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Howee

Joined: 27 Nov 2009
Posts: 15737
Location: OREGON (in my heart)

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Posted: 04/17/21 8:49 pm :::

Billy Boy AIN'T wrong. Cool

(....especially about the Pandemic that is Obesity!)

jammerbirdi wrote:

I sometimes contrast in my mind how DIFFERENT things were, back when you and I were a tad younger, when Russia was scape-goated for so many Evils. Not then -- not even now -- is it *racist* to call out "Russians" for anything. I s'pose cuz they're predominantly white/caucasian (literally Caucasian Razz

) Russians are technically "Asian". But it all comes back to appearance. Chinese (and most Asians) look different than we do, so we must avoid casting aspersions on them.

Of course, the Idiocy is lashing out at American Asians cuz of a perceived connection to China. We have tons of Ukrainian immigrants in our community. I don't think they've ever borne the brunt of any ostracism because they actually lived in the former Soviet Union.

If 'wokeness/cancel culture' has gone too far, it may be only because the OVERWHELMING Need To Blame Game has gone too far. I don't really give a flying fig about what happened in Wuhan....not now, at least. What's most important is living with the aftermath, and dealing with it rationally.

I don't remember ever hearing about anybody *needing* to find the culprit in the origins of the 1918 pandemic. Obviously, it couldn't have been manufactured -- nobody even knew what a virus was then, never mind replicating one. $hit happens. Mad

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undersized_post

Joined: 01 Mar 2021
Posts: 2864

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Posted: 04/17/21 8:49 pm :::

jammerbirdi wrote:

For instance. We can’t and haven’t been able to allow for or discuss even whether the virus emanated from the Whuhan research lab where these things were being worked on. Because Trump said it. And also to do so, in the prevailing thinking around these things, unfairly places China and Chinese people and Asians in the crosshairs of blame. To even bring this up is to target yourself for charges of racism.

So many scientists are now dismissing the wet market source theory as highly implausible and the lab leak scenario as highly likely. But that information and a debate about it is still being withheld from the public for all of these reasons that are based on, for lack of a better term, woke politics.

And that’s really just ONE fucking example. Just off the top of my head and keeping with the subject matter of this thread. This ethos is literally so fucking dangerous.

Where have you heard this?

jammerbirdi

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 21046

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Posted: 04/17/21 9:09 pm :::

undersized_post wrote:

jammerbirdi wrote:

Where have you heard this?

You make my point. Independent media.

_________________
Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17

Queenie

Joined: 18 Nov 2004
Posts: 18030
Location: Queens

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Posted: 04/17/21 10:13 pm :::	Reply

If you think it's so all-fired important for us to know this, jammer, cite your sources. _________________ Ardent believer in the separation of church and stadium.

undersized_post

Joined: 01 Mar 2021
Posts: 2864

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Posted: 04/17/21 11:02 pm :::

Queenie wrote:

If you think it's so all-fired important for us to know this, jammer, cite your sources.

this^

jammerbirdi

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 21046

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Posted: 04/18/21 5:23 am :::

Queenie wrote:

If you think it's so all-fired important for us to know this, jammer, cite your sources.

Okay, I will. But I do have a life and I’m kinda taken aback that anyone here isn’t aware of this.

So it goes like this. And this first part I’m assuming you guys are aware of. So Trump blamed China, meaning the lab and not an accidental wet market transmission. And the fact was that at that time no one knew what the truth was nor was the focus on determining the source. So Trump’s assertions on the source of the virus, like all of Trump’s assertions, was justifiably suspect.

But as with everything Trump said or did, it had to be condemned out of hand. That impulse on social media, which, as Bari Weiss said, is editing the New York Times now, completely infects the establishment news media, and, in an election year, drives the political opposition. So blaming China became racist, the lab leak hypothesis became a xenophobic conspiracy theory, and it was to be given no credence at all in the press, and anyone who suggested it as a legitimate possibility should be called out for promoting a racist and baseless conspiracy theory.

So that’s the context of the last year on the source of the coronavirus.

So about two months ago, after Biden is in office, in a moment that demonstrates the incredible power of the New York Times to set the acceptable truths which we can even have introduced into the national conversation, and I’m pulling this from foggy memory from months ago, they seemed to allow that the lab leak hypothesis was gaining traction in scientific circles.

Of course then there’s backlash to that and lots of scorn and conversation around that article. And then other pieces in the Times push back on the idea, but by then the cat is out of the bag and this then becomes something that’s being discussed more openly.

