You perhaps should think about a third category: where even the better evidenced view is still too poorly evidenced to justify taking a position other than uncertainty/skepticism.
What I have trouble getting is how could anyone sit through the slick cavalcade of corporate news or the chirpy nausea of the Today Show and come away not only feeling informed, but also entitled to a full-on lecture mode? What swamp demon, low-hanging fruit mentality does that entail?
My adult son recently got uninvited to a family Christmas dinner because he's unvaccinated, so if I seem a bit pissed off at our current brand of self-inflicted stupidity, it's because I am.
As your article implies, not only are people blinkered, but they wear their ignorance like it's some sort of a great personal accomplishment. Woe be to us.
Please tell your son this old man is inspired by his clarity of thought, Riff, and all who are similarly unconvinced by so-called “authorities” — quotes here used to select those who can only show practised expertise in manipulating law to cover their ass but specifically NOT to generate or apply good policy.
To take Caitlin seriously here forces me to put myself in the shoes of those I most mistrust and try to see why they do so little of honest utility in addressing clear and common concerns. I confess to a strong bias, and still see no matter their title or wealth only fearful, greedy little people doing fearful and greedy little things, just as they learned to get away with in school.
And that makes me angry with all of us, myself first. Nothing left to do but to deal with it all as well and as honourably as I can and move on.
All this to say persist, Riff! They may yet beat us but they’ll know forever they were in a fight because they’ll never walk the same way again. Of that we can all be certain. I remind myself it is up to me to feed, shelter, transport and secure myself no matter who or what threatens, just as has always been. And that honesty shines like a beacon in a world of fearful, greedy lies. Thanks for yours.
Good. If your son is unvaxxed for reasons OTHER than health, such as being allergic or in poor health, he SHOULD be uninvited.
Because his unvaxxed status puts him at much higher risk of carrying the infection, and thus risking all those people, and anyone they come in contact with.
All because he doesn't understand how numbers work, or gets his info from facebook.
We could reverse this. If someone who is Vaxxed is invited to a family reunion of unvaxxed, would he go? I would not. Does that put me on a "list of bad people"?
Why get fucking vaccinated, demand that everyone else do so as well, but then conduct yourself as if it makes no difference? Mainstream media is pumping out fear and calling it science. It is not. I've never seen any other health issue in my lifetime treated in such an insane and counter-productive manner.
You may want to acquaint yourself -- if you have not already -- with how the authorities are tabulating Covid death statistics. They are including all deaths FROM WHATEVER CAUSE as Covid deaths if Covid is detected at the time of death. So get hit by a bus, and if you have Covid, even if you are asymptomatic, then --BOOM -- that's another Covid death statistic. I think we can all agree how stupid this is. And we can also agree that the relatively small number of fatalities attributed to Covid are therefor actually much smaller.
To repeat, I've never heard of any other medical situation in my lifetime that is surrounded by such fast and loose statistics and fear-mongering. Why this is and who benefits are two very excellent questions for us to ponder.
I am confused by your first sentence and your anger that your son was disinvited. Something just isn't matching up.
I'm not demanding anyone get vaccinated. But if you aren't vaccinated, please stay away from me, or if you'd to put it another way if you'd rather -- let me know you're not vaccinated so I can choose to stay away from you.
WRT how the authorities are counting Covid deaths, that's yet another one of those "things" that "some" (ill-defined group) is using to create even more chaos over the use of vaccines to combat Covid or to even suggest that there is no Covid.
Not a perfect example but, My cousin just died. He had a bad heart, but he died just a week after getting the vaccine. How do you determine whether or not he would have died anyway had he not been vaxxed? I surely don't know. They call this a "co-morbidity". Concentration on the fact that someone has multiple things he could have died from and then picking only one, isn't helpful.
(I hope you see the obvious that the anti-vaxxers will claim my cousin died from the vaccine and not from his heart disease.)
See my earlier comment about how each "side" has become so convinced that they are right. In this case you and I are in agreement and I ponder the questions you offer all the time. But the "answers" being promoted by different "sides" are seldom satisfying. Rather they seem to me just another "screed" to promote policies I don't agree with.
I refer you back to your post about being angry because your son was "disinvited" to the family gathering because he was not vaxxed. Perhaps I misunderstood your reason for being upset, but it came across as if your unvaxxed son has every right to attend a family gathering where everyone else is vaxxed.
