masks

may 2021 (Covid1984)

JanuaryFebruaryMarchApril2020 here

This is a chronology not based on the date the information was published but based on the date  I received it.

It should be clear that I am not  in accord with the ideological aspects of the content of many of the articles I link to.

 

29/5/21:

Germany: clashes between cops and late-night revellers defying Covid restrictions in 3 towns/cities

“Around 600 young people gathered in Stuttgart’s city centre on Saturday evening…The revellers, who were drinking alcohol and flouting Covid-19’s restrictions on gatherings in the city, quickly attracted the attention of the police. However, they did not follow the orders of the police to disperse. The situation quickly escalated around midnight. “As a result, bottles were thrown at the paramedics,” said a police spokesman. The revellers also shouted insults at the officers, and the verbal conflict quickly escalated into violence. Large police forces were deployed as law enforcement officials decided to disperse the crowd and clear the area. Police were pelted with bottles and there were several clashes between revellers and officers. The police responded with tear gas. Five police officers were injured in the clashes and six rioters were temporarily detained, police said. The night’s events also resulted in property damage, German media reported, adding that some shop windows were smashed by the rioters. Police managed to bring the situation under control by 2am Sunday…The Stuttgart authorities and police are now considering banning rallies in several working-class areas of the city. The ban would mean that between 10pm and 6am local time, people could only move around the city centre, but could not gather or stay there, a police spokesman said. On Thursday, Stuttgart lifted the night-time curfew that is currently mandatory in all regions of Germany with high rates of Covid-19 infection. However, restrictions on gatherings and alcohol consumption are still in place. Stuttgart was not the only German city to experience riots because of Covid-19 restrictions. In the Bavarian city of Regensburg, a drunken night party involving some 500 people also ended in clashes with police. The scuffles left one police officer injured and one rioter detained, according to local media. In Hamburg, law enforcement officers broke up a large illegal party in a local park. About 1,300 people gathered in the area. The partygoers resisted the police action by throwing bottles at the officers.”

Australia, Melbourne: clashes during anti-lockdown protest

27/5/21:

Lesotho: cops kill woman during pay dispute clashes provoked by Covid19 price inflation

“A woman has died after being shot during violent clashes between factory workers and police in Lesotho as trade unions say they have lost control over angry protests over pay. Demonstrations spilled over into violence in what is the second week of industrial action, with looting and damage to several businesses in the capital Maseru. Lesotho’s 50,000 factory workers are demanding a 20% salary increase for the lowest paid employees, who take home the local equivalent of £113.73 a month. The employers say they can only pay a 5% increase because of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on their businesses.The strike started two weeks ago and workers have been fighting running battles with police and army officers, who have been blocking the protests, which they say are “in contravention of Covid-19 regulations”. Last week, workers blocked roads with rocks, logs, broken streetlamps and rubbish bins, which the police dispersed with a water cannon. The protests turned violent after the government announced that it had engaged the International Labour Organization (ILO) to mediate the standoff. Some of the protesters went on a looting spree, mainly targeting Chinese-owned businesses…Many shops and warehouses were left empty while some protesters also took gas cylinders on Tuesday evening. The looting only ended when armed police and army officers were deployed. Sam Mokhele, from the National Clothing Textile and Allied Workers Union (NACTWU), told the Guardian on Thursday: “It is unfortunate that we lost one of our members, Motselisi Manase, who worked in the packaging department at Nien Hsing textile factory. It is sad that neither the police nor the army, who were both present, are acknowledging the tragic death.”…Last month, three workers were hospitalised after police shot at demonstrators with rubber bullets. In November last year Chief Justice Sakoane Sakoane criticised the police for “state-sponsored violence” against civilians in violation of constitutional provisions guaranteeing their freedom from cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment. He awarded a man from Mafeteng, Tšolo Tjela, who was tortured and humiliated by police officers in 2015, the equivalent of £20,500 in claims. After the police appealed the ruling, the court of appeal changed the award to £12,800. The textile workers accuse the government, which is charged with mediating between the workers and factory owners as well as setting the minimum wage, of insincerity in its dealings. They say the move to engage the ILO was never discussed in the unions’ engagements with a ministerial subcommittee set up to look into the matter. Unions say they are no longer in control of the angry workers, who argue that their earnings can no longer sustain them as prices of goods have increased dramatically since the first Covid-19 lockdown last year. Cooking oil alone has more than doubled in price. Prime Minister Moeketsi Majoro on Wednesday evening said a new salary would be published on 16 June and encouraged the strikers to return to work. But the unions responded that workers would “stay at home until they have a concrete promise that they would get salary increments” despite the threat of having their salaries for May docked for the days that they have been out of work. According to unions, 95% of the workers are women, and low wages exacerbates their vulnerability in a country with a high prevalence of violent crimes against women.”

26/5/21:

Because of unusual death from vaccine, Belgium stops giving Johnson & Johnson vaccine to under-41s…unless they’re homeless!!!

“The vaccine will continue to be used for the home vaccination of the elderly, and those in precarious situations such as the homeless, which is an important priority in the campaign. On Tuesday, Beke already stated in the Flemish parliament that the aim of giving every adult their first dose by 11 July could be in jeopardy. “If we cannot count on those vaccines, we will only achieve 85% vaccination coverage by 11 July,” he said. On 20 April, the EMA’s safety committee (PRAC) already announced that a “possible link” between rare blood clots and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was found. While it stated that the blood clots should be listed as “very rare side effects” of the vaccine, the Agency confirmed that the overall benefit-risk analysis remained positive, and did not recommend an age limit. Now, Belgium’s health ministers asked the EMA to carry out a new benefit-risk analysis for the vaccine, in function of age.”

Another report in Flemish apparently says it’ll continue to be given to undocumented people as well.

25/5/21:

Article on France’s repressive Order of doctors

Translation here

The Israeli People’s Committtee report on adverse side-effects of Covid, April-May2021

The silencing mechanisms of the Israeli health system regarding the adverse events related to the corona vaccine, and the denial of their severity and worrisome scope, combined with the fact that the mainstream media in Israel have ignored adverse events and avoided reporting them, have created a situation whereby the Israeli public is almost completely unaware of the existence, nature and prevalence of the post-vaccination adverse events….From our inquiry a disturbing image has emerged of the high rate of serious adverse events, observed in proximity to receiving the vaccine, even among young people. Many adverse events are life-threatening, and regretfully more than a few ended in death….here are our main findings:

We received 330 reports of deaths occurring in proximity after the vaccination (90% up to 10 days after the vaccination). 64% are men. According to the ministry of health’s statement: only 45 deaths occurred in proximity after the vaccination.

 According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), during January-March 2021, in the midst of the vaccination operation, there was a 18% increase in overall mortality in Israel compared to the tri-monthly average mortality in the previous year. In fact, the period of January-March 2021 is the deadliest one in the last decade, with the highest overall mortality rates, when compared to the corresponding months over the last 10 years.

Among the age group of 20-29, the increase in overall mortality rate is even more dramatic. In this group, during the same vaccination period, January-March 2021, there has been a 30% increase in overall mortality compared to the tri-monthly average mortality in 2020.

 A statistical analysis of data from the CBS combined with information from the ministry of health leads to the conclusion that the mortality rate amongst the vaccinated is estimated at 1:3000 (1:18000 for ages 20-49, 1:5000 for ages 50-69, 1:1100 for ages 70+). According to this assessment, it is possible to estimate that the number of deaths in Israel, which have occurred in proximity after the vaccination, currently stands at about 1600-1700 people.

There is a high correlation between the number of people vaccinated per day and the number of deaths per day, in the range of up to 10 days post vaccination, in all age groups. For ages 20-49 – a range of 8 days from the date of vaccination to death; for ages 50-69 – 5 days from the date of vaccination to death; for ages 70 and up – 3 days from the date of vaccination to death.

The risk of death after the second vaccination is higher than the risk of death after the first vaccination.

Up until the publication date of this report, a total of 2646 reports of adverse events have been recorded by The Israeli People`s Committee, and the reports continue to flow in. These reports indicate damage to almost every system in the human body. They also highlight the incomprehensible gap between official Israeli media reports and what is really happening, enabling a “two worlds” situation due to journalistic failure to sense, identify and report on what is actually happening in citizens` real-life.

The accumulated post-vaccination adverse events in our database is the outcome of our work with very limited resources and despite many kinds of government’s pressures aimed at concealing this critical information from the public eye. Therefore, we believe that our database of vaccine-related adverse events reflects a very small fraction of the real picture, which is about 1% of the actual number of cases according to our assessment.

This assessment is added to the fact that around 250000 people did not show up to get the second dose of vaccine, despite all massive social and occupational pressure of the green passport. We believe that the majority of them decided so due to experiencing adverse effects following the first vaccine dose.

There are close similarities in the reports of adverse events from countries with relatively high vaccination rates, with hundreds of death reports, as well as reports of damage to many human body systems.

In our analysis, we have found a relatively high rate of cardiac-related injuries. 25% of all cardiac events occurred in young people below the age of 40, the most common diagnosis in these cases being myocarditis or pericarditis.

Additionally, a high prevalence of massive vaginal bleeding, neurological, skeletal and skin damages have been observed.

It should be noted that a significant number of adverse events reported are related, directly or indirectly, to coagulopathy (myocardial infarction, stroke, miscarriages, disruption of blood flow to the limbs, pulmonary embolism).