And that’s about where it’s been and more or less remains to this day. The WHO investigation that determined that the virus did not come from the lab has been widely dismissed as flawed in that it based its conclusions on unquestioned assertions by the Chinese government which didn’t allow access to pertinent records etc to the WHO investigators. And, to throw conflict of interest into the mix, the chief American investigator is deeply invested in the type of research that was happening in thr Wuhan lab, that in which coronavirus’s are manipulated into mutating so that they can make the jump from animals to human transmission.

So there’s that.

But you have to go to the We Don’t Give a Fuck independent media to hear these things because, as I said, it’s all still mostly verboten to have this stuff plastered in mainstream news sources.

So that would be the Krystal Ball/ Saagar Enjeti, Bret Weinstein/ Heather Heying shows. Matt Taibbi, Jimmy Dore, etc. They’ve been doing a good job of keeping track of and gathering these ... watershed moments... in the very slow uncovering or grudging acceptance of the plausibility of the (accidental) lab leak hypothesis and the scientifically quite unlikely possibility of a natural animal to human leap being made by the virus in a wet market or anywhere else.

Try searching on YouTube combining the names of the people I’ve given you with something like lab leak. It should all be there.

But again I was making my previous comment under the assumption that people in this group were aware of all of this. I was using it as an example because I thought it was one of those things that’s known but not widely known and thus most likely known here. Because you hammerheads is smart. I’m not writing a term paper where I’m expected to list my sources. I don’t expect skepticism. Not saying I’m getting it now but I don’t really expect it. And I’m not saying that I know that the virus emanated from a lab leak and not the wet market.

What I said is that political correctness, woke social media pressure, Trump resistance, election year politics, all made even discussing the possibility of a lab leak unacceptable in newspapers or TV or on campuses, etc. And now it turns out that possibility is being given increasing credence in the scientific community. And what I was doing was using this all as an example of the dangers of this current trend in political discourse to label speech that is politically unhelpful to a group’s agenda as racist or whatever.

That pressure on people’s ability to freely and openly discuss things is very dangerous and if it turns out to be the case that the virus did emanate from the Wuhan lab, this will be an historic example of the dangers posed by this ideology.

Because, Howee, eventually, we MUST determine where this virus came from and how it learned to do what it is doing to us.

jammerbirdi

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 21046

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Posted: 04/18/21 7:44 am :::	Reply

But yeah, if you guys can’t be bothered to run this stuff down yourselves I will post the links because I’d like to put them in the same chronological order that I learned of them. _________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17

Howee

Joined: 27 Nov 2009
Posts: 15737
Location: OREGON (in my heart)

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Posted: 04/18/21 9:43 am :::

jammerbirdi wrote:

But as with everything Trump said or did, it had to be condemned out of hand. That impulse on social media, which, as Bari Weiss said, is editing the New York Times now, completely infects the establishment news media, and, in an election year, drives the political opposition.

You state this as if Fox News, QAnon, OAN, (et. al.) don't exist. You're ascribing a Left-leaning media take as the ONLY option available to us benighted Americans. The "infection" is real, but it's running both ways.

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"Inévitablement, les canards voleront"

Last edited by Howee on 04/18/21 2:28 pm; edited 2 times in total

jammerbirdi

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 21046

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Posted: 04/18/21 11:40 am :::

Howee wrote:

jammerbirdi wrote:

Now THIS is an interesting comment. lol. I’m talking about a) the lab leak theory which was asserted by Trump b) in the context of how anything asserted by Trump during his presidency was received by the mainstream media and the resistance movement on social media, and the political opposition, etc.

That YOU felt I did something wrong here by not mentioning the existence of Fox News and QAnon Shocked

WHY?, to the point that you were compelled to point that out like I did something wrong... is like... WHA?

For what reason would I have mentioned Fox News or bloody QAnon? What am I talking about here? I mean how bizarre are you thinking the mental state we're all living in is that we must completely out of context lay into every discussion we’re having the existence of the other extreme in media coverage?

I’m just talking about what happened in the case of this one thing. In this one instance. The impulse to oppose anything that came out of Trump’s mouth on the part of the mainstream media (not the insane elements of the right wing media or right wing conspiracy nuts) meaning those who actually have the power to control what is acceptable thought in this country, in THIS case and probably so many others, that impulse made an eyes and minds wide open exploration of where the coronavirus came from impossible by tagging any discussion of the lab leak possibility as being morally flawed and inherently racist.

I say this as an atheist. Just in case. Sanity will prevail Jesus. Thy will be done. Shocked

PickledGinger

Joined: 04 Oct 2013
Posts: 1365

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Posted: 04/18/21 2:33 pm :::	Reply

Jammer, I think his point was that by only pointing out one side of the crazy, you're being a bit reductive and painting American's into a broad swath. Yes, the "everything Trump says is crap" narrative was pervasive and probably damaging in some aspects - but your argument presents it as the ONLY narrative available to the American audience; which absolutely is not the case. So, maybe not 100% on point, but certainly not every American has the same opinions on COVID. _________________ Unspoken expectations are just premeditated resentments.