I met a good friend for dinner. He didn't tell us until we all gathered together that he was not vaxxed. Now, I'm the angry one. Explain to me why I'm not justified in being angry.
If you're that scared after getting the All Might Vax, STAY HOME. Insisting the entire (western-only-please) world take an experimental drug from manufacturers who have no liability, astronomical profit motive, and full capture of media/regulators/academia, is complete bonkers, especially since the product ultimately has marginal real benefit for most of the population and failed to deliver on multiple promised fronts. Mandating it for kids is completely insane.
However, I'll still admit they make sense for certain vulnerable populations with higher risk of covid complications (at least with earlier variants).
I have yet to see anything offered bye the anti-vaxxers that refute these charts. It isn't like I haven't looked for them or asked others for something.
For Ivermectin, I get pointed to NIH publications that are a meta analysis of several studies including a couple that have been withdrawn and a couple shown to be fraudulent.
So, let me repeat, get vaxxed if you want and don't if you don't want. But it is only right that you respect the fact that I see your non-vaxxzd status as a threat to my health.
A fascist movement regarding health and bodily autonomy is the greatest threat to health I see. The expectation that your rationale will lead to anything but widening the already dire cultural rift is very shortsighted; it totally ignores human psychology. Also, pharma's corruption is quite relevant.
I guess we disagree on this. Only one side here is pushing mandates, passports, quarantines, lock-ups, shutdowns, and shuttered schools and businesses, so such actions should bear some rigorous justifications for doing so. Vaccines were presented as a way to return to normal; now that now longer seems to be on the agenda. It seems the vaccinated are just as fearful as they were before getting the jab, so what's up with that? Of course the fearful are easier to control, just as we saw in the wake of 9/11. I'm sorry for your loss.
I should add that according to Biden's covid guy, everyone's going to get covid. Getting vaccinated may well mitigate your symptoms but treating those who refuse to get vaccinated as this great mass of ignorant unwashed is politically motivated dangerous nonsense, in my opinion.
I'm not on any side mandating vaccines. I'm not pushing mandates. I'm not for vaccine passports. (Although China has still had less than 5000 total deaths so they must be doing something right. It all depends on where you put your priorities.)
However, if you aren't vaxxed, I believe the vaccine works and that you put me in danger by being in my presence not being vaxxed so stay away. I'm not going into a store where the patrons don't wear masks. I'm not eating at a restaurant that doesn't take the pandemic seriously. If you find one that lets you in, go for it. I won't be there.
Your attitude somewhat parallels the drunk who insists he can drive and that I have to ride along. Hey, you want to drive drunk, go ahead (although I counsel against it) but no way am I getting in the car. Only a drunk would take offense.
The (perceived) success or failure of the vaccines is immaterial to each of us honoring the others choice.
"I believe the vaccine works and that you put me in danger by being in my presence not being vaxxed so stay away." i think the inherent contradiction of this statement sums things up quite nicely.
Lately, I get "shame on you for questioning the narrative!", which is pretty much an admission that they have no argument and that the discussion makes them uncomfortable because they know it.
Somewhere along the line the idea that we're supposed to please politicians and not the other way 'round gained a dangerous currency. So how dare you question the official narrative? has become a thing. Unbelievably.
I have put what’s below in several WaPo threads. It works every time but for the name-callers. It’s a summary by Harry Stotle of William Blum’s book.
The secret to understanding US foreign policy is that THERE IS NO SECRET. Principally, one must come to the realization that the United States strives to dominate the world, for which end it is prepared to use any means necessary. Once one understands that, much of the apparent confusion, contradiction, and ambiguity surrounding Washington’s policies fades away. To express this striving for dominance numerically, one can consider that since the end of World War II the United States has:
1) Endeavored to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected;
2) Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries;
3) Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders;
4) Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries;
5) Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.”
― William Blum, America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else
Editors are everywhere, true journalists are rare - we end up stuffed full of opinion, and not truly informed. This seems to be true of most topics, including science, and the behaviors of nations. I'm at a loss as to how society is going to solve this problem, but it really needs to.
Thanks for bringing up COVID. The two sides of that issue are so entrenched that even writing something that should be considered support of one of the sides brings condemnations of eternal damnation and proclamations of your "obvious stupidity'. They then offer up their own guru (Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell/Robert Malone/Anthony Fauci) as "proof" that "God" is on their side.
