Not to be a big wiener head but the really interesting demonstrations are not occurring amongst people dumb enough to believe Joe Biden's mumbled word salad.
The really interesting demonstrations are occurring in Europe where people are actually uniting in solidarity over vaccine mandates.
Solidarity you say? What the fuck is that?
No it's not a deodorant sold in Poland in the 80s. And no, you can't buy it on Amazon.
It's when the vaxxed in Italy burn their green passes to show support for the unvaxxed and their basic human rights.
Human rights you ask? What the fuck are they? (Topic of another lecture.)
It's when huge numbers of the vaxxed & the unvaxxed take to the streets together and remind their leaders all the things about democracy that said leaders have evidently forgotten.
As a response to this outpouring of democracy, the Belgium authorities seem to favor water cannons, tear gas & truncheons. While the German authorities seem to prefer a more hands on approach where they just face plant your unvaxxed ass into the concrete. Pepper spray is also quite popular. I've seen more grandpas splayed out with 5 cops on their backs in the last few weeks than I ever thought I'd see in reality. But like the one cop told the unvaxxed fellow, "The unvaxxed aren't human."
Gee that's not a recipe for a pogrom is it?
Luckily the news media is blaming all the violence on right wing extremists and not the government who we all know only want what's best for us all.
I was speaking with a friend who lives in the SF Bay area and has caught the mind-virus that's endemic in that area. She was trying to explain to me that COVID vaccine mandates are good because polio vaccine mandates were good. She couldn't hear my explanation of how it's different.
As far as I know, anything related to polio is "mandated" at the local level by public schools and not at the federal or state level.
You should bring that up. Also point out the number of people that died thanks to faulty polio vaccine manufacturing. I think it was like, 40,000 or so?
He could also probably mention that no one took a proper polio vaccine and then contracted a weaker version of polio 6 months after the shot. Then 6 months after that shot. Then 6 months...you get the idea.
I think it's also fair to say that they forced the word "vaccine" to stick to this iteration by using copious amounts of duct tape & super glue. Sort of like renaming a mercenary as a mall cop.
It's also fair to say that they didn't have to exaggerate the polio numbers in order to scare people into compliance like they've obviously done with Covid. My personal favorite example comes out of Australia where a guy took 3 bullets to the chest in a bar dispute but also happened to test positive for Covid so he quite logically died of of Covid.
Biden, in his pre-president days, said that the only way people would take this vaccine was if the entire process was transparent and independent experts had a chance to examine the data & sign off on it. All good advice that he seems have forgotten post inauguration.
It's the one time in his life forgetting is a plausible excuse. He's been a dirtbag his entire career.. Senator Credit Card and while Banksters had rates drop to low single digits consumer credit can go to 35% interest.
Fun fact the prohibition on interest income is the only part of Sharia Law that politicians object to. Head chopping fine, profit cutting..nah that's a threat.
I also remember quite distinctly he being a shill for the RIAA and all in for copyrights last near forever. He's the definition of a modern day carpetbagger.
Polio virus lives solely in the gut of homo sapiens. Prevent the last case and that virus is history. Measles, Mumps, Rubella are viruses that actually are susceptible to "vaccines". So far, there are other viruses similarly susceptible to vaccination: Chicken pox, certain pneumonias, certain meningitis risks. Small pox? Gone, save the secret labs in USA, Russia, China. SARS-CoVID-2 is a different virus and is not capable of being eliminated. Thank Xi and friends for that.
Polio is nearly eliminated since it lives only in the human gut and the vaccines have just about eradicated that. On the other hand, the viruses that cause the others, particularly measles, are just out and about and always will be. Not getting populations nearly fully vaccinated has caused pretty significant outbreaks in recent years. Google it.
Also, easily omitted from common sense dialogue is that the Polio Vaccine went through seven years of testing/trials before getting any FDA approval and then it was full approval not Emergency Use. Or that our Government has ever explained to us exactly why Covid vaccines warranted EU use… again, we are to believe they are doing what is best for us but they won’t explain why. A reporter asks Biden about pressuring China as to the origin of COVID and he points at the reporter, laughs and walks away. Unacceptable.
Richard Ebright is on record as saying that documentary evidence of the origins of C-19 is just as easily found in the U.S. as China. At any rate, China told the U.S. and the rest of the world to fuck off more than a year ago regarding the origins of covid. What in the world makes you think that China would reveal the origins of covid to Biden or anyone else for that matter? Maybe Biden and Xi can arm-wrestle over it at the next summit.
You’re good with an arm wrestle, I demand answers. As should we ALL.Then maybe some of these crimes against humanity in general would lessen. Why do go to snark? Try problem solving, that’s why Matt had such a WIDE audience,we’re here to find common ground.
Try problem solving. I demand answers. Crimes against humanity. We're here to find common ground. It's generally considered bad form to make assumptions regarding the motives of strangers. You say you're here to find common ground. That's both fine for you and irrelevant to me.
I point out that Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, and one of the world's leading experts on laboratory gain-of-function experiments, has repeatedly stated for more than a year that DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE OF THE ORIGINS OF C-19 IS JUST AS EASILY FOUND IN THE U.S. AS CHINA. One might construe this information as at least an attempt at "problem solving," but my purpose here is not to solve problems. In my opinion that's not what a comment section is for, but if you believe otherwise I defer to you.
Ebright may be correct and he may not be. What he has been doing, primarily, is dropping coy hints and signaling to potential investigators that there is evidence here in the U.S. if anyone cares to go after it and dig, and that if the Chinese insist on stonewalling indefinitely there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Keep in mind that this is a global superpower, not a local municipality that might otherwise be successfully "pressured" into coughing up some "answers."
If Ebright is correct, then one can assume that many others are aware of this also, including those in both the U.S. scientific community and the Biden administration, including the president himself. But assuming you are accurately framing the interaction between the reporter and Biden, the reporter's question by any measure is extraordinarily obtuse.
It's unclear, actually, what you find unacceptable. The reporter's callow and obtuse question to the president? Or that the head of another global superpower would smile and walk away from such a callow and obtuse question, a question absurdly inappropriate for that forum? A question, given the sensitive and politically charged topic, that is clearly not going to be answered in such a forum? By the president or anyone else?
And if you do believe that this forum is appropriate for an American president to be asked by a reporter why he isn't pressuring the Chinese for an answer on such a politically sensitive and controversial topic, one that has enormous global ramifications and repercussions, then it's best to be prepared to be disappointed. And if you're someone who in that moment "demands answers," well, I don't think I can help you here.
My "snark," as you call it, is in my opinion reliably proportional to both your obtuseness and and clumsy presumptions.
In 2012 new cases of polio were down to 252 worldwide before Gates made it his mission to eradicate it. He forced an oral vaccine on Indian children who got 50 doses before they were 5. But it had the live virus so that it got into sewage and water systems. Within years there were 491,000 cases of non-polio flaccid paralysis, which looks just like polio but is twice as deadly. As virologists said, they eradicated polio by renaming it. Check out RFK's book for this and other horrifying facts about things you thought you knew (or at least I thought I did).
COVID is not like polio. Polio existed in humans for thousands of years. COVID for one.
The COVID vaccine is not like the polio vaccine. The polio vaccine was developed and tested for decades. The COVID vaccine for less than one year.
2021 is not like the 1960’s. Right or wrong, the masses trusted the government and the media in the 60’s. Now they don’t. That problem already existed way before COVID burst onto the scene. Now it’s worse, and the public health “experts” have made it so.
There is no “knowledge” available that polio vaccines justify COVID vaccines. There is only belief.
Thanks, Deryl. Had the technology of today been available 70 years ago in the 50's (not 60's) that is available today, maybe they could have done the polio vax in less than a year also. There was no penicillin or other of todays antibiotics available then either.
I cotton to facts, not beliefs, although beliefs can make the things real for many (ask a fundamentalist), and the fact that Covid declined precipitously after the vaccine became available is, if not proof, at least a strong suggestion it was working until the unvaxxed became the vector to spread, sicken and kill millions more.
I’m looking at the data as reported on the IHME website, trusting that you will take that as fact. Going by their data and doing some 5th grade math, I find the following for the US:
Confirmed cases peaked on Jan 8, and then dropped 69% before 10% of the population had their first vaccine shot.
We achieved 50% of the population fully vaccinated with 2 shots on Aug 5. Confirmed cases rose by 85% from that date until they peaked again on Aug 27.
We have facts, and then we have interpretation of facts. I suppose you can interpret as you wish. My interpretation is that the vaccine did not cause the rate of confirmed cases to decline precipitously. I also interpret that the rate of confirmed cases increased dramatically AFTER we had half the population vaccinated.
Neither the manufacturers of the vaccines nor the authorities pushing them are making claims that the vaccines reduce transmission. So I don’t know what facts you are relying on to suggest that the unvaxxed are vectors to spread the virus.
Fear is the #2 risk factor leading to death from COVID. It looks to me like the people pushing vaccine and mask mandates are vectors of fear, and that is killing people.
Yes interpretation is key. For instance, i figger the rate of confirmed cases rose after the 50% vaccination among the Unvaxxed, not the vaxxed and another strain, the Delta emerged to inflame the problem.
Every person i know that had the covid were unvaxxed and every one i know who were vaxxed did not get it.
A small sample, i know, which included my family and friends, call it anecdotal if you wish, all claims of marijuana medicinal values were called anecdotal, yet we know values exist and have for decades but discounted by the powers as anecdotal.
The Delta strain also occurred after the first wave of cases which accounts for an increase in the rise of victims. Now we have the Omicron strain and soon another.
As far as vectors go, you are within your rights to suggest that both vaxxed and unvaxxed can be carriers, but i will take my chances with the vaxxed being less likely to transmit than the unvaxxed.
Fear is a total 'nother book, often converted to anger as fear itself can be unmanageable.
Thanks again for your comments.
As far as fear goes, i would suggest it is more likely that wishing loved ones are protected as well as possible against this deadly disease than fear per se.
I don't enjoy being a buzzkill, Spiderbaby. But the covid virus doesn't care about our individualism, or our human rights.
The covid virus was not invented as a pretext to take our rights away. Notwithstanding the prevailing tone of the TK comments on this topic, the virus is not some overhyped myth. It's currently straining nearly every hospital system in the country. According to the most recent reports I've read on covid, hospitalization is not the only indicator of a severe consequence from contracting the disease. The "mild" cases that don't resolve quickly and lead to long-term aftereffects are much more of a problem than originally anticipated. The virus is mutating a lot faster than we had hoped, and it's become a lot more communicable.
I don't know how probable the worse-case scenarios are, but according to what I've read, the trends are ominous. We will find out in due time. But it's worth noting that the people scoffing at the severity of this pandemic virus have a track record of incorrect predictions that stacks up a lot worse than that of the medical professionals and virologists who are actually contending with it. Despite the fact that they're performing under continuous scrutiny, and every misstep (and missteps are inevitable) is interpreted as discrediting their efforts, by the scoffers at the problem of the virus itself. But the scoffers don't apply anything like the same scrutiny to their own position. It's easy to criticize from a position that's beyond accountability.