Howee

Joined: 27 Nov 2009
Posts: 15737
Location: OREGON (in my heart)

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Posted: 04/18/21 2:39 pm :::

Howee wrote:

jammerbirdi wrote:

That you said THIS....

jammerbirdi wrote:

But you have to go to the We Don’t Give a Fuck independent media to hear these things because, as I said, it’s all still mostly verboten to have this stuff plastered in mainstream news sources.

....is why I pointed that out: not that you did something *wrong*, but that you imply "NOBODY's telling 'the other side'!" 'n for the record, I DO consider Fox part of the mainstream media.

jammerbirdi wrote:

I’m just talking about what happened in the case of this one thing. In this one instance. The impulse to oppose anything that came out of Trump’s mouth on the part of the mainstream media (not the insane elements of the right wing media or right wing conspiracy nuts)

That *impulse* is highly warranted: He insistently and consistently LIED ABOUT (nearly) EVERYTHING! Why should anyone NOT have that knee-jerk reaction? Yeah, rational people should see beyond that. But I see that as just ANOTHER one of the wretched legacies of his: he constantly torpedoed "The Media" in the interest of creating just what you now describe -- an uncertain and tainted credibility.

Now if your heroes like Krystal and Saagar espouse THIS kinda thinking....

jammerbirdi wrote:

and the scientifically quite unlikely possibility of a natural animal to human leap being made by the virus in a wet market or anywhere else.

....then you might wanna reconsider their credibility: Animal-Human (zoonotic) pathogen transmission is very commonplace. You can start with AIDS, ebola, swine flu, rabies, etc. Bats are known vectors and (naturally) should have NO close proximity to humans. But, lock 'em in cages, and handle them to sell, etc.?? VERY easy.

Re: media bias? I repeat: The "infection" is real, but it's running both ways.

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jammerbirdi

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 21046

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Posted: 04/18/21 4:00 pm :::	Reply

We’re lost. _________________ Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17

jammerbirdi

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 21046

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Posted: 04/18/21 4:15 pm :::

PickledGinger wrote:

Jammer, I think his point was that by only pointing out one side of the crazy, you're being a bit reductive and painting American's into a broad swath. Yes, the "everything Trump says is crap" narrative was pervasive and probably damaging in some aspects - but your argument presents it as the ONLY narrative available to the American audience; which absolutely is not the case.

So, maybe not 100% on point, but certainly not every American has the same opinions on COVID.

It was an example of the consequences of political correctness and all its permutations stifling free speech and open debate. It was my only point. Trump assertions and reactions to them, the debate over origins of the coronavirus, etc. They’re just examples of something that is all about the very real situation that the narratives that are considered to be appropriate for public discussion as dictated by a consensus of woke resources are now the only permissible perspectives that respectable intellectuals can traffic in. Do venture outside of those approved narratives risks being tainted as racist or other unacceptable labels, career destruction and outright cancellation.

This IS happening. And it can’t possibly be news to those here on Rebkell’s.

jammerbirdi

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 21046

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Posted: 04/18/21 4:39 pm :::

Howee wrote:

Now if your heroes like Krystal and Saagar espouse THIS kinda thinking....

jammerbirdi wrote:

and the scientifically quite unlikely possibility of a natural animal to human leap being made by the virus in a wet market or anywhere else.

....then you might wanna reconsider their credibility:

NO... we are not UNDERSTANDING AT ALL what is being discussed in this thread.

They are NOT espousing AT ALL any opinion on where or how the virus came to be what it has become. As I said... they are reporting on the slowly developing shift in what scientists are saying about the lab leak theory versus the wet market theory and as media critics how discussion of that possibility has been constrained in the mainstream press due to the lab leak theory being politically incorrect because it was tainted by its associations with Trump.

In my sternest Andrew Cuomo voice I ask you, “Capiche, my friend?”

Increasingly, the lab leak theory is being seen as more plausible and the wet market transmission to humans as being more dubious. This is a fact. It is now being openly considered for the first time and still is receiving politically motivated pushback for the reasons I’ve discussed here. Again, these are simply observations from media watchers and critics like Krystal and Brett Weinstein. The lab leak theory is taking hold now. It was fueled greatly by the laughable WHO investigation and the universal criticisms it received as being just a rubber stamp for whatever the Chinese government wanted that report to say.

I’m apparently giving you guys information that you haven’t previously been aware of. I wonder why that is. Maybe start watching some of these independent news and politics resources that are out there. They’re not irresponsible or lacking credibility. They are incredibly insightful and dogging them, whether you realize it or not, is like dogging Alexander Cockburn or Cristopher Hitchens in another era or even Chris Hedges who is what Krystal and Saager refer to as a “friend of the show.”