To elaborate on this bifurcation of political thought, the response to the movie "Don't Look Up!" where the Trumpeter Guardian reviewer claims it failed because it was so snarky, while the anti-Trumpeters are still laughing.
Do we just hate the Trumpeters so much that confirming their ignorance makes us laugh our heads off?
Then the success of Project Veritas against the New York Time and the Times publisher calling the judges decision a huge threat to journalism, while at the same time still insisting Assange is NOT a journalist. The absurdity.
The Amazon Prime series "The Expanse" is a perfect allegory for what is happening. Each "side" is so convinced of their moral rectitude and the absolute evil of the other "sides" that conflict and destruction of one another is inevitable.
"then unless it's something that's self-evidently absurd at a casual glance it would be silly and asinine for you to take a confident position on it one way or the other." Absurdity is relative.
Caitlin I read this article while golfing in Florida, with a group of 8 men, privileged people.
I did not mention your article, I’m aware that bringing it up would be extremely unwelcome and that if I did, I would be socially ostracized. Fair enough, inappropriate, it is a recreational activity.
But, the larger reason is your article would demonstrate that they are complete sell outs, propagandized adherents of the official narrative, which they are. In the face of this information I believe they would become violent. A lifetime incubating in the American story would not allow debate, but my point is the counter narrative is less scary than what the question demonstrates about themselves: the obvious fact that they had sold out, given up, capitulated.
They are not trying to figure out how the world works, they are not striving for honesty or knowledge or correctness, they are not concerned with suffering, pestilence and poverty, they do not care about injustices, they are in it for themselves, nothing else and they see no problem with this their abdication and they see America as good. As for their everlasting soul they are confident they are good people who live, love and laugh with the occasional visit to church too hedge their bets.
Douche bags. My friends are douche bags. I feel very alone.
You're the one who needs to go away, frankly. Cause every bit of what I said above is true save for perhaps the "hot potato" part, but that is a pretty logical inference, I'd say given your behavior.
But I guess you're in control of the ban button so...
Whatever. I've said my peace. You've sat on the sidelines and you have branded yourself as somehow more 'virtuous' for doing so than those who have taken a stand. In my view that's pretty sad.
So ban away. If you have an honest bone in your body you can't ban the truth from inside your own being.
Or if you like i guess you can just make the argument that it "cuts both ways" sometimes the arguments made by spooks and Prince Charles through their covert mouth-pieces in the fake ass astro-turfed left-branded youtube pontificators community are actually "better-evidenced". We just can't know for sure so we just have to stay "agnostic" til it's 110% safe to talk about/push back on it LMAO.
By that time the outcome will already have been decided while you sat on the sidelines.
This doesn't just apply to arguments that disrupt narratives about governments the empire wants to take out.
I recall you flagrantly insulting a lot of people who were imploring you to look at evidence we were being lied to about covid (a fact that is now all but accepted even in mainstream circles) and that lockdown policies had nothing to do with "public health" and generally being rude, dismissive and downright belligerent.
While it perhaps cannot be definitively proven with iron-clad smoking-gun evidence that the lockdown policies were designed as a form of class warfare (and probably never will be), the simple, un-deniable fact is that they did advantage the global capitalist elites and advance their stated agendas in myriad ways (one of which being another issue you write on frequently, that of controlling speech) warrants extremely careful consideration of this possibility and there is absolutely nothing to be gained (in terms of class war) by dismissing it as you did.
Cait, you do not understand any issue by “researching the arguments” for and against it. That just gets you into the bad thinking of both ‘sides’.
I don’t do ‘sides’. I get my information about things from people who have information.
That is, from people who have consistently been right in their predictions.
These are people who look into the facts as they are and draw conclusions from them.
You do not understand anything by listening to people ‘argue’ about it. This is why most people are repelled by people arguing about something.
Sane people want to gain knowledge of a subject by hearing people with knowledge of that subject. They weigh whether that person’s conclusions actually explain and predict.
Debaters are almost always both dead wrong. When you research a topic by hearing ‘sides’, all you get are the common delusions of the two sides.
Its really not that complicated. Things are generally as they appear to be. The reason there is so much confusion about things is that people are under the control of sociopaths. Disagreement about what is factual has to be manufactured in order to maintain control. The most destructive delusions are the ones most aggressively enforced. Always, the consensus about them is maintained by fear.
If that is your conclusion from reading the many Caitlin articles on China, you aren't understanding her point.