You can reply any way you want. But one of us is right here, and one of us is wrong. I hope it's me, frankly. But that isn't a question to be settled by anyone's command of rhetoric or ability to turn a cynical phrase, or by hand-waving. The question will be settled within the next six months, by the factual reality of this rapidly mutating virus and its effects on the human population. And the people who imagine otherwise are not putting forth their best efforts to minimize the damage.
I get that, say, considered simply on its own terms, someone's decision to inject methamphetamine is a personal choice. But vaccination against covid isn't like that. Vaccination is not all about you, or me. It's about us, the humans.
Never once said that the virus was "invented as a pretext to take our rights away."
If you have a problem with people who say that lecture them.
It is safe to say now that this appeared for some reason other than, say, mama nature had a bad hair day. Maybe the scientists who love to play God should realize they don't possess His infallibility and stop weaponizing viruses.
I work at an assisted care facility and I worked through 2 waves of Covid. One pre-vax, one post-vax. In the pre-vax phase, 2 clients died. In the post-vax phase 3 clients died. All 5 literally had one foot in the grave & the other foot on a banana peel long before Covid came along.
As an example one of the women who died post-vax was only alive because she had no family and the facility won't do DNR orders, preferring to let people degenerate down to the point that they're lumps of bed ridden meat. In her case her muscles were contorting so badly her legs were beginning to corkscrew. As her care nurse told me, she also could no longer close her mouth and "shit was growing in it." Did not ask what was growing because I didn't want to know.
I am vaccinated champ. Rightly or wrongly I made that choice for myself.
What I don't support is a government that turns a highly experimental technique loose on the world without explaining all the potential risks and then tells us to sign a form alleviating the pharmaceutical company from any liability for said experimental treatment.
What I don't support is a system that forces people to take a shot that could potentially harm them and then will quickly turn their backs on them once the harm is done.
What I don't support is a liberal media that constantly trucks pharma CEOs in front of the camera as if they're medical experts and that acts like they've never heard the phrase "conflict of interest."
What I don't support is a system that grossly over-inflates the death count and then constantly uses that over-inflated death count to terrify the credulously gullible into compliance.
What I don't support is a system of censorship where anyone who even deviates minutely from the party line is smeared like a criminal no matter what their credentials are or how prudent their quibbles seem.
What I don't support is a system of idiotic lockdowns that seriously hammer the middle & lower class while grossly enriching the wealthy.
Here was my response to the lockdown. I went to work every day. I went to the store to shop & did my own shopping because there is no way in Hell I could live with being such a weak kneed pussy that I'd force low paid workers to shop for me & then have them shove it in my trunk in a sort of coward's drive-by.
Here is Joe Biden's pre-election response to the vaccine:
"If the president announced tomorrow we have a vaccine would you take it? Only if it was completely transparent that other experts in the country could look at it. Only if we knew all of what went into it."
Instead we got a completely opaque process where independent experts who didn't sign off on it were smeared & censored and the FDA then blocks any data releases requested under FOIA.
Kamala Harris on vaccines; "If Donald Trump tells us to take it I'm not taking it."
Nancy Pelosi on mandates and vaccines: "So here's the thing, we cannot require someone to be vaccinated. That's just not what we can do. It is a matter of privacy to know who is or who isn't vaccinated."
It's also the fucking law by teh way. It's called HIPAA, maybe you've heard of it?
It's also amazing how many Democrats who, under Trump, felt that any attempt by Trump to force a vaccine mandate meant that he was 'taking a page from Putin's authoritarian playbook." These same people under Biden want the unvaxxed segregated & they want it to "rain mandates." Hypocrite isn't a big enough word to describe these partisan liberal shitheads.
The thing I love the most is how, for years, I've been reading articles, primarily from the left, explaining how the FDA & the CDC are almost completely captured by the pharmaceutical industry. Articles that contain example after example of how pharmaceutical companies aren't exactly ethical in their practices. Yet now, every shitlib in the country seems to have, with the appearance of Covid, wet themselves right before they unquestioningly prostrated themselves before the gods of Big Pharma.
I had my second shot last February so I'm pretty sure that whatever protection it offered has long since evaporated. I have no plans on taking the booster. My wife, on the other hand, wants the booster. I completely support her for one simple reason that you may not understand, IT IS HER CHOICE.
Lol! Had to step away from Covid land. It's tiresome. Wish I had something amusing to say. Sadly I don't. Just tired & waiting for my 16 hour shift to end so I can go home, walk my big dopey dog and then settle down with a joint before I fade into oblivion. Sorry & cheers.
The COVID virus doesn’t care about individualism or human rights, and it also doesn’t care about politics or political boundaries. So, we can see clearly when we look at maps of the US and overlay COVID hot spots that move around over time, that it moves around past state lines as if they don’t exist. It becomes more and more clear that the human measures don’t do anything.
I do agree COVID was not invented to take our rights away. There were already powerful people who wanted to do that, and some of them are now capitalizing on COVID as a means to that end.
I agree that the virus is not a myth, but it is overhyped. It should be taken very seriously, but not be the cause of panic. Panic is never useful.
I am watching all the data in my community, and our hospital system isn’t strained. Yet we’re under the same orders as those who are.
Above all, we all need our public health authorities to maintain credibility and for the general public to have faith in them at all times. They’ve blown that here in so many ways. They’ve said things they knew were not true in order to try to get the behavior they wanted. They’ve been caught not following their own orders. They’ve given very costly orders without giving any convincing rationale. They’ve ignored the very real and obvious costs of their orders. As for the vaccine mandates, we have very experienced and credible experts with strong track records who are on the side of getting more people vaccinated countering that legal mandates are not going to result in getting more people vaccinated. All they are really doing is more damage to the public trust.
The readership here are some of the smartest and most informed around, and not given to ideological capture. It’s uncalled for to talk to us like we’re ignorant rubes. You used the phrase “…according to what I’ve read…” a number of times. We all read. I suspect you are doing all your reading in one place.
My favorite image of the lockdowns comes from my local McDs. Every time I had to go anywhere I had to pass McDs. The line stretched around the building, across the parking lot, out into the street where it proceeded to stretch for about 200 yards to the stoplight, bent around the corner on that cross street for another 50-100 yds. Every day.
I started to seriously wonder if the special ingredient in McDs' special sauce was crack or fentanyl.
So with a steady McRib McNugget McMac diet were they hoping to...do what? Make it easier to get sick?
Any time I wander into my local Wally World Mart the clientele is overwhelmingly overweight. I see people who can't be more than 30-35 riding around on those scooter carts cause their knees won't bear their weight.
I'll see entire families where ma & pa are supersized as are their brood of McNuggets. It's sad & it's child abuse.
I understand the addiction deal. I started smoking around 13. By the time my mom died of cancer I was a human chain smoking chimney.
At that point I took an honest look at myself and the weakness I saw in myself just pissed me off. Quit on the spot. Even carried an unopened pack of smokes with me everywhere I went just to rub my own nose in it. Never opened the fucker. Haven't touched one since.
What puzzles me is how can the 6th overturn the 5th? Appellate courts can’t overturn each other. Only SCOTUS can overturn an appellate court. At least that’s what I always thought.
Thanks for your report. Keep speaking up. Trying to spread the word here about what is headed our way, and our need to unite NOW against the mandates, but most in the US (still) don't pay much attention to the rest of the world. :(
As we tend to view Europe thru a "socialist" lens, their govts are seemingly ready to switch to full tilt fascism when it suits them. At least in some populations there is some history of fighting back and disobedience [a rare hat tip to the French public].
Reading the above, the Germans literally learned nothing in the last 80+ years. Seems like there will have to be sabotage occurring at the grass roots level (groups of balloons in the high tension wires, failure to deliver goods to govt buildings, etc.)
Huh. Well, if I read this right, you seem to believe that this Build Back Better Bill is something that will actually benefit poor people instead of being wasted by a totally incompetent government and adding to our national debt exponentially. It will also include all kinds of garbage that curtails freedom. I am with you on allowing people to protest, though I haven't heard why they were arrested yet, either. I doubt they'll be held long. Leftists are usually allowed to protest and ruin cities without many consequences.
This is somewhat true, I presume, but irrelevant. That is not how all places were policed anyway in this country. You write this like you think everybody lives in Chicago or New York City. Maybe Chicago. That is not how small town America was policed. And nobody was policed like THIS lately. You can argue that society has not been fair to black people, but Democrat policies have added to this, not helped. They needed mentoring and education and charter schools, not programs that created a dependent society. No matter what, you can't allow lawlessness like has been happening in these cities now. Defunding police. And then just letting them right back out with no consequences. There are a lot of problems here, but you are not addressing them. People are drowning and you are describing the water anyway. And you people always think you can fix one "inequity" by doing more inequities. Multiple wrongs are not solutions. They aren't even vengeance because they are hurting the people you profess to help.
Charter schools are irrelevant to crime? As a good leftist, you should know that crime happens because of the environment these people are raised in. Actually, we good libertarians (and most conservatives) know this, too. Biden and his cronies have supported the teachers' unions over the kids. Teachers who are so poor they wouldn't understand teaching students how to think vs. brainwashing if their lives depended on it. That's also why we are on this site because a free exchange of ideas is not allowed anymore. Duh. If they fixed education and stopped buying votes with programs that perpetuate a dependent society, promising things they will not even DO, but if they DID will NOT help their society, and used that money to really help these people with decent education and promoting a stable family life, crime would go down. Duh. YOU are the vague one. You are more interested in quoting people and sounding smart than you are about solutions. Oh, and I think money should be invested in better police training, but not doing what they are doing. Nor should it be framed this way. And this breaking into places is NOT happening just in these isolated places like you think. In small town Michigan, they are repeatedly breaking into my brother's mini-storage business. It's happening everywhere. Same sort of behavior and he hasn't been able to stop it. FOUR times. Now they have surveillance linked right to the police department and they caught one of them. Anyway, whatever.
Holy crap. This is ridiculous. Why do you think Matt is on substack here and Glenn Greenwald? Matt was not invited on legacy media because he didn't agree with the Russia-gate stuff. He was being censored and he's been attacked by them repeatedly. He's been complaining about Big Tech and what happened with Hunter's laptop to reputable people trying to cover it. What planet are you on? And you better BELIEVE I was censored by my press and worked out of my place in the queue at the university I taught for my views (because I didn't fill out my self evaluation on time because I was down with my son at Karmanos Cancer Center). They did it because I had supported the president of the university on his position that the university should take NO political positions. The head of the English Dept. attacked me publically for that and they worked me out. I didn't fight them because obviously I had enough on my hands. My press when I complained about literary "theory" curriculum in my latest book (usually I published fiction, but this was a literary weird memoir/woodfire cookbook), unfriended me and refused to reply to even an email or phone call. Obviously, they had published me before. Wayne State. Any unwoke person is being censored on Big Tech, in universities and more. Even some liberal writers like Margaret Atwood have published their concerns about the free exchange of ideas in our universities. Published in the Atlantic -- to their credit they have expressed concerns about this a few times. That is why substack EXISTS. Are you seriously this oblivious? Sorry, I'm rambling some here, but you have to be kidding. I'm too tired to go back and make this post clearer. You clearly don't grasp the mess our society is in if you think nobody is being censored. SO I'll stop there.
Mango---you're trafficing in corporate propaganda. After I read my third or so "smash-and-grab" piece I started to laugh. Funny, how the right can groove on the bullshit from the MSM when the MSM bullshit gibes with their own bullshit.