There is NOTHING on the American political media landscape like these two and their show Rising.

I repeat. They are not saying they know how the virus got here. And although I’m leaning towards what I consider to be more open and honest scientific opinion as it is now developing, I stated in a previous post that EYE certainly do not KNOW how the virus got here.

Rolling Eyes

My point... was about how political correctness has come to limit and control what is permissible for us to think and say under the threat of personal and professional destruction. Here IS an example of that, I said.

Dudes. If someone here truly can’t see by my examples how political considerations have interfered with an open dialogue surrounding the source of the coronavirus then maybe this discussion just isn’t for you.

Howee

Joined: 27 Nov 2009
Posts: 15737
Location: OREGON (in my heart)

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Posted: 04/18/21 6:00 pm :::

jammerbirdi wrote:

Increasingly, the lab leak theory is being seen as more plausible and the wet market transmission to humans as being more dubious. This is a fact.

For NOW. ANDD....all dependent upon who you wish to hear. "The Facts" in all of this have been constantly changing.

jammerbirdi wrote:

Dudes. If someone here truly can’t see by my examples how political considerations have interfered with an open dialogue surrounding the source of the coronavirus then maybe this discussion just isn’t for you.

You seem to believe that I don't *get* your point. But I DO. You've preached this sermon before. Razz

I'm suggesting you're panicking over something that isn't as bad as you fear, and all of what you're fearing isn't necessarily based in irrational ignorance. Bill Maher's "Eyes Wide Open" take on it isn't cutting edge news.

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tfan

Joined: 31 May 2010
Posts: 9620

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Posted: 04/18/21 9:31 pm :::

Howee wrote:

jammerbirdi wrote:

Not a symmetrical situation. QAnon, whatever it is, is not the media. So there is:

FoxNews
OANN - minor player, most people haven't heard of it
NewsMax - minor player, most people haven't heard of it
a few conservative websites/magazines

versus

everyone else.

As Matt Taibi said in an article linked here, it seems like Trump got "everyone else" to drop the charade of being objective political reporters. That and the fact that reporting has been largely replaced by opinions. I was watching the virtual Republican convention on CBS while some ex-Cuban was giving a speech. They showed a little and cut away to Norah O'Donnell and her pundit panel. O'Donnell dismissed the speech as "standard anti-Castro (or anti-communist Cuba)" fare and then proceeded to ask her panel to pontificate about what they had heard in prior speeches. That is how a national broadcast TV network thought it best to cover the Republican convention (as distinct from how they covered the virtual Democratic convention) - give pundit opinions (which could have been given afterwords) instead of showing the speeches taking place.

The "lab leak" theory was normally dismissed in the mainstream media with a statement that "scientists are sure it was not man-made" as if "lab leak" implies it was made in the lab. Ignoring that it is actually talking about a lab that studies viruses - as they have in Wuhan not far from the wet market - having one of their workers get infected.

Here is CNN pushing that bogus narrative as recent as this March 31st: Lab leak Covid-19 theory is like something out of a comic book, virologist says.

Quote:

Dr. Robert Garry of Tulane University and other virologists have been publishing studies for a year that demonstrate SARS-CoV-2 originated naturally in animals and is unlikely to have been engineered in a lab.

However, after they did the standard "not man made" false debunking, their own Doctor suddenly gave it a possibility:

CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta: “Reason to Suspect” That Wuhan Lab is the Origin of COVID-19

Quote:

“My point is that it’s a much more informed sort of thing for him to be saying than for anybody who may have expertise in virology, because he has a lot more knowledge and information that he has that maybe he can’t share, but is informing his opinion,” said Gupta, adding “ It’s a big virology lab right in Wuhan that happened to be studying bat coronaviruses. Just from an Occam’s razor standpoint, finding the simplest explanation, it would make sense.”

The highly flawed organization known as the WHO was sure that China wasn't lying about the origin and recently an official put the probability low for a lab leak. And then after his remarks the WHO head said:

Quote:

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said no hypotheses had been ruled out: “I want to clarify that all hypotheses remain open and require further study.”

WHO: COVID-19 didn’t leak from a lab. Also WHO: Maybe it did

Here is an opinion piece in USA Today that gives credence to the possibility of a lab leak and notes the political affiliation bias on the idea:

Quote:

The notion that more than 2.7 million deaths worldwide – so far – could be the result of a lab accident has been met with skepticism and derision by many journalists and scientists who often portray it as a crackpot conspiracy theory fueled by former President Donald Trump’s China-bashing rhetoric. Without question, the lab-leak theory has been politically and racially weaponized in ugly ways. Nonetheless, that rhetoric needs to be separated from legitimate questions about lab safety that are deserving of investigation.