The reporting of adverse events from hospitals and HMO clinics has been very low, and there is a tendency for a diagnostic bias that excludes the possibility of a link between the adverse events and the vaccination. There are probably many thousands of unreported cases. We get growing numbers of reports about this phenomenon from medical staff within hospitals. The general impression is that hospitals seem to be dealing with a chaos and confusion regarding the way to handle growing numbers of vaccine injured patients while at the same time to keep them out of records. Many doctors in emergency rooms nowadays begin their anamnestic inquiry by the question: “When were you vaccinated?” yet write nothing about it in discharge letters.

The general policy regarding adverse effects seems to be “over-protective” of the idea of continuing the vaccinations at all costs. In this atmosphere, and in stark contrast to the accepted medical codes according to which mortality and morbidity caused after any medical treatment should be attributed to the treatment itself unless proven otherwise, most Israeli doctors avoid raising reasonable medical suspicions about the potential contribution of the vaccine to new adverse effects. Instead, doctors, hospitals and media all talk in one voice that says: “It has nothing to do with the vaccine, until you prove it completely”. This is, of course, just a smoke screen aimed at preventing the truth, which ruins the essential foundations of differential diagnosis and brainstorming based medicine, and whose consequence is a breakdown of normal and scientific medicine.

In light of the extent and severity of post-vaccination adverse events we are witnessing, we would like to express the committee’s definite position that vaccinating children is both dangerous and lacking any medical basis. It may lead to adverse events, similar to those observed in adults (including young adults from age of 16), which could result in the death of completely healthy children. The committee believes that the intention to vaccinate children, while putting in danger their lives, their health, and their future development, has no medical justification since the coronavirus does not endanger children at all.

According to US VAERS system 7 deaths in ages 0-17 were reported in relation to Covid 19 vaccination during 2021, 6 of them of Pfizer Biontec. We hope that the radical idea of vaccinating children against the coronavirus will soon be taken off the table; and if not, that it will be completely rejected by most of the parents around the world.

 Never has a vaccine injured so many! The American VAERS system reveals 3409 reports of mortality amongst vaccinated people in the United States in the first 4 months of 2021. This datum reflects a rise of thousands of percent from the annual average, which stood at 108 reports of post-vaccination mortality per year, whilst the difference in vaccination rate (in comparison to influenza vaccination) is less than 40%. In other words, more post-vaccination deaths have been recorded in the VAERS system during a single vaccination campaign than from all other vaccines combined over the preceding three decades. See the chart below.

In light of all the above and the detailed information ahead and for the sake of the good, reliable and advanced medicine, for all people and from the pure intention, we would like to hereby declare the statement that all branches of medicine should agree about: “Once you apply new medication of all sorts to mass people and have insufficient knowledge about its true safety, all adverse effects that follow must be regarded as related to this medication until proven otherwise. This is the only way to obtain the true information, to ensure maximal safety surveillance and to make sure that non-medical motives will have no influence on the process of evaluating and learning the true nature of this medication and its influence on people.”

Not yet read the whole of this 36-page report. Their site is this.

24/5/21:

India: French report on shanty towns where everyone lives in close proximity mostly without masks and where Covid, or at least significant symptoms of it, is totally absent

This report  largely explains this by the fact that in growing up people are exposed to lots of viruses and have developed a very powerful resistance to them.

23/5/21:

Discussion of trials and meta-analyses of ivermectin

“…Somehow at the root of all this is some weird license with no limit to a double standard. So if the powers-that-be decide they don’t like something like ivermectin they can establish any standard up to a ridiculous degree that nothing can overcome. When it comes to the thing that they favor  there’s almost  no standard at all. There’s no level of danger that could be sufficient to call it into question…What you can see is a double standard that is glaring if you know how to analyse what’s being said…In light of conspicuous patterns…and in the light of the first that the drug in question has a very long extreme safety record why wouldn’t you test it, why wouldn’t you do that large scale study, why wouldn’t you deploy it somewhere to see whether it had the effect and then discover whether or not this was…effective in controlling Covid from people who’ve already contracted it and preventing contraction…What on earth is the excuse for not testing this…remarkable efficacy short term and long term – because it’s been in use so long. Given all the evidence this appears efficacious in preventing both the spread between people and the spread within a person, why on earth would you not run a very large study that would tell you for sure how good this was and how best to use it…If ivermectin were an effective treatment, the vaccines would never have gotten emergency use authorisation in the U.S. and we know that because [cites official  document listing “Criteria for issuance under emergency use  authorisation of medical products”]... It needs to be a serious or life-threatening disease or condition. There needs to be evidence of effectiveness. There needs to a be a risk/benefit analysis. And there need to be no alternatives. Quote: “For the FDA to issue an EUA, there must be no adequate, approved and available alternative to the candidate product for diagnosing, preventing or treating the disease or condition”…By not doing the relevant large-scale clinical studies on ivermectin and thus it not being approved by the FDA for use in Covid that opens the door for …emergency use authorisation for the vaccines that we are now all living with and among…This would have elements of malpractice, this would be gross negligence…and it verges on depraved indifference…”

Ivermectin is a vastly cheaper method of treating Covid than the vaccines. Apparently ivermectin costs the state 10 euros for 15 kilos of the medicine. The daily dose per person depends on their weight – 0.2 milligrams per kilo. Which would, for someone weighing 80 kilos, cost the state (admittedly before packaging, delivery costs, etc.) just 1.6 euros for 10,000 days’ supply (or, more rationally, less than half a cent for 30 days’ supply, or even more rationally – since you’re likely to recover after less than 10 days, 0.16 of a centime for 10 days).

Dr Sebastian Rushworth looks at the  trials of ivermectin

“You would have thought that this strong overall signal of benefit in the midst of a pandemic would have mobilized the powers that be to arrange multiple large randomized trials to confirm these results as quickly as possible, and that the major medical journals would be falling over each other to be the first to publish these studies.

That hasn’t happened.

Rather the opposite, in fact. South Africa has even gone so far as to ban doctors from using ivermectin on covid-19 patients. And as far as I can tell, most of the discussion about ivermectin in mainstream media (and in the medical press) has centred not around its relative merits, but more around how its proponents are clearly deluded tin foil hat wearing crazies who are using social media to manipulate the masses.”

See also this, from the same doctor, which concludes that hydroxychloroquine with azythromicine and zinc might be a bit beneficial but probably not much, although he feels the most reliable trials involve too few people to be sufficiently conclusive. Includes both in the article itself and  in the comments boxes an interesting debate about how research with placebos and double blinds often cherry-picks and manipulates data, depending on things such as the age and comorbidities of those selected, the time-gap following the onset of symptoms when treatment is given, the doses involved,  the effect measured and details of the measurement, distribution of SARS-CoV-2 variants, and other treatments (anything from supplements, other medications, or other kinds of treatment like prone positioning).

Sample quote: “RCTs [randomised control trials] are considered the gold standard by corporations and academics who most benefit by them, whereas anecdotal reports based on clinical experience are ignored. In theory RCTs sound good and they do have some utility wiping out the obvious confounders of the worthless correlation studies. That does not mean they are of ultimate value – it merely points to how worthless the observational studies are. RCTs only appear good in relative comparison, but you’re comparing dumb and dumber, not right and wrong. … Note that pharma can fund an RCT, and if it does not make their new multi-million dollar drug look good, they throw it out and start a new RCT with different parameters. No one, including MDs, knows what the prior RCTs concluded. Research form Harvard’s Safra Center found that 90% of new pharma drugs did next to nothing (except give Pharma big profit) – they provided maybe a 2% improvement (probably jiggered to pass the FDA rubber-stamp approval threshold (Pharma funds half the FDA’s budget and staffs it via the revolving door). We live in a post-truth world where we are programmed from every direction. It is not easy to think for yourself since we’ve been programmed from birth with unexamined assumptions. Science (including lots of anecdotal reports) is our only hope to do an end-run around our internal confirmation and availability bases as well as both the mainstream and alt-programming. You can’t really trust anyone and can’t trust RCTs either. It’s not easy moving onward through the fog and you have to be ready to backtrack so no ego allowed. You have to do your own research and Hope for the Best. As Socrates pointed out, realizing your own ignorance (as well as that of others) is the beginning of wisdom. “It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So.” – Twain”

This very interesting video on Absolute Risk v. Relative Risk (from June 2019) indicates another way research results can give an impressive image of efficacy for  drugs that in reality are almost invariably not very efficacious at all, and can result in significant adverse side effects. And this from Sebastian Rushworth (the same doctor linked to above) about absolute risk v. relative risk and their confusion in scientific studies etc: “What patients care about is “clinical significance”, i.e. if they take a drug, will it have a meaningful impact for them. Clinical significance is closely tied to the concepts of absolute risk and relative risk. Let’s say we have a drug that decreases your five year risk of having a heart attack from 0,2% to 0,1% . We’ll invent a random name for the drug, say, “spatin”. Now, the absolute risk reduction when you take a spatin is 0,1% over five years (0,2 – 0,1 = 0,1). Not very impressive, right? Would you think it was worth taking that drug? Probably not. What if I told you that spatins actually decreased your risk of heart attack by 50%? Now you’d definitely want to take the drug, right? How can a spatin only decrease risk by 0,1% and yet at the same time decrease risk by 50%? Because the risk reduction depends on if we are looking at absolute risk or relative risk. Although spatins only cause a 0,1% reduction in absolute risk, they cause a 50% reduction in relative risk (0,1 / 0,2 = 50%). So, you get the absolute risk reduction by taking the risk without the drug and subtracting the risk with the drug. You get the relative risk reduction by dividing the risk with the drug from the risk without the drug. Drug companies will generally focus on relative risk, because it sound much more impressive. But the clinical significance of a drug that decreases risk from 0,2% to 0,1% is, I would argue, so small that it’s not worth taking the drug, especially if the drug has side effects which might be more common than the probability of seeing a benefit. When you look at an advertisement for a drug, always look at the fine print. Are they talking about absolute risk or relative risk?”