And of COURSE these things are happening --the smash and grab -- for political reasons -- it's because of this left narrative of defunding the police and because of these ridiculous lockdowns that are compromising our whole society. Isolating people, causing huge mental problems. Nightmare. There are so many reasons for this--mostly caused by leftist idiot narratives. Again, there are improvements to be made, but the left's solutions are NOT solutions--anyway, I am seriously done here.
Oh please, whatever. I'm old enough to know how policing worked in the small towns I lived in without having to read some woke intellectual take on it. I was there. And I'm an adjunct professor. So I know how these narratives all work. Just because you are quoting quasi-intellectual people doesn't make it all correct or necessarily prove any of this. Nor is any of it a solution. I agree on the dangers of citizen surveillance and I'm certainly not for these authoritarian moves or I wouldn't be on this site, but this is much truer of urban cities than all of America. And this defunding thing has affected police departments everywhere, not just in a few places. They needed improvement but this narrative HAS impacted all of this. At the very least, the laws should be applied impartially. You don't throw people who haven't even been tried into prisons for 8 months while you let others out almost immediately, no matter what has happened in the past. Police departments do need better training, but they also needed support and that is NOT what they've gotten.
Yeah, you are so brilliant, you have to quote people to make your points. I know how this has worked a long time because I've been part of it. It's all leftist woke garbage. People like you just like to hear your head rattle. Anyway, you have not ONE solution besides blaming people which is pretty much what higher education does full time. Things are always someone else's fault and you think behaving poorly is justified because things were done poorly before. And there's something to be gained by dwelling on the past forever. And demonizing people. There ARE solutions to it, but tearing down society is not it. Anyway, I'm off here.
All very true but two wrongs do not make a right. I fear what is going on now has much less of a chance being reversed than it was back then. The main difference between then and now is that there weren't nearly the tools of oppression that exist today (constant surveillance, absolute control of the media and therefore newspeak, burgeoning world-wide censorship, etc). Additionally, the populace has been the frog in the boiling water too long now and most people appear to be too stupid, incapable or unwilling to examine issues intelligently or objectively. The youth are fully indoctrinated and learning how to debate and socialize since the draconian COVID bullshit has been destroyed.
Well, I don't support mean-spirited name-calling, but the main source for the text you copied was indeed the Marxist Sidney L. Harring, so he's not totally off-base.
I've been a fan of Rev. Barber's message, which has been about uniting poor and working people of all ethnicities, and he's not deeply embedded in damaging identity politics. Like an old school leftist.
I have to wonder about his aligning with the zombie Biden administration, and especially this broken, neoliberal Build Back Better legislation which anyone can see will be a bunch of Obamacare-like policies that hurt more than they help. It's obvious. They should be fighting its passing, if anything. Manchin is likely the rotating villain for a dozen or more senators unwilling to vote for this legislation, if anything, but there are way more moderate Democrats that would empathize with him than with the squad. The demonization of him is counterproductive, at best.
And why block the roadways? I always dislike stories being presented as "arrested for a protest," when they weren't arrested for a protest; they were arrested for blocking a roadway. The police seemed totally reasonable here. I always think this stuff hurts a progressive movement. There are working people who get stuck in traffic and decide that they're not voting with these people.
This is all akin to throwing a movement in several gears of reverse. Let's get real here.
His Twitter feed reveals what he is, a hardcore left wing activist. He is absolutely a partisan who engages in identity politics. Some of them were on display in this video. People who are fighting for BBB have no idea what they really are fighting for as they most likely have not read the bill. Has anyone really read the bill?
I haven’t looked at his feed in a while, but I’ve seen some questionable stuff there on occasion myself. What I’m mainly referring to are some of his media appearances over the last couple of years where he pushes a very MLK-like message of equality, and bringing poor people of all races together in a positive way. His message was very at odds with the heavy “identity over all” refrain, coupled with an animosity towards the working class that some of idiot sages of this new era push. Barber can be wonderfully thoughtful and persuasive and empathetic.
I think, like Bernie, he’s felt it necessary to hitch his wagon to the IdPol movement, unaware that said wagon has no wheels.
My favorite part of "Build Back Better" is the fact that Biden simply can almost never say it correctly and usually slurs something like "Bill Black Butter." We know he didn't come up with this shit. Always funny.
My least favorite part is when other frightening, necrotic western world leaders say it — like clockwork — in their speeches. We know they didn't come up with this shit. Never funny.
Trump is an agent of Trump and out to enrich Trump. Say it again with me: Trump is an agent of Trump and out to enrich Trump, same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
And Biden, Inc. seems to have done a good job enriching themselves too. Joe has not had a job in the private sector, his wife is a part time community college professor and they own multiple homes and have millions of dollars of net worth. Don't forget Hunter, Ashley, Valerie and Jim too. 10% for the big guy! ALL of our politicians do a good job of being an agent of themselves. The Clintons and Obamas went from "dirt poor" and bitched about student loan debt. They all seem to be doing well for themselves too. I bet Trump is the only POTUS to see his networth DECLINE post-administration. They all suck. Harry Reid lived in a penthouse at the Four Seasons in DC as a humble man from Searchlight Nevada. Yes, I know there are plenty of R's who play the grift magnificently too/
I'm not a democrat. I'm not a Biden supporter. Certainly not a Clinton supporter. Biden was neither subject nor predicate in either my comment or the comment I was responding to. A few commenters here are harsh critics of American politics in general. Keep that in mind. If you take exception with my take on Trump, by all means do so. But campaign for the republican party elsewhere.
LOL, sure Jan. Thanks for your critique. I will repeat my comment. "They all suck." I was just calling you out over your selective comments to remind you that they all are agents for themselves. Biden is President now, not Trump and Biden is just as crooked as the day is long too.
It does seem a little ridiculous, I agree, but if they could seemingly step out of the road and on to the grass next to said road to avoid arrest, why not do that? Why not make peaceful, legal protest just that: peaceful legal protest. Is it because arrest, or threat thereof is what brings media attention?
It seems that most "arrests" were released instantly, but Rev. Barber would have to spend the night in jail (for a previous arrest record if the conversation with police is to be believed), but he allowed 17 of his fellow protestors to be arrested while he stepped away from the fray. I question any leadership that allows its followers to take the fall while it takes the two steps necessary to escape said fate.
In that protest is always disrupts order to some agree, that's true. But it's absolutely not always the case that protest has to be illegal, or otherwise harmful, to be effective and not "virtue signaling" — although it almost is certainly always "virtue signaling" when the "laptop class" (that don't actually work) protest; disruptive, destructive, or not — but do you not see how illegal protest that shuts down roads or otherwise stops basic city functioning be wildly counterproductive in actually persuading people that actually are working for a living?
Protest has largely become the domain of the Brooklyn bro with hideous facial hair class (who once spent their days in Greenpoint coffee shops commenting on the internet all day, but now do it from home) angrily typing "shut it all down, shut the whole system down!" on their $2,500 laptops.
These are people that have never so much as mowed a lawn, but have all of this country's spoils, and have appointed themselves the authority on all of society. "Shutting it all down" to them means streets, transportation, the fire department, the police, schools, or any of the meaningful work (that they've never done, natch) that makes society actually function. They think that if they git rid off these things, all of the world will be a great non-corporate utopia, like Greenpoint, and we'll all spend our days in coffee shops with our Macbooks, and iPhones wearing expensive clothes made by children on the other side of the world, drinking $8 coffee picked by workers making 5 cents an hour somewhere we can't find on a map.
Totally agree with you that blocking traffic usually just pisses the wrong people off. It does matter who's day your disrupting. The best protests disrupt the lives of the powerful. A good example are many, but not all, of extinction rebellions protests.
Maybe one day, people will figure out that selling your personal welfare and soul to the state has tremendous costs. But maybe not. Biden inflation will destroy any gains the lower class make from this while the usual empowered class will cash in, again. Same story, different day.
Richard Wolff makes some good points, but he frequently uses the "leap of faith" of socialism, and is the proponent of all the santas that exist in government whose sole mission in life is to make us all well-fed and happy.
I grew up in a blue collar, ethnic family in a blue collar ethnic New England Town. I turn 69 in a few days. My parents were JFK Dems. JFK would be Joe Manchin now.
Yes. I want our tax dollars to help people, not prop-up zombie corporations. You're living in 1980's ronald reagan propaganda. Welfare queens never existed and and trickle down never happened.
LOL and how is that working out for you? It's pretty clear from where I'm sitting that money government spends doesn't actually help people on Main Street and instead fatten the wallets of the politically connected.
Maybe the NEXT trillion dollars they spend will be the one that finally helps the people, right?
Their philosophy undermines the ability to sustain a productive economy. Then there is the human nature/corruption angle. Most socializers seem to think government is full of Santas with a very, very few bad men.
Yes, it's corporatism-fascism. Look at all the big industries, they all move between the large corporations and government. We are beholden to corporations--and their control on government. More government will not fix this, it only adds to the problems, as new government employees continue to vote for measures that give corporations (through government) more power. Look at how Amazon profited from the pandemic. Middle class people who live normal lives all over the country lost the ability, almost overnight, to care for themselves, all at the word of corporations-government.
Some people may think this way but the problem is obvious. Why do they expect progressive elites to take over the country, rather than some sort of fascist? More likely they have an irrational faith in their economists' ability to perform miracles.
There is a global connection to the progressive elites, and you must remember that fascism is essentially a leftist hierarchy. We are already in the fascist/corporatist state of things. One needs to look no further than the pharmaceuticals and silicon valley--and the defense industry. One week these people are big board members, next week they are in the government responsible for oversight. ? Heck, the CDC is an outright fascist organization as it holds and profits directly from its own patents.
There is no difference. One has national aspirations, the other global. Both authoritarian control of the means of production. But, always for the good of the people. See Russia, 1917-1991. BTW, Stalin did not make a very good "for the comrades" type of dude. Find us your socialist Santa.
The current system only works for rich people and corporations. WTF is a progressive elite? Ha! Can we start thinking about the common good? Like water, which is now being bought out by hedge fund managers.
They're indifferent to any "systems"--- they're primarily interested in frog-marching the most irritating lot of the far right to the gulags. Then they'll deal with the systems.
I didn’t watch to the end. But if you’re in the middle of the street and a police officer warns you multiple times to leave, move to a sidewalk. Unless your goal is confrontation, arrest and coverage. If nobody got abused during the process, I don’t see anything wrong here. Even if your cause is righteous doesn’t mean you have to be so self-righteous about expressing it.
That's the problem: they wouldn't get coverage unless they did something illegal to get arrested for. It's a publicity stunt and they were handled with kid gloves, so it's mainly a non-story.
I've been mainly positive on Rev. Barber and his unifying message (although I don't care for many of his alliances), but when the leader of a publicity-seeking, traffic-blocking protest allows many of the protesters to be arrested, while he himself moves to the sideline to avoid arrest, one has to wonder if said leader is working in everyone's best interest. No?
As Chris Hedges has said many times, civil disobedience is the ONLY WAY to pressure the elites to do anything they don't want to do (like giving people universal healthcare or a living minimum wage). The people must rise up and SHUT THE SYSTEM DOWN. Why? Because nice, calm, polite protests that don't disrupt the system or inconvenience the powerful will accomplish NOTHING.