FrozenLVFan

Joined: 08 Jul 2014
Posts: 3514

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Posted: 04/19/21 1:20 pm :::

jammerbirdi wrote:

...
So it goes like this. And this first part I’m assuming you guys are aware of. So Trump blamed China, meaning the lab and not an accidental wet market transmission. And the fact was that at that time no one knew what the truth was nor was the focus on determining the source. So Trump’s assertions on the source of the virus, like all of Trump’s assertions, was justifiably suspect.

But as with everything Trump said or did, it had to be condemned out of hand. That impulse on social media, which, as Bari Weiss said, is editing the New York Times now, completely infects the establishment news media, and, in an election year, drives the political opposition. So blaming China became racist, the lab leak hypothesis became a xenophobic conspiracy theory, and it was to be given no credence at all in the press, and anyone who suggested it as a legitimate possibility should be called out for promoting a racist and baseless conspiracy theory.

So that’s the context of the last year on the source of the coronavirus.

So about two months ago, after Biden is in office, in a moment that demonstrates the incredible power of the New York Times to set the acceptable truths which we can even have introduced into the national conversation, and I’m pulling this from foggy memory from months ago, they seemed to allow that the lab leak hypothesis was gaining traction in scientific circles.

Of course then there’s backlash to that and lots of scorn and conversation around that article. And then other pieces in the Times push back on the idea, but by then the cat is out of the bag and this then becomes something that’s being discussed more openly.

And that’s about where it’s been and more or less remains to this day. The WHO investigation that determined that the virus did not come from the lab has been widely dismissed as flawed in that it based its conclusions on unquestioned assertions by the Chinese government which didn’t allow access to pertinent records etc to the WHO investigators. And, to throw conflict of interest into the mix, the chief American investigator is deeply invested in the type of research that was happening in thr Wuhan lab, that in which coronavirus’s are manipulated into mutating so that they can make the jump from animals to human transmission.

So there’s that.

But you have to go to the We Don’t Give a Fuck independent media to hear these things because, as I said, it’s all still mostly verboten to have this stuff plastered in mainstream news sources.

So that would be the Krystal Ball/ Saagar Enjeti, Bret Weinstein/ Heather Heying shows. Matt Taibbi, Jimmy Dore, etc. They’ve been doing a good job of keeping track of and gathering these ... watershed moments... in the very slow uncovering or grudging acceptance of the plausibility of the (accidental) lab leak hypothesis and the scientifically quite unlikely possibility of a natural animal to human leap being made by the virus in a wet market or anywhere else.

Try searching on YouTube combining the names of the people I’ve given you with something like lab leak. It should all be there.

But again I was making my previous comment under the assumption that people in this group were aware of all of this. I was using it as an example because I thought it was one of those things that’s known but not widely known and thus most likely known here. Because you hammerheads is smart. I’m not writing a term paper where I’m expected to list my sources. I don’t expect skepticism. Not saying I’m getting it now but I don’t really expect it. And I’m not saying that I know that the virus emanated from a lab leak and not the wet market.

What I said is that political correctness, woke social media pressure, Trump resistance, election year politics, all made even discussing the possibility of a lab leak unacceptable in newspapers or TV or on campuses, etc. And now it turns out that possibility is being given increasing credence in the scientific community. And what I was doing was using this all as an example of the dangers of this current trend in political discourse to label speech that is politically unhelpful to a group’s agenda as racist or whatever.

That pressure on people’s ability to freely and openly discuss things is very dangerous and if it turns out to be the case that the virus did emanate from the Wuhan lab, this will be an historic example of the dangers posed by this ideology.

Because, Howee, eventually, we MUST determine where this virus came from and how it learned to do what it is doing to us.

I call total freaking BS on the parts that I bolded. While you've been getting your "facts" from the mainstream and popular media, I've actually been reading the science articles in respected journals and added that to what I already knew from classes and considerable previous reading on this topic and to information from my recently retired colleague who was a principal WHO investigator in the SARS outbreak in China in 2003.

Bats are the reservoir for a multitude of viruses that have produced emerging infectious diseases...SARS, Hendra, Ebola, Marburg, Zika, MERS, Nipah, et al. The vectors and intermediate hosts have included civets, dogs, cats, camels, horses, monkeys, and other animals that are domesticated and/or used as food sources around the world and therefore seen in wet markets. In most cases, including SARS, multiple vectors were found for the virus under investigation. And that is where the current SARS-CoV-2 investigation is hung up, both from an epidemiological and genomic perspective, because pangolins, civets, turtles, etc all seem to be potential vectors of transmission to humans.

