Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 65

[ecosophia]

As we proceed through the second year of these open posts, it's pretty clear that the official narrative is cracking as the toll of deaths and injuries from the Covid vaccines rises steadily and the vaccines themselves demonstrate their total uselesness at preventing Covid infection or transmission. It's still important to keep watch over the mis-, mal- and nonfeasance of our self-proclaimed health gruppenfuehrers, and the disastrous results of the Covid mania, but I think it's also time to begin thinking about what might be possible as the existing medical industry reels under the impact of its own self-inflicted injuries. 

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before: 

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry et al. are causing injury and death. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its tame politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here. 
 
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue. 

4. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religious, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.    

Comments

[tritumi]

I have to apologize for this late reply. The structure of the forum does not encourage one to return to page one to review previous comments when the current page is three. By chance I looked again at page one.

There are two direct questions to me in response to my initial post regarding Oster and forgiveness.

"I'd like to see tritumi say what he has in mind. First, he seems to think Oster would be punishable just for pro-mandate speech. Second, to say that "devot[ing] her life and personal resources to contrition" and ratting out others is what would justify "parole" implies an even worse "punishment" if she fails to adequately abase herself and denounce others a la the Cultural Revolution. It was an inflammatory suggestion, envisioning a future legal regime that has nothing whatsoever in common with the United States having our present Constitution, and he ought to step up and explicitly say just what he hopes to see happen and how many millions of people might be swept up in it."

Allow me to "step up" as requested.

First, I would like to see a direct question from an actual person or at least some sort of regularly named poster other than an ubiquitous Anon, but that is perhaps trivial as an objection.

Second, this translation of my phrase "gives clear and complete witness to the facts of who has advised and supported her in her views decisions and activities,” as “ratting out others” or "must name other witches to avoid the stake” (as a subsequent Anon histrionically ups the ante), suggests a disregard for basic forensics. If you want to know who is responsible for running operatives, you have to establish the hierarchy of command. Perhaps you do not wish to know the parties exercising malign power in these various media and institutions. I do.

Third, the notion that Oster and her cohorts should not be immune to the consequences of her own investing her influence in calling for official state sanction to harm those standing for science and bodily autonomy is hardly to envision some unConstitutional regime. But perhaps the notion of a class action suit raised by all who have endured the onslaught of Oster and her influencer cadres is simply unwelcome by those who might wish to protect that class of neer do wells.

Fourth, this current exercise in mass media gaslighting is a clear effort to reframe the harms committed by Oster and cohort in the effort to renew harm which the state must of necessity take to a higher level of falsity to satisfy her.

Lastly, as to the accounting requested by the Anon, I suggest this be the weight in the scales which they need to balance. One in twenty seven of all jabbed will have myocarditis according to peer reviewed studies. I take that to be about 8 million. Further, an additional number, let’s say half of cardiac victims, will suffer other direct vaccine damage of all sorts as are amply documented. Further, an as yet unknowable number will endure damage as a consequence of compromised immune systems with latent ailments or as a consequence to environmental, climactic, or epimediologic exposures. How to calculate the harm to the reproductive health of an unknown but substantial percentage of women as a crime against the future? How to calculate the immediate loss of life, the near and mid term loss of life, and the longer term reduction in life spans in years and quality of life?

In the wake of the some civil disasters, such as the Rwandan genocide or the South African regime change, truth and reconciliation commissions were established to ensure documentation and assessing responsibility. Justice requires the scales be balanced.

So where does Anon wish to find justice, or perhaps these inquiring Anons do not wish to find justice at all.

[scotlyn]

Hello Tritumi, this is not a comment on the topic under discussion, but I just want to point out that after the first day of these posts, I tend to keep comments open in "flat" view, in order to track everything new that comes in, and whenever something looks like part of a previous conversation that interests me, or that I am curious about, I click "parent" under the specific post, in order to open up the conversation and see how it flows. I have found these to be useful tools.