Or perhaps you're just trying to sell a book. The book's review on Amazon leaves me laughing almost as hard as the movie "Don't Look Up!" It is really hard for me to believe you took this "book" seriously.
Yeah no. The west did not need China's help to turn Fash. fascism is the emergency mode of capitalism. And we have seen it happen multiple times. The book is more sad attempts to blame China. Just as Caitlyn spoke of in this very article. Did you read it?
Question Everything. You should follow your own advice and question the narrative that 'Xi' "shut down the world".
There is plenty of evidence of complicity on the part of Western oligarchs and the 'qui bono' is vastly more weighted towards the architects of power in the Western Empire. These xenophobic narratives that it was "China"/the "CCP" that master-minded some plot it are toxic, insane and poorly evidenced imo.
George Gao was at event 201, but so were a lot of CIA people. So was it sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates, so was the Wuhan lab research funded by Fauci and Collins. Pinning it all on 'Xi" and the CCP is insane. Criminal mastermind George Soros is hellbent on de-stabilizing and regime-changing China just like he is trying to regime-change Russia rn. That should tell you something.
You perhaps should think about a third category: where even the better evidenced view is still too poorly evidenced to justify taking a position other than uncertainty/skepticism.
Good point.
Some things the stakes are too high to take a position of agnosticism me thinks. Especially for going on two years.
What I have trouble getting is how could anyone sit through the slick cavalcade of corporate news or the chirpy nausea of the Today Show and come away not only feeling informed, but also entitled to a full-on lecture mode? What swamp demon, low-hanging fruit mentality does that entail?
My adult son recently got uninvited to a family Christmas dinner because he's unvaccinated, so if I seem a bit pissed off at our current brand of self-inflicted stupidity, it's because I am.
As your article implies, not only are people blinkered, but they wear their ignorance like it's some sort of a great personal accomplishment. Woe be to us.
Please tell your son this old man is inspired by his clarity of thought, Riff, and all who are similarly unconvinced by so-called “authorities” — quotes here used to select those who can only show practised expertise in manipulating law to cover their ass but specifically NOT to generate or apply good policy.
To take Caitlin seriously here forces me to put myself in the shoes of those I most mistrust and try to see why they do so little of honest utility in addressing clear and common concerns. I confess to a strong bias, and still see no matter their title or wealth only fearful, greedy little people doing fearful and greedy little things, just as they learned to get away with in school.
And that makes me angry with all of us, myself first. Nothing left to do but to deal with it all as well and as honourably as I can and move on.
All this to say persist, Riff! They may yet beat us but they’ll know forever they were in a fight because they’ll never walk the same way again. Of that we can all be certain. I remind myself it is up to me to feed, shelter, transport and secure myself no matter who or what threatens, just as has always been. And that honesty shines like a beacon in a world of fearful, greedy lies. Thanks for yours.
Good. If your son is unvaxxed for reasons OTHER than health, such as being allergic or in poor health, he SHOULD be uninvited.
Because his unvaxxed status puts him at much higher risk of carrying the infection, and thus risking all those people, and anyone they come in contact with.
All because he doesn't understand how numbers work, or gets his info from facebook.
But it's ok if unvaxxed for "legit" reasons? How's that logic work? Holy bananas.
I'm sure telling people they don't understand numbers is productive. Do you understand humans?
We could reverse this. If someone who is Vaxxed is invited to a family reunion of unvaxxed, would he go? I would not. Does that put me on a "list of bad people"?
I see your son is the "smart one" and everyone else is dumb.
A perfect example of Caitlin's point.
Why is it your son's right to potentially infect everyone who has chosen to get vaccinated? Sure, they may be wrong, but then so might your son.
Why get fucking vaccinated, demand that everyone else do so as well, but then conduct yourself as if it makes no difference? Mainstream media is pumping out fear and calling it science. It is not. I've never seen any other health issue in my lifetime treated in such an insane and counter-productive manner.
You may want to acquaint yourself -- if you have not already -- with how the authorities are tabulating Covid death statistics. They are including all deaths FROM WHATEVER CAUSE as Covid deaths if Covid is detected at the time of death. So get hit by a bus, and if you have Covid, even if you are asymptomatic, then --BOOM -- that's another Covid death statistic. I think we can all agree how stupid this is. And we can also agree that the relatively small number of fatalities attributed to Covid are therefor actually much smaller.