The previous SARS outbreak led to the establishment of China's robust virology program with major research facilities in Beijing and Wuhan. Shortly afterwards, there were at least four outbreaks among researchers in Beijing, with at least one death, presumably due to breaks in containment protocols.

Unsubstantiated reports from China propose there were COVID cases among researchers in Wuhan in the fall of 2019. IMHO, this is probably the most suggestive finding that supports a break in lab containment as the source of infection in the population in Wuhan, not some BS statement that it's "scientifically unlikely" that a viral leap from animals to humans occurred in a wet market because that's exactly how previous viral outbreaks have occurred.

Your understanding of the role of the WHO in investigating disease outbreaks seems rather simplistic. The WHO is a UN agency that has to be invited in by the involved country. They’re not the FBI or the Gestapo and have no power to seize information…they ask, and the country may or may not respond. They provide guidance and resources, and they cannot order anything done.

To disparage Peter Daszak and his non-profit NGO, Eco-Health Alliance, for having a pre-existing association with the Wuhan lab is ludicrous. They study coronaviruses found in Chinese bats, FFS. They go around collecting bat shit and monitoring new viral outbreaks in Chinese villages, not mutating viruses in Wuhan’s labs. He is one of the most knowledgeable people in the world about this topic and we need more of his boots-on-the-ground research and surveillance. Trump’s direction to the NIH to cut funding on his research grant unless he produced a vial of SARS-CoV-2 from the Wuhan lab was moronic, as suggested by the outcry by our country’s Nobel prize winners and scientific organizations to get the grant restored.

So there’s that.

jammerbirdi wrote:

Taking me, Howee, or anyone else to task for not watching what passes as science news on mainstream/popular news outlets is laughable, as is tfan's citing Gupta who is one of the most politicized so-called science experts in the media. The "American political media landscape" is no place to obtain any factual information about a science issue.

If you want to discuss the backlash from the PC groups about maintaining an open discussion about COVID or anything else, I would likely agree with you. Your discussion of SARS-CoV-2 is lacking, as is the role of WHO in outbreak investigations.

As for Trump, my opinion is that in 40-50 years, his stupidity, Putin, and sexual harassment issues will all have been forgotten and he's going to be remembered as an insightful and decisive leader who established Operation Warp Speed and saved our bacon with this vaccine program.

pilight

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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Posted: 04/19/21 1:54 pm :::

FrozenLVFan wrote:

As for Trump, my opinion is that in 40-50 years, his stupidity, Putin, and sexual harassment issues will all have been forgotten and he's going to be remembered as an insightful and decisive leader who established Operation Warp Speed and saved our bacon with this vaccine program.

My guess is his COVID response will be no more remembered than Woodrow Wilson's Influenza response

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jammerbirdi

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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Posted: 04/19/21 4:53 pm :::

FrozenLVFan wrote:

jammerbirdi wrote:

Some of the things that you attribute to me here make me question how careful of a reader you might be. But whatever on all of that.

The reason my understanding of how the bloody WHO investigates disease outbreaks SEEMS simplistic is because it IS simplistic. I don't know WHO to believe or why. You seem to, however, provide details about WHO access in countries where outbreaks are happening that supports the idea that the WHO wasn't given the kind of unfettered access to all things they would have needed to produce a completely informed report as to the origin of the virus.

But whatever on all of that, as well.

What is NOT simplistic is my understanding and assertion of the GRIP that PC has now on the public's most ready traditional resource for information, the so called fourth estate, a free press.

I did not want to get drawn into a debate here about whether the virus came from bat shit pangolins, or a lab or who here on Rebkell's reads and understands more scientific literature. You can bet I'm not reading scientific literature. But people on Rebkell's and some in particular are absolute mind fields of missing the overarching points and concerns and engaging on points of distraction that, in this case, frankly haven't been fully determined and decided upon.

I don't have a dog in the hunt of where the virus came from. I don't even know which of the two (if there are only two) scenarios is better or worse for the human race in the long run.

When I say the lab leak scenario is increasingly being seen as more plausible and the wet market (please forgive if I'm not using the approved scientific terminology) theory is increasingly being seen as less likely... I MEAN MORE OR LESS PLAUSABLE OR LIKELY THAN THEY PREVIOUSLY WERE. Not that MORE scientists see the lab leak as the source of the virus than those who see the wet market as the source. I meant and stand by the statement that more are seeing the lab leak as being plausible than had previously appeared to allow for that possibility.