[methylethyl]

I think a lot of us read it that way :)

To that end-- in case anybody else is reading, it's really quite handy if the person posting the top-level comment gives it a title-- helps those of us in flatland keep track.

[p_coyle]

thanks for this. my luddite self tends to get bogged down looking for what has changed since yesterday.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks very much for the suggestion. I will give it a try.

[(Anonymous)]

First, I would like to see a direct question from an actual person or at least some sort of regularly named poster other than an ubiquitous Anon, but that is perhaps trivial as an objection.

i, erika lopez, second that emotion.
the medium is very much the message regarding the dissipating energy of the internet, and i myself, get irritated at always being the one with my legs open with name address rank social security number, and i'm talking to a safely cloistered away "anonymous" that could be anyTHING.

when i answer anyway, i realize it's for MYSELF. they think they are safe adn they are. safe from ANY real human interaction as i then tend to use them like humping a pillow. it's for ME. then the whole thing is a 'jerk, you know?

so you honor half-assed mixed company with a response that took hours and days to think about... they THINK they "got over" by staying safe and secret and flinging prompts, but...

we feed the beast.

oh well, it is what it is.

tritumi thanks for answering a wussy anonymous because i got it in the spray.

x

erika

[(Anonymous)]

There has been a distinctly off flair about many of the posts this week. I wonder if we are getting some outside attention.

Murmuration

[(Anonymous)]

I think a comment of our very own Mark L made the rounds in the wider blogosphere, if Im not mistaken.
might have increased the audience

[(Anonymous)]

I noticed the same with the same flavour, sort of a faux-sympathetic 'gotcha' feel.........

[(Anonymous)]

I've been reading JMG's blogs regularly for certainly over 15 years. It's this sort of conspiratorial thinking - question certain views or even ask what they really mean, and you must be one of Them plotting against Us - that guarantees you couldn't pay me enough to use any portion of my real name or distinctive nickname here. And neither do you, I notice. So I've gotten myself a handle that is as informative as "Murmuration" and will use it from now on, so that you can see which efforts at reasonable dissent come from the same individual.

Does that make a difference in your judgment of what is still an anonymous comment? If an argument is rational, is it not worthy of consideration no matter which total stranger it comes from? Is anyone really more likely to give sincere consideration to an argument if it is identified as coming from a Jejune Octopus? Probably less so, because, when I looked up "jejune" just now, it was defined as "naive, simplistic, and superficial"! Thanks so much, CosmicOom.

-Translucent Jejune Octopus

[(Anonymous)]

I’m always up for a good rational (and irrational) conversation, and many points of view. The more the merrier. Wasn’t aiming at anyone in particular, just the vibe, and anon is no problem for me. Take whatever name feels good. I’ll interact with the meat of your ideas. I guess if you feel like the shoe fits about the vibe though…well…ok then? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Murmuration

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, it was my anonymous comment being attacked for its anonymity farther up in the thread, so I assumed it was, at least in part, me whom you were accusing of being some kind of outside troll. If I misunderstood your intention, I do apologize for overreacting.

-Translucent Jejune [argh] Octopus

[p_coyle]

from a personal standpoint, i think that just posting as "anonymous" doesn't give enough reference to a voice. i was not named p_coyle by my parents, nor have i went through the process of legally changing my name, but i post as p_coyle. before i signed up for a dreamwidth account i did -p coyle at he end of my posts.

that being said, posting a -(name) distinguishes you from the truly anonymous posters. i don't know who translucent jejune octopus is, nor murmuration or ron m or bofur is in real life, but you put a stamp on who you are in this online community. i feel like they are online friends after all this time.