See also HCQ for COVID-19: real-time meta analysis of 245 studies and this,  both of which indicate the definite positive results of HCQ with azythromicine (and zinc), though much of the meta-analysis is based on observational studies and possibly not enough RCTs.

22/5/21:

UK government advisers say current vaccines unlikely to protect against new variants in future

Now there’s a surprise!

21/5/21:

UK: basic criticisms of government contempt

The victories of ivermictin

Translation:

“You can fool some of the people all the time. You can fool all the people some of the time. But you can’t fool all the people all the time.” (A. Lincoln)

Ivermectin has already saved tens of thousands of lives, and is gaining ground. The problem is that the pharmaceutical industry, the western governments, don’t want to see it, and the press refuses to show it to us. It is making progress, but how many tens, hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost in one year because of this blindness? If ivermectin cures river blindness, it seems to be a failure against Covid blindness.

INDIA

By mid 2020, Uttar Pradesh in India was the first “country” (actually a state in India but with a population of 205 million, 3 times the size of France) to treat its population extensively with Ivermectin. Chiapas in Mexico did the same at about the same time.

In 2020, Uttar Pradesh had 7,800 deaths, compared to 65,000 here, which is 25 times less than us for the same population. A younger population, you may say, but the health conditions are much poorer, as we see today. Not all declared? Not to that extent! So to be fairer, let’s compare with another Indian state, like Delhi, which is 12 times less, and 3 times less than the country’s average. Same thing for Chiapas: with ivermectin, 4 times less deaths than the country average, 10 times less than Mexico City.

No one in the West was interested. Instead of seeing what was happening on a large scale, our authorities were quibbling about 2×12 studies, wondering whether they were published or not, whether the authors thought a few more guinea pigs were needed, without even looking at the results. Foolishness? Incompetence? Manipulation? I leave it to you to judge.

While 15 days ago everyone was talking about a catastrophe in India, a situation out of control, knowing that they had to deal with their second wave, I took the opposite view and calmed things down.

What about after 2 weeks? While our “great specialists” were still announcing a few days ago that India would not reach its peak of contamination before several weeks (repeated everywhere like here), here is the curve of the contaminations in India, up to date yesterday: it is eight days since the peak seems to have been reached.

How is this possible, so quickly, in a country where barely 3% of the population has had its two doses of vaccine so far? Many states have followed Uttar Pardesh. Goa followed (in 15 days reduction of 58% in hospitalisations), asking the whole population to take Ivermectin, then Uttarakhand and others.

What do the curves look like in these states?

But WHO and Big Pharma are watching. The WHO issued statements advising against Ivermectin, and Gilead showered the country with Remdesivir, even though it was advised against by the WHO, at a 20-fold price reduction. Some states followed the WHO, such as Tamil Nadu. Here is what it looks like: no decline. If you want all these curves day by day, type on Google “Covid India”, and you immediately have the curves of cases and deaths for all countries. For India, just to the right of the country, you can select each state. You can also find other curves on Patrice Gibertie’s website.

As far as deaths are concerned, given the 15-day lag with cases, when we were at 3000/day, I thought the peak would be between 5 and 6,000, it will be less because it seems to have plateaued at around 4,000 for the last week.

If this continues, the peak of the Indian “catastrophe” is at the level of what we have been experiencing on average for the last 6 months, and will have lasted only 10 days. Let’s remember that we had a peak of 1000 deaths in 24 hours, that is to say 20,000 in relation to their population. Having said that, let’s remember that with this virus, everything can change from one day to the next, but it seems to have taken hold in the last 8 days.

MEXICO

Same thing in Mexico. Following the results of Chiapas, Mexico City has started to distribute Ivermectin on a large scale. Who told us about the results of this experiment, involving 234,000 patients, with a 2/3 reduction in hospitalisations? Nobody.

This country was remarkably followed by Enzo Lolo.

OTHER

Other countries have started using Ivermectin, but the results will not necessarily be seen. So when the Czech Republic announced it, and at the same time ordered 20,000 doses for the whole country, there is a gap between talk and practice.

Portugal does not make any noise, doctors are free and prescribe a lot (50% it seems). All this, unlike in France, with the agreement of the Order of Physicians. Result:

South Africa has also started, under pressure from doctors’ associations:

I was the first in France to tell you the story of Ivermectin in this country, which was banned and abruptly authorised after members of the government died, while others were still living thanks to Ivermectin and Jackie Stone.

One of the latest countries is the Philippines, and as always, cases fall within 15 days:

FRANCE

By way of comparison, the curve for France, which is not treating and is struggling to get over its second wave, which will have lasted more than 6 months. The declarations of satisfaction of our leaders are increasingly difficult to find comparisons to continue to say that we are better than the others.

CONCLUSIONS

It would seem that to stop a wave, ivermectin alone (less than 3% of those vaccinated with 2 doses in India, 1.5% in Zimbabwe, 1% in South Africa), goes much faster than vaccines alone. 15 days for the first, several months for the other. Also our vaccines seem to have problems with the Indian variant, whereas ivemectin does not.

Not treating Covid in its early stages is like an oncologist waiting for metastases before starting cancer treatment, like a surgeon waiting for sepsis and peritonitis before operating on appendicitis. This is the medicine we practice today.

SF: see also Ivermectin and this from the end of May (in French – rough translation here)

19/5/21:

UK: Scientists and psychologists admit using fear in authoritarian/totalitarian manner

“Scientists on a committee that encouraged the use of fear to control people’s behaviour during the Covid pandemic have admitted its work was “unethical” and “totalitarian”. Members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) expressed regret about the tactics in a new book about the role of psychology in the Government’s Covid-19 response. SPI-B warned in March last year that ministers needed to increase “the perceived level of personal threat” from Covid-19 because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”. Gavin Morgan, a psychologist on the team, said: “Clearly, using fear as a means of control is not ethical. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government.”…One SPI-B scientist told Ms Dodsworth: “In March [2020] the Government was very worried about compliance and they thought people wouldn’t want to be locked down. There were discussions about fear being needed to encourage compliance, and decisions were made about how to ramp up the fear. The way we have used fear is dystopian. The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable. It’s been like a weird experiment. Ultimately, it backfired because people became too scared.” Another SPI-B member said: “You could call psychology ‘mind control’. That’s what we do… clearly we try and go about it in a positive way, but it has been used nefariously in the past.” One warned that “people use the pandemic to grab power and drive through things that wouldn’t happen otherwise… We have to be very careful about the authoritarianism that is creeping in”. Another said: “Without a vaccine, psychology is your main weapon… Psychology has had a really good epidemic, actually.” Another member of SPI-B said they were “stunned by the weaponisation of behavioural psychology” during the pandemic, and that “psychologists didn’t seem to notice when it stopped being altruistic and became manipulative. They have too much power and it intoxicates them”.

And here: “…the Government has been accused of feeding the public a continuous eating regimen of unhealthy information, corresponding to deaths and hospitalisations, with out ever placing the figures in context with information of how many individuals have recovered, or whether or not every day loss of life tolls are above or beneath seasonal averages.”

France: clashes with cops over lack of submissive respect for Covid curfew in 2 towns

“As France celebrated the reopening of terraces on Wednesday, a new stage in the decontamination process, in Rennes and Bordeaux, some people did everything they could to ensure that the party continued beyond the 9pm curfew. In Ille-et-Vilaine, from the afternoon, images of the mythical rue de la soif and the adjacent streets showed a very dense crowd, composed of hundreds of people, without masks, crowding in front of the multiple bars that compose it. Far from the strict sanitary protocol that allowed the bars and restaurants to reopen: consumption only on the terrace, with a maximum of six per table, and a capacity of only 50%. As the curfew hour arrived, passed on Wednesday from 7pm to 9pm, some of these revellers refused to leave the premises….They even massed, nearly a thousand of them, on the nearby Place Sainte-Anne, to dance to the sound of electro music, taking off their masks, reports Ouest-France. The fire brigade, called in to help, was forced to put out a pallet fire on the square at around 10.30pm, into which… bar furniture had been thrown, while police officers used tear gas and LBD fire in response to projectiles being thrown, France Bleu said. “There was a pallet fire at around 9.45pm, with people who had returned to the church site and climbed onto the sheds, requiring police intervention. It lasted an hour,” according to a Rennes police officer…In Bordeaux too, the party never ended for some. While the terraces and squares of the city of Gironde did not empty all afternoon, some wanted to make the pleasure last after 9 pm,…The Place Lafargue continued to host hundreds of revellers, dancing without masks well after the curfew. Some were calmly evacuated by the police around 10pm, but others continued to occupy the square until late into the night…In Paris, bar terraces also had to be evacuated, without a stir, by the police once the curfew hour arrived, while in Amiens, in Picardy, at least three bars were forced by the police to close early, at 8pm, because of the influx of customers and the non-respect of sanitary rules… However, no fines were issued to either the businesses or the partygoers…”

Belgium: appeal by doctors against use of children as guinea pigs for the pharmaceutical industry

The campaign to promote widespread vaccination against Covid-19 is intensifying at the cost of the most basic caution about its potential consequences for public health.

There are more and more insistent messages in favour of vaccinating children. For example, the German Medical Association is recommending compulsory vaccination for children from kindergarten onwards from the start of the school year 2021-2022.