To repeat, I've never heard of any other medical situation in my lifetime that is surrounded by such fast and loose statistics and fear-mongering. Why this is and who benefits are two very excellent questions for us to ponder.
I am confused by your first sentence and your anger that your son was disinvited. Something just isn't matching up.
I'm not demanding anyone get vaccinated. But if you aren't vaccinated, please stay away from me, or if you'd to put it another way if you'd rather -- let me know you're not vaccinated so I can choose to stay away from you.
WRT how the authorities are counting Covid deaths, that's yet another one of those "things" that "some" (ill-defined group) is using to create even more chaos over the use of vaccines to combat Covid or to even suggest that there is no Covid.
Not a perfect example but, My cousin just died. He had a bad heart, but he died just a week after getting the vaccine. How do you determine whether or not he would have died anyway had he not been vaxxed? I surely don't know. They call this a "co-morbidity". Concentration on the fact that someone has multiple things he could have died from and then picking only one, isn't helpful.
(I hope you see the obvious that the anti-vaxxers will claim my cousin died from the vaccine and not from his heart disease.)
See my earlier comment about how each "side" has become so convinced that they are right. In this case you and I are in agreement and I ponder the questions you offer all the time. But the "answers" being promoted by different "sides" are seldom satisfying. Rather they seem to me just another "screed" to promote policies I don't agree with.
I refer you back to your post about being angry because your son was "disinvited" to the family gathering because he was not vaxxed. Perhaps I misunderstood your reason for being upset, but it came across as if your unvaxxed son has every right to attend a family gathering where everyone else is vaxxed.
I met a good friend for dinner. He didn't tell us until we all gathered together that he was not vaxxed. Now, I'm the angry one. Explain to me why I'm not justified in being angry.
If you're that scared after getting the All Might Vax, STAY HOME. Insisting the entire (western-only-please) world take an experimental drug from manufacturers who have no liability, astronomical profit motive, and full capture of media/regulators/academia, is complete bonkers, especially since the product ultimately has marginal real benefit for most of the population and failed to deliver on multiple promised fronts. Mandating it for kids is completely insane.
However, I'll still admit they make sense for certain vulnerable populations with higher risk of covid complications (at least with earlier variants).
I've repeatedly said that if you don't want to get vaxxed don't.
Just don't expect to enjoy my company.
Bringing up Big Pharma's corruption is completely immaterial to this discussion.
Gaba has developed the best series of graphs explaining the effectiveness of the vaccines that I've found:
https://acasignups.net/21/12/27/weekly-update-covid19-casedeath-rates-county-partisan-lean-vaccination-rate
I have yet to see anything offered bye the anti-vaxxers that refute these charts. It isn't like I haven't looked for them or asked others for something.
For Ivermectin, I get pointed to NIH publications that are a meta analysis of several studies including a couple that have been withdrawn and a couple shown to be fraudulent.
So, let me repeat, get vaxxed if you want and don't if you don't want. But it is only right that you respect the fact that I see your non-vaxxzd status as a threat to my health.
We don't agree the data are good to start with.
A fascist movement regarding health and bodily autonomy is the greatest threat to health I see. The expectation that your rationale will lead to anything but widening the already dire cultural rift is very shortsighted; it totally ignores human psychology. Also, pharma's corruption is quite relevant.
I guess we disagree on this. Only one side here is pushing mandates, passports, quarantines, lock-ups, shutdowns, and shuttered schools and businesses, so such actions should bear some rigorous justifications for doing so. Vaccines were presented as a way to return to normal; now that now longer seems to be on the agenda. It seems the vaccinated are just as fearful as they were before getting the jab, so what's up with that? Of course the fearful are easier to control, just as we saw in the wake of 9/11. I'm sorry for your loss.
I should add that according to Biden's covid guy, everyone's going to get covid. Getting vaccinated may well mitigate your symptoms but treating those who refuse to get vaccinated as this great mass of ignorant unwashed is politically motivated dangerous nonsense, in my opinion.
Are you not listening to me?
Get vaxxed don't get vaxxed your choice.
I'm not on any side mandating vaccines. I'm not pushing mandates. I'm not for vaccine passports. (Although China has still had less than 5000 total deaths so they must be doing something right. It all depends on where you put your priorities.)
However, if you aren't vaxxed, I believe the vaccine works and that you put me in danger by being in my presence not being vaxxed so stay away. I'm not going into a store where the patrons don't wear masks. I'm not eating at a restaurant that doesn't take the pandemic seriously. If you find one that lets you in, go for it. I won't be there.