That could be because of the slight relaxation that has occurred in the mainstream media that previously met any serious consideration of the lab leak scenario as being something that Trump had asserted in the process of his using what was tagged as racist and anti-Asian words and statements and therefore the lab leak scenario had to be characterized as being an unacceptably racist conversation that should be given NO SPACE in the mainstream media and those who dared broach that possibility should be met with charges of racism or trafficking in racist conspiracy theories.

That all happened. And it shut down public consideration of a potential lab leak and more importantly the willingness of those in academia and science to openly explore that possibility.

One of the things I said, is that I was surprised that it appeared that some here were not even aware that any of this was even a thing. It seemed that some here were not aware that there had been a death card dealt to the lab leak scenario due to its being associated with Trump. Or that there had been a slight relaxation of that level or resistance to the conversation in the press. Or that anyone had noticed any of that and was talking about it. I was surprised by that because this is a group that has always seemed to be a step ahead of the general public and all too often ME as well.

When Queenie asked for citations I was like, um, citations of WHAT exactly? I'm not going to present citations that the lab leak is a more likely source of the coronavirus than the wet market. I don't KNOW that and I'm not publicly asserting one over the other. Yes, I do softly believe that the lab leak seems more likely to me. That is true. But, you know, honestly, as I said, I don't know which one actually happened and I'm not sure about which one to even root for in that debate.

Except for the truth. I DO root for the truth and I want an open unpolitical determination to bring home that information to the public without fear nor favor, to borrow some long forgotten words from the New York Times masthead.

What I CAN do is cite the sources that all of this, this conversation itself, is indeed a thing.

And that brings me back to Howee. Howee was right about ONE thing and doubly so. Like the proverbial broken clock, he was right twice in one day.

I have indeed preached this sermon before. Many times. I have been warning that PC would deliver us to this evil long before there was even a Rebkell's. And I'm never EVER going to stop. It is one of the foundational perspectives that informs my politics and, just like criticizing my OWN political side, Party, tactics, etc. it has been the focus of my political viewpoint almost my entire life. Because even before PC was a named identified viewpoint, elements of it as a political viewpoint were already building up around the social justice landscape. These things ARE my contribution to the discussion on the political issues that affect all of our lives. So I’ll never stop.

But, Howee was inadvertently right even about this exact topic and my perspective on it. Because I DID post on this three months ago here on Rebkell's. Please note my focus even then was NOT on the actual source of the virus but the impact and power of a PC/Woke New York Times to control what are the acceptable narratives that can be presented to the public.

I posted this on January 18 of this year regarding the power of the New York Times to control the narrative. Again, please notice that my focus is on THAT and not on ME determining or suggesting where the virus came from.

jammerbirdi wrote:

They’re also regularly shutting down avenues of information by doing exactly what they’re doing in the two instances you mention. And in doing that, they slow or stop dead the momentum or progression of everyone coming into the possession of facts and information that must be aired out in order for more of it to be revealed. There’s a great example of this I saw on a podcast by Bret Weinstein that uses the press and people’s responses on social media to the discussion of the source of the coronavirus.

So their main point in this segment isn’t about the source of the coronavirus. It’s this. That for the last year, one could not discuss, was not permitted to discuss, could not even mention the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic originated in that Wuhan research lab without being pounced on via social media, by experts, etc. And it was just an unmentionable off-limits topic in the establishment news media.

Until now. Apparently, the Times has gone there, and that completely opens up the subject as being acceptable for further exploration. It seems most other theories have fallen out of favor, and now this has started to more and more look like a possibility.

But the point is, their point, is that that’s how powerful the press and the Times is at this point. They can pour ice water on a story in the privacy of their newsroom, after determining through unknown means that it is not fit to print, stifling any discussion and feeding the idea that any suggestion that this pandemic was the fault of China was acting to validate to some degree Trump’s repeated attempts to pin the virus on China. And so, for purely political reasons the entirety of the news media and talking heads on TV, and the entirety of the resistance on social media, rejected anyone even suggesting that this virus might have come from that Chinese lab as being racist, Trump loving, morons etc.

And so the result is that the idea was not explored publicly. Wasn’t deemed permissible to drag this possibility out into the open for public exploration. So now, almost a year later, the possible trail that might have existed at that lab has surely gone cold.

So this is a very big and very easily understood example of what I’m talking about in terms of momentum that exists (or doesn’t) when the entire world can chew on information because they’ve been given all the news and facts that our news media might have in their possession. You’ve got to know that there are myriad numbers of other instances that are smaller and more complicated and on and on.

So what this post of mine from January 18 shows is that at that time I'd watched a podcast with Brett Weinstein, *or THOUGHT I did, that focused on the emerging allowability of a lab leak possibility by the mainstream media and specifically one that focused on the power of the New York Times to either 'green light' a narrative or completely remove it from public acceptability.