We believe that it is time to appeal to reason to the Belgian Health Authorities and the government.

First of all, it should be remembered that the vaccines currently administered to adults are experimental vaccines for which phase 3 clinical trials are underway. This explains why these vaccines currently only have a provisional marketing authorisation. In other words, all those who are vaccinated today are, for the most part, unknowingly participating in a world-class trial campaign.

The reality today is that many questions remain unanswered and unsupported by scientific evidence about the safety, efficacy and even usefulness of vaccines as they are now being widely used.

…The risks of potentially fatal coagulopathy, already listed in the United States in the VAERS adverse event reporting system and in its European equivalent, Eudravigilance, have been wrongly minimised by the health authorities.
As early as 10 March, the association “Doctors for covid ethics” called on the EMA (European Medicines Agency) to withdraw approval for the use of genetic vaccines, all of which are implicated(1).
Furthermore, there are credible reasons to believe that these same vaccines are likely to alter fertility, gestation and reproduction. A thorough investigation of this issue should at least be conducted before taking the risk of sterilising an entire generation(2).
Finally, there is another potentially devastating effect of vaccination, immune evasion, which leads to the creation of mutants that have two potential effects, that of infecting a younger population and that of causing more deaths than in the absence of vaccination(3),(4)

…It is known that, at least for the initial strain of the virus and the first variants to appear, the risk of serious covid for young people and even more so for children is very low. The essential criterion of effectiveness would therefore be that of reducing the transmission of the virus by contaminated people.

However, the trials carried out by vaccine producers were not designed to measure the reduction in transmission risk(5).  It is therefore not known whether vaccines prevent or significantly reduce transmission.

Furthermore, while it is hoped that the majority of those vaccinated will recover without consequences, it is not possible to predict how many will develop delayed immune disease.

Contrary to the optimistic statements of many of the most highly publicised experts, there is no certainty that current vaccines are truly effective.

…The risk of mortality from Covid 19 for children is around 0.002%. It is therefore totally unjustified to vaccinate children and even adolescents against a disease that does not threaten them.

Unless we consider that it is morally acceptable to make children play the role of guinea pigs, without them being able to expect any benefit for their health, we declare that the vaccination of children against Covid 19 must be prohibited and that it is the duty of parents to refuse it

For the Grappe
Pierre Stein, President
Paul Lannoye, doctor of physical sciences

  1. https://dortors4covidethics.medium.com Urgent open letter from doctors and scientists to the European Medicines Agency regarding safety issues with Covid-19 vaccines – 10 March 2021.
  2. Dr Janci Chunn Lindsay, molecular and toxicological biologist. Hearing before the CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee in Atlanta. www.jennifermargulis.net
  3. Idem.
  4. Vanden Bossche, G https://dryburgh.com/wp-356content/uploads/2021/03/GeertVandenBosscheOuvertLettreOMSMars62021.pdf
  5. Idem.

18/5/21:

Just received: Belgium: Pfizer announces that people will probably be invited 
for a third vaccine shot  “to protect from the new variants”

Pfizer forecasts $26bn of Covid-19 vaccine revenue after first-quarter success

16/5/21:

Germany, Berlin: cop harassment at curfew-covid time provokes angry yet fun-loving response

15/5/21:

France, La Reunion: youths flout Covid curfew, burn bins, clash with cops

Spain, Pamplona: cops attacked with bottles etc., skips burnt, as they try to enforce Covid restrictions; illegal party broken up

10/5/21:

Israel: vaccine-resistant strains may force yet another lockdown

An Israeli friend writes:

“I doubt each and every new declaration concerning “new and dangerous”   variants, basing myself on nothing other than the insanity of it all and the fact that the Israeli health authorities lie continuously… The fear mongering is just so over the top, especially now with the fear-mongering campaign for vaccinating children (and infants in the near future) that includes blatant lies about children-hospitalisations from Covid etc. (easily contextualized and debunked bet alternative voices from the medical and scientific profession), that you can’t
believe anything they say…

They already had to apologize and retract the existence of a new Chilean variant, a fact which the report you sent doesn’t mention, as well as most of the Israeli media…

https://www.latercera.com/nacional/noticia/descartan-existencia-de-variante-chilena-del-covid-19-que-se-habia-reportado-en-israel/75GH45ENOFEOPIWRV2D6M636HU/

https://www.world-today-news.com/israel-discards-chilean-variable-of-the-covid-and-recognizes-a-regrettable-error-in-the-information-that-was-disseminated/

I replied:

“But what do they get from saying this? Surely saying the vaccine is possibly useless against new variants makes a mockery of the whole vaccination programme? They’d have more to gain from covering it up, no?”

He replied:

“You’re right, I guess, although it seems to me that they want to maintain a fear from the virus even after “everyone” is vaccinated, so I’m not sure what their strategy is, if there is one. So far they have been reassuring the public that the vaccines are “probably”, or to this-or-that extent, good for the other existing variants (when in fact they don’t really know), while at the same time alarming continuously through the media about new people arriving to Israel with the Indian or Mongolian or Utopian variant…”

Ivermictin subject to arbitrary suppression

“…Social networks are not to be outdone and are participating in this desire to hide the truth about ivermectin. See this impressive regulation of YouTube on this subject. It goes beyond censorship! It is “forbidden to contradict information from local health authorities or the WHO”, “it is forbidden to recommend the use of ivermectin, to say that it is an effective treatment”…”

On ivermictin see also this.

Youtube regulations concerning “incorrect” medical information on COVID-19 –  Deepl translation from French version (a bit different from the English version)

Article in French on other aspects of censorship about Covid

Deepl translation: Censorship: the European Commission’s response to ‘non-authoritative’ information

A liberal democratic “human rights” list of censorship of anything outside of dominant “consensus” regarding various aspects of the current totalitarian project surrounding Covid.

Sample quote: an EU communication states  “…that social media will be used to track down the perpetrators of “disinformation” or “harmful influence operations” and report them to the public authorities;

that criminal provisions on disinformation will be introduced or strengthened in the Member States;

while an army of facts-checkers will restore the “official truth” via the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO)…”

9/5/21:

9/5/21:

Belgium, Brussels Saturday night, Sunday early morning – clashes with cops as hundreds resist cop break-up of street party using non-respect of Covid rules as pretext

“The police, after observing the gathering and making several attempts to prevent it from happening, proceeded to disperse it at around 1.30am, commissioner and spokesperson for the Brussels-Capital/Ixelles area Olivier Slosse told Belga. “Until 1.30am the means used were to maintain order, before moving on to the engagement and dispersal” in several directions of the 500 or so people who were still on site. Several vehicles and a fire engine were mobilised…The Place Sainte-Croix in Ixelles was packed on Saturday night, due to the success of the reopening of the terraces and a call on social networks from the group Le Cri to go there to celebrate the end of the curfew. At the beginning of the evening, about twenty artists and a brass band animated the place. The customers of the terraces cohabited with a crowd that grew as the night wore on, until the space between the rue de la Brasserie and the church square was filled with people…The French youtubeur Loris Giuliano entered the Place Sainte-Croix by car, in front of the terraces of the Belga café. People surrounded and banged on his car, and police officers helped the driver out of the crowd…After the Belga terraces closed at around 9.30pm, the party went on in full swing. Music could be heard in places. The young people gathered to drink and dance. No one respected the wearing of masks or social distancing. The police reported the situation to the local authority. The mayor of Ixelles, Christos Doulkeridis, came down to the scene and invited the revellers to go home at around 00.30. A message that was not followed.”

Germany, Munich: cops trying to enforce Covid regulations in park forced to temporarily retreat when attacked with bottles

8/5/21:

Spain, Majorca: riot as youths demonstrate after sit-in against Covid restrictions and curfews

“Violent disturbances and police charges this midnight in the centre of Palma, after a concentration of groups of young denialists anti-restrictions against the maintenance of the curfew in the Balearic Islands… A night that ended with 16 protesters arrested – one of them a minor – 4 police officers injured and huge destruction. Dozens of demonstrators – most of them without masks – gathered at around 11.30 p.m. this Saturday in Plaza España in Palma. They  launched proclamations calling for the resignation of the president of the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol and  staged a sit-in, during which they have questioned in a manifesto the vaccine against COVID, which they have called “experimental”; they have accused the institutions of being “dictatorial”: “They are controlling us with fear” and have rebelled against the mask: “A person who receives 20% less oxygen is risking their health”…The protests of those present progressively became louder and louder, at which point the sit-in was lifted and confrontations with the officers began to take place, with the cry “We are not afraid”… it was an unauthorised protest… repeated warnings from the police only served to heat up the crowd, who, with proclamations of “freedom”, ignored them and opted to block traffic on the Avenidas as they passed through Plaza España. They broke and threw numerous items of street furniture at the officers, as well as several glass bottles. The officers, for their part, responded with several police charges. .. four officers were injured by the throwing of cobblestones, stones and bottles by the radicals…Several demonstrators overturned containers in Carrer Eusebi Estada, trying to set them on fire and set up barricades to cut off the street, although the officers were able to clear them quickly. There was also constant stone-throwing at vehicles parked in the area….The police were repeatedly applauded from balconies and windows by neighbours, some of whom collaborated with the officers, showing them where the violent people had gone or where they were hiding. Some of them dispersed and, faced with the action of the officers, chose to hide in doorways or under cars. During the rally and the clashes with the police, there was constant criticism of the effectiveness of the vaccines against the coronavirus, and adjectives such as “farce” or “experiment” regarding the vaccination plan.” Video here