Yeah, I like Chris Hedges a good bit too, but the idea that this was "civil disobedience" is like saying Joe Biden's pants aren't filled with shit. This is "corporate toolery." They are literally working for the "elites," like Nancy Pelosi, while she steals your money via a stock market that she fixes. She was probably doing just that while this shit went down.
And when "shutting the system down" becomes the province of underemployed, overeducated "future elites," who gladly impede the basic day-to-day functions of actual poor and working people (because they hate them; it's not even a secret anymore), who do you think is getting the shaft here?
I'm being unfair to Rev. Barber, who I do think is an interesting thought leader.
I shouldn't lump him in with the PMC junior league or spoiled brat fuck laptop class that's usually at the forefront of these things, or who've taken over and destroyed once-meaningful institutions like the ACLU, the DSA or functional worldwide democracy and reporting, but shilling for the Biden/Pelosi/Obama goons is just a bridge too far, and we have to recognized it for what it is.
The DSA has never been a meaningful institution and has in fact always been well-stocked with the "PMC junior league or spoiled brat fuck laptop class."
I don’t know why he wasn’t arrested, but consider the message to the folks waiting for the street to clear: Hi there, people. We love you, we’re doing this for you. Please don’t get mad at us for interrupting your dreary, humdrum little lives for our morally superior protest. It’s for your own good.
No. It's considered a bona fide for a protest leader like Barber to get arrested at such events. If he didn't get arrested, it's probably because the police told him they were NOT going to arrest him. Getting arrested gathers more publicity. And I believe it is the police who ultimately decides who is "allowed" to get arrested and who isn't. Be a little more savvy.
In the video, it's obvious that he was going to not be arrested and release, but have to spend the night in jail (from a previous arrest record, if the conversation with the cop is to be believed).
So, he took the two steps out of the road to avoid arrest and let the rest of the protestors take the fall... for, um, Biden's signature, broken legislation. As much as I've enjoyed following Barber and think his positive message at odds with dumb IdPol has been reassuring, I think it's time to put him in the "lost cause" column.
Amazing the degree to which people will fight for something they know little or nothing about. Ask any one of them to provide a single citation from The BBB bill and you’ll get a blank stare. That bill has about as much chance of helping those in need as the Affordable Care Act had of providing low-cost healthcare. DC well knows that a clever title coupled with an ascertain that to question even a single part of said bill is tantamount to [insert ad hominem here] is all that’s needed to convince the feeble-minded to fight for something guaranteed to offer them no benefit whatsoever. But let’s face it, in all likelihood those people were paid to hold that demonstration.
And then the equally predictable attempts to dodge: "What offense?", or "People are saying...", or "It was just a jest!", as if feigning innocence could make up for the absence of substance.
Keep slangin' the spaghetti, Ed! Maybe something will eventually stick.
You're correct. That's because the original bill has been gutted by republicans and barely defended or fought for by democrats. Other than this morsel of truth, an idiotic comment. Where can I get a magic device like yours--"something they know little or nothing about. Ask any one of them to provide a single citation from The BBB bill and you’ll get a blank stare."
You didn't mention the ACA in your first comment. Why bring it up here? Personally, I don't want to hear about your first-hand knowledge of ACA rates. I'd like to hear your first-hand knowledge of BBB. Since you're already on record disparaging the "blank stares" and ignorance of BBB of the protestors, stands to reason you ought to be able to speak at length on the provisions of the bill. Hell, even specifics.
That’s inaccurate. The rates eventually exceeded the cost of non-ACA plans so I switched. The rest of your statement is valid. Unfortunately it’s rarely mentioned that healthcare provider profits skyrocketed post-ACA.
I did a deep-dive (spreadsheet), into the ACA rates in my area and there's little difference in the minimum guaranteed profit for the insurance companies between the gold thru bronze plans. It's a racket. An immoral, unnecessary scourge on American society.
Federal takeover of voting doesn't portend a well for functioning liberal democracy. A sea of mail-in ballots allowed for self-styled, partisan vote navigators," vote harvesters -- we'll take that for you -- partisan activists working for municipal elections, no proof of ID when we need it for buying cottage cheese. Build Back Better-- another euphemism used by hacks who assume an average I.Q. of 6- is loaded with one-party aspirations and obeying the increasingly insane base.
I still can't believe that this guy thinks that the "Biden" administration's Build Back Better bill will ... help the poor.
This is the mind of a 7th grade girl listening to Cat Stevens records, breathing heavily while thinking about helping the downtrodden. Off the charts naive.
I think your assessment in penultimate paragraph is correct, which, begging his pardon, makes Reverend Barber a "useful idiot." What is bewildering to me is the belief that the folks who have presided over all of this for the last 50 years have the ability, let alone the desire, to craft policy that will actually help create better conditions for the poor. Yeah, just get rid of Manchin and everything will be (built back) better! LMFAO There is no soul crushing inflation, and it doesn't hurt the poor. (Krugman told me so!) And BBB will not continue that inflationary spire. It won't be chock full of worthless spending delegated to politcally savvy contractors who will launder a significant proportion back to those in power. Give me a break
Thank you - this is TRULY invaluable. And -- it is more and more likely -- in 2024 elections it will be a repeat of HILLARY versus TRUMP (if there will even be elections)
-- Biden and DNC War party strategy: "Pinching Pennies for People – but Endless Cash for War".
-- $300 B to extremely wealthy -- definition of Biden's "transformative" presidency “Build Back Better framework” and DNC "party" of oligarchs and corruption !! Biden is as much DNC and US War party fraud as Obama, Trump and Hillary.
-- Cowardly Bernie Sanders missed one opportunity in HUNDRED years -- to unmask the modern "original sin" -- DNC-CIA scam of the century -- the Russia-gate hoax. Our beloved country would look VERY different if he had courage to stand up and unmask Hillary-Obama-Biden Russia-gate concoction.
-- Who will be the first Dem politician to state it publicly while we are hurling in the NEW Cold war with Russia, a CAPITALIST country for 31+ years...
-- Anything "left" has left Dems long ago -- like GOP, they’re aristocrats and authoritarians whose idea of heaven is a Dick Cheney spy state with unlimited censorship and a press corps of obedient snitches.
PS: The stench of Biden-family's and Democrats' corruption is simply unbearable. Opposing it are equally incompetent Trump and rabid anti-China GOP clowns.
As a previous commenter said, that perspective - which I'm afraid is Matt's also - is simply nihilism. Might as well just hang up doing anything and be angry at the world. of course BBB is an incremental step but it'll do much to improve people's lives. Biden along w Bernie deserve much credit for seeking to do real practical good despite the flaws and half-measures in the law. I stand w the protesters and all people who want govt to support people here and now. Damn shame Matt chooses to disparage them as pawns
Repeat --- The stench of Biden-family's and Democrats' corruption is simply unbearable. Opposing it are equally incompetent Trump and rabid anti-China GOP clowns.
Ah yes, neoliberalism in general and pro-China policy have been boons to the people of the US. And by people of the US, I mean McKinsey, Goldman, and the their clients, the remaining 99.999% of the nation, not so much.
But, at least this love affair with the CCP hasn't interfered with its human rights abuses and drug peddling to the US via MX, et al.
Woo-Hoo, we need a bigger stronger CCP and China...
I’m pretty sure Russia isn’t a capitalist economy. I have a very cursory understanding of Yeltsin’s privatization moves, but I don’t think it resulted in capitalism. If it did, there would be Russian goods circulating in the global economy. I’m not aware that there are, other than some petroleum and a world-class theft-by-hacking industry. China, THAT’S Capitalism.
I have to say that Rev. Barber's recent defense of Kamala Harris where he accused people criticizing her of being sexist and racist has put me off of him.
All you really need to know about the odds of the average people in this country benefiting from any bill passed in Washington was addressed in the Gilens and Page study that was published in 2014. It measured the level of representation the public receives from Washington over two decades. The result was little to none.
The reason is obvious. The donor class has bought up every institution in this country. The government works for private interests. The public is on the outside looking in. It’s the new feudalism.
Check out the classic George Carlin video “It’s a Big Club and You Ain’t In It.”
Not to be a big wiener head but the really interesting demonstrations are not occurring amongst people dumb enough to believe Joe Biden's mumbled word salad.
The really interesting demonstrations are occurring in Europe where people are actually uniting in solidarity over vaccine mandates.
Solidarity you say? What the fuck is that?
No it's not a deodorant sold in Poland in the 80s. And no, you can't buy it on Amazon.
It's when the vaxxed in Italy burn their green passes to show support for the unvaxxed and their basic human rights.
Human rights you ask? What the fuck are they? (Topic of another lecture.)
It's when huge numbers of the vaxxed & the unvaxxed take to the streets together and remind their leaders all the things about democracy that said leaders have evidently forgotten.
As a response to this outpouring of democracy, the Belgium authorities seem to favor water cannons, tear gas & truncheons. While the German authorities seem to prefer a more hands on approach where they just face plant your unvaxxed ass into the concrete. Pepper spray is also quite popular. I've seen more grandpas splayed out with 5 cops on their backs in the last few weeks than I ever thought I'd see in reality. But like the one cop told the unvaxxed fellow, "The unvaxxed aren't human."
Gee that's not a recipe for a pogrom is it?
Luckily the news media is blaming all the violence on right wing extremists and not the government who we all know only want what's best for us all.
Damn, you right wingers are insidious.
I was speaking with a friend who lives in the SF Bay area and has caught the mind-virus that's endemic in that area. She was trying to explain to me that COVID vaccine mandates are good because polio vaccine mandates were good. She couldn't hear my explanation of how it's different.
As far as I know, anything related to polio is "mandated" at the local level by public schools and not at the federal or state level.
You should bring that up. Also point out the number of people that died thanks to faulty polio vaccine manufacturing. I think it was like, 40,000 or so?
In any case, history is fun!
He could also probably mention that no one took a proper polio vaccine and then contracted a weaker version of polio 6 months after the shot. Then 6 months after that shot. Then 6 months...you get the idea.
I think it's also fair to say that they forced the word "vaccine" to stick to this iteration by using copious amounts of duct tape & super glue. Sort of like renaming a mercenary as a mall cop.
It's also fair to say that they didn't have to exaggerate the polio numbers in order to scare people into compliance like they've obviously done with Covid. My personal favorite example comes out of Australia where a guy took 3 bullets to the chest in a bar dispute but also happened to test positive for Covid so he quite logically died of of Covid.
Biden, in his pre-president days, said that the only way people would take this vaccine was if the entire process was transparent and independent experts had a chance to examine the data & sign off on it. All good advice that he seems have forgotten post inauguration.
It's the one time in his life forgetting is a plausible excuse. He's been a dirtbag his entire career.. Senator Credit Card and while Banksters had rates drop to low single digits consumer credit can go to 35% interest.
Fun fact the prohibition on interest income is the only part of Sharia Law that politicians object to. Head chopping fine, profit cutting..nah that's a threat.
I also remember quite distinctly he being a shill for the RIAA and all in for copyrights last near forever. He's the definition of a modern day carpetbagger.
Spiderbaby, you ignorant... wait, I did that joke already.
That's a good point. Polio, measles, it's well understood how bad these things are.