Your attitude somewhat parallels the drunk who insists he can drive and that I have to ride along. Hey, you want to drive drunk, go ahead (although I counsel against it) but no way am I getting in the car. Only a drunk would take offense.
The (perceived) success or failure of the vaccines is immaterial to each of us honoring the others choice.
"I believe the vaccine works and that you put me in danger by being in my presence not being vaxxed so stay away." i think the inherent contradiction of this statement sums things up quite nicely.
Lately, I get "shame on you for questioning the narrative!", which is pretty much an admission that they have no argument and that the discussion makes them uncomfortable because they know it.
Somewhere along the line the idea that we're supposed to please politicians and not the other way 'round gained a dangerous currency. So how dare you question the official narrative? has become a thing. Unbelievably.
Like these people have learned nothing from the runup to the War on Iraq, to name one recent and especially egregious example.
Or rather, they have learned nothing because they don't want to learn.
They don’t want to learn : bring it up an you risk a violent backlash.
Are you talking about those who promote Ivermectin
or those who promote the vaccine?
or
Both.
Both
Hi Caitlyn,
I have put what’s below in several WaPo threads. It works every time but for the name-callers. It’s a summary by Harry Stotle of William Blum’s book.
The secret to understanding US foreign policy is that THERE IS NO SECRET. Principally, one must come to the realization that the United States strives to dominate the world, for which end it is prepared to use any means necessary. Once one understands that, much of the apparent confusion, contradiction, and ambiguity surrounding Washington’s policies fades away. To express this striving for dominance numerically, one can consider that since the end of World War II the United States has:
1) Endeavored to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically elected;
2) Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries;
3) Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders;
4) Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries;
5) Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.”
― William Blum, America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth About US Foreign Policy and Everything Else
Power is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats.
Editors are everywhere, true journalists are rare - we end up stuffed full of opinion, and not truly informed. This seems to be true of most topics, including science, and the behaviors of nations. I'm at a loss as to how society is going to solve this problem, but it really needs to.
Substack eliminates editors so there is opportunity for unfettered opinion and on rare occasions first hand reporting.
Thanks for bringing up COVID. The two sides of that issue are so entrenched that even writing something that should be considered support of one of the sides brings condemnations of eternal damnation and proclamations of your "obvious stupidity'. They then offer up their own guru (Pat Robertson/Jerry Falwell/Robert Malone/Anthony Fauci) as "proof" that "God" is on their side.
To elaborate on this bifurcation of political thought, the response to the movie "Don't Look Up!" where the Trumpeter Guardian reviewer claims it failed because it was so snarky, while the anti-Trumpeters are still laughing.
Do we just hate the Trumpeters so much that confirming their ignorance makes us laugh our heads off?
Then the success of Project Veritas against the New York Time and the Times publisher calling the judges decision a huge threat to journalism, while at the same time still insisting Assange is NOT a journalist. The absurdity.
Once again, I find myself having to recommend Snowden's article on Apophenia. https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/conspiracy-pt2
The Amazon Prime series "The Expanse" is a perfect allegory for what is happening. Each "side" is so convinced of their moral rectitude and the absolute evil of the other "sides" that conflict and destruction of one another is inevitable.
"then unless it's something that's self-evidently absurd at a casual glance it would be silly and asinine for you to take a confident position on it one way or the other." Absurdity is relative.
Caitlin I read this article while golfing in Florida, with a group of 8 men, privileged people.
I did not mention your article, I’m aware that bringing it up would be extremely unwelcome and that if I did, I would be socially ostracized. Fair enough, inappropriate, it is a recreational activity.
But, the larger reason is your article would demonstrate that they are complete sell outs, propagandized adherents of the official narrative, which they are. In the face of this information I believe they would become violent. A lifetime incubating in the American story would not allow debate, but my point is the counter narrative is less scary than what the question demonstrates about themselves: the obvious fact that they had sold out, given up, capitulated.
They are not trying to figure out how the world works, they are not striving for honesty or knowledge or correctness, they are not concerned with suffering, pestilence and poverty, they do not care about injustices, they are in it for themselves, nothing else and they see no problem with this their abdication and they see America as good. As for their everlasting soul they are confident they are good people who live, love and laugh with the occasional visit to church too hedge their bets.
Douche bags. My friends are douche bags. I feel very alone.
And that's just some dopey nonsense you made up in your head. Away with you.
You're the one who needs to go away, frankly. Cause every bit of what I said above is true save for perhaps the "hot potato" part, but that is a pretty logical inference, I'd say given your behavior.
But I guess you're in control of the ban button so...
Whatever. I've said my peace. You've sat on the sidelines and you have branded yourself as somehow more 'virtuous' for doing so than those who have taken a stand. In my view that's pretty sad.
So ban away. If you have an honest bone in your body you can't ban the truth from inside your own being.
Or if you like i guess you can just make the argument that it "cuts both ways" sometimes the arguments made by spooks and Prince Charles through their covert mouth-pieces in the fake ass astro-turfed left-branded youtube pontificators community are actually "better-evidenced". We just can't know for sure so we just have to stay "agnostic" til it's 110% safe to talk about/push back on it LMAO.
By that time the outcome will already have been decided while you sat on the sidelines.
This doesn't just apply to arguments that disrupt narratives about governments the empire wants to take out.
I recall you flagrantly insulting a lot of people who were imploring you to look at evidence we were being lied to about covid (a fact that is now all but accepted even in mainstream circles) and that lockdown policies had nothing to do with "public health" and generally being rude, dismissive and downright belligerent.
While it perhaps cannot be definitively proven with iron-clad smoking-gun evidence that the lockdown policies were designed as a form of class warfare (and probably never will be), the simple, un-deniable fact is that they did advantage the global capitalist elites and advance their stated agendas in myriad ways (one of which being another issue you write on frequently, that of controlling speech) warrants extremely careful consideration of this possibility and there is absolutely nothing to be gained (in terms of class war) by dismissing it as you did.
https://www.wecommune.com/posts/commusings-know-thy-cell-f-by-ara-katz
Or as Mao put it: "No investigation, no right to speak."
Cait, you do not understand any issue by “researching the arguments” for and against it. That just gets you into the bad thinking of both ‘sides’.
I don’t do ‘sides’. I get my information about things from people who have information.
That is, from people who have consistently been right in their predictions.
These are people who look into the facts as they are and draw conclusions from them.
You do not understand anything by listening to people ‘argue’ about it. This is why most people are repelled by people arguing about something.
Sane people want to gain knowledge of a subject by hearing people with knowledge of that subject. They weigh whether that person’s conclusions actually explain and predict.
Debaters are almost always both dead wrong. When you research a topic by hearing ‘sides’, all you get are the common delusions of the two sides.
Happy New Year.
And when there's widespread disagreement about who was right, what is factual, or who has knowledge of a subject? Oh dear.
Its really not that complicated. Things are generally as they appear to be. The reason there is so much confusion about things is that people are under the control of sociopaths. Disagreement about what is factual has to be manufactured in order to maintain control. The most destructive delusions are the ones most aggressively enforced. Always, the consensus about them is maintained by fear.
I may not be grasping your initial point perhaps, we may agree on most. I do think it's complicated though, exactly due to what you just said.
Anyway, happy New Year to you too.
Really, it undermines her principle ‘ question everything you read about the mainstream media?’ Doubtful/
If that is your conclusion from reading the many Caitlin articles on China, you aren't understanding her point.
Or perhaps you're just trying to sell a book. The book's review on Amazon leaves me laughing almost as hard as the movie "Don't Look Up!" It is really hard for me to believe you took this "book" seriously.
https://www.amazon.com/Snake-Oil-Jinping-Shut-World-ebook/dp/B09KPJQZWW
Yeah no. The west did not need China's help to turn Fash. fascism is the emergency mode of capitalism. And we have seen it happen multiple times. The book is more sad attempts to blame China. Just as Caitlyn spoke of in this very article. Did you read it?
Question Everything. You should follow your own advice and question the narrative that 'Xi' "shut down the world".
There is plenty of evidence of complicity on the part of Western oligarchs and the 'qui bono' is vastly more weighted towards the architects of power in the Western Empire. These xenophobic narratives that it was "China"/the "CCP" that master-minded some plot it are toxic, insane and poorly evidenced imo.
George Gao was at event 201, but so were a lot of CIA people. So was it sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates, so was the Wuhan lab research funded by Fauci and Collins. Pinning it all on 'Xi" and the CCP is insane. Criminal mastermind George Soros is hellbent on de-stabilizing and regime-changing China just like he is trying to regime-change Russia rn. That should tell you something.