I say *or THOUGHT I did, because I can't find that video on YouTube so far. And what I mean by that * point is that MAYBE I conflated a video on this topic on the Weinstein podcast which I DID watch at that time with one that specifically focused on the power of the New York Times to flick a switch and suddenly we are now allowed to discuss something that was heretofore unacceptable.

But I very clearly remember the content (probably Krystal and Saager) and the stipulation made by whomever's show it was that they were NOT asserting lab leak vs wet market at all but were, just as I was, using what was happening around that discussion to highlight the incredible power of the New York Times, driven by trends in what is considered politically correct, to control the parameters of debate. You all know me, you know my focus would have been on this aspect and not in playing scientist and stomping around the argument of where a fucking virus came from.

BUT... that said, these two, Brett Weinstein and Heather Heying are and have been actively trying to shine a light on the possibility of a lab leak. They both stipulate that they don't KNOW. But in trying to bring to the fore the discussion of the possibility they do argue quite well the many points that support the lab leak scenario and they do often point to the downward pressure on that idea in the mainstream of public communication and information consumption due to the fact that the assertion was so greatly associated with Donald Trump.

So until I locate the video I'm thinking about and was referring to in this prior post, and because some of you are so all fired invested in that aspect of the conversation, which is actually the actual topic of this thread itself Embarassed

and out of a desire to just annoy you further with a perspective that some of you seem to be annoyed with Wink

then I will post some interesting videos from these two wherein they discuss the possibility of a lab leak vs natural or wet market transmission to humans.

First up is their appearance on Bill Maher's show.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZMGWLLDSA3c" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This one is titled the Core of the Lab Leak Hypothosis.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HRSzAo9sfmU" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This next one is the very first exposure I got to these two discussing a possible lab leak and would be the one that I conflated the New York Times part of this with what must have been another video that I'm not seriously remembering as being (maybe Embarassed

) from Krystal and Saager's show.

But this was from those very days in mid January. It is titled Covid Lab Leak Theory Goes Mainstream and it was posted to YouTube on January 16th and it does talk about the fact that this theory may be now finally something that is acceptable conversation in the public sphere. But watch it and see.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tuWrdNNXRGM" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

undersized_post

Joined: 01 Mar 2021
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Posted: 04/20/21 8:41 am :::	Reply

You referred to an idea with which I was only marginally familiar, and I asked, "Where have you heard this?" Your response, instead of simply providing a source for me to check out, was, "You prove my point," acting like I'm somehow part of a societal problem. WTF?

pilight

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Posted: 04/20/21 10:00 am :::	Reply

An accidental lab leak has always been a more likely scenario than people eating raw bat meat. The last administration was focused on the wrong question. "How did this happen?" should come after "What are we going to do about this?" _________________ I'm a lonely frog I ain't got a home

Howee

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Location: OREGON (in my heart)

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Posted: 04/20/21 10:45 am :::

pilight wrote:

An accidental lab leak has always been a more likely scenario than people eating raw bat meat.

I cannot begin to comprehend how you find that plausible. Possible, yes.
But it's not necessary to EAT the bat: just handling bats, warehoused in cramped, fecal/blood-laden conditions, all in close proximity to a crowded market? FAR more likely, imo, unless you can prove otherwise.

pilight wrote:

The last administration was focused on the wrong question. "How did this happen?" should come after "What are we going to do about this?"

This! 1000X.

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jammerbirdi

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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Posted: 04/20/21 10:46 am :::

undersized_post wrote:

You referred to an idea with which I was only marginally familiar, and I asked, "Where have you heard this?"

Your response, instead of simply providing a source for me to check out, was, "You prove my point," acting like I'm somehow part of a societal problem.

WTF?

I didn’t mean it to be an insult at all. I meant it to be indicative of the fact that there is little public awareness of the issue due to it being deemed a racist conspiracy theory.

jammerbirdi

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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Posted: 04/20/21 10:51 am :::

Howee wrote:

pilight wrote:

An accidental lab leak has always been a more likely scenario than people eating raw bat meat.

pilight wrote:

The last administration was focused on the wrong question. "How did this happen?" should come after "What are we going to do about this?"

This! 1000X.

I think the last administration, led by Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx and the Surgeon General and the head of the CDC, was exponentially more focused on the ‘what are we going to do about this?’ question than they were thinking about where the virus might have come from. 1000x at least. Rolling Eyes

pilight

Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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Posted: 04/20/21 10:53 am :::

Howee wrote:

pilight wrote:

An accidental lab leak has always been a more likely scenario than people eating raw bat meat.

They've been handling bats and such the same way for a very long time without anything like this happening.

I have no trouble at all believing an error by a lab tech or even just a maintenance person who works there could let something they were studying out.

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