18 thoughts on “So here’s some ragingly non-obvious political analysis”
ken
The people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome will ignore it. They successfully ignored the fact that all the Russia stuff was total fabrication. They have convinced themselves that Trump is a racist who was trying a coup.
What is truly worrying is that it’s perfectly possible to believe that Trump lost and that there was fraud at the same time, in the same way that it is possible to believe that there was no weaponization of SARS-Covid and that it was due to an accidental leak of well intentioned research, but the inability of the MSM to accept these things is making them partisan, in the most generous interpretation, and actively evil, if we take a less generous view. Echo chambers.
Pontius Pilate
Truth?
Lurker
@ken
I am sure they will find a way to blame Trump somehow. The derangement syndrome wont let them ignore him.
Ken
@Lurker, they already have – it was because Trump said it that they chose not to believe it, ergo it was his fault. If it turns out to be true, they will blame Trump for having permitted the restarting of gain of function research in 2017.
Ljh
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fauci-emails-reveal-damage-control-scramble-after-zerohedge-spotlights-man-made-covid-19
There are some lovely gems to be found within the FOIA for Fauci emails including advice on the uselessness of masks to a colleague and a tentative preTrump raising of ). Did he use his daughter (software engineer at Twitter) to immediately cancel Zerohedge for connecting it to the lab, and is there an etrail to Google and Fakebook to exercise extreme “fact”checking? Most entertaining!
I’m pretty certain that the protracted delays in introducing treatment with CHQ and Ivermectin etc. were solely a result of the “Bad Orange Man” suggesting that they might prove to be helpful.
Steve
Seems plausible to me the Chinee released this accidentally, given the sort of incompetence, dishonesty and corner cutting that seems to be rife in the land of Han (skyscrapers built out of Rice Krispies, lead paint in baby milk, fake ground tiger penis that turns out to be real political dissident penis etc.)
The obvious solution is to release their natural predator, the Japanese.
Roué le Jour
I favour the “smash it to fuck then give half to the Russians” approach myself.
dearieme
Thomas Frank is a successful football manager – you can’t reasonably expect him also to be a top drawer political analyst.
Jim
The whole situation has reached such a position now such that the truth is irrelevant. Lets assume the virus was accidentally released from the WIV, having been created there during gain of function experiments (the most likely scenario IMO). And lets assume that somewhere irrefutable evidence exists confirming this, and this evidence is somehow made public. What would the West do?
Answer: largely nothing. Firstly what could they do? Huge amounts of day to day life in the West is reliant on imported materials and goods from China, so cutting that off in a one fell swoop is just not viable. Supplies of everything exist in such a finely balanced ‘just in time’ state nowadays (thanks globalisation!) that to do so would invite chaos and catastrophe. Secondly would they even be allowed to do anything substantive by the substantial quisling elements within Western society who support anyone but their own countrymen? Quisling elements who as we saw with Brexit form the bedrock of the State apparatus and the vast majority of the media to boot? Who actively despise their fellow countrymen and would happily sell them out to the nearest authoritarian shithole.
I can see nothing that the West could do that would not either reduce their economies to rubble due to the shock effects of cutting China loose, or involve the politicians in a fight with their own Deep State apparatus they could never win (as in what happened to Trump), or be nothing other than a slap on China’s wrist – ‘Naughty boy, don’t do it again!’.
ken
@Jim
I am not as convinced that it was lab created, but I’m not qualified to judge the data. But assuming it was, and it was an accident, we would not want to penalise China in terms of trade (for the reasons given above), but it would put China in a horribly weak diplomatic position for years afterwards (one reason why the Chinese are never going to willingly give the data up). Every time the Chinese demand repayment of their belt and road debts, the problems caused by Covid will be brought up by deadbeats throughout the world. It’ll weaken their territorial claims and hurt their relations with everyone. Of course, if this is the case, the Chinese will make sure to drag as many people into the blame game with them (so the EcoHealth Alliance and the NIH would also be in the firing line, as would the dorks at WHO).
It would significantly strengthen Trump’s position – because it really would be a Chinese disease and the world’s media conspired to cover it up. It would significantly degrade belief in scientists and the MSM. These would be good things as the spirit of science is skepticism and hypothesis testing, not rote “the science is settled” nonsense.
It would heighten worries over gain of function and hopefully penalties for poor biosafety.
