isolation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="819" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq1oaztAO70Mb9wrUNXW3A94cPRWvWyBwoB9DnzucKFWBGdEHb1n9EqilOronzqU_fxAhCZPlmb__mj0TlQBfhy1j_fcycje1Mq5toZY3lET1unn9NEXHyvjGLhjhGMpc6UTFSOCFgyQFD/s400/Digital+Virus+Isolation.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
This is not intended to provide any sort of conclusion as to where to draw the line about appropriate cautions to take as we make our individual and collective decisions about dealing with Covid-19. Still, I feel it’s essential to reflect on certain things as we adopt unfamiliar, new and unnatural ways of living and societally interacting.<br />
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As we are increasingly prompted to convert all our social and interpersonal dealings into a virtual, through-the-internet verisimilitude replication of the lives that we used to lead, some kind of existence that is ethereally Matrix-like, it is important to remember how the internet was built for data-scraping and surveillance. Amazon, with its <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2018/11/interesting-to-think-that-it-all-began.html">strange history and ties</a> to the U.S. Military and intelligence communities, already knows far too much about everyone already, and our encouraged wholesale retreat into manifesting our interactions in exclusively digitally ways will only be making the big internet monopolies more formidably ginormous and powerful. A lot of us now find ourselves on Zoom conferencing discovering its merits as one of the prime candidates for virtual meeting options– Zoom <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7e599/zoom-ios-app-sends-data-to-facebook-even-if-you-dont-have-a-facebook-account">sends your data</a> to Facebook even if you don't have a Facebook account– And Facebook has a record of coordinating, Big Brother style, with groups like the <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2018/05/coming-june-1st-forum-second-where-do.html">Atlantic Council</a> and Cambridge Analytica that <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/10/2020_election_digital_manipulation_cambridge_analytica">affected the</a> 2016 election. Let’s also remember that internet technology, knowing what it knows about us as it collects information about us for that purpose, can manipulate us as well. It is routinely hired out to do so.<br />
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Heretofore, some of the antidote for the control of control and ubiquity of the internet was to take a break and go where the internet’s reach and influence might peter out: Have face-to-face, peer-to-peer personal interactions, read <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2015/03/physical-books-vs-digital-books.html">physical vs. digital books</a>, assemble together in real meetings, assemblies and forums, listen to and support the kind of <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-to-listen-to-democracy-now-mind.html">live radio</a> that the internet cannot squelch, censor or take away. It is part of the reason that I, as a co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries have been fighting for the <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2017/12/citizens-defending-libraries-main-page.html">continuation of traditional libraries</a> with <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2015/03/physical-books-vs-digital-books.html">physical books</a> and trained <a href="http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/11/bpls-bklyn-bookmatch-match-for-human.html">human being librarians</a>. . . It is part of the reason I support <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-to-listen-to-democracy-now-mind.html">WBAI radio, 99.5 FM</a>, the Pacifica station in New York that is New York City's only truly listener supported public radio station.<br />
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. . . You may have noticed that a spin-off of the coronaviris effects has been the closure of most libraries. We would hope that this is not subsequently cited as additional evidence that this public commons is a public asset society can now dispense with. Meanwhile, the public’s habits of hanging out in the shallower digital internet world will, perforce, be reinforced as we live protecting ourselves from the virus.<br />
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. . . With the emphasis on digital substitution you may not have noticed that lock downs and new rules against groups of more than a certain number of people gathering, for instance restricting groups to no more than ten, leaves by the wayside the First Amendment right of assembly guaranteed by the Constitution. Why was the right of public assembly one of the first enumerated rights? Seasoned activists are well acquainted with the fact that when <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2019/12/an-open-letter-to-reverend-ana-levy.html">opposing war</a>, or agitating for rights including, for instance, healthcare, the clicking of Facebook posts to like them or even generating acerbically astute and insightful Tweets, just doesn’t cut it and hardly equals the impact of crowds getting out into the streets.<br />
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We are also in the middle of a national election. I recently joked (before some of the new really strict new controls) that those in power were coming up with a prohibition on future Bernie Sanders’s rallies, but that they weren’t bothering with an equivalent rule for Joe Biden rallies because Biden doesn’t draw any crowds. Is there a virtual substitute for the formidably energetic Bernie troops knocking on doors; something they will not now be able to do? Telephone calls are not the same as face-to-face knocking on doors.<br />
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Nothing is the same as face-to-face and knocking on doors because human beings were not built for virtual existences. We are social animals designed for the social bonds that come from real interactions. When we are infants, the mother holding the child generates the hormone oxytocin, which promotes the bond between the mother and child. Same thing when a father holds the baby. It is a <i>physical</i> thing. The same hormones are generated when owners pet their pets, in both the pet owner and the pet.<br />
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Oxytocin from human closeness not only generates, builds and strengthens the bonds between human beings, it actually confers benefits like building up the immune system, calming us, and making us more capable. It is ironic that, as we go into isolation to avoid getting sick with the coronavirus, we may actually, through our isolation and physical separation, be weakening our immune system’s ability to respond to and for us to survive the virus if we get infected. . . Thinking about how important human physical touch is, holding a hand, giving and receiving a hug, I feel, in depth and achingly for the afflicted patients who must recover separated and physically apart from their loved ones. <br />
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When email took over as the new default method of communication, the phenomenon of <i>“flaming”</i> was widely recognized as an unfortunate byproduct. Email communications, and some internet communications can be launched instantaneously with the press of a button. It’s not like a letter that sits around to be mailed the next day when more sober instincts might prevail. With the disinhibition of not dealing with another person face to face, communications can be extra harsh, especially if exchanges back and forth escalate into a <i>“flame war.”</i> Even face-to-face communication can be hard; you have to realize and know what you want to say; you have to say what you actually mean; other people have to hear what you actually say and they have to understand, without misinterpretation or incorrect filled-in suppositions, what you actually mean. All of these things are harder over the internet without all the moment-to-moment micro-adjustments you can make speaking to somebody face to face as you intuitively sense from another’s physical body in the room responding, the ongoing success as opposed to misdirection of your communication.<br />
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Added to this is the way that our ongoing fear-based enforced physical separation from others can enhance our suspicions of others. We walk through the streets now socially distancing each other and maintaining six-feet gaps like wary gunslingers in a Hollywood western. Fear turns on our lizard brains, and these distances can enhance the instincts toward unhealthy <i>“othering.”</i> This comes just at a time when the obvious solution to get through our current crisis is more community cross-support for resilience. Covid-19 could not be a more perfect and obvious <i>“my health is your health/your health is my health”</i> argument for Medicare for all. With massive, nationwide layoffs because of the Covid-19 health crisis, millions of Americans are now losing their <i>“if you like your private employer health plan, you can keep it,”</i> health insurance right at the time when they need it most. This is notwithstanding Joe Biden’s very recent statement that if the Democrats pass Medicare for all <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/joe-biden-declares-health-care-should-be-a-right-but-balks-at-signing-medicare-for-all-as-president-how-are-you-going-to-find-35-trillion/">he will veto it</a> if he is elected president. . . <br />
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In many ways, Americans are now in a particularly vulnerable time if anyone wants to deploy the typical kind of <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/01/on-political-spectrum-we-are-told-that.html">divide</a> and conquer <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-clinton-and-trump-investigations.html">tactics</a> that neutralize the public’s ability to organize for <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/05/everybodys-realizing-it-now-political.html">common goals and make our democracy work</a>. One of the most valuable big picture overviews available right now about the way things stand is Naomi Klein's Intercept video about the fork in the road decisions ahead of us as we face the Coronavirus crisis (<a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-capitalism/">Coronavirus Capitalism — and How to Beat It</a>): Either we could go the route of improving and making our society more resilient the way FDR did in dealing with the Depression of the 1930s, or, instead, another round of disaster capitalism maneuvers could be effected. We know that the 2008 financial crisis was <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2019/10/new-book-home-wreckers-identifies-nypl.html">mishandled by</a> pumping
money into wealthy investment funds, banks, and corporations at exactly the time
that asset prices were low and temporarily suppressed, prices for things like the homes of people in the Main Street economy, and those assets and homes were then bought up by those hedge funds, banks and corporations. . . It was one of the greatest wealth transfers ever, increasing wealth inequality in America. Plus it was paid for with taxpayer money. The people who lost their homes paid the taxes that financed those tilted economy buy ups that deprived them of ownership.<br />
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It's exceedingly hard to maintain a big picture consciousness when news about the virus is frenetically reported with rotating reports of the very latest statistics in different countries, different cities, different regions of different countries, the world, and then starting over again at the beginning for updates because by the time the end of the list is reached, the numbers have already up-ticked. Alternatively, a fairly good big picture overview doesn't require drowning in the latest moment to moment statistical data: our health care system is at the point of being overwhelmed, the United States is in many ways inexcusably ill prepared for such a pandemic; and, additionally, we are not doing many of the sensible things we could be doing, and yes. . . people should be cautious One day, a time may come when we look back at 2020 and say, <i>"that was a very peculiar election–how do that ever happen?"</i>; and if, as we might hope, the virus finally exits center stage and exact memories of it recede just the way we now have to work to remind ourselves of the 1918 flu (which occurred during the Midterm elections of President Woodrow Wilson's wartime presidential tenure), we may answer: <i>"Oh, that's right, that was during the coronavirus crisis when we were so all distracted and worried about <u>other</u> things."</i><br />
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The coronavirus crisis feels a lot like the 2008 financial crisis and 9/11 wrapped up into one. It is worth remembering how with the distractions of 9/11 (and the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/02/list-of-craftily-botched-mueller.html">tag-team Anthrax attacks</a> that closely followed), we, as a nation, just as with the 2008 financial crisis, also made a series of really bad decisions as we were distracted from big picture truths.<br />
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There are silver linings to our new world. Families where parents are now working at home are spending more time together, building stronger bonds. They are experiencing the opposite effect of the separation and isolation that is making our larger world feel so relentlessly dystopian these days. Some may even experience the new quieting down as meditative, and it may feel as if there is also some shift away from things materialistic. We may feel closer to some essential truths about what is truly valuable. That is not to say that all family groups have equal tools to deal with what could feel like a pressure cooker of forced togetherness.<br />
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Not everybody has a family that they live with, and that can be unfortunate. For many their sense ongoing family and human togetherness was achieved by getting out in the world and physically spending time communing with other people. The virtual is an inferior substitute: Before the virus ever arrived, it has been noted how often people who spend a great deal of their time on platforms like Facebook for their companionship and for their “friends” can wind up depressed.<br />
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One last good thing to note is that it does seem that we are, for the most part, presently being good to each other despite the human separations being forced on us and the digital substitutions being offered for our existence. Hopefully, still being good to each other, we will all be communally together again, in a real physical sense, soon.<br />
<br />Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-49372190794935347952020-02-22T12:27:00.000-05:002020-02-26T20:25:03.454-05:00The Clinton And The Trump Investigations And Impeachments: Both Following The Same Formula For Division And Subtraction By Distraction?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I don’t know about you, but I had a striking revelation: The Clinton and the Trump presidential impeachments and the theatrically dramatic investigations accompanying them were remarkably the same. In each case, the news media and our congress obsessed and transfixed for months on an investigation that seemed giant, sensational, and exhaustive, yet in each case was focused on something largely irrelevant to what was actually there to be investigated. Also, in each case, the relatively trivial offenses selected to be focused on were perfect to foment and stoke distracting Red Team/Blue Team division.<br />
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I first realized the strange kinship of the two impeachments/investigations when I was reading a Whitney Webb article. It was the <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/genesis-jeffrey-epstein-bill-clinton-relationship/261455/"><i>fourth</i> article</a> in Ms. Webb's MintPress News series on pedophile sex ring operator and apparent blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein. This is the <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/category/epstein-investigation/">in depth, connect-the-dots series</a> that has attracted Ms. Webb so much attention. The series was extra-remarkable when it got started getting real attention because Ms. Webb started it before Epstein’s provocatively mysterious death.– The fourth article in the series, the first written after Jeffrey Epstein’s death, had me thinking, <i>“reeling”</i> is a better word, about how there was so much about the Clintons, Bill and Hillary, that Whitney Webb was writing about that was never investigated, never surfaced as part of any formal investigation, stuff that obviously should have been investigated. . . But I remembered the Ken Starr’s Whitewater investigation that turned into the Monica Lewinsky scandal based impeachment and trial of Clinton. <i>Hmm</i>.<br />
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That’s when I first thought about the commonality of the Clinton and Trump impeachments/investigations. I don’t know if it vexed you, but for me it was excruciating that there is so much to investigate about Trump, so much that he could be impeached for (violations of the emoluments clause in the running of his hotels and resorts, diverting money appropriated for other things into his “wall,” willful violations of international treaties, assassination of Soleimani, putting a fox in charge of the hen house of every government regulatory agency chartered to protect the public), and yet the Democrats ignored all the potentially strong bipartisan issues challenging Trump and they impeached him for something totally different. <br />
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Ignoring strong potentially bipartisan grounds for impeaching Trump while going after Trump on weak ones, the Democrats weaken anyone’s future ability to impeach and convict Trump on the much stronger, valid grounds available; <i>“What doesn’t kill him, makes him stronger.”</i> They probably weaken the ability of anyone to impeach and convict any president in the future. Beforehand, the Democrats notably put their energy into a rather bogus <i>“Russiagate”</i> investigation. That’s now morphed, somewhat seamlessly, into a Ukraingate investigation. Of all possible things, the Democrats decided to impeach Trump for steps Trump took to surface corrupt activities of Joe Biden and his son in the Ukraine.<br />
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Are you <i>wondering</i> about the probable depths of the Bidens’ Ukranian corruption? If you're doubting that it’s a significant issue, I suspect that, unserved by corporate mass media, or at least the Blue media, there’s much you haven't yet paid attention to. To catch up, I recommend to you some documentary segments “UkraineGate – Inconvenient Facts” (the first is “<a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/13/new-documentary-sheds-light-on-ukrainegate/">A Not So ‘Solid’ Prosecutor</a>”) produced out of France. It’s available through partnering work done with Consortium News, for anyone who wants to get extra educated as they indulge their <i>wondering</i> about whether the Bidens, father and son, behaved in a manner worthy of a corruption investigation that would look into how, when Joe Bidden was in charge of Ukrainian affairs for the Obama administration following the United States’ participation in the overthrow of the Ukrainian government, Hunter Bidden, his son, got a very hard-to-explain, almost insanely lucrative five-year appointment to Burisma Holdings, a huge Ukrainian natural gas company. Joe Biden was thereafter, still theoretically working of the U.S. taxpayers, when he was involved in removing and replacing the Ukrainian prosecutor in charge of investigations of that gas company’s business.<br />
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It’s possible you’re a Blue-team loyal Democrat who is in line with the feeling that Trump should absolutely not have tried to surface matters for investigation about the Bidens– If so, I suggest you try turning these things around and imagine how a Red-team loyal Republican might scoff hearing about the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/479393-democrats-shoot-down-talk-of-bolton-hunter-biden-witness-swap">refusal of Democrats</a> to allow the Bidens to be called as witnesses concerning the corruption Trump says he wanted to surface. If impeachment witnesses are, indeed, important, why not welcome these witnesses? . . Or just imagine that it was a yet-to-take-office Democratic president trying to surface, for better investigation, matters involving corruption during a prior Republican administration, perhaps Trump’s family reaping spoils in a country where we helped depose the government. That country could be Bolivia, which is another country with natural gas resources likely to now be privatized. Or possibly it could be Venezuela, an oil rich country the Trump administration is making concerted attempts to overthrow.<br />
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The point is this: Was Trump’s interest in seeing the Biden’s Ukranian activities investigated strong grounds for impeachment, or just an issue guaranteed to cause people to divisively side more strongly with contradictory outrage being expressed, respectively, in turn by either the Blue Team or the Red Team?<br />
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Now let’s go back in time to the Clintons. <br />
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Reading the Whitney Webb <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/genesis-jeffrey-epstein-bill-clinton-relationship/261455/">article</a> with so many unsavory facts and allegations about the Clintons in one place, made me think about how I felt when Ken Starr, having supposedly started with Whitewater, was relentless pursuing President Bill Clinton for not telling the frank truth about his philandering sex life. I remember, at that time, honing in on the principle that you should investigate the <i>crime</i>, not investigate the <i>man</i>. That’s because in this complicated world if you selectively devote enormous resources to investigate just about any single individual there is probably something you can find that that individual did wrong if that is your intent. And it seemed that was exactly what Ken Starr was doing.<br />
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I remember how back at the time in the 1990s, I felt increasingly aligned with, and defensive of Bill Clinton, because I felt he was being <i>persecuted</i> not <i>prosecuted</i>. At that time, it forced me to ask whether we needed to know about and judge peoples’ personal sex lives as a predicate for determining their suitability to hold a governing office. My answer on this subject was basically, no, with some exceptions. In particular, I felt those exceptions pertained to those individuals in politics who were <i>hypocritically</i> trying to dictate and moralize about the sex lives of others by holding up rules they didn’t follow themselves: I was keenly aware that top Republicans prosecuting the Clinton impeachment, including <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/republican-impeached-clinton-scandal/">three Republican House Speakers at the time</a>, Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, were all involved in their own sex scandals.<br />
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I wasn’t the only one reacting to the Clinton impeachment this way. Democrats picked up seats in Congress as the probable result of the impeachment. The impeachment of Clinton launched MoveOn as an organization to raise money for candidates opposing Republicans. Bill Clinton’s sex life and the potentially hypocrisy of some Democrats seeming to defend even its predatory aspects, helped build up <i>both sides</i>. MSNBC, only a few year old at the time was able, as <a href="https://twitter.com/NatNotice/status/1216510466048045062">pointed out</a> by Matt Taibbi, to build up a Blue-Team type audience reporting on the Clinton impeachment hearings– It was an alternative to Fox, which was relishing a semen-stained dress. Matt Taibbi <a href="https://washingtonspectator.org/taibbi-10rulesofhate/">points out</a> that, <i>“Fox struck gold with the Lewinsky story and the Clinton impeachment.”</i> Both <i>“sides”</i> were inflamed to more Red Team/Blue Team rooting by the issue. <br />
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Similarly, today, even as Blue Team-rooting Democrats were cheering the Trump impeachment or coaxed to do so, indications are that the Democrat’s flailing impeachment of Trump is <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/271691/trump-approval-inches-support-impeachment-dips.aspx">driving</a> Trump’s <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-since-impeachment-began-most-dont-want-conviction-1483063">ratings up</a>. <br />
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Flash back to the Clintons: After the Ken Starr investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton culminating in the targeting of Clinton for impeachment for quibbling about what <i>“is”</i> meant when he was uncomfortably being questioned about his sex life, I felt as if the Clintons had been thoroughly investigated. They must have thoroughly investigated, or so it seemed. Ken Starr spent massively on his investigation of the Clintons. Starr is estimated to have spent between <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/story/gao-clinton-probes-cost-70-million">$70 million</a> and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/04/01/counsel.probe.costs/">$80 million</a> on his investigation (with all Clinton investigations combined, it may have been <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/nov/30/how-much-does-mueller-investigation-cost/">$92 million</a>), and didn’t it seem that Starr was obviously stretching to hit the Clintons with whatever he could dig up, even it was something flimsy about Clinton not honestly answering questions concerning his sex life? To appreciate whether that was a lot of resources devoted to an investigation, consider that the entire 9/11 investigation, the investigation of the event that launched <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/01/move-money-new-york-campaign-that.html">multiple wars</a> and <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-much-do-we-spend-on-our-military.html">trillions in spending</a>, was initially <a href="http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,437267,00.html">budgeted just $3 million</a>. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/07/27/us/september-11th-commission-fast-facts/index.html">$11</a> to <a href="https://youtu.be/yAR5I90vM4w?t=552">$15 million</a> was what was finally spent on that investigation; it was obvious it was to keep it on a short leash.<br />
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Fast forward to find we have Trump in office. We have another investigation that involves headlines awesomely plastered everywhere, Mueller’s “Russiagate” investigation. Again we sense that enormous resources are being devoted to the delving. This time though the investigation actually costs the taxpayers a little less. Although Trump <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/nov/30/how-much-does-mueller-investigation-cost/">tweets</a> and Giuliani as his lawyer <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/nov/15/facebook-posts/viral-post-says-democrats-spent-40-million-impeach/">asserts</a> that the Mueller’s “Russiagate” investigation is costing<i> $40 or more</i>, the actual cost of it, coming out gradually, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/02/robert-muellers-russia-probe-cost-nearly-32-million-in-total-doj.html">over time</a> is probably in the <a href="https://time.com/5557693/mueller-report-cost/">mid-30s</a>. But then, of course, the “Russiagate” investigation is followed up with Ukraingate from which its is financially distinct, although they get thematically linked ('<i>election help for Trump from foreign governments that use Cyrillic alphabets</i>'). While we had the spectacle of what was referred to as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSG800M8n9c">Trump-accusing <i>“whistleblower”</i></a> in Ukraingate (probably not an individual, but a <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/msm-defends-cias-whistleblower-ignores-actual-whistleblowers-5fbe577d988d">CIA</a> team effort), which must have involved some inevitable investigative followup, there are no figures yet offered for the cost of the impeachment investigation to <i>add to</i> the perhaps <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/how-much-robert-mueller-investigation-cost-report-1372575">$35 million</a> Mueller spent on Russiagate.<br />
<br />
Certainly, from all the headlines and the leaks reported by Rachel Maddow, the New York Times, et al, there again had to be a feeling engendered that the investigation of Trump was thorough. Furthermore, the mainstream press assured us ahead of time that Robert Mueller could be relied upon for a credible investigation. As just a sample, the New York Times <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">said</a> Mueller was <i>“a former federal prosecutor with an unblemished reputation”</i> whose appointment would <i>“alleviate uncertainty about the government’s ability to investigate the questions surrounding the Trump campaign and the Russians,”</i> that he was <i>“hailed by Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, who view him as one of the most credible law enforcement officials in the country.”</i> We were told Mr. Mueller’s <i>“record, character, and trustworthiness have been lauded for decades by Republicans and Democrats alike.”</i><br />
<br />
Accepting any assurance of the expected validity of any of Mueller’s investigations is ill advised . . . While the Times was writing about about Mueller’s <i>“unblemished reputation”</i> and sterling qualifications to be the Russiagate Special Prosecutor on May 17, 2017, just four years prior, May 9, 2013, you would have been reading in the Times the prediction that Mueller’s legacy would be <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html"><i>unforgettably besmirched</i></a> by Mueller’s botched investigation of tips the FBI was given ahead of time concerning the Boston Marathon Bombing.<br />
<br />
If you <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/its-now-three-part-series-how.html">review the entirety of Mueller’s career</a>, you will find that Mueller’s forte is, in fact, craftily botching investigations to reach incorrect and misleading results. The investigations he is involved in regularly focus on, pursue, and indict the wrong people for the wrong things. Researching and <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/its-now-three-part-series-how.html">writing about</a> his record, I discovered over a dozen <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/02/list-of-craftily-botched-mueller.html">extraordinarily high profile cases and investigations</a> (BCCI, Iragate, Iran-Contra, Anthrax, Enron, Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie, Whitey Bulger, Khobar Towers Bombing, Timothy J. McVeigh, 9/11, etc.) running from the 1990s consistently to the present where his results were conspicuously suspect. At one time or another the inadequacy of various investigations were all covered by the mainstream corporate media, but the media usually has a conveniently short memory when they want to <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">report about</a> Mueller’s record. The actual facts are that Mueller doesn’t seem to have very much in his record to boast of where the results of his investigations, when examined, did not seem to involve misdirection.<br />
<br />
There was, of course, at the end, the publicly conducted jousting of Mueller William Barr that grabbed extra attention. That jousting made Mueller’s Russiagate investigation efforts to `nail’ Trump seem sincere, but it helps to set aside that distraction if you <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-mueller-report-and-william-barr.html">know that</a> Mueller and Barr are actually good friends who have worked together, often closely, on many of Mueller’s misdirecting investigations in the past.<br />
<br />
As for Ken Starr, the Clinton Special Prosecutor, Starr just <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/28/impeachment_claire_finkelstein_executive_privilege">showed up</a> as part of Trump’s legal impeachment defense team to make news by not-so-adroitly reversing himself on the subject of whether the country should pursue <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2020/1/28/headlines/trump_lawyers_defend_ukraine_actions_as_calls_mount_for_bolton_and_other_witnesses_to_testify"><i>“divisive”</i> impeachments</a>. Should we consider Starr’s investigation of Clinton any more credible in terms of it's being on target in terms of what really needed to be investigated? Starr is also very good at ignoring things and not investigating what needs to be investigated. In 2016 Starr was fired from his job as president of Baylor University, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/18/797622342/after-a-fall-at-baylor-ken-starr-became-a-fox-regular-and-then-a-trump-defender">accused of ignoring</a> a fairly massive scandal about sexual assaults on his campus. How ironic, after going after Clinton for sexual conduct issues. Ironic too that the president Starr would choose to defend is the pussy-grabbing Trump . . .<br />
<br />
. . Starr was also part of the legal defense team for pedophile sex ring operator and apparent blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein, which brings up back around to uninvestigated cover-ups. It also bring us back around to that <a href="https://www.mintpressnews.com/genesis-jeffrey-epstein-bill-clinton-relationship/261455/">fourth article</a> in Whitney Webb’s Jeffrey Epstein series that laid out so much damaging information about the Clintons in relation thereto. <br />
<br />
That then is what I believe deserves noticing: The Trump and the Clinton presidential impeachments and related investigations resemble each other so closely, that it is almost as if the Clinton impeachment and investigation was used as the playbook for what we just witnessed with Trump. It’s the same subtraction, division, distraction formula with the same results:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• Start with important serious complex matters worth investigating, that would need to be investigated in order to hold the powerful to account.<br />
• Subtract out for investigation only some things that are trivial and not worthy grounds for impeaching a president.<br />
• Have those things that you investigate be sensational and controversial to ensure escalating division of the populace from differing Red Team/Blue Team perspectives.<br />
• Have a big showy investigation where it looks like all the stops have being pulled out and the investigators are really anxious to <i>“get”</i> the president any way they can. </blockquote>
And what you get is:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• A more <u><i>divided</i></u> populace, pushed more into the deepest corners of the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2020/01/on-political-spectrum-we-are-told-that.html">Red Team/Blue Team factionalism</a> that helps ensure, fuel, finance and perpetuate the duopoly that traps and controls the electorate. In this regard it is important to note that factionalism pushing people into rooting emotionally for the Red Team or the Blue Team, respectively, turns off critical thinking and analysis. Additionally, it causes people not to think in terms of the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/05/everybodys-realizing-it-now-political.html">many common interests</a> they share would otherwise naturally prevail. <br />
• A public misguided by its strong impression that everything that needed to be investigated has been delved into deeply and relentlessly, that no stone has been left unturned. The public thinks that, like in a court of law, there has been a contest that ensures this, not that it amounts to a certain form of collusion.<br />
• A government that is even less subject to being held to account than it was before.</blockquote>
Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-59064667103521257252020-02-22T00:30:00.000-05:002020-02-26T20:12:57.661-05:00List of Craftily Botched Mueller Investigations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZYreXoP-8ycVrvtT7Xnh8dCjOXR81imv6ZJc2NVtG3dlfFPCXekLWPiAOBk6NnCnJfMHiBWDzQIL8dg2WS5E0Pt6btvPg66tstfeVaRkPxr9wP6ydUH-ZcFNbUwYXaMbCnEOzFmPP6-O/s1600/Botched+Mueller+Investigations.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="480" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZYreXoP-8ycVrvtT7Xnh8dCjOXR81imv6ZJc2NVtG3dlfFPCXekLWPiAOBk6NnCnJfMHiBWDzQIL8dg2WS5E0Pt6btvPg66tstfeVaRkPxr9wP6ydUH-ZcFNbUwYXaMbCnEOzFmPP6-O/s400/Botched+Mueller+Investigations.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
In September I finished a <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/its-now-three-part-series-how.html">three-part series of National Notice articles</a> (including also a significant postscript follow-up)-- The articles were all about whether Robert Mueller and his Russiagate investigation could be trusted. The short definitive answer is <i>absolutely not</i>. That series of articles has been largely ignored, although I think all the articles were revelatory in important, often startling ways, particularly for those absorbing and surfing what today's Trump era news mostly has to offer. The articles were all written in long form. That meant they provided extensive links and documentation pulling from what has been available about Mueller over the decades of his career.-- The articles took the time and lingered to provide some analysis. <br />
<br />
As the articles have been ignored (should I blame Google?- They are hard to find when searching), I figured it would be worthwhile to at least provide, a short form reference, an index to much of what can be found in those articles concerning the major takeaway they provide. The major takeaway of those articles, which was easy to infer from the pattern of facts that kept repeating, is that Mueller’s forte is craftily botching investigations to reach
incorrect and misleading results. The investigations in which he has been involved regularly focus on, pursue, and indict the wrong people for the wrong
things.<br />
<br />
Researching and <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/its-now-three-part-series-how.html">writing about</a> Mueller's record, I discovered more than a dozen extraordinarily high profile cases and
investigations running from the 1990s consistently to the present
where his results were conspicuously suspect. At one time or another
the inadequacy of all these various investigations were all covered by the
mainstream corporate media, but the media usually has a conveniently
short memory when they want to <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">report about</a>
Mueller’s record. When you come right down to it, Mueller sadly doesn’t seem to
have very much in his record to boast of where the results of his
investigations, when examined, do not seem to involve misdirection.<br />
<br />
Also worth noting: Mueller has often worked with William Barr in his a career. Notwithstanding what looked like public jousting between those two men over Russiagate, they are reportedly well known to be <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-mueller-report-and-william-barr.html">good friends</a>.<br />
<br />
Before listing the many investigations with odd results that Mueller has been involved in, it is worth noting that Mueller has significant family connections that go back and link him to the intelligence community. He is <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-mueller-report-and-william-barr.html">related to two of the three top men</a> that President Kennedy fired from the CIA when Kennedy cleaned house in the fall of 1961.<br />
<br />
Here then is a list of botched Mueller Investigations, and since there are repeating patterns to the botching and the botches often look like they align with certain purposes we might attribute a certain amount of craft and intentionality to the botches:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• <b>Anthrax Investigation.</b> Mueller micromanaged and conspicuously bungled the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-trustworthy-is-robert-mueller-and.html">anthrax letter investigations</a> that left hanging the question so vital to answer of who within in our government sent the letters (originally blamed on Iraq) that, one week after 9/11, threatened the press and particular leaders in Congress as the Bush administration was pressing to pass the PATRIOT Act.<br />
<br />
• <b>Iran-Contra investigation.</b> Mueller worked with William Barr and advised him about handling the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-trustworthy-is-robert-mueller-and.html">Iran-Contra investigation</a> being conducted by Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh concerning misconduct by the CIA and intelligence community. Barr, who previously worked for the CIA, is notorious for the way he is considered to have helped <i>"cover up,"</i> an investigation leading perhaps as high up as former CIA head and Vice President George H. W. Bush, when he advised Bush on Bush's 1992 pardons of the key players in the scandal. Afterwards, George H. W. Bush, was able to become the first U.S. president known to come with a CIA background.<br />
<br />
• <b>BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) investigation.</b> Mueller and Barr were accused of coverup activity in the investigation of two other scandals that tied in with Iran-Contra. One was the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-trustworthy-is-robert-mueller-and.html">BCCI (Bank of Credit and Commerce International) investigation</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>• Iraqgate.</b> The other banking scandal was "<a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-trustworthy-is-robert-mueller-and.html">Iraqgate</a>." Among other things, both of those scandals also involved covert U.S. government funding of weapons acquisitions by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. (And Saddam Hussein's weapons in Iraq were why Mueller later testified we should invade Iraq!)<br />
<br />
• <b>Timothy J. McVeigh Oklahoma City Bombing Case.</b> Mueller was involved in how documents were withheld in the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">Timothy J. McVeigh Oklahoma City Bombing Case</a>. Thousands of pages of investigative report documents concerning the
1995 Oklahoma City bombing were turned over to Timothy J.
McVeigh’s defense lawyers as they should have been. It was shortly before Mueller was nominated to be appointed FBI Director. It was considered that it could have affected that appointment. There were questions about Mueller's failure to inform Ashcroft, President George W. Bush and top
White House aides about the documents that were withheld. <br />
<br />
• <b>Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie, Scotland Crash.</b> The investigation and prosecution of the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie, Scotland crash</a> for which Mueller was responsible produced very unsatisfactory results.- The case concluded in February 2001, not that very long before Mueller was being discussed for appointment to the FBI. Lockerbie may have helped set Mueller up for getting that promotion. The Lockerbie case raises questions about whether people were framed and facts manipulated by those eager to go to war with Libya. In connection therewith, a very strange article about Mueller's Lockerbie case appeared in the New York Times that presaged 9/11 as an excuse to change models and handle such investigations <i>"extra-judicially"</i> in order to move away from the justice system's <i>"reliance on forensic evidence and the standards of criminal law."</i> Read <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">what I wrote then</a> to hear how William Barr chimed in with his opinion in the article. <br />
<br />
• <b>Whitey Bulger.</b> In Boston, when Mueller was in charge at the Justice Department there (and had specific responsibility regarding <i>"public corruption,"</i> he was involved in the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">FBI scandal and embarrassment respecting Whitey Bulger</a>, <i>"America's Most Wanted Gangster."</i> Mr. Bulger was charged with complicity in 19 murders, racketeering, extortion, money laundering and other crimes. A former federal prosecutor who investigated
said, "<i>This was the worst case of corruption in the history of the F.B.I., . . It was a multigenerational, systematic
alliance with organized crime, where the F.B.I. was actively
participating in the murders of government witnesses, or at least
allowing them to occur." </i>With FBI participation, four men were framed and kept in prison for a
murder they did not commit to keep Bugler and his partner out on the
streets. Mueller, first as an assistant US attorney, then as the acting US attorney in Boston wrote multiple letters to the parole and pardons board to keep the framed men in prison. Richard Stearns, the judge hearing the Bulger case, a close friend of Mueller's, was forced to step aside by an appeals court because of his conflicts of interest. Whitey Bulger was killed in prison, shortly after the federal government
moved him to a new penitentiary, in what the New York Times says may
have been "<i>a hit.</i>"<br />
<br />
• <b>Investigation and Prosecutions In Enron Case.</b> It does not appear anywhere on Mueller's Wikipedia page, but the New York Times credits and highly praises Mueller for <i>"overseeing the task force that investigated one of the biggest fraud
cases in American history: <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">the collapse of the energy giant Enron</a>." </i>What about involvement of top federal government officials? The involvement of people like Donald Rumsfeld and his wife or Karl Rove? Fourteen of the top 100 officials in the Bush administration owned stock
in Enron. What about President George W. Bush's close
relationship with Enron's chairman, Kenneth L. Lay? Dick Cheney's Halliburton built<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"> </a>Enron's baseball stadium. Did any government officials go to jail? Enron was treated as a <i>business</i> scandal, not a <i>political</i> one; it was investigated and prosecuted accordingly, with only non-government officials pursued. Did the convictions hold up? Things worked out rather oddly with the timing of Ken Lay's death (at 64 about six weeks after his conviction) and how Lay's wife benefitted. Hale and Dorr, Mueller's law firm when Mueller's revolving door revolves, was special counsel to Enron during the bankruptcy and it is credited with being the <i>"driving force in the investigation of crimes" </i>influentially guiding everyone.<i> </i>Documents were destroyed as the SEC was investigating
accounting fraud at Enron when Enron's accountants at
Arthur Anderson shredded them. C<span class="st">oincidentally, there were complaints of SEC legal investigation documents being lost, just weeks before the Anderson shredding, on 9/11 when B</span><span class="st"><span class="st">uilding 7 collapsed</span></span>. (An investigation-driving report similar to the one by Hale and Dorr for Enron was done for the Worldcom scandal by the firm that merged with Hale and Dorr in 2004.)<br />
<br />
• <b>The Boston Marathon Bombing.</b> Mueller's role in the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">Boston Marathon bombing</a>, and specifically his failure to follow up on tips the FBI was given ahead of time (it occurred at the end of his terms as head of the FBI) was said to have been so badly botched that the New York Times predicted with apparent confidence that Mueller’s legacy would be <i>unforgettably besmirched</i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null">. That was May 9, 2013. Just four years later, </a>May 17, 2017, the Times was writing about Mueller’s <i>“unblemished reputation”</i>
and sterling qualifications to be the Russiagate Special Prosecutor.
<br />
<br />
• <b>Khobar Towers Apartment Complex Bombing.</b> Mueller, as deputy attorney general,
was the one who directed <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/postscript-for-our-national-notice-how.html">1996 Khobar Towers Apartment Complex Bombing investigation</a> to James Comey, for prosecution in Virginia. The apartment complex <span class="st">in the city of Khobar, Saudi Arabia provided housing used </span>living quarters for coalition forces who working on a U.S. Defense Department operation in Iraq. The investigation of the bombing and
ensuing prosecution continued well into the era that Mueller was head of
the FBI (a judge ruled in the case in 2006). There was top-level FBI coordination (FBI Director Louis Freeh) with top
Saudis in shaping the investigation and the official story. That official story, seeming to go out of its way to ignore facts, was apparently shaped to blame Iran in order to stymie possibilities of U.S. rapprochement and more peaceful relations with Iran. Worse, there was reportedly, in the background, a contingency plan for the U.S. to attack Iran. Those who were more likely responsible for the bombing were native Saudis, all Sunni Muslims, with no outside connections to either Iran or Iraq. And those individuals who the FBI, veering far afield in its investigation, did not pursue may have had connections with . . . ?<br />
<br />
• <b>Investigation of Poisoned Ricin Letters.</b> Under Mueller two theatrically <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">back-to-back incidents of poisoned ricin letters</a> were investigated. It's another investigation where, attracting a lot of press attention, the wrong man was arrested. This was all happening in a time period that overlapped with the Snowden revelations about secret illegal government surveillance that the Obama then had to acknowledge and which Mueller, before leaving office, recommended be continued without cutting back.<br />
<br />
• <b>The After-The-Fact Investigation of 9/11.</b> Mueller covered up FBI mishandling of 9/11. Not only that, he <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-trustworthy-is-robert-mueller-and.html">promoted</a> those responsible for such
failures.– According to papers filed by the 9/11 families in their court proceedings, Mueller threw up roadblocks in the path of his own
investigators working t<a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/postscript-for-our-national-notice-how.html">he 9/11 case</a>, while making it easier for Saudi
suspects to escape questioning. The legal filings say that Mueller was not appropriately interested in investigating <i>“multiple, systemic efforts by the Saudi government to assist the hijackers in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks,”</i> that Mueller covered up evidence pointing to Saudi government involvement, deep-sixed evidence his agents managed to uncover, and that Mueller may have lied to Congress. <br />
<br />
• <b>Russiagate investigation.</b> Mueller's Russiagate investigation is replete with a
number of conspicuous problems that undermine the credibility of many of
its key points. That includes how the investigation was apparently <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-mueller-report-and-william-barr.html">calibrated to distract</a> the public and how, even though it did not find any of Trump's people involved, Mueller's investigation found that the Russians had interfered to influence the 2016 election when that was <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-trustworthy-is-robert-mueller-and.html">essentially bogus</a>.<br />
<br />
• <b>Non-Investigation of White Collar Crime.</b> Should we count "<i>non-investigations</i>" when we are compiling a list of Mueller's "<i>investigations</i>"? Given that Mueller's great skill is <i>avoiding</i> investigation of what he ought to investigate when given assignments, this is probably highly appropriate. Nor is it completely oxymoronic. Mueller officially started as head of the FBI one week to the day before 9/11. As the head of the FBI, with 9/11 as an excuse, Mueller's shifted more than half of the FBI's resources away from white collar crime. This certainly meant that white collar crimes that had not yet been investigated or not yet uncovered when investigated went uninvestigated. It also meant that the FBI must have had to pull back from white collar crime investigations that were already underway and that selections would need to have been made when doing so. We have already mentioned, as a specific investigation, the Enron investigation involving events that happened before 9/11 then came to light contemporaneously, and which were investigated after 9/11. That's why it's not completely oxymoronic to include such "<i>non-investigations</i>" in the list of investigation handled by Mueller. Anyone tracking Mueller's career activities should rightly wonder about how Mueller exercised his discretion at this time when white collar and Wall Street criminals seem to have benefitted because of 9/11. Mostly, coverage of Mueller's cutback on white collar crime investigation has been viewed as a general boon to Wall Street and misbehaving mortgage lending banks that could have been prosecuted as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. There seems to have been no analysis offered about how Mueller may have exercised discretion in specific cases. <br />
<br />
• <b>Panama Invasion- Noriega Drug Trafficking Investigation.</b> I mentioned above Mueller's involvement with the investigation of Whitey Bulger, <i>"America's Most Wanted Gangster."</i> That investigation involved investigating Bulger and his associates for ongoing crimes they were committing, and as noted, in some cases, a misdirection to charge others with the crimes of Bulger and his associates. Normally, an investigation of someone is for the purpose of charging them with their crimes. With Bulger it was trickier. Because Bulger was being treated as an <i>"asset"</i> by law enforcement officials, it was incumbent upon law enforcement officials to be investigatively aware of Bulger's activities to keep him on a short enough leash to justify the tolerance extended to him. Bulger's case involved another investigative side: That was all the investigation necessary and appropriate to discover how the FBI's own conduct had, itself, crossed the line into inexcusable corruption. In the longer form article I wrote I noted that Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the president of Panama, was analogous to Bulger. The U.S. had a long-standing and close alliance with Noriega who was on the CIA Payroll, including when George H. W. Bush was <span class="caps">CIA</span> director. Bush had to have known that. Further, Noriega was a key asset in Iran-Contra. Noriega had connections with drug running, murders, and deep
involvement in narcotrafficking. Noriega apparently went from being a CIA asset to being a liability just as the whole Iran-Contra scandal began to come to light. George H. W. Bush sent American troops in to remove Noriega in his first year in office. Robert Mueller and William Barr were both involved in paving the way for the invasion of Panama by furnishing opinions and advice that the actions being taken were legal. Mueller, privy to whatever facts concerning the investigation he apparently thought were necessary, provided assurances for President G. H. W. Bush that the <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">drug trafficking case against Noriega</a> was solid and would stand up. It's another instance where Mueller's involvement assessing an investigation paved the way for the U.S. to go to war.<br />
<br />
• <b><b>2003 Iraq Invasion- </b>Weapons of Mass Destruction.</b> Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction?: Is that something that should have been <i>"investigated"</i>; can we properly consider that this should be another on the list of <i>"investigations"</i> in which Mueller participated? In the run up to the Iraq War evidence was supposedly presented, matters were supposedly being looked into and evaluated. Mueller <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-trustworthy-is-robert-mueller-and.html">helped sell the Iraq War with lies to Congress</a> about weapons of mass destruction and links to Al-Qaed. Maybe, instead of putting this formally on the list of <i>"investigations"</i> which Mueller was involved with, we should simply treat it as another example of how willing Mueller is to engage in baseless shilling for war. As noted above, <span class="st">Mueller's warnings about Iraq weapons can be viewed as ironic given his questionable Iraqgate investigation about how the intelligence agencies under the George H. W. Bush administration illegally funneled funds
(through agricultural credits) for a military buildup in Iraq.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="st"> </span>• <b>A Basis For Hundreds of Imprisonments (and Worse).</b> Is it naive to believe that when the government imprisons people and/or subjects them to abusive punitive actions (physical abuse and solitary confinement) or worse, it should be predicated upon some sort of investigation that justifies the actions taken? Mueller <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-trustworthy-is-robert-mueller-and.html">was sued</a> (but let off the hook) for rounding up hundreds of
Muslims and South Asian Immigrants (762 of them) after 9/11 and putting them in
detention facilities (or they may have been sent to foreign countries
for torture). Another example of Mueller distressingly going after and locking up innocent people? <br />
<br />
• <b>The Before-The-Fact Investigation of 9/11- The PATRIOT Act.</b> Mueller helped push through passage of the PATRIOT Act by
<a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/08/how-trustworthy-is-robert-mueller-and.html">furnishing misinformation to Congress</a> about what the FBI knew and could
have done about stopping 9/11. Mueller told Congress that the PATRIOT Act needed to be passed because there were no warning signs about 9/11 and that, had the PATRIOT Act been in effect, it would have allowed for discovery of warning signs about the
Florida flight school training of those who were identified as the
terrorists. In fact, FBI agents had this information ahead of time, but the Bureau simply sat on it and did nothing. Based on this, The Wall Street Journal called for
Mueller's resignation and the New York Times said there were concerns about
his leadership of the FBI. </blockquote>
That's my list. I'm happy to add to it if I have overlooked anything. There is much more in the articles worth knowing about Mueller's background and <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/its-now-three-part-series-how.html">the long form articles</a> provide more details, a zillion links, as well as more analysis. Aside from Mueller's repetitive involvement in highly suspect investigations, Mueller oversaw and relentlessly defended mass surveillance including illegal warrantless surveillance. Mueller's last stop before his Russiagate Probe was working with the ginormous <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">private government surveillance Company, Booz Allen Hamilton</a>, to protect its secrets.<br />
<br />
Probably the best reason to be familiar with Mueller's list of botched investigations is to also learn something about the media and power structure in this country. While Mueller was conducting his "Russiagate: investigation we were subjected to all <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">sorts of descriptions</a> of Mueller as a<i> "straight arrow,"</i> someone who was almost boring, universally respected in Washington D.C., and someone who trusted to be fair and reliable by both Republicans and Democrats in a bipartisan consensus. More likely the <i>"respect"</i> Mueller gets is <i>fear based</i>, because the one thing Mueller can be trusted to do at this point is to keep getting away with things without consequence. <br />
<br />
Every time there has been an important juncture in Mueller's career, a moment when he is about to be promoted into some new significant office, all his prior scandals have been <a href="http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/2019/09/when-it-was-time-to-promote-robert.html">mysteriously forgotten</a> by the media and Mueller has been praised instead. This is what happened when Mueller was under consideration to first head the FBI, the office he took one week to the day before 9/11. It is what happened when there was lobbying to change the law, enacted following J. Edgar Hoover's departure, to give Mueller an extra two-year extension of his term as head of the FBI. It is what happened when Mueller was proposed to be put in charge of the Russiagate investigation. That is what has allowed Mueller to continue and persist in his patterns allowing this list of highly questionable investigation to keep getting longer. Yes, all this is despite how the scandalous facts of these botched investigations are out there available to be discovered.Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6709263540833549991.post-16092773137452399102020-01-30T19:49:00.000-05:002020-01-30T19:49:31.177-05:00The Awokening– A Climate Change Change Short Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhchwZryyL8VFlWcEvSEwWXolWlwAjTeKVGae9sCHUrytjeWdmDcJngDolycwgvBF1Q55mONOHA5hlPvbJqks2dMDQHcdsFHFEo7ItSa4ilYKiOjqD5pRUuC9CXzDWDdAMy2ygJmhhwTBgY/s1600/Psychgraphic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1237" data-original-width="1600" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhchwZryyL8VFlWcEvSEwWXolWlwAjTeKVGae9sCHUrytjeWdmDcJngDolycwgvBF1Q55mONOHA5hlPvbJqks2dMDQHcdsFHFEo7ItSa4ilYKiOjqD5pRUuC9CXzDWDdAMy2ygJmhhwTBgY/s400/Psychgraphic.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
We didn’t notice it at first. I certainly didn’t notice, not at the beginning. I mean how could you notice anything if you didn’t know anything was happening, that there was anything to look for, or what to look for?<br />
<br />
We were thinking about things like sea level rise, how it was locked in, so it was a question of thinking about how much sea level rise, how fast, where it would be experienced worst– sea level rise is not just the melting icecaps, it's also that warm water expands, it’s “thicker”– The local tides also factor in with tide-funneling coastline shapes causing some areas to be affected worse– And we were thinking about how to adapt.<br />
<br />
Figuring out where to move and when, how long it could make sense to wait, were questions on almost everyone’s minds. Areas that we’d thought of as cool and alpine were warming up. Anywhere could be where there’d be fires next. Lots of areas were drying out with local vegetation that evolved in wetter climates becoming dry dead fuel. And then there were more and more areas that looked like they’d be, unpredictably, at times, too wet and too low lying when floods came. Ironically, it was sometimes impossible to find potable, unpoisoned drinking water in some of those same areas. <br />
<br />
Everyone was aware of the hopelessness and the resignation. I mean, even if we didn’t consciously acknowledge it, it was there as a sense we all had. If nothing else, you knew it without knowing it.<br />
<br />
Those of us who knew enough, who weren’t listening to the national network, cable or legacy internet programs as our news sources, blamed the fossil fuel companies. We blamed what we understood was their psycho-graphic control. We remembered, in the early days, how swathes of people didn’t believe that there was climate change, or if they believed it, they didn’t think it was man made, or maybe they did think humans were causing it. Maybe they thought it would be good, or not so bad. <br />
<br />
Maybe some people thought it would be bad, but not for <i>them</i>. Or they thought they’d get some personal benefit from what was happening, the way they were plugged into the system, so that the good for them would outweigh the bad. . . Some people, a lot, said it was happening, but didn’t think they could do anything about it. Others suspected they could do something about it, but just couldn’t figure out what that was.<br />
<br />
Some of us did something about it by voting for politicians who said they were going to do something about it but then didn’t. We voted for those kinds of politicians more than once. And we spent a lot of time figuring out who to believe as we voted. It seems we could never be right. It was a no-win proposition every time. Many of us just didn’t have time for all of it. Life was increasing taxing with people struggling to make ends meet. Or we maybe we did have the time, but we somehow never got around to doing anything. Escapist fantasy was especially popular. We could watch it on our tablets indoors while our air conditioners ran. Life spent with super heroes saving worlds around the universe, frequently earth itself, and CGI generated versions of our favorite old movie stars was a tad more soothing . .<br />
<br />
. . . There were a thousand things that could be picked from, essentially an infinite menu of reasons <u><i>not</i></u> to do anything about climate change that the fossil fuel companies could deliver in tailored packages to suit our individual personalities and disable us. “<i>Nano-targeting</i>” was one phrase for it. The social media companies, data-collecting marketers like Amazon, the search engines, our phone and door bell trackers, provided the manipulators with everything necessary to know about any of us. They picked our leaders for us too. It meant they also picked and had a hand in which charismatics were sent into bubble oblivion, maybe assigned small personalized ineffectual followings to be dispensed with at the same time. <br />
<br />
We knew they were doing it. You could tell. I mean, if you cared to pay attention, you <i>knew</i>. You didn’t need hints from those occasional leaks. Besides, some of those leaks were themselves meant to make you think certain things and why get entangled? Yes, sure, go ahead and connect the dots as proof if you were compulsive about proving things. But, otherwise, just go with the big overall picture. You could tell. You could just easily tell.<br />
<br />
First, I’ve got to say that it didn’t seem like anything when you stopped running into people who wanted to tell that there was no climate change, that it wasn’t man made, or wouldn’t be so bad, anything from that whole list of crap. After all, it made sense that people were simply out of rope to believe the impossible; That was clearly explanation enough. . . <br />
<br />
That explanation went far enough to cover that much. . .<br />
<br />
. . I remember young, red-headed Edgar excited about his new job. Truly excited. Really? He was working on solar capture fabrics. An anomaly? I remember that first and best. Then Shaheen was excited about her job— It involved road and highways generating energy, multiple ways actually. Hester was working on storage, with weights elevating on rails that could spin flywheels coming down. Her eyes had a certain gleam.<br />
<br />
It was the sense of optimism that was disorienting. Each time it seemed unexpected, and now the repetitiveness of such encounters just made it seem much more improbable. – People, I mean a different kind of people, were actually going back into government and interested in doing all sorts of things there, a ton of it having really positive implications rippling out in all directions for the climate. Also respecting government, you, of course know the names of the new capable and charismatic leaders who arose. They emerged pretty much right away.<br />
<br />
My friend Joshua had no knack at all for engineering, but his enthusiasm for things that others were achieving got him involved in promoting and spreading the word. Technically, he was <i>“advertising”</i> the new technologies to help make them successful in finding a market, and, indeed, he was now working at a legacy advertising firm that had taken this on as its specialty. PR firms were going the same route. <br />
<br />
You almost didn’t need the advertising or PR firms: People were hungrily seeking out news everywhere, because there was so much that was terrifically good to learn and potentially take advantage of yourself by finding new endeavors to plug into. Journalists were plying a new skill: solution identification. They were doing a real good job to investigate, find and bring solutions to the surface. A lot of surfaced solutions, or near solutions, were combining with others to make even better ones.<br />
<br />
Renewables had already essentially been cheaper than fossil fuel. The flip over to zero fossil fuel use occurred fast. Elimination of the subsidies for fossil fuels might never even have been required. But is was more than that: With the flip, came a vast increase, an upward dizzying spiral, in the efficiency of energy production at lower and lower cost with less and less environmental impact. The energy storage problem for renewables was quickly solved in multiple scores of ways.<br />
<br />
We soon had so much extra energy, a vast surplus, beyond what was needed for all our economic needs that it was obvious that there was only one thing to do with it. We started up all sorts engines and devices to extract carbon from the atmosphere and our oceans. At first the methods for extracting carbon from the seawater took the lead.– Either worked: The oceans, in a continual rebalancing, grabbed carbon from the atmosphere so it was the same thing. Carbon extraction was easier than dealing with the methane. Nevertheless, the fact was we were on track to get it all satisfactorily done. <br />
<br />
There were a lot of jobs, with attendant excitement and enthusiasm, in the carbon extraction business too. The work that had once been done to determine the cost to the world of dumping carbon into the atmosphere like trash was handy in setting a price for what people could be paid per ton of carbon extraction. As the cost of the technology came down, profits attracted wider and wider scale participation. We turned back the clock. That was what people said: <i>"We turned back the clock."</i> The climate catastrophe chaos was reversed. The planet restored itself to what had been climate normalcy for all the tens of thousands of years any form modern human civilization has existed.<br />
<br />
I felt dumb at first not to realize it. Where the change came from was obvious. Why the change was so sudden and complete was obvious. But, when you are in the middle of a whirlwind, recognition can come with obstinate slowness. I, like others, had been so habituated to blaming the fossil fuel industry for the way they commandeered psycho-graphics to immobilize the population and continue their plunder unimpeded, I wasn’t immediately ready to change the lens through which I viewed the world.<br />
<br />
It was obvious, truly obvious. What was obvious was that some other group had taken power behind the scenes. All those psycho-graphic tools still existed, but now they had been wrested from the fossil fuel industry. The psycho-graphic tools, the ability to manipulate human beings in a fine tuned personalized way across a huge spectrum of personalities, was being turned around and used for purposes exactly opposite to how the fossil fuel industry had used them. Through psycho-graphic tools every individual’s strengths in terms of personality and skill, where they might fit in in terms of solving the climate change emergency, was systematically identified and assessed so that they could be tipped into taking the most appropriate personal actions they could take.<br />
<br />
It worked. It worked.<br />
<br />
My problem with all this, is that it wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. I revile psycho-graphics. I had this problem with it when it was being used by the fossil fuel industry to keep us consuming fossil fuels. I had the same problem when it was being used to keep us perpetually at war with huge amount of runaway military spending. I still have a problem with psycho-graphics. I ask you, where is the democracy in a group of powerful people, a coordinating elite, deciding the direction that everyone should take?<br />
<br />
Where is the democracy? I thought it was all supposed to happen starting bottom up, grass roots, the wisdom of crowds when people listen to each other. Where is the democracy? Is this the way it was supposed to happen? <br />
<br />
* * * *<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW35_3fVHx0uIuzppNLGqafNOsBJQOoskEvkOQpWFb7G4yuS9hfmU4X0QMtD759dWrabTlDWEgu4-O6oMH_b7XEPv8Xm7nQU8WVJB1bGb3Kv7yxgouBpuotlwBIIR7YRSiAfXDfASjzjkP/s1600/The+Truth+Has+Changed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1016" data-original-width="1420" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW35_3fVHx0uIuzppNLGqafNOsBJQOoskEvkOQpWFb7G4yuS9hfmU4X0QMtD759dWrabTlDWEgu4-O6oMH_b7XEPv8Xm7nQU8WVJB1bGb3Kv7yxgouBpuotlwBIIR7YRSiAfXDfASjzjkP/s320/The+Truth+Has+Changed.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshfoxtthc/rally-the-truth-help-us-fund-the-truth-has-changed-tour">Kickstarter page</a> for "<i>The Truth Has Changed</i>" tour.</td></tr>
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<b>Author's Note</b>: The idea for this short story came to me after I saw a Brooklyn performance of Josh Fox’s “<i>The Truth Has Changed</i>.” It was in <i>Brooklyn</i>, in Mr. Fox's theater company's rehearsal space, because, with some strange controversy involved, his show was kicked out of The Public Theater in Manhattan. I give credence to Fox’s statements that the eviction probably came about because of the show’s content.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjhzFcdSpskLvjQkGb8xev3y5A5h4q9n88LyCBowMDNyqeuirTTczZbh54TCx25VpTpVORy_6Jnocjm8JHGomuEh4jf7oHAPCSZywaGliW8MTMVFV5eOFF301eufQnMWUCyD4TLS0GVWcG/s1600/The+Truth+Has+Changed+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="240" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjhzFcdSpskLvjQkGb8xev3y5A5h4q9n88LyCBowMDNyqeuirTTczZbh54TCx25VpTpVORy_6Jnocjm8JHGomuEh4jf7oHAPCSZywaGliW8MTMVFV5eOFF301eufQnMWUCyD4TLS0GVWcG/s200/The+Truth+Has+Changed+book.jpg" width="150" /></a></div>
Fox’s one man show (think echos of a Spalding Gray performance) is, in part, about the climate crisis emergency. He’s written an accompanying book, which has a foreword by climate activist Bill McKibben. Fox’s show is also largely about information control, the kind that is directed at manipulating the public. Information control and manipulation of public opinion is charging ahead with the development of new techniques so fast that it is hard to separate a short futuristic science fiction story like this from yesterday’s news. That aspect of Fox’s show gives it a fair amount of overlap with <a href="https://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2017/12/its-not-just-real-estate-industry.html">the issues of</a> censorship, information control and dumbing down the public that have been concerns for <a href="http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2017/12/citizens-defending-libraries-main-page.html">Citizens Defending Libraries</a>, of which I am a co-founder.<br />
<br />
I will note that Fox’s show is a strenuous tour de force and challenging in the bleakness of some of its urgency. Project Censored has begun <a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/kenn-burrows-and-amber-yang/">grappling with</a> the notion that negative news reporting that eschews the provision of <i>“solutions”</i> is a form of news abuse. It results in “<i>negative news overload</i>” that enervates the public, a form of control in itself. Fox is interested in solutions too. The program notes for “<i>The Truth has Changed</i>” explains that one of his other endeavors is “<a href="https://thesolutionsproject.org/about-us/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAmsrxBRDaARIsANyiD1okQqqbFnsOHVh2qKYW9hv1AUj9lWjendP_fAZy2KqgZZAFu00k1cQaAkppEALw_wcB"><i>The Solutions Project</i></a>,” co-founded with Mark Ruffalo, Mark Jacobson and Marco Krapels. Similarly, with respect to the climate crisis, Project Censored <a href="https://www.projectcensored.org/kenn-burrows-and-amber-yang/">notes</a> that there is “<a href="https://www.drawdown.org/"><i>The Drawdown Project</i></a>.” Personally I believe many solutions would presently be unfolding at a quickening pace if we had a fossil fuels tax and were looking to start paying people to extract carbon from the atmosphere and oceans and I think the two should be related.<br />
<br />
Fox’s show does not leave the subject of potential solutions entirely unaddressed, but it is mostly more about the urgency with which we need to find them. His show does not identify or present the questionable solution posed by the short story above. I hope it leaves your thoughts provoked.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc3Usqaa__eS0hWy7I129n9vM5rnV9NLBdwztvudqex4_eHqkYR8fFC4pfXpRVZ602rnJ8HrlN9qgXpCvIP2x1zWGrDWhK_7YC2mJdBWl3KynWcdTgk9pY0brGeO6G9RiYtQKvS31ytZdZ/s1600/Kicked+out+of+the+public.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1036" data-original-width="1564" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc3Usqaa__eS0hWy7I129n9vM5rnV9NLBdwztvudqex4_eHqkYR8fFC4pfXpRVZ602rnJ8HrlN9qgXpCvIP2x1zWGrDWhK_7YC2mJdBWl3KynWcdTgk9pY0brGeO6G9RiYtQKvS31ytZdZ/s320/Kicked+out+of+the+public.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The show was shut down at The Public. Content too challenging?</td></tr>
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Noticing New Yorkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15726747803887470424noreply@blogger.com0