Note the knee-jerk caricature “denialist” without even a gesture towards providing evidence. For the reader who accepts this “Covid-denialist” has become a put-down endlessly repeated, as an easy way of pushing away all questioning, a soothing  mantra to push away the anxiety, to go back to  sleep. One can dispense with actually ‘thinking’ it – that is, with going through the complicated logical acts involved in verbal formulation of it, an examination of the contradictions of the facts, of how one selects the facts, of how they are interpreted.  The concrete melts into an easy cliché and no one seems able to think of expressions that are not unearned received ideas, that are not a ready-made response to something that may well be far more nuanced than the usual either/or Manichean choices proffered by a servile media. Such mechanization is essential for the repression of critique. A phrase becomes a magic wand that waves away all arguments, a method of repeating what society has proclaimed as being as taken-for-granted as the blueness of the sky without making the effort to get your head around what someone is in fact saying so as to contest it honestly. And when criticism  can’t be contested honestly it can only be utterly distorted to fit into something one has already found arguments against. This unthinking language is the ideological cage of the spectator who accepts without question being caged by the language of the consensus, the refuge of the ruling society. And acceptance of the language also becomes practical acceptance of the rules of this cage: follow the experts’ rules and you won’t get sick. When hierarchical power wants to avoid resorting to its material arms, it relies on dominant language, the language of domination, to guard the oppressive order. No need to try to think for oneself: thinking is thus reduced to the level of industrial processes, subjected to a tight schedule – a short cut which, in short, cuts off all chance of communication. As part of the reproduction of ideology, it contributes and intensifies divisions among those who potentially could contest this world, divisions reinforced because the working class has already been weakened by years and years of retreat from revolutionary perspectives.

A brief summary of the Israeli People`s Committee Report of Adverse Events Related to the Corona Vaccine, April 2021

Never has a vaccine injured so many….While the Prime Minister of Israel and senior officials of the Ministry of Health brag that Israel serves as a global model for nationwide vaccination, and while they boast that Pfizer has chosen us to be the experimental country thanks to the advanced technological systems of our HMOs [Health Maintenance Organizations], the state has systematically shut down all monitoring and tracking systems, which are designed to identify and alert of adverse events that occur in proximity of receiving the vaccine. This irresponsible conduct by the Ministry of Health during this mass operation providing an experimental treatment to millions of people, regardless of whether such conduct is negligent or intentional, has led to an unprecedented flood of thousands of serious adverse event reports after the vaccine on social media, which seems to be the only forum that still allows people to share their experiences. Surprisingly, such widespread phenomena have not received any media coverage or attention from public officials….

*We received 288 reports of deaths occurring in proximity to the vaccination (90% up to 10 days after the vaccination). 64% are men. According to the Ministry of Health’s figures: only 45 deaths occurred in proximity to the vaccination. 

*According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), during January-February 2021, in the midst of the vaccination operation, there was a 22% increase in overall mortality in Israel compared to the bi-monthly average mortality in the previous year. In fact, the period of January-February 2021 is the deadliest one in the last decade, with the highest overall mortality rates, when compared to the corresponding months over the last 10 years.

*Among the age group of 20-29, the increase in overall mortality rate is even more dramatic. In this group, during the same vaccination period, January-February 2021, there has been a 32% increase in overall mortality compared to the bi-monthly average mortality in 2020…. “

Summary of the Israeli People’s Committee’s database regarding adverse events

Of course, these  do not necessarily automatically indicate a link between the vaccine and the “adverse events”, but the fact that there seems to be no mechanism for reporting, when reports are easily available for the UK (for instance), is indicative of the extremely cavalier attitude of the Israeli state. This, on top of the comparison with deaths for previous years, seems, in the absence of any other explanation, like a cover-up.

5/5/21:

France: yet another confirmation that masks worn outside are almost totally pointless

“By last summer, the mask had gradually made its way into  public space in many municipalities. But in the meantime, knowledge has become more refined: scientists now agree that the possibility of contamination by SARS-CoV-2 is very limited outdoors, while enclosed spaces are more threatening. Epidemiologist Antoine Flahault even describes this risk as “extremely marginal”. “In the outdoor environment, aerosols [micro-droplets potentially containing the virus, editor’s note] exist but they dilute in the atmosphere very quickly. I don’t think there is any risk, except in the theoretical case of someone spitting on you nearby,” says the director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva. A staunch “ayatollah of the indoor mask”, he considers that imposing it outdoors is “nonsense”. In Ireland, for example, only 0.1% of positive cases originate from outdoor activities (building sites, sports, etc.), according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC), reports the Irish Times.”

 

SamFanto was born, and then he lived a bit but never enough.

Leftist bollocks from the usual suspects

For a chronological reflection, starting from the present and working backwards,  of aspects of the Covid1984 permanent crisis see this

head in sand

Scroll down to “ADDED 30/12/20” for my response to various crap on libcom distorting most of what I’ve said .

A response to this.

A pathetic crap article, yet another Covidiocy, typical of leftism, even in its “libertarian” forms, which has totally failed to get to grips with the misery of state and capitalist impositions of social control with the pretext of the virus. It’s a reactive article almost as reactionary as the rubbish spewed out by the racist and nationalist millionaire rock stars it condemns.

For example, recent scientific research has shown that masks worn outside are utterly ineffective (see this: https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/le-masque-en-exterieur-est-il-un-moyen-de-lutte-efficace-contre-l-epidemie-20201211), but because these 2 arseholes, Clapton and Van Morrison, oppose masks this text feels the need to support them, even though they’re not only unnecessary outdoors but intensify dominant separation and the alienation of the streets, and are even unhealthy because you breathe in your own bacteria.

It counterposes “expertise, experience and data from healthcare professionals, epidemiologists, etc.” to conspiracy theories and reactionary talking points, as if the “expertise, experience and data from healthcare professionals, epidemiologists, etc. “ wasn’t itself contradictory and in any case open to questioning regardless of their differences.  In Science We Trust. Nowhere is there a critique of dominant science, as if to suggest, let alone embark on, such a thing would put you in the same camp as Trump and religious anti-Darwinism. The perspective of the realisation and suppression of science is beyond this Leftist ideologue. The notion of using aspects of evidence-based science against a blanket submissive respect for “Science” with a capital S  is a no-go area for people lacking in all curiosity, research and adventure outside of habitually trodden paths. Denunciation of “conspiracy theories” has now become a knee-jerk reaction to anything that dares to question the connection between scientific “experts”, state and capital, the interaction of capitalist interests.

Comrade Motopu’s criticism (one could hardly call it critique) succumbs to the false choice of pro-lockdown against the anti-lockdown positions and of anti-mask v. pro-mask. It even ends up with an uncritical pro-vaccination position. As if the constant vaccinations that will be necessary at least every 6 months because the mutations and variations of the virus will necessitate constant changes in the vaccine (a vaccination available after just 6 or 7 months’ research, when 10 years is the more usual time necessary for a safe vaccine) is the cavalry come to save us all from this shit and not something that will greatly contribute to weakening the body politic, helping to reduce resistance, both internal and external. Nowhere does this leftism point out that it will only be an informed social movement which could begin to confront the ever-tightening interaction between the state, the pharmaceutical companies, the manipulative scientists and other “experts” and the totality of pro and anti ideologies that colonise people like Comrade Motopu and the totalitarianism of present and future developments. No – until the magic wand of a vaccine, it’s “paying people to stay home” (as if various states haven’t done this, admittedly at reduced wages, though some leftists have described these as “socialist” measures) . Why has the state done this? Because going out and socialising doesn’t only mean going out to pay absorbitant wads of cash to listen to rock star millionaires in a claustrophobic atmosphere repeating the same old tunes we long ago got bored with. It also means being able to do things the state does not want us to do – discuss, organise , demonstrate, strike and occupy together. But Comrade Motopu wants us to rely on “the federal institutions … best placed to protect people and mobilize effective measures to fight the spread of the plague”.

When you take the opposite point of view of the Right you end up utterly defined by them and can’t assert a single independent point of view that recognises that “in a world that is upside down the true is a moment of the false”  and the false is a moment of the true. In the current climate, the Right are the prime recuperators of anger, with the Left demanding things some states are imposing with a vengeance. At the beginning of this crisis one could maybe forgive that but 9 months later it’s just an expression of acute laziness, of a total absence of critical vigilance, of submission to classic either/or Manichean choices.

Amongst those who define themselves as class struggle libertarians it’s become  de rigeur to proclaim the need for a total one-size-fits-all lockdown regardless of specific situations.  Daring to question the contradictions and miseries that such a “solution” imposes runs head on into a circle-the-wagons-mentality of everyone self-righteously denouncing you simplistically as an inconsiderate individualist right-wing arsehole that most people in this milieu can’t even begin to unravel, let alone express, their doubts, fearful of becoming a target of strawman arguments that will be too wearing to confront. And yet remaining silent about such doubts just reinforces the whole sense of impotence in the face of this relentless tangled  onslaught of false choices.

– 22/12/20

***

The above was posted to libcom by Nymphalis Antiopa who often contributes to Dialectical Delinquents.  The following is my response to the responses on libcom.

Comrade Motopu gives a good example of what  I said above: “When you take the opposite point of view of the Right you end up utterly defined by them and can’t assert a single independent point of view…”. S/he writes that Le Figaro is “far right”. It’s not – it’s mainstream right, though admittedly yesterday’s far right is now mainstream. But it’s always been standard mainstream right, but hardly worse than mainstream liberal/left-wing media. For example, France’s “Liberation” and “Le Monde”  supported the 1991 Gulf war, the UK’s  Guardian and the US’s  New York Times mostly supported it also, along with supporting the Kosovo war of 1999. Does that automatically negate everything else they say? Does the fact that the link I put to the site about Pfizer is to a Corbynite site negate the value of what the ex-soldier says about Pfizer? Likewise, even if Le Figaro  were nazis  that wouldn’t in itself negate what it says. Hitler’s scientists did research showing the link between smoking cigarettes and cancer, some 10 years or more before the American Cancer Society and thousands of US doctors and scientists reversed their previous notion that smoking was fine. If CM’s stupid reactive logic were consistent, s/he’d be recommending smoking along with all those pre-1953 American scientists and doctors. Even our worst enemies sometimes get it right. For example, the other day Marine Le Pen said the sky was blue.

*

Re. R.Totale’s post, whilst some of it’s pertinent, the notion that masks protect you from CCTV cameras is not necessarily correct. Apparently even those wearing surgical masks can  be identified by the latest in Facial Recognition Cameras ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-facial-recognition/even-mask-wearers-can-be-idd-china-facial-recognition-firm-says-idUSKBN20W0WL )

A Chinese company says it has developed the country’s first facial recognition technology that can identify people when they are wearing a mask, as most are these days because of the coronavirus, and help in the fight against the disease.”  The head of the company that has developed this has said, “When wearing a mask, the recognition rate can reach about 95%, which can ensure that most people can be identified”. Sure, the state wants to present itself as all-seeing and all-powerful in order to reinforce our sense of impotence and the phrase “can reach about 95%” already implies that there’s likely to be an element of hype in all this, but that remains to be seen (or, hopefully, not seen). But there’s no reason to be complacent. Iris recognition is the new future. But maybe sunglasses are a protection.

Moreover when he refers to those for whom “mask-wearing frees them of social expectations from the nose down at least” that at least is a choice, but masks have been made compulsory – even in areas where before they were compulsory there were no severe cases of Covid.  Making them legally compulsory, with often a heavy fine for those who don’t conform to this irrationality, is as bad as forbidding foulards (Muslim scarves) for women

However, when I wrote that masks “intensify dominant separation and the alienation of the streets” I meant that you can’t even see people’s smiles or frowns, that you can’t  make funny faces at kids, that it reinforces people being trapped in their heads. This doesn’t matter to those who are already constantly stuck in their heads listening to something on their headphones or glued to the screen on their smartphone but for those who find some consolation in even the most superficial of  non-virtual human contact, it just adds to the weariness of daily life. In addition, you constantly have to raise your  voice to a strained level that doesn’t come naturally or repeat yourself because you haven’t been heard from behind the mask. This in addition to all those people who have no power finding that their masters have suddenly given them a crumb of hierarchical power because now even the lowest of the low can tick someone off for not having covered their nose in the supermarket or library or wherever. All of which gives daily alienation an extra dose of wear-and-tear, intensifying  irritability, adding to a sense of despair with humanity.

*

Re. Red Marriott’s quote – “A global team of public health experts at Learnaboutcovid19 also told Reuters there was “no evidence” to suggest face masks can increase the chance of developing pneumonia, “or any other bacterial, fungal or viral infection in the lungs”. https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-pneumonia/fact-check-people-… “ Well, maybe. But others have said the opposite: https://perma.cc/V2UH-DZT3?type=image

The masks on the market do nothing to protect people from the virus. They’re not sterile, unlike the ones you find in hospitals and you shouldn’t wear one for longer than 15 or 20 minutes, otherwise they are transformed into incubators for bacteria. And even worse are the masks made out of material, which are veritable collectors of bacteria because they’re porous.” – Antoine Khoury, microbiologist

There’s also this:

https://jdmichel.blog.tdg.ch/archive/2020/11/24/covid-faut-il-de-confiner-oui-et-en-super-urgence-310935.html

“To give just two examples, the famous long-suspended Danish study has finally been published with the conclusions one might expect: wearing a mask in the general population does not prevent contamination by Covid. The authors have accepted some political contortions in their conclusion, but the fact remains: this measure, which no pandemic plan had ever considered, so absurd that it is, has no justification in terms of the cost / benefit balance and would therefore never have had to be imposed. Another study has just been published in Nature which concludes (based on research carried out in Wuhan) that asymptomatic people are largely not otherwise infectious. “Compared to symptomatic patients, asymptomatic infected individuals generally have a low amount of viral loads and a short duration of viral shedding, which decreases the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 5. In the present study, the culture virus was performed on specimens from asymptomatic positive cases, and found no viable SARS-CoV-2 virus. All close contacts of asymptomatic positive cases tested negative, indicating that asymptomatic positive cases detected in this study were unlikely to be infectious. There were no positive tests among 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases.”

The only possible use of a mask is for symptomatic people only during the time they are symptomatic. It’s highly probable (since in science it’s always a question of  working with hypotheses, it’s advisable to remain cautious) that everything that has been imposed on us for months – with the force of propaganda – has had no real use, with monstrous costs for individuals and for community.

Besides, Covid can enter the eyes and  be conveyed by touch, so maybe everyone should be compelled to wear goggles and gloves, and then Leftists like Comrade Motopu would probably be thankful that “the federal institutions … best placed to protect people and mobilize effective measures to fight the spread of the plague” were at long last allowed to do their job.

**

I see 3 very general categories of responses to the various “experts” who we are somehow forced to partly rely on if only to get some vague idea about what’s what.

First category is probably the most prevalent, which is that of Greta Thunberg, who said “We can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis and we must unite behind experts and science. This of course goes for all crises.” This is a kind of “Who am I to decide if this or that is true or not?” attitude, the self-effacing avoidance of all striving for autonomy on the part of those who  submit to dominant society even if they don’t necessarily seem to respect it or aspects of it. 

Yet, given the enormous contradictory “facts” spewed out by scientists and other experts, a second stance is almost as common –  each individual, regardless of the precise extent of their precise knowledge, is forced back onto their own opinion, in  much the same way as if what you accept and don’t accept amongst all the questions thrown up by this permanent crisis is just a matter of taste.  In other words, people are cherry-picking information that confirms their previously held opinions, leaving understanding down to a purely arbitrary question of subjective choice or to your own prejudices.  Almost invariably people will find some  “scientific fact” to provide ‘objective’ proof for these tastes and prejudices.

But there’s also a third attitude, a more honest one – acceptance of your own  confusion whilst submitting  to the politics behind this confusion, justified in terms of an inability to decide which  ideas are valid because you can’t  check all the other positions/angles/facts. But this is another expression of resignation.

Whether it be those who accept the apparent objectivity of science, those who  resort to a purely subjective  selection of 57 varieties of facts dependent on whom they happen to read on the internet,  or those who more honestly admit to resigning themselves to the chaos and confusion imposed by dominant society, the imposed madness which seems to be an essential part of of its principle political strategy – all of them seem to have, at best, only one  aim – to make themselves and others as healthy as they think they were before this crisis, health being defined narrowly as being protected against the virus.  This conservative  aim, which is anyway an impossible dream and a nostalgic falsification of the misery of  pre-Covid times, thus wants desperately to believe in the saviour of a vaccine (or, more rationally, but less common in Western societies, other more tried and trusted immune-boosting methods).

Those who want to contribute to the revolutionary destruction of a society hell-bent on destroying all sense and the vast majority of human beings potentially able to destroy this senseless society, will have to pit themselves against these false choices. As part of this they will need to unravel aspects of the medical science surrounding Covid with the aim of subverting dominant discourse, past, present and future. Accepting science without filtering it through critical vigilance means acquiescence to developments that’ll be even worse than, though very different from,  the Industrial Revolution was for the peasantry. Selection of facts is inevitable, but selection that achieves progress towards clarity has to look at contradictory ‘facts’ as well as strive to unravel the reasons for these contradictions rather than be based on notions of objectivity or prejudiced taste or fatalistic resignation to confusion.  Questioning everything is a major aspect of the struggle to free oneself of received ideas,  unconscious taste, and the fog of contradictory information. It’s a major aspect of  breaking with excessive reliance on experts and science as well as  the domination of the past over the present, a major aspect of developing a genuine health – the  health of an attack on the totality of unhealthy conditions.

 

ADDED 30/12/20 (slightly modified 31/12):

This is my response to the latest distortions from libcom:

Nymphalis Antiopa on Libcom, in response to a mixture of quotes from me and things he said himself, got this reply from Red Marriot (RM):

“having co-ordinated a global conspiracy to securely falsify the scientific evidence; with all their resources they’ve used that to – MAKE US WEAR MASKS WHEN WE GO SHOPPING AND FOR MANY TO NOT WORK. If that’s all they have in their repressive arsenal we have little to worry about.”

In fact what I wrote, which NA quoted, doesn’t say anything of the sort – it says “For example, recent scientific research has shown that masks worn outside are utterly ineffective (see this: https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/le-masque-en-exterieur-est-il-un-moyen-de-lutte-efficace-contre-l-epidemie-20201211), but because these 2 arseholes, Clapton and Van Morrison, oppose masks this text feels the need to support them, even though they’re not only unnecessary outdoors but intensify dominant separation and the alienation of the streets, and are even unhealthy because you breathe in your own bacteria.”

I emphasise OUTSIDE – therefore not a reference to wearing them in shops or for whatever he means by “AND FOR MANY TO NOT WORK“. So almost all the rest of the discussion about masks is irrelevant to what I (and NA) have said. Now I may have got it wrong and perhaps been over-reactive to dominant discourse and state-imposed restrictions, as research has been contradictory, but there’s nothing in what I’ve said that says there’s a conspiracy. Far easier to have a pseudo-riposte to a caricature, a strawman, a jokey parody of someone’s position to make readers smile and warm to you than with what someone in fact says. Crude demagogy – gets all those upped votes from the libcommers eager to be manipulated by some politico because that’s what so many of them are used to doing themselves that they’re blind to it from others except when it’s directed at them.

RM virtually never concedes anything – regarding such concessions as weakness. Accepting anything from someone he dislikes would burst his ego. So, regardless of the accuracy of his “critiques” he invariably digs his heels in, whilst indulging in head-banging arguments that falsify those with whom he argues with. A politician mentality without any desire for state power but clearly with a desire to maintain his “theoretician”-type credibility on libcom, where he gets up votes for his gross distortions of someone who’s publicly an enemy of libcom. The recognition that RM has misrepresented what I have said is ignored because almost no-one on libcom likes me, and in dominant social relations what you accept from someone is unfortunately directly related to whether you like them or not, ignoring the fact that affection or repulsion or their absence  are also subject to the contradictions of this world.

The bacteria thing was a side issue mentioned because there’s anecdotal evidence from where I live (South West France) that people have had increased coughs and sneezes without it being diagnosed as Covid. Not important really and RM may even be right. But…

In France,  Spain and Israel (and other countries) wearing masks outside is compulsory. In France since the end of July, though not everywhere. The amount of deaths in the 5 months since August, when it became compulsory almost everywhere, is considerably greater than the period before when it wasn’t compulsory. In my small town (pop. 6000) up until the imposition of compulsory mask-wearing, non-compliance with which can get you fined 130 euros, there was not one single severe case of Covid. Not exactly a study that conforms to “scientific protocol” but it should make people question things a bit more than RM’s convenient and opportunist reliance on “consensus” (see earlier posts by him), as if he conforms to the consensus on almost any other subject.

In fact, despite RM’s and others recourse to “the consensus”, there is no consensus on the efficacy of masks (moreover consensus itself is being manipulated by state repression – and not just in China.; in France, doctors are fearful of disagreeing with the consensus because of various sackings and the threat of a trial against the most well-known of the dissidents – Didier Raoult).  The Danish study – https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 – is usually seen as inconclusive, though it says, amongst all the mathematical calculations, that wearing them outside is useless. It emphasises the uselessness of surgical masks outside, but other studies have said surgical masks are better than cloth masks. It does not demonstrate the uselessness of the mask when it comes to a sick person who is in prolonged contact with others in a confined environment, which is obvious. Other reports say that they’re not useful:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343399832_Face_masks_lies_damn_lies_and_public_health_officials_A_growing_body_of_evidence

– which is then apparently debunked by this: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343263629_A_Complete_Debunking_of_Denis_Rancourt%27s_Mask_Don%27t_Work

But these are interesting:

https://www.kairospresse.be/article/port-du-masque-systematique/

Google translate:

While the measures taken in Belgium making it compulsory to wear a mask in many public places seem to go without saying for some, many doubts remain as to their real effectiveness. At Kairos, we are in contact with doctors who have opinions contrasting with the official voice. We relay their analyzes and concerns.

The mask saga has kept us busy all spring and continues to do so. Tragicomic or shameful depending on the reading that each citizen was kind enough to give it. Useless to compulsory in all places and all circumstances, the reversal of politicians’ jackets has been well known to us since Jacques Dutronc’s song. The inconstancy of those we call experts is, on the other hand, a new phenomenon which surprises and is obviously likely to encourage politicians to vary their messages over time and to destabilize citizens who, more often than not, come down to following their judgment. own or that of his next door neighbor. Can this versatility in the scientific world be explained? To issue a scientific opinion on the risk-benefit of a medical intervention, whether it is a drug, a medical device (prostheses, pace-maker, implant, etc.) or a preventive gesture, requires a structured approach: appointment of experts, evaluation procedure and consensus opinion. Are these 3 essential elements met in the case of wearing a mask as an element in the fight against Covid-19?
Procedures and conflicts of interest? Move along, there’s nothing to see !

The Prime Minister formed her group of experts on April 6, called the GEES [the group of experts preparing Belgium’s exit strategy from the coronavirus lockdown] on the basis of a deep belief in collective intelligence. Contrary to what one might think, it is not only a question of scientists since we also find Johnny Thijs, director of companies such as Electrabel and Pierre Wunsch, governor of the National Bank of Belgium and a long-time Reyndersian. A mixed composition cleverly designed to qualify the opinions of scientific experts. The Prime Minister’s website also says nothing about the procedure for appointing this group or any conflicts of interest of its members, which does not bode well in terms of transparency. One of the missions of the GEES is to “provide analyzes and recommendations”. This therefore implies a description of the evaluation procedures used as each time this type of work is carried out within, for example, scientific societies or the drug reimbursement commission. Here again, the Première’s site is silent.

Let us come to the masks and the successive recommendations. On January 28, the Soir-titre: “wearing a mask is useless and ineffective according to the Belgian health authorities”. Marc Van Ranst, future member of the GEES and Steven Van Gucht, spokesperson for the government express that “it is useless and is even potentially dangerous”. On April 5, the day before the constitution of the GEES, the Minister of Health Maggie De Block communicated that “wearing a mask scientifically does not make sense”. Other scientists will gradually argue against his positions. On April 24, the GEES issues a strategic report for the deconfinement. Wearing a mask is strongly recommended in public spaces from the age of 12, but not yet compulsory. The scientific basis for this recommendation is not disclosed. At the end of April, Erika Vlieghe, who chairs the GEES, says in the Morgen that “the mask is a layer of varnish”. Finally, on July 17, a new report recommends wearing masks even indoors when spaces bring many people together for extended periods of time and social distancing cannot be respected. This new report tells us that could last until after winter, with the arrival of a vaccine.

It does not seem that opinions are necessarily unanimous or the subject of a consensus within the GEES, which is not surprising given its composition. Is there a scientific basis for these changes in opinion? Traditionally, for decades, we have relied on making scientific recommendations on what is called evidence-based medicine. The highest level of evidence which allows a strong level of recommendation is obtained by obtaining multiple studies of high methodological quality comparing an option A to an option B and which allows the recommendation that a treatment or a procedure is beneficial, useful and efficient, this which means that it presents a favorable cost-benefit. The lowest level of evidence is obtained on the basis of expert opinion or small, non-comparative studies.

What about wearing the generalized mask in a Covid-19 situation and what justifies the change in position of the GEES? On March 3, the Cochrane research group, the pope of evidence-based medicine, a non-profit association of 28,000 scientists in more than 100 countries, published that “if certain gestures such as washing your hands or wearing gloves or a mask can perhaps reducing the spread of respiratory viruses the evidence is very low ”. Another systematic study published this year by Marasinghe of the University of Waterloo in Canada also concludes that there is no evidence of the benefit of compulsory mask wearing. Since then, only a German publication using a model comparing several regions where the compulsory wearing of the mask has been introduced goes in a different direction, but here again the level of evidence is insufficient.
What should we conclude from this?

1. There is no sufficiently established scientific argument today to impose the wearing of a mask on the entire population.

2. Recommendations issued to the public by a group of experts must be justified by proven and strong scientific evidence. This is not the case with the GEES.

3. These recommendations must be transparent and the evidence on which they are based must be accessible to all. In their absence, the recommendations are likely to confuse the population, inducing rebellious behavior linked to a strong loss of confidence. The risk of accelerated spread of the virus is significant. There is also a great risk of seeing scientists who are not part of the GEES express divergent opinions in the media, further accentuating the public’s unease. This is what is happening today.

4. The current strategic option goes totally against the evolution of modern medicine: the concept of “one size fits all” is completely outdated. Different recommendations must be given to subgroups of society: health professionals, frail people, asymptomatic carriers and relatives of infected patients.

5. Experts need to provide a precise risk-benefit analysis of the systematic wearing of the mask for each of these groups.

6. The opinions issued must be in consultation with neighboring countries in view of the easy access to the media of these countries by citizens. A cacophony of recommendations also has an extremely detrimental effect on compliance with them. This is what we can observe with France in particular.

7. Finally, we may be surprised that no study has been initiated at European level on the usefulness of wearing a mask in view of the lack of scientific evidence and the particularly high cost of this strategy. The virulent criticism of Professor Raoult’s essays, imperfect though they were, contrasts sharply with a strategy based on the scientific vacuum with regard to the wearing of the mask. It is far from certain that such a study would come out positive, but at least we would be fixed. As if we already considered that only a vaccine can save us all and that it is necessary to maintain the anxiety of the wider population in order to guarantee mass vaccination of the carpet bombing type, in view of the colossal investments to which the European community has largely contributed.

– Cardiologist, anonymous

and this from the same site:

https://www.kairospresse.be/article/politique-du-masque/

“The mask: a great opportunity to argue, to divide us, and to leave the field even more open to the power of experts and States. Because while some talk about health, others think about politics. Basically, is it so incompatible?

It would be easy to begin this article with the beautiful “inversion of the genitive” which has so much more to Marx and Engels: from the philosophy of misery to the misery of philosophy, and so on, to the Situationists who have used it. to satiety. However, if the policy of the mask is indeed a way of masking politics, it is not just any policy that masks the mask, but a specific policy. Unveiling what, in our opinion, wears the mask and which is hidden behind can only have the first consequence of separating us from a few comrades who will wear, or not, the mask, and will have, on the mask again and again, a practical position. different from ours.

This is the first success of the mask policy: far from being primarily a health barrier, it is above all a subject of discussion, and even better (for the authorities): of disputes. And these disputes, in the climate of chaos and inconsistencies and fears that is that of this year 2020 – and which is likely to intensify even further in the future since it has been at least half a century since the Fear is the basis of politics – of these disputes, therefore, it is very likely that discordances will appear such that they will amplify to divisions or even schism.

Therein lies the master stroke: if some think that the health policy of social distancing is so crucial that it must transcend the divisions between us to somehow reconstitute a human species fighting all in concert for its own preservation, and this even if the price to pay is called precisely social distancing – and in reality the rupture of a number of social ties -, then we can without much risk prophesy that those who will think “on the margins” and will not believe in the virtues of the mask as a tool of reconstruction of humanity will find themselves even more on the margins: stigmatized as enemies. Not class enemies, because it has been a long time since the recomposition of the (proletarian) class was abandoned by its very singers. The stigmatized-marginalized will be referred to simply as enemies of mankind. Even life.

In the politics of the mask, we see above all the mask of a certain policy, that which brandishes health fear, which creates fear through inconsistency, and therefore a real politics of fear. It is of course the fear of health that justifies the measures, but it is easy to show that the health policy itself is inconsistent. We wear a mask, and we have to wear it in some closed places, but some closed places are more prone to virus exchange than others. Trains, for example, usually group together travelers who share a route or a portion of a route, but before arriving at the station of departure? and after exiting the arrival station? These travelers may be carriers of viruses from afar, or take viruses contracted on the train with them when they get off the train, far from their place of origin. However, and to limit the commercial abyss of the railways in 2020, travelers are not subjected, on the trains, to measures of social distancing as rigorous as in other places which are sometimes less closed. Everyone will be able to complete the list of inconsistencies at their leisure, and possibly be satisfied with a basic banality: even if the mask is not used very much, this is never a reason not to do everything possible where we can in the goal of avoiding spreading the epidemic. Certainly, but this is where the bottom line of the mask policy comes into play: it only aims to increase the level of fear even further, at a time when the epidemic itself seems to be stalling, at least in Europe. It is not the mask itself that increases the level of fear, since it would, conversely, calm some people; what is scary is to see, all around us, all these masked people, while our imagination, and even our simple condition of living beings, invites us from eternity not to mask ourselves. If carnival offers us this possibility, it is precisely because carnival is a reversal of the usual order of norms. Could it be that the standards of our society are being overthrown? Especially not: the power of experts remains very strong, and that of States does not waver …

But if the mask is first of all the mask of a policy, the question is necessarily: was the mask imposed for health reasons, or to increase the level of fear? The second option will necessarily be qualified as “conspiratorial”, a term whose success has not been denied since September 11, 2001. Once again, the division is shaping up between us, who are to varying degrees opponents of the politics of the fear – in the absence, precisely, of being all of them to the politics of the mask. To free ourselves from this sort of semantic and political trap, let’s offer another point of view.

Among the front-line supporters of the mask, some are driven by simple health considerations, others by the banal idea that it is better to take all precautions regardless of the cost in terms of freedoms; a few others, genuinely cynical, try to stay in power by increasing fear. Let us note first of all that, in this last square, there can be both politicians and scientists, without forgetting of course the pharmaceutical trusts which also have everything to gain from this pandemic anyway. But the most important thing is that, finally, the compulsory wearing of the mask brings together these three main categories of people, all favorable to the mask, and that it is thus, whatever we may think of its health utility, a good tool to expand the policy of profiling, population control. And it does not matter, it does not even matter at all whether those who make the final decisions do so out of health concerns, out of a desire to cover themselves up a priori or out of outright political cynicism. The result is there: the end justifies the means.

In this case, we believe that no end can justify abject means, but it is an indisputable fact that “in the face”, this kind of questioning does not exist. So we are not fighting on exactly the same ground, and not at all with the same weapons.

How, then, to counter the control policy that the mask embodies? We could “over mask” ourselves, and wear for example, over the regulatory mask, that of Anonymous, Guy Fawkes (“V for Vendetta”). The answer sounds pretty consistent, doesn’t it? But this is strictly forbidden, in France at least (it is forbidden to hide the whole face, says the law). Above all, we could decide that since wearing a mask is anti-human, we might as well develop our human activities, properly human, all those that do not imply compulsory compliance with the ban.

And finally overturn the ban like a glove: we refuse the obligation to wear a mask and we will do everything possible to do without “closed places” where it is compulsory to wear it. Thus, we will no longer go to the theater but will do theater in the street; we will no longer go to the cinema but will screen films outdoors. And since we have to go to the supermarket to feed ourselves, we might as well develop collective market gardening, collective orchards, and so on.

As for the much thornier problem of the school, why not create our own schools? Because the laws absolutely do not prohibit it, and in France for example, there are very few legal constraints to create a school.

Of course, these few avenues are still very broad, even vague or difficult to implement. But the object of this text, more practical than theoretical, was to show the coherence of the ecological project, based on the refusal to achieve, decreasing, slow in the sense that this word has acquired in recent years, marked by voluntary simplicity, the ” small is beautiful ”by Schumacher.

The state, by the inconsistency of its decisions, does not disqualify what we are fighting for. And that’s a great thing because in the final analysis it’s simple proof that we’re right. As someone who may not have bought into these words once said, “History will absolve us.” Magnificent perspective!

Philippe godard
Author”

Whereas this: https://www.livescience.com/face-mask-new-coronavirus.html says “yes “ and “no”.

But let’s look at the logic of all this.

If you’re asymptomatic as opposed to pre-symptomatic (ie temporarily not having symptoms but developing them later on) you do not infect others. People who test positive form a minority of the population and symptomatic people form a minority of that minority, and the pre-symptomatic phase of the latter is quite short. A small portion of these symptomatic people will develop severe forms, some of which will be fatal. On the basis of a minority of a minority of a minority, is it necessary to mask the whole population, starting with children over 10, who almost only develop asymptomatic forms of the disease? Steven, on libcom says “the general projection now in the US [is] that universal mask wearing help save around 50,000 lives in the next few months.” On the one hand he doesn’t bother to say whether it’s a question of masks worn outside or not, on the other hand, it’s a projection, an abstract hypothesis . Macron said they’d already saved 400,000 lives with their Covid policies. But this is just propaganda based on fuck-all. To paraphrase a friend, we now find ourselves in a scenario like “Minority Report”: just as the power described by P.K.Dick claims to punish criminals even before they have acted, so the various states impose measures on people before they even have a problem on the basis of the minority of those who die, who are a minority of those who have symptoms, who are a minority of those who get Covid, who are a minority of the general population. This is even worse than P.K.Dick’s Minority Report since here it is the entire population which is the target and not simply a minority of potential patients.

My friend continued: “If we absolutely want to treat people who to a very small extent are sick and to apply a principle of absolute precaution, if we absolutely want to treat the problem upstream and cut off at the source any possibility of disease among human beings, the best is still to avoid being born because to be born is to take the risk of being sick and it is, inevitably, to end up dying: you might as well not live at all! As the Silenus of Greek mythology said: “It is best for man not to be born and if this misfortune happens to him the best is to die as soon as possible.”

There seems to be a massive disconnect in people’s general attitude towards the various states during this crisis (of which RedM’s is an example): almost everyone agrees that the various governments’ responses have largely been clueless in different ways, but when it comes to things like masks or vaccines or anything deemed “scientific” cluelessness is often  the last thing people attribute to such policies. As if the ruling class haven’t hidden behind the pretense of objectivity of the constantly contradictory scientific “experts” ever since the start of all this madness.

The most repulsive aspect of the dominant libcom discourse is caricaturing anyone who criticises what they have deemed is the consensus as a “conspiracy theorist”.  RM says “some always make profits from any crisis but that doesn’t prove that this is a preferred or chosen strategy for the ruling class instituted to aid more repression” as if  I had said that they chose this situation rather than they’re using it, and using it very obviously as a pretext for various forms of repression – eg in France in some departments there’s going to be a 6pm curfew from January 2nd onwards, and almost everywhere there’s an 8pm curfew. You’d have to be a fool not to realise that there’s no health logic to this measure. Saying this is no more an assertion of  “conspiracy theory” than saying imprisoning poor people for petty theft, whilst letting the big thieves thrive, is talking like a conspiracy theorist. But nowadays this so-called “libertarian” left is so utterly complicit with the dominant ideology that it conveniently jumps on all criticism of, say, suspicion towards the various vaccines, the one-size-fits-all lockdowns regardless of local conditions, or the obligation to wear masks even in virtually empty streets, as “conspiracy theory”, a sickening way of parodying and dismissing the most basic recognition of the heavy illogical measures imposed by various states as the ramblings of a lunatic. It’s basic to even the most banal of critiques that  capital and the state use such events and use them in order to attack the most applicable aspect of P.K.Dick’s story – repressing in advance what for the rulers is the crime that contains all crimes – the explosion of a class opposition that surely would have happened with the economic crisis that was predicted well before the advent of Covid. And in not focusing on that,  the  pseudo-revolutionaries at libcom and elsewhere can do nothing to oppose it except shit on all those who try, despite making mistakes, to attack the very obvious repressive uses that capital and the state have made of this situation, to contemptuously humiliate  and parody them  as “conspiracy theorists”.

How to protect yourself and others


For something on the politics of libcom from 8 years ago, see this.

 

SamFanto was born, and then he lived a bit but never enough.