Jim
“we would not want to penalise China in terms of trade”
So you’re going for the ‘Naughty boy, don’t do it again!’ approach then?
ken
@Jim
Trade benefits us. And to be honest, if it was an accident on a project that many scientists are in favour of (and they are, gain of function is regarded as being a desirable line of inquiry), what should we do? A tort claim? Interesting question – I might ask around and find out whether Public International Law covers this…
Bloke in North Korea (Germany province)
People are still talking about who shot Kennedy. Whether you know the truth or not, you will never know for sure that you know the truth.
Jim
“gain of function is regarded as being a desirable line of inquiry”
Desirable to who? The scientists getting paid £££ to play God, or the taxpayers paying for it who are dying in their millions as a result of the experiments?
There’s a simple solution to the GoF problem – unlimited liability. Anyone who does such experiments is personally liable for any losses that arises from their work. That’ll separate the ones who just like playing god from the ones who think they can actually do some good.
Gain-of-function (GOF) research involves experimentation that aims or is expected to (and/or, perhaps, actually does) increase the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens. Such research, when conducted by responsible scientists, usually aims to improve understanding of disease causing agents, their interaction with human hosts, and/or their potential to cause pandemics. The ultimate objective of such research is to better inform public health and preparedness efforts and/or development of medical countermeasures. Despite these important potential benefits, GOF research (GOFR) can pose risks regarding biosecurity and biosafety.
I’ve scanned the legal literature on Chinese potential liability, and the consensus seems to be that it is likely limited, although the bulk of it presupposes that the problem is poor Chinese handling of the early stages of the epidemic and covering up the spread, not that they might have cooked it up. Tortious claims against countries generally fal afoul of sovereign immunity.
Jim
“The ultimate objective of such research is to better inform public health and preparedness efforts and/or development of medical countermeasures.”
And how exactly does the work of scientists operating under an all controlling communist dictatorship, while secretly funded by the US Deep State help the rest of us then? It may have escaped your notice but the CCP is not exactly fully on board with the concept of openness. We have no idea what they were up to in their labs, so how exactly does their work benefit the rest of the world? The whole thing was done entirely secretly – the US banned GoF work, so the US ‘civil servants’ just got round the ban by secretly funding work in China.
And as for informing public health preparedness, our PHE couldn’t even manage to have enough PPE in stock to cope with a pandemic, so how is knowing that there is now a far more virulent manmade strain of some virus possible going to make a jot of difference to whatever pandemic ‘plans’ they might have cooked up between trying to tell everyone to stop smoking and eat 5 vegetables a day?
The people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome will ignore it. They successfully ignored the fact that all the Russia stuff was total fabrication. They have convinced themselves that Trump is a racist who was trying a coup.
What is truly worrying is that it’s perfectly possible to believe that Trump lost and that there was fraud at the same time, in the same way that it is possible to believe that there was no weaponization of SARS-Covid and that it was due to an accidental leak of well intentioned research, but the inability of the MSM to accept these things is making them partisan, in the most generous interpretation, and actively evil, if we take a less generous view. Echo chambers.
Truth?
@ken
I am sure they will find a way to blame Trump somehow. The derangement syndrome wont let them ignore him.
@Lurker, they already have – it was because Trump said it that they chose not to believe it, ergo it was his fault. If it turns out to be true, they will blame Trump for having permitted the restarting of gain of function research in 2017.
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/fauci-emails-reveal-damage-control-scramble-after-zerohedge-spotlights-man-made-covid-19
There are some lovely gems to be found within the FOIA for Fauci emails including advice on the uselessness of masks to a colleague and a tentative preTrump raising of ). Did he use his daughter (software engineer at Twitter) to immediately cancel Zerohedge for connecting it to the lab, and is there an etrail to Google and Fakebook to exercise extreme “fact”checking? Most entertaining!
Lots of titbits here. Real time exploding heads
https://mobile.twitter.com/veryvirology/status/1399909883189727238
@Lurker % Ken…
I’m pretty certain that the protracted delays in introducing treatment with CHQ and Ivermectin etc. were solely a result of the “Bad Orange Man” suggesting that they might prove to be helpful.
Seems plausible to me the Chinee released this accidentally, given the sort of incompetence, dishonesty and corner cutting that seems to be rife in the land of Han (skyscrapers built out of Rice Krispies, lead paint in baby milk, fake ground tiger penis that turns out to be real political dissident penis etc.)
The obvious solution is to release their natural predator, the Japanese.
I favour the “smash it to fuck then give half to the Russians” approach myself.
Thomas Frank is a successful football manager – you can’t reasonably expect him also to be a top drawer political analyst.
The whole situation has reached such a position now such that the truth is irrelevant. Lets assume the virus was accidentally released from the WIV, having been created there during gain of function experiments (the most likely scenario IMO). And lets assume that somewhere irrefutable evidence exists confirming this, and this evidence is somehow made public. What would the West do?
Answer: largely nothing. Firstly what could they do? Huge amounts of day to day life in the West is reliant on imported materials and goods from China, so cutting that off in a one fell swoop is just not viable. Supplies of everything exist in such a finely balanced ‘just in time’ state nowadays (thanks globalisation!) that to do so would invite chaos and catastrophe. Secondly would they even be allowed to do anything substantive by the substantial quisling elements within Western society who support anyone but their own countrymen? Quisling elements who as we saw with Brexit form the bedrock of the State apparatus and the vast majority of the media to boot? Who actively despise their fellow countrymen and would happily sell them out to the nearest authoritarian shithole.
I can see nothing that the West could do that would not either reduce their economies to rubble due to the shock effects of cutting China loose, or involve the politicians in a fight with their own Deep State apparatus they could never win (as in what happened to Trump), or be nothing other than a slap on China’s wrist – ‘Naughty boy, don’t do it again!’.
@Jim
I am not as convinced that it was lab created, but I’m not qualified to judge the data. But assuming it was, and it was an accident, we would not want to penalise China in terms of trade (for the reasons given above), but it would put China in a horribly weak diplomatic position for years afterwards (one reason why the Chinese are never going to willingly give the data up). Every time the Chinese demand repayment of their belt and road debts, the problems caused by Covid will be brought up by deadbeats throughout the world. It’ll weaken their territorial claims and hurt their relations with everyone. Of course, if this is the case, the Chinese will make sure to drag as many people into the blame game with them (so the EcoHealth Alliance and the NIH would also be in the firing line, as would the dorks at WHO).
It would significantly strengthen Trump’s position – because it really would be a Chinese disease and the world’s media conspired to cover it up. It would significantly degrade belief in scientists and the MSM. These would be good things as the spirit of science is skepticism and hypothesis testing, not rote “the science is settled” nonsense.
It would heighten worries over gain of function and hopefully penalties for poor biosafety.
“we would not want to penalise China in terms of trade”
So you’re going for the ‘Naughty boy, don’t do it again!’ approach then?
@Jim
Trade benefits us. And to be honest, if it was an accident on a project that many scientists are in favour of (and they are, gain of function is regarded as being a desirable line of inquiry), what should we do? A tort claim? Interesting question – I might ask around and find out whether Public International Law covers this…
People are still talking about who shot Kennedy. Whether you know the truth or not, you will never know for sure that you know the truth.
“gain of function is regarded as being a desirable line of inquiry”
Desirable to who? The scientists getting paid £££ to play God, or the taxpayers paying for it who are dying in their millions as a result of the experiments?
There’s a simple solution to the GoF problem – unlimited liability. Anyone who does such experiments is personally liable for any losses that arises from their work. That’ll separate the ones who just like playing god from the ones who think they can actually do some good.
@Jim
GoF is not a straightforward bad.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-016-9810-1
Gain-of-function (GOF) research involves experimentation that aims or is expected to (and/or, perhaps, actually does) increase the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens. Such research, when conducted by responsible scientists, usually aims to improve understanding of disease causing agents, their interaction with human hosts, and/or their potential to cause pandemics. The ultimate objective of such research is to better inform public health and preparedness efforts and/or development of medical countermeasures. Despite these important potential benefits, GOF research (GOFR) can pose risks regarding biosecurity and biosafety.
I’ve scanned the legal literature on Chinese potential liability, and the consensus seems to be that it is likely limited, although the bulk of it presupposes that the problem is poor Chinese handling of the early stages of the epidemic and covering up the spread, not that they might have cooked it up. Tortious claims against countries generally fal afoul of sovereign immunity.
“The ultimate objective of such research is to better inform public health and preparedness efforts and/or development of medical countermeasures.”
And how exactly does the work of scientists operating under an all controlling communist dictatorship, while secretly funded by the US Deep State help the rest of us then? It may have escaped your notice but the CCP is not exactly fully on board with the concept of openness. We have no idea what they were up to in their labs, so how exactly does their work benefit the rest of the world? The whole thing was done entirely secretly – the US banned GoF work, so the US ‘civil servants’ just got round the ban by secretly funding work in China.
And as for informing public health preparedness, our PHE couldn’t even manage to have enough PPE in stock to cope with a pandemic, so how is knowing that there is now a far more virulent manmade strain of some virus possible going to make a jot of difference to whatever pandemic ‘plans’ they might have cooked up between trying to tell everyone to stop smoking and eat 5 vegetables a day?