The COVID censorship dam is starting to crack. It's time to have a real discussion about the damage our public health authorities did to people around the world.
And see also, "Fmr. CDC Director Robert Redfield Makes a Series of Stunning Admissions That Were Once Deemed 'Misinformation'":
https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1798421056941601194
Jonathan Haidt explains what it feels like to be wrong:
The NYT has finally come around. It's been a long wait. Way back in May of 2021, NYT Science reporter, Apoorva Mandavilli lectured us that it was "racist" to be concerned that scientists concocted COVID in a lab.
Fast forward to June 3, 2024: A guest essay in the NYT argues that the pandemic "Probably stared in a Lab." All in five easy steps. Well illustrated, including this graphic:
I woke up this morning to the news that—after four years of printing lies—the New York Times has finally published an Opinion piece acknowledges the evidence that SARS-CoV-2 did not originate in nature, but in a lab.
Why would there be a three year moratorium on discussing what is arguably the most important story of this century? I'm back to the same questions I keep asking myself: Who is controlling the information that we are allowed to read and hear, especially in corporate media and social media? What is their long range plan? Given that we are purportedly in a democracy, why is there almost no public deliberation and debate on key issues, but rather top-down ham-handed edicts? Why have so many of the pronouncements from our public health "experts" been so incredibly wrong? Such as the mask problem pointed out here:
We have a big problem in the U.S.. It is seemingly insurmountable. I'm not yet despondent, but heading there too often. I have repeatedly come to the conclusion that being being curious, distilling the facts with care, and sharing my ideas might make a difference. That can only happen, I believe, in a culture that is not locked down with military-grade censorship. That's where are already are, I fear. Arguments are not being won on the merits, but because someone, eventually, decides that it is no longer "bad" to say things that made sense all along. Or perhaps, the NYT noticed that the stench of its censorship of real stories was becoming grotesquely embarrassing, so it became time to hit the limited hangout button on lab leak. Limited Hangout:
[A] limited hangout is "spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting—sometimes even volunteering—some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further."
We who do not have any significant power/money don't have the main tool for winning arguments. As Rob Henderson pointed out (paraphrased by Claire Lehmann: "people who are high in status don't actually have to point out where an argument is wrong, just that an argument (or speaker) is low in status."
It's at times like these that, strangely, George Orwell brings me some consolation:
A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial...when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society...can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable.
[From The Prevention of Literature]
Alex Berenson illustrates that the truth about COVID is the inverse of the corporate media narrative:
As reported by FAIR, in "All Is Not Quiet In the Library Catalogs: Navigating the changing landscape of library cataloging":
Traditional cataloging practice requires the cataloger to describe the book as objectively as possible; there are even specific guidelines reminding catalogers not to select subject headings (those hyperlinked topic descriptors in the record) based on their own values and beliefs. One of the first questions I was asked in my hiring interview was to confirm that I would agree to catalog materials that I, personally, found offensive. After all, libraries—and, by extension, catalogers—are supposed to be guardians of free speech and intellectual freedom. We do not know who will be looking for the materials and for what purpose, and so we have to be fair, accurate, and objective in order to make it easier for the material to be found. But it seems that now the overriding duty of the cataloger is to protect the patrons from the harm that the records (not even the materials!) may cause them.
In the discussions I mentioned above, fellow catalogers were unabashedly stating that certain marginalized groups should get to decide how a book should be labeled. If a cataloger who is a member of a marginalized social group believes the book in question is harmful or offensive, he is fully in the right to add a note in the catalog stating his beliefs. Thus we now have four books in the international catalog (used by libraries worldwide) with the label “Transphobic works”. Several books that are critical of the current gender affirmation care model now have the subject heading “Transphobia”. These books are not about transphobia, so the subject heading is likely being used as a way to warn the reader of the record (and potentially the librarian choosing which books to order for the library) that these are “bad books” and should not be read or purchased.