COVID does smack of, "Thou doth protest too much."
Polio virus lives solely in the gut of homo sapiens. Prevent the last case and that virus is history. Measles, Mumps, Rubella are viruses that actually are susceptible to "vaccines". So far, there are other viruses similarly susceptible to vaccination: Chicken pox, certain pneumonias, certain meningitis risks. Small pox? Gone, save the secret labs in USA, Russia, China. SARS-CoVID-2 is a different virus and is not capable of being eliminated. Thank Xi and friends for that.
Just for future reference I prefer "skank" or "ho-bag." Slut seems overused.
I always fancied, "vagabond hussy."
Does not.
And Polio, measles, mumps, whooping cough are past, not present tense. Your verb should be were, not are, all thanks to vaccines.
Polio is nearly eliminated since it lives only in the human gut and the vaccines have just about eradicated that. On the other hand, the viruses that cause the others, particularly measles, are just out and about and always will be. Not getting populations nearly fully vaccinated has caused pretty significant outbreaks in recent years. Google it.
Does tooooooooo. Nyaaaaaa.
Also, easily omitted from common sense dialogue is that the Polio Vaccine went through seven years of testing/trials before getting any FDA approval and then it was full approval not Emergency Use. Or that our Government has ever explained to us exactly why Covid vaccines warranted EU use… again, we are to believe they are doing what is best for us but they won’t explain why. A reporter asks Biden about pressuring China as to the origin of COVID and he points at the reporter, laughs and walks away. Unacceptable.
Richard Ebright is on record as saying that documentary evidence of the origins of C-19 is just as easily found in the U.S. as China. At any rate, China told the U.S. and the rest of the world to fuck off more than a year ago regarding the origins of covid. What in the world makes you think that China would reveal the origins of covid to Biden or anyone else for that matter? Maybe Biden and Xi can arm-wrestle over it at the next summit.
You’re good with an arm wrestle, I demand answers. As should we ALL.Then maybe some of these crimes against humanity in general would lessen. Why do go to snark? Try problem solving, that’s why Matt had such a WIDE audience,we’re here to find common ground.
Try problem solving. I demand answers. Crimes against humanity. We're here to find common ground. It's generally considered bad form to make assumptions regarding the motives of strangers. You say you're here to find common ground. That's both fine for you and irrelevant to me.
I point out that Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, and one of the world's leading experts on laboratory gain-of-function experiments, has repeatedly stated for more than a year that DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE OF THE ORIGINS OF C-19 IS JUST AS EASILY FOUND IN THE U.S. AS CHINA. One might construe this information as at least an attempt at "problem solving," but my purpose here is not to solve problems. In my opinion that's not what a comment section is for, but if you believe otherwise I defer to you.
Ebright may be correct and he may not be. What he has been doing, primarily, is dropping coy hints and signaling to potential investigators that there is evidence here in the U.S. if anyone cares to go after it and dig, and that if the Chinese insist on stonewalling indefinitely there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Keep in mind that this is a global superpower, not a local municipality that might otherwise be successfully "pressured" into coughing up some "answers."
If Ebright is correct, then one can assume that many others are aware of this also, including those in both the U.S. scientific community and the Biden administration, including the president himself. But assuming you are accurately framing the interaction between the reporter and Biden, the reporter's question by any measure is extraordinarily obtuse.
It's unclear, actually, what you find unacceptable. The reporter's callow and obtuse question to the president? Or that the head of another global superpower would smile and walk away from such a callow and obtuse question, a question absurdly inappropriate for that forum? A question, given the sensitive and politically charged topic, that is clearly not going to be answered in such a forum? By the president or anyone else?
And if you do believe that this forum is appropriate for an American president to be asked by a reporter why he isn't pressuring the Chinese for an answer on such a politically sensitive and controversial topic, one that has enormous global ramifications and repercussions, then it's best to be prepared to be disappointed. And if you're someone who in that moment "demands answers," well, I don't think I can help you here.
My "snark," as you call it, is in my opinion reliably proportional to both your obtuseness and and clumsy presumptions.
Yeah, the Cutter Lab fiasco. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/
In 2012 new cases of polio were down to 252 worldwide before Gates made it his mission to eradicate it. He forced an oral vaccine on Indian children who got 50 doses before they were 5. But it had the live virus so that it got into sewage and water systems. Within years there were 491,000 cases of non-polio flaccid paralysis, which looks just like polio but is twice as deadly. As virologists said, they eradicated polio by renaming it. Check out RFK's book for this and other horrifying facts about things you thought you knew (or at least I thought I did).
The polio vaccine was not mandated, everyone was so grateful for a way of ending that disease they voluntarily and intelligently took it.
Dr. Salk is revered today for his and others science.
Adios Polio.
You cannot fix stupidity.
Ignorance can be fixed with the acceptance of knowledge.
COVID is not like polio. Polio existed in humans for thousands of years. COVID for one.
The COVID vaccine is not like the polio vaccine. The polio vaccine was developed and tested for decades. The COVID vaccine for less than one year.
2021 is not like the 1960’s. Right or wrong, the masses trusted the government and the media in the 60’s. Now they don’t. That problem already existed way before COVID burst onto the scene. Now it’s worse, and the public health “experts” have made it so.
There is no “knowledge” available that polio vaccines justify COVID vaccines. There is only belief.
Thanks, Deryl. Had the technology of today been available 70 years ago in the 50's (not 60's) that is available today, maybe they could have done the polio vax in less than a year also. There was no penicillin or other of todays antibiotics available then either.
I cotton to facts, not beliefs, although beliefs can make the things real for many (ask a fundamentalist), and the fact that Covid declined precipitously after the vaccine became available is, if not proof, at least a strong suggestion it was working until the unvaxxed became the vector to spread, sicken and kill millions more.
That, mi amigo, is ignorance in action.
I’m looking at the data as reported on the IHME website, trusting that you will take that as fact. Going by their data and doing some 5th grade math, I find the following for the US:
Confirmed cases peaked on Jan 8, and then dropped 69% before 10% of the population had their first vaccine shot.
We achieved 50% of the population fully vaccinated with 2 shots on Aug 5. Confirmed cases rose by 85% from that date until they peaked again on Aug 27.
We have facts, and then we have interpretation of facts. I suppose you can interpret as you wish. My interpretation is that the vaccine did not cause the rate of confirmed cases to decline precipitously. I also interpret that the rate of confirmed cases increased dramatically AFTER we had half the population vaccinated.
Neither the manufacturers of the vaccines nor the authorities pushing them are making claims that the vaccines reduce transmission. So I don’t know what facts you are relying on to suggest that the unvaxxed are vectors to spread the virus.
Fear is the #2 risk factor leading to death from COVID. It looks to me like the people pushing vaccine and mask mandates are vectors of fear, and that is killing people.
Where a vacuum of knowledge exists, belief rushes in to fill it.
Whatever.
Yes interpretation is key. For instance, i figger the rate of confirmed cases rose after the 50% vaccination among the Unvaxxed, not the vaxxed and another strain, the Delta emerged to inflame the problem.
Every person i know that had the covid were unvaxxed and every one i know who were vaxxed did not get it.
A small sample, i know, which included my family and friends, call it anecdotal if you wish, all claims of marijuana medicinal values were called anecdotal, yet we know values exist and have for decades but discounted by the powers as anecdotal.
The Delta strain also occurred after the first wave of cases which accounts for an increase in the rise of victims. Now we have the Omicron strain and soon another.
As far as vectors go, you are within your rights to suggest that both vaxxed and unvaxxed can be carriers, but i will take my chances with the vaxxed being less likely to transmit than the unvaxxed.
Fear is a total 'nother book, often converted to anger as fear itself can be unmanageable.
Thanks again for your comments.
As far as fear goes, i would suggest it is more likely that wishing loved ones are protected as well as possible against this deadly disease than fear per se.
Hey! I'm in Poland right now!
Can confirm solidarity is not a brand of deodorant. This person speaks the truth.
Maybe you just haven’t seen it yet, impossible to prove a negative :-)
lol - good one.
Now I'm all paranoid I'll see it in a shop somewhere.
Smells Like Teen Spirit...
I don't enjoy being a buzzkill, Spiderbaby. But the covid virus doesn't care about our individualism, or our human rights.
The covid virus was not invented as a pretext to take our rights away. Notwithstanding the prevailing tone of the TK comments on this topic, the virus is not some overhyped myth. It's currently straining nearly every hospital system in the country. According to the most recent reports I've read on covid, hospitalization is not the only indicator of a severe consequence from contracting the disease. The "mild" cases that don't resolve quickly and lead to long-term aftereffects are much more of a problem than originally anticipated. The virus is mutating a lot faster than we had hoped, and it's become a lot more communicable.
I don't know how probable the worse-case scenarios are, but according to what I've read, the trends are ominous. We will find out in due time. But it's worth noting that the people scoffing at the severity of this pandemic virus have a track record of incorrect predictions that stacks up a lot worse than that of the medical professionals and virologists who are actually contending with it. Despite the fact that they're performing under continuous scrutiny, and every misstep (and missteps are inevitable) is interpreted as discrediting their efforts, by the scoffers at the problem of the virus itself. But the scoffers don't apply anything like the same scrutiny to their own position. It's easy to criticize from a position that's beyond accountability.
You can reply any way you want. But one of us is right here, and one of us is wrong. I hope it's me, frankly. But that isn't a question to be settled by anyone's command of rhetoric or ability to turn a cynical phrase, or by hand-waving. The question will be settled within the next six months, by the factual reality of this rapidly mutating virus and its effects on the human population. And the people who imagine otherwise are not putting forth their best efforts to minimize the damage.
I get that, say, considered simply on its own terms, someone's decision to inject methamphetamine is a personal choice. But vaccination against covid isn't like that. Vaccination is not all about you, or me. It's about us, the humans.
Gee dad thanks for the lecture.
Never once said that the virus was "invented as a pretext to take our rights away."
If you have a problem with people who say that lecture them.
It is safe to say now that this appeared for some reason other than, say, mama nature had a bad hair day. Maybe the scientists who love to play God should realize they don't possess His infallibility and stop weaponizing viruses.
I work at an assisted care facility and I worked through 2 waves of Covid. One pre-vax, one post-vax. In the pre-vax phase, 2 clients died. In the post-vax phase 3 clients died. All 5 literally had one foot in the grave & the other foot on a banana peel long before Covid came along.
As an example one of the women who died post-vax was only alive because she had no family and the facility won't do DNR orders, preferring to let people degenerate down to the point that they're lumps of bed ridden meat. In her case her muscles were contorting so badly her legs were beginning to corkscrew. As her care nurse told me, she also could no longer close her mouth and "shit was growing in it." Did not ask what was growing because I didn't want to know.
I am vaccinated champ. Rightly or wrongly I made that choice for myself.
What I don't support is a government that turns a highly experimental technique loose on the world without explaining all the potential risks and then tells us to sign a form alleviating the pharmaceutical company from any liability for said experimental treatment.
What I don't support is a system that forces people to take a shot that could potentially harm them and then will quickly turn their backs on them once the harm is done.
What I don't support is a liberal media that constantly trucks pharma CEOs in front of the camera as if they're medical experts and that acts like they've never heard the phrase "conflict of interest."
What I don't support is a system that grossly over-inflates the death count and then constantly uses that over-inflated death count to terrify the credulously gullible into compliance.
What I don't support is a system of censorship where anyone who even deviates minutely from the party line is smeared like a criminal no matter what their credentials are or how prudent their quibbles seem.
What I don't support is a system of idiotic lockdowns that seriously hammer the middle & lower class while grossly enriching the wealthy.
Here was my response to the lockdown. I went to work every day. I went to the store to shop & did my own shopping because there is no way in Hell I could live with being such a weak kneed pussy that I'd force low paid workers to shop for me & then have them shove it in my trunk in a sort of coward's drive-by.
Here is Joe Biden's pre-election response to the vaccine:
"If the president announced tomorrow we have a vaccine would you take it? Only if it was completely transparent that other experts in the country could look at it. Only if we knew all of what went into it."
Instead we got a completely opaque process where independent experts who didn't sign off on it were smeared & censored and the FDA then blocks any data releases requested under FOIA.
Kamala Harris on vaccines; "If Donald Trump tells us to take it I'm not taking it."
Nancy Pelosi on mandates and vaccines: "So here's the thing, we cannot require someone to be vaccinated. That's just not what we can do. It is a matter of privacy to know who is or who isn't vaccinated."
It's also the fucking law by teh way. It's called HIPAA, maybe you've heard of it?
It's also amazing how many Democrats who, under Trump, felt that any attempt by Trump to force a vaccine mandate meant that he was 'taking a page from Putin's authoritarian playbook." These same people under Biden want the unvaxxed segregated & they want it to "rain mandates." Hypocrite isn't a big enough word to describe these partisan liberal shitheads.
The thing I love the most is how, for years, I've been reading articles, primarily from the left, explaining how the FDA & the CDC are almost completely captured by the pharmaceutical industry. Articles that contain example after example of how pharmaceutical companies aren't exactly ethical in their practices. Yet now, every shitlib in the country seems to have, with the appearance of Covid, wet themselves right before they unquestioningly prostrated themselves before the gods of Big Pharma.
I had my second shot last February so I'm pretty sure that whatever protection it offered has long since evaporated. I have no plans on taking the booster. My wife, on the other hand, wants the booster. I completely support her for one simple reason that you may not understand, IT IS HER CHOICE.
Thanks for taking care of Dad there. One question...
...what should we do with the body?
Lol! Had to step away from Covid land. It's tiresome. Wish I had something amusing to say. Sadly I don't. Just tired & waiting for my 16 hour shift to end so I can go home, walk my big dopey dog and then settle down with a joint before I fade into oblivion. Sorry & cheers.
I just reread that thing up there and all I saw were typos & syntax errors. One long stream of consciousness BLEH!
The COVID virus doesn’t care about individualism or human rights, and it also doesn’t care about politics or political boundaries. So, we can see clearly when we look at maps of the US and overlay COVID hot spots that move around over time, that it moves around past state lines as if they don’t exist. It becomes more and more clear that the human measures don’t do anything.
I do agree COVID was not invented to take our rights away. There were already powerful people who wanted to do that, and some of them are now capitalizing on COVID as a means to that end.
I agree that the virus is not a myth, but it is overhyped. It should be taken very seriously, but not be the cause of panic. Panic is never useful.
I am watching all the data in my community, and our hospital system isn’t strained. Yet we’re under the same orders as those who are.
Above all, we all need our public health authorities to maintain credibility and for the general public to have faith in them at all times. They’ve blown that here in so many ways. They’ve said things they knew were not true in order to try to get the behavior they wanted. They’ve been caught not following their own orders. They’ve given very costly orders without giving any convincing rationale. They’ve ignored the very real and obvious costs of their orders. As for the vaccine mandates, we have very experienced and credible experts with strong track records who are on the side of getting more people vaccinated countering that legal mandates are not going to result in getting more people vaccinated. All they are really doing is more damage to the public trust.
The readership here are some of the smartest and most informed around, and not given to ideological capture. It’s uncalled for to talk to us like we’re ignorant rubes. You used the phrase “…according to what I’ve read…” a number of times. We all read. I suspect you are doing all your reading in one place.
"....and not given to ideological capture...." Uh-huh.
Did the doctors who genetically altered a bat virus care about anyone's right to not be terrorized by their Frankenstein's monster?
I suppose by your logic the Jews were just uppity anti-social monsters and not worth being considered as being part of the human race, huh?
"Who cares? They're just Jews." -Mascot, Berlin c. 1929
My favorite image of the lockdowns comes from my local McDs. Every time I had to go anywhere I had to pass McDs. The line stretched around the building, across the parking lot, out into the street where it proceeded to stretch for about 200 yards to the stoplight, bent around the corner on that cross street for another 50-100 yds. Every day.
I started to seriously wonder if the special ingredient in McDs' special sauce was crack or fentanyl.
So with a steady McRib McNugget McMac diet were they hoping to...do what? Make it easier to get sick?
Any time I wander into my local Wally World Mart the clientele is overwhelmingly overweight. I see people who can't be more than 30-35 riding around on those scooter carts cause their knees won't bear their weight.
I'll see entire families where ma & pa are supersized as are their brood of McNuggets. It's sad & it's child abuse.
I understand the addiction deal. I started smoking around 13. By the time my mom died of cancer I was a human chain smoking chimney.
At that point I took an honest look at myself and the weakness I saw in myself just pissed me off. Quit on the spot. Even carried an unopened pack of smokes with me everywhere I went just to rub my own nose in it. Never opened the fucker. Haven't touched one since.
Change is quite possible.
ha, how about "Survival of the Fittest"?
Oh wait.. Darwin already beat you to it.
Thank you for speaking up. This kind of foul
language about the unvaxxed is coming out of Biden’s mouth. And with the OSHA mandate reinstated, it’s not good.
I missed the OSHA mandate being re instated…. On what grounds? Frightening!
It was the anti-constitutional idiots on the 6th circuit court of appeals
What puzzles me is how can the 6th overturn the 5th? Appellate courts can’t overturn each other. Only SCOTUS can overturn an appellate court. At least that’s what I always thought.
I thought as you
One imagines on grounds that people don't get sick and die.
Europe is typically ahead of the US on “things” - so it’s nice to have a heads up about what is coming to our streets. Keep speaking up.
Thanks for your report. Keep speaking up. Trying to spread the word here about what is headed our way, and our need to unite NOW against the mandates, but most in the US (still) don't pay much attention to the rest of the world. :(
Ha, they don't even pay attention to the rest of their own country, let alone the rest of the world.
As we tend to view Europe thru a "socialist" lens, their govts are seemingly ready to switch to full tilt fascism when it suits them. At least in some populations there is some history of fighting back and disobedience [a rare hat tip to the French public].
Reading the above, the Germans literally learned nothing in the last 80+ years. Seems like there will have to be sabotage occurring at the grass roots level (groups of balloons in the high tension wires, failure to deliver goods to govt buildings, etc.)
Lots of problems with not having a US Constitution (you know that thing today’s Democrats want to “progress” beyond).
You are not a big wiener head.
So you're saying my mustard based hair gel isn't necessary anymore?
Only if it's failing to regenerate bald patches. If it's working, carry on.
And please confirm the brand if working.
Sir, or ma’am ,your command of sarcasm is impressive , and it’s scary because it’s true
Huh. Well, if I read this right, you seem to believe that this Build Back Better Bill is something that will actually benefit poor people instead of being wasted by a totally incompetent government and adding to our national debt exponentially. It will also include all kinds of garbage that curtails freedom. I am with you on allowing people to protest, though I haven't heard why they were arrested yet, either. I doubt they'll be held long. Leftists are usually allowed to protest and ruin cities without many consequences.
This is somewhat true, I presume, but irrelevant. That is not how all places were policed anyway in this country. You write this like you think everybody lives in Chicago or New York City. Maybe Chicago. That is not how small town America was policed. And nobody was policed like THIS lately. You can argue that society has not been fair to black people, but Democrat policies have added to this, not helped. They needed mentoring and education and charter schools, not programs that created a dependent society. No matter what, you can't allow lawlessness like has been happening in these cities now. Defunding police. And then just letting them right back out with no consequences. There are a lot of problems here, but you are not addressing them. People are drowning and you are describing the water anyway. And you people always think you can fix one "inequity" by doing more inequities. Multiple wrongs are not solutions. They aren't even vengeance because they are hurting the people you profess to help.
Charter schools are irrelevant to crime? As a good leftist, you should know that crime happens because of the environment these people are raised in. Actually, we good libertarians (and most conservatives) know this, too. Biden and his cronies have supported the teachers' unions over the kids. Teachers who are so poor they wouldn't understand teaching students how to think vs. brainwashing if their lives depended on it. That's also why we are on this site because a free exchange of ideas is not allowed anymore. Duh. If they fixed education and stopped buying votes with programs that perpetuate a dependent society, promising things they will not even DO, but if they DID will NOT help their society, and used that money to really help these people with decent education and promoting a stable family life, crime would go down. Duh. YOU are the vague one. You are more interested in quoting people and sounding smart than you are about solutions. Oh, and I think money should be invested in better police training, but not doing what they are doing. Nor should it be framed this way. And this breaking into places is NOT happening just in these isolated places like you think. In small town Michigan, they are repeatedly breaking into my brother's mini-storage business. It's happening everywhere. Same sort of behavior and he hasn't been able to stop it. FOUR times. Now they have surveillance linked right to the police department and they caught one of them. Anyway, whatever.
Holy crap. This is ridiculous. Why do you think Matt is on substack here and Glenn Greenwald? Matt was not invited on legacy media because he didn't agree with the Russia-gate stuff. He was being censored and he's been attacked by them repeatedly. He's been complaining about Big Tech and what happened with Hunter's laptop to reputable people trying to cover it. What planet are you on? And you better BELIEVE I was censored by my press and worked out of my place in the queue at the university I taught for my views (because I didn't fill out my self evaluation on time because I was down with my son at Karmanos Cancer Center). They did it because I had supported the president of the university on his position that the university should take NO political positions. The head of the English Dept. attacked me publically for that and they worked me out. I didn't fight them because obviously I had enough on my hands. My press when I complained about literary "theory" curriculum in my latest book (usually I published fiction, but this was a literary weird memoir/woodfire cookbook), unfriended me and refused to reply to even an email or phone call. Obviously, they had published me before. Wayne State. Any unwoke person is being censored on Big Tech, in universities and more. Even some liberal writers like Margaret Atwood have published their concerns about the free exchange of ideas in our universities. Published in the Atlantic -- to their credit they have expressed concerns about this a few times. That is why substack EXISTS. Are you seriously this oblivious? Sorry, I'm rambling some here, but you have to be kidding. I'm too tired to go back and make this post clearer. You clearly don't grasp the mess our society is in if you think nobody is being censored. SO I'll stop there.
Mango---you're trafficing in corporate propaganda. After I read my third or so "smash-and-grab" piece I started to laugh. Funny, how the right can groove on the bullshit from the MSM when the MSM bullshit gibes with their own bullshit.
https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1470089971079913472
And of COURSE these things are happening --the smash and grab -- for political reasons -- it's because of this left narrative of defunding the police and because of these ridiculous lockdowns that are compromising our whole society. Isolating people, causing huge mental problems. Nightmare. There are so many reasons for this--mostly caused by leftist idiot narratives. Again, there are improvements to be made, but the left's solutions are NOT solutions--anyway, I am seriously done here.
Oh please, whatever. I'm old enough to know how policing worked in the small towns I lived in without having to read some woke intellectual take on it. I was there. And I'm an adjunct professor. So I know how these narratives all work. Just because you are quoting quasi-intellectual people doesn't make it all correct or necessarily prove any of this. Nor is any of it a solution. I agree on the dangers of citizen surveillance and I'm certainly not for these authoritarian moves or I wouldn't be on this site, but this is much truer of urban cities than all of America. And this defunding thing has affected police departments everywhere, not just in a few places. They needed improvement but this narrative HAS impacted all of this. At the very least, the laws should be applied impartially. You don't throw people who haven't even been tried into prisons for 8 months while you let others out almost immediately, no matter what has happened in the past. Police departments do need better training, but they also needed support and that is NOT what they've gotten.
"I'm old enough to know..."
Mango's going pretty far back in history here. Are you immortal?
Yeah, you are so brilliant, you have to quote people to make your points. I know how this has worked a long time because I've been part of it. It's all leftist woke garbage. People like you just like to hear your head rattle. Anyway, you have not ONE solution besides blaming people which is pretty much what higher education does full time. Things are always someone else's fault and you think behaving poorly is justified because things were done poorly before. And there's something to be gained by dwelling on the past forever. And demonizing people. There ARE solutions to it, but tearing down society is not it. Anyway, I'm off here.
All very true but two wrongs do not make a right. I fear what is going on now has much less of a chance being reversed than it was back then. The main difference between then and now is that there weren't nearly the tools of oppression that exist today (constant surveillance, absolute control of the media and therefore newspeak, burgeoning world-wide censorship, etc). Additionally, the populace has been the frog in the boiling water too long now and most people appear to be too stupid, incapable or unwilling to examine issues intelligently or objectively. The youth are fully indoctrinated and learning how to debate and socialize since the draconian COVID bullshit has been destroyed.
Well, I don't support mean-spirited name-calling, but the main source for the text you copied was indeed the Marxist Sidney L. Harring, so he's not totally off-base.
I've been a fan of Rev. Barber's message, which has been about uniting poor and working people of all ethnicities, and he's not deeply embedded in damaging identity politics. Like an old school leftist.
I have to wonder about his aligning with the zombie Biden administration, and especially this broken, neoliberal Build Back Better legislation which anyone can see will be a bunch of Obamacare-like policies that hurt more than they help. It's obvious. They should be fighting its passing, if anything. Manchin is likely the rotating villain for a dozen or more senators unwilling to vote for this legislation, if anything, but there are way more moderate Democrats that would empathize with him than with the squad. The demonization of him is counterproductive, at best.
And why block the roadways? I always dislike stories being presented as "arrested for a protest," when they weren't arrested for a protest; they were arrested for blocking a roadway. The police seemed totally reasonable here. I always think this stuff hurts a progressive movement. There are working people who get stuck in traffic and decide that they're not voting with these people.
This is all akin to throwing a movement in several gears of reverse. Let's get real here.
His Twitter feed reveals what he is, a hardcore left wing activist. He is absolutely a partisan who engages in identity politics. Some of them were on display in this video. People who are fighting for BBB have no idea what they really are fighting for as they most likely have not read the bill. Has anyone really read the bill?
I haven’t looked at his feed in a while, but I’ve seen some questionable stuff there on occasion myself. What I’m mainly referring to are some of his media appearances over the last couple of years where he pushes a very MLK-like message of equality, and bringing poor people of all races together in a positive way. His message was very at odds with the heavy “identity over all” refrain, coupled with an animosity towards the working class that some of idiot sages of this new era push. Barber can be wonderfully thoughtful and persuasive and empathetic.
I think, like Bernie, he’s felt it necessary to hitch his wagon to the IdPol movement, unaware that said wagon has no wheels.
Biden Bots love the sound of “ BBB” because it reinforces their hard wired belief that Trump is an agent of Satan out to destroy this country…
My favorite part of "Build Back Better" is the fact that Biden simply can almost never say it correctly and usually slurs something like "Bill Black Butter." We know he didn't come up with this shit. Always funny.
My least favorite part is when other frightening, necrotic western world leaders say it — like clockwork — in their speeches. We know they didn't come up with this shit. Never funny.
Trump is an agent of Trump and out to enrich Trump. Say it again with me: Trump is an agent of Trump and out to enrich Trump, same as it ever was, same as it ever was.
And Biden, Inc. seems to have done a good job enriching themselves too. Joe has not had a job in the private sector, his wife is a part time community college professor and they own multiple homes and have millions of dollars of net worth. Don't forget Hunter, Ashley, Valerie and Jim too. 10% for the big guy! ALL of our politicians do a good job of being an agent of themselves. The Clintons and Obamas went from "dirt poor" and bitched about student loan debt. They all seem to be doing well for themselves too. I bet Trump is the only POTUS to see his networth DECLINE post-administration. They all suck. Harry Reid lived in a penthouse at the Four Seasons in DC as a humble man from Searchlight Nevada. Yes, I know there are plenty of R's who play the grift magnificently too/
I'm not a democrat. I'm not a Biden supporter. Certainly not a Clinton supporter. Biden was neither subject nor predicate in either my comment or the comment I was responding to. A few commenters here are harsh critics of American politics in general. Keep that in mind. If you take exception with my take on Trump, by all means do so. But campaign for the republican party elsewhere.
LOL, sure Jan. Thanks for your critique. I will repeat my comment. "They all suck." I was just calling you out over your selective comments to remind you that they all are agents for themselves. Biden is President now, not Trump and Biden is just as crooked as the day is long too.
Thank you. I agree.
It does seem a little ridiculous, I agree, but if they could seemingly step out of the road and on to the grass next to said road to avoid arrest, why not do that? Why not make peaceful, legal protest just that: peaceful legal protest. Is it because arrest, or threat thereof is what brings media attention?
It seems that most "arrests" were released instantly, but Rev. Barber would have to spend the night in jail (for a previous arrest record if the conversation with police is to be believed), but he allowed 17 of his fellow protestors to be arrested while he stepped away from the fray. I question any leadership that allows its followers to take the fall while it takes the two steps necessary to escape said fate.
Disruption is the point of protest. Without it you're participating in a form virtue signaling.
In that protest is always disrupts order to some agree, that's true. But it's absolutely not always the case that protest has to be illegal, or otherwise harmful, to be effective and not "virtue signaling" — although it almost is certainly always "virtue signaling" when the "laptop class" (that don't actually work) protest; disruptive, destructive, or not — but do you not see how illegal protest that shuts down roads or otherwise stops basic city functioning be wildly counterproductive in actually persuading people that actually are working for a living?
Protest has largely become the domain of the Brooklyn bro with hideous facial hair class (who once spent their days in Greenpoint coffee shops commenting on the internet all day, but now do it from home) angrily typing "shut it all down, shut the whole system down!" on their $2,500 laptops.
These are people that have never so much as mowed a lawn, but have all of this country's spoils, and have appointed themselves the authority on all of society. "Shutting it all down" to them means streets, transportation, the fire department, the police, schools, or any of the meaningful work (that they've never done, natch) that makes society actually function. They think that if they git rid off these things, all of the world will be a great non-corporate utopia, like Greenpoint, and we'll all spend our days in coffee shops with our Macbooks, and iPhones wearing expensive clothes made by children on the other side of the world, drinking $8 coffee picked by workers making 5 cents an hour somewhere we can't find on a map.
Totally agree with you that blocking traffic usually just pisses the wrong people off. It does matter who's day your disrupting. The best protests disrupt the lives of the powerful. A good example are many, but not all, of extinction rebellions protests.
Maybe one day, people will figure out that selling your personal welfare and soul to the state has tremendous costs. But maybe not. Biden inflation will destroy any gains the lower class make from this while the usual empowered class will cash in, again. Same story, different day.
Then when we can't afford our homes or businesses, they will swoop in and buy them up for pennies on the dollar using that newly printed cash.
Quite the scam if you can pull it off.
That’s what the oligarchs did in Russia. Scary.
That was the land grab MO used to buy large swatches of city land by prodding the blacks to burn down there ghettos.
"their"
Current inflation is corporate clawback from the deleterious effects of the pandemic.
Partially, but that will pale in comparison to the trillions of new dollars added to the money supply.
This is a myth. Richard Wolff explains.
Richard Wolff makes some good points, but he frequently uses the "leap of faith" of socialism, and is the proponent of all the santas that exist in government whose sole mission in life is to make us all well-fed and happy.
Yes, but that's the Fed and treasury. It will be interesting nevertheless.
I grew up in a blue collar, ethnic family in a blue collar ethnic New England Town. I turn 69 in a few days. My parents were JFK Dems. JFK would be Joe Manchin now.
Uh, don't think so.
My all time favorite meme is a portrait of JFK saying “ Democrats, what have you done to my party?”
The CIA murdered him because he wanted peace.
I am puzzled. Shutting down the economy and then boosting government spending seems like madness to me. And I am not generally a fisical conservative
Are you somebody who wants more and more people to get reliant on government? If you were, this would make perfect sense.
Yes. I want our tax dollars to help people, not prop-up zombie corporations. You're living in 1980's ronald reagan propaganda. Welfare queens never existed and and trickle down never happened.
LOL and how is that working out for you? It's pretty clear from where I'm sitting that money government spends doesn't actually help people on Main Street and instead fatten the wallets of the politically connected.
Maybe the NEXT trillion dollars they spend will be the one that finally helps the people, right?
Really? Every socialist from Marx on has known that socialism requires a productive economy? (There is a large literature on this subject.)
Their philosophy undermines the ability to sustain a productive economy. Then there is the human nature/corruption angle. Most socializers seem to think government is full of Santas with a very, very few bad men.
I'm all for a socialized strategy around the common good. What we have going on now sucks. Socialism for corporations and the rich is ridiculous.
Yes, it's corporatism-fascism. Look at all the big industries, they all move between the large corporations and government. We are beholden to corporations--and their control on government. More government will not fix this, it only adds to the problems, as new government employees continue to vote for measures that give corporations (through government) more power. Look at how Amazon profited from the pandemic. Middle class people who live normal lives all over the country lost the ability, almost overnight, to care for themselves, all at the word of corporations-government.
It is madness. That is what they seek. To destroy the current system, so progressive elites can take over the country.
Some people may think this way but the problem is obvious. Why do they expect progressive elites to take over the country, rather than some sort of fascist? More likely they have an irrational faith in their economists' ability to perform miracles.
There is a global connection to the progressive elites, and you must remember that fascism is essentially a leftist hierarchy. We are already in the fascist/corporatist state of things. One needs to look no further than the pharmaceuticals and silicon valley--and the defense industry. One week these people are big board members, next week they are in the government responsible for oversight. ? Heck, the CDC is an outright fascist organization as it holds and profits directly from its own patents.
Another righty who passes of the fascists as lefty. Next.
There is no difference. One has national aspirations, the other global. Both authoritarian control of the means of production. But, always for the good of the people. See Russia, 1917-1991. BTW, Stalin did not make a very good "for the comrades" type of dude. Find us your socialist Santa.
The current system only works for rich people and corporations. WTF is a progressive elite? Ha! Can we start thinking about the common good? Like water, which is now being bought out by hedge fund managers.
The system works only for those who are willing and able to work.
They're indifferent to any "systems"--- they're primarily interested in frog-marching the most irritating lot of the far right to the gulags. Then they'll deal with the systems.
I didn’t watch to the end. But if you’re in the middle of the street and a police officer warns you multiple times to leave, move to a sidewalk. Unless your goal is confrontation, arrest and coverage. If nobody got abused during the process, I don’t see anything wrong here. Even if your cause is righteous doesn’t mean you have to be so self-righteous about expressing it.
That's the problem: they wouldn't get coverage unless they did something illegal to get arrested for. It's a publicity stunt and they were handled with kid gloves, so it's mainly a non-story.
I've been mainly positive on Rev. Barber and his unifying message (although I don't care for many of his alliances), but when the leader of a publicity-seeking, traffic-blocking protest allows many of the protesters to be arrested, while he himself moves to the sideline to avoid arrest, one has to wonder if said leader is working in everyone's best interest. No?
As Chris Hedges has said many times, civil disobedience is the ONLY WAY to pressure the elites to do anything they don't want to do (like giving people universal healthcare or a living minimum wage). The people must rise up and SHUT THE SYSTEM DOWN. Why? Because nice, calm, polite protests that don't disrupt the system or inconvenience the powerful will accomplish NOTHING.
Yeah, I like Chris Hedges a good bit too, but the idea that this was "civil disobedience" is like saying Joe Biden's pants aren't filled with shit. This is "corporate toolery." They are literally working for the "elites," like Nancy Pelosi, while she steals your money via a stock market that she fixes. She was probably doing just that while this shit went down.
And when "shutting the system down" becomes the province of underemployed, overeducated "future elites," who gladly impede the basic day-to-day functions of actual poor and working people (because they hate them; it's not even a secret anymore), who do you think is getting the shaft here?
People who have just finished reading your comments?
I'm being unfair to Rev. Barber, who I do think is an interesting thought leader.
I shouldn't lump him in with the PMC junior league or spoiled brat fuck laptop class that's usually at the forefront of these things, or who've taken over and destroyed once-meaningful institutions like the ACLU, the DSA or functional worldwide democracy and reporting, but shilling for the Biden/Pelosi/Obama goons is just a bridge too far, and we have to recognized it for what it is.
The DSA has never been a meaningful institution and has in fact always been well-stocked with the "PMC junior league or spoiled brat fuck laptop class."
I don’t know why he wasn’t arrested, but consider the message to the folks waiting for the street to clear: Hi there, people. We love you, we’re doing this for you. Please don’t get mad at us for interrupting your dreary, humdrum little lives for our morally superior protest. It’s for your own good.
No. It's considered a bona fide for a protest leader like Barber to get arrested at such events. If he didn't get arrested, it's probably because the police told him they were NOT going to arrest him. Getting arrested gathers more publicity. And I believe it is the police who ultimately decides who is "allowed" to get arrested and who isn't. Be a little more savvy.
In the video, it's obvious that he was going to not be arrested and release, but have to spend the night in jail (from a previous arrest record, if the conversation with the cop is to be believed).
So, he took the two steps out of the road to avoid arrest and let the rest of the protestors take the fall... for, um, Biden's signature, broken legislation. As much as I've enjoyed following Barber and think his positive message at odds with dumb IdPol has been reassuring, I think it's time to put him in the "lost cause" column.
Amazing the degree to which people will fight for something they know little or nothing about. Ask any one of them to provide a single citation from The BBB bill and you’ll get a blank stare. That bill has about as much chance of helping those in need as the Affordable Care Act had of providing low-cost healthcare. DC well knows that a clever title coupled with an ascertain that to question even a single part of said bill is tantamount to [insert ad hominem here] is all that’s needed to convince the feeble-minded to fight for something guaranteed to offer them no benefit whatsoever. But let’s face it, in all likelihood those people were paid to hold that demonstration.
Good to see that the Nihilists have a representative here.
The Citizens can't know or accomplish anything, so we should all just go back to sleep, eh?
Brilliant.
If that’s what you took from my comment English clearly isn’t your first language.
...3....2....1! And of course. In the absence of a defense, they go to name-calling. Predictable drollery.
And what name did I call you, Lou?
And then the equally predictable attempts to dodge: "What offense?", or "People are saying...", or "It was just a jest!", as if feigning innocence could make up for the absence of substance.
Keep slangin' the spaghetti, Ed! Maybe something will eventually stick.
If he called you a name it should be very easy to point out should it not? Looks like he was correct that English isn’t your first language.
Here, let me help. This is what it looks like when someone calls you a name:
Fuck off, you stupid fucking cunt.
There, you're welcome! Now, what did we learn?
You're correct. That's because the original bill has been gutted by republicans and barely defended or fought for by democrats. Other than this morsel of truth, an idiotic comment. Where can I get a magic device like yours--"something they know little or nothing about. Ask any one of them to provide a single citation from The BBB bill and you’ll get a blank stare."
I have first-hand knowledge of the ACA rates. Initially, yes, the rates were reasonable, but within 18 months the my rate went up over 400%.
You didn't mention the ACA in your first comment. Why bring it up here? Personally, I don't want to hear about your first-hand knowledge of ACA rates. I'd like to hear your first-hand knowledge of BBB. Since you're already on record disparaging the "blank stares" and ignorance of BBB of the protestors, stands to reason you ought to be able to speak at length on the provisions of the bill. Hell, even specifics.
That’s inaccurate. The rates eventually exceeded the cost of non-ACA plans so I switched. The rest of your statement is valid. Unfortunately it’s rarely mentioned that healthcare provider profits skyrocketed post-ACA.
The ACA was a bullshit give-away to both healthcare providers and the insurance racket. On this we can agree.
Qualify harder
I did a deep-dive (spreadsheet), into the ACA rates in my area and there's little difference in the minimum guaranteed profit for the insurance companies between the gold thru bronze plans. It's a racket. An immoral, unnecessary scourge on American society.
Federal takeover of voting doesn't portend a well for functioning liberal democracy. A sea of mail-in ballots allowed for self-styled, partisan vote navigators," vote harvesters -- we'll take that for you -- partisan activists working for municipal elections, no proof of ID when we need it for buying cottage cheese. Build Back Better-- another euphemism used by hacks who assume an average I.Q. of 6- is loaded with one-party aspirations and obeying the increasingly insane base.
I think it's sour cream you're thinking of, not cottage cheese.
I suppose getting arrested is better than getting shot in the neck.
Don't worry, getting shot comes later.
I still can't believe that this guy thinks that the "Biden" administration's Build Back Better bill will ... help the poor.
This is the mind of a 7th grade girl listening to Cat Stevens records, breathing heavily while thinking about helping the downtrodden. Off the charts naive.
I think your assessment in penultimate paragraph is correct, which, begging his pardon, makes Reverend Barber a "useful idiot." What is bewildering to me is the belief that the folks who have presided over all of this for the last 50 years have the ability, let alone the desire, to craft policy that will actually help create better conditions for the poor. Yeah, just get rid of Manchin and everything will be (built back) better! LMFAO There is no soul crushing inflation, and it doesn't hurt the poor. (Krugman told me so!) And BBB will not continue that inflationary spire. It won't be chock full of worthless spending delegated to politcally savvy contractors who will launder a significant proportion back to those in power. Give me a break
Thank you - this is TRULY invaluable. And -- it is more and more likely -- in 2024 elections it will be a repeat of HILLARY versus TRUMP (if there will even be elections)
-- Biden and DNC War party strategy: "Pinching Pennies for People – but Endless Cash for War".
-- $300 B to extremely wealthy -- definition of Biden's "transformative" presidency “Build Back Better framework” and DNC "party" of oligarchs and corruption !! Biden is as much DNC and US War party fraud as Obama, Trump and Hillary.
-- Cowardly Bernie Sanders missed one opportunity in HUNDRED years -- to unmask the modern "original sin" -- DNC-CIA scam of the century -- the Russia-gate hoax. Our beloved country would look VERY different if he had courage to stand up and unmask Hillary-Obama-Biden Russia-gate concoction.
-- Who will be the first Dem politician to state it publicly while we are hurling in the NEW Cold war with Russia, a CAPITALIST country for 31+ years...
-- Anything "left" has left Dems long ago -- like GOP, they’re aristocrats and authoritarians whose idea of heaven is a Dick Cheney spy state with unlimited censorship and a press corps of obedient snitches.
PS: The stench of Biden-family's and Democrats' corruption is simply unbearable. Opposing it are equally incompetent Trump and rabid anti-China GOP clowns.
As a previous commenter said, that perspective - which I'm afraid is Matt's also - is simply nihilism. Might as well just hang up doing anything and be angry at the world. of course BBB is an incremental step but it'll do much to improve people's lives. Biden along w Bernie deserve much credit for seeking to do real practical good despite the flaws and half-measures in the law. I stand w the protesters and all people who want govt to support people here and now. Damn shame Matt chooses to disparage them as pawns
Repeat --- The stench of Biden-family's and Democrats' corruption is simply unbearable. Opposing it are equally incompetent Trump and rabid anti-China GOP clowns.
Ah yes, neoliberalism in general and pro-China policy have been boons to the people of the US. And by people of the US, I mean McKinsey, Goldman, and the their clients, the remaining 99.999% of the nation, not so much.
But, at least this love affair with the CCP hasn't interfered with its human rights abuses and drug peddling to the US via MX, et al.
Woo-Hoo, we need a bigger stronger CCP and China...
Unbelievable.
You forgot J. Edgar Hoover.
FBI and Edgar Hoover’s crimes and surveillance === CIA-FBI and St. Obama, Clapper, Brennan, Hayden === SAME despicable dangerous bastards.
The Murderous History and Deceitful Function of the CIA
https://youtu.be/BhkxQRsmMQM
Ya, but Hoover looked good in Burberry.
I’m pretty sure Russia isn’t a capitalist economy. I have a very cursory understanding of Yeltsin’s privatization moves, but I don’t think it resulted in capitalism. If it did, there would be Russian goods circulating in the global economy. I’m not aware that there are, other than some petroleum and a world-class theft-by-hacking industry. China, THAT’S Capitalism.
I have to say that Rev. Barber's recent defense of Kamala Harris where he accused people criticizing her of being sexist and racist has put me off of him.
I like him from what little I know, but if he did that then my opinion of him has dropped a bit.
All you really need to know about the odds of the average people in this country benefiting from any bill passed in Washington was addressed in the Gilens and Page study that was published in 2014. It measured the level of representation the public receives from Washington over two decades. The result was little to none.
The reason is obvious. The donor class has bought up every institution in this country. The government works for private interests. The public is on the outside looking in. It’s the new feudalism.
Check out the classic George Carlin video “It’s a Big Club and You Ain’t In It.”
So rioting was absolutely encouraged by the Democrats under Trump, but now they are in power you can't protest?
BINGO!!! And thanks to the media, no one even blinks.
Highlarious! I agree with your question, but it is also funny, because (sadly) it sounds JUST like the present state of Dem Party strategizing.