(erika is a whole other ball of wax. a brave, defiant ball of wax. (luv ya e xx) )

it helps to distinguish voices, and even cosmic oom names give a reference point the rest of us can wrap our head around.

i am loathe to use my real name on the internet. once you commit to posting as translucent jejune octopus, i will at the very least be able to put your posts into a context where i get to know you as a person.

i'm pretty sure some of us agree that some sense of community is lacking in the current situation, and we should encourage building that community even if it doesn't involve exchanging ssn's and bank account info, and we have to do it quasi-anonymously over the internet. these are the times we live in. make the best of it that you can.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, maybe so. I have to admit I come here for knowledge, information and ideas. I recognize regular handles, and a couple are people whom I have learned to respect so I sit up and pay attention when they speak - but I don't feel any emotional connection to them. I don't have any sense of who they are as people, and don't really try to imagine any, or miss that. That's just me, I guess; YMMV. Anyway, I don't mind going along to get along.

-Translucent Jejune Octopus

[(Anonymous)]

Your legal name isn't Tritumi; most of us here are in some sense anonymous. I won't set up a Dreamwidth account to use solely to comment here, but at your request - since you earlier impressed me by calling apartheid by its name - I went to get a Cosmic Oom name to identify myself. Which is Translucent Jejune Octopus. Oh well, coulda been worse.

A scientific digression: the study claiming 1 in 27 vaxxed people get myocarditis is as garbage as the one that claimed that half of all covid patients get heart "damage." It turns out that if instead of looking at who is *actually sick* you scrutinize healthy people for above-average levels of various biomarkers, or minuscule imperfections on an MRI, you can tell most of them that they're some kind of defective - especially if the person looking for the minuscule imperfections knows whether each subject had the exposure that he wishes to raise fear about.

One problem with such bad science is that the broader disease-labeling is, the less harmful the disease appears to be. Example, diabetes appears now to be much less of a risk factor for CV events than it was 20 years ago. One reason is that lots of people are now labeled "diabetic" who weren't so labeled 20 years ago; their risks are lower. So, if a lot of vaxxed people "with myocarditis" didn't even have short-term chest pain, much less any later cardiac symptoms, it sounds like myocarditis is like Omicron in children, a real nothingburger, so why should we care about it?

Now to Oster. She didn't impose legal mandates or even coerce anyone to get vaxxed; she just tweeted in support of those who did. After ex post facto prosecution of such speakers becomes possible, you speak of demanding names from them "to know who is responsible for running operatives ... to establish the hierarchy of command." This implies a presumption that everyone who speaks on the disfavored side of an issue is part of a grand conspiracy, acting under orders. That's not the case here; it rarely is. And while in a real conspiracy, the number of people at the top is small, in star chamber proceedings the prosecuted are often coerced to supply names that haven't already been named, leading to the targeting of lots of people who did nothing of any substance.

I asked you what kind of punishment you thought would be appropriate for someone who posts tweets favoring vax mandates. You didn't answer. You listed a bunch of potential future harms, which if they ever happen would be severely burdensome to the victims and population. But those who knowingly marketed risky shots, or those who coerced people to take them, would be the ones primarily responsible for that harm, and you don't even say what should happen to them, aside from a nebulous mention of "balancing the scales." Please say what, exactly, do you think should be done to punish private citizens who verbally supported that first group's efforts based on a sincere belief in their rightness?

And how far would you extend that punishment of speech? Oster was speaking publicly on Twitter. What about people who said in private conversations that they approved of or wanted to see local vax mandates - could they be reported and punished years later? May we presume that people who merely Tweeted encouragement to vaccination would not be punished, since they did not support coercion? (Note: I would not be in any of these categories so my concern is not for myself but for the fabric of society. The First Amendment is often frustrating but before you start prosecuting people for what they have said or written you'd better have an idea of where it will end.)

-Translucent Jejune Octopus (oh well)

[(Anonymous)]

Now to Oster. She didn't impose legal mandates or even coerce anyone to get vaxxed; she just tweeted in support of those who did.
Now to Oster. She didn't impose legal mandates or even coerce anyone to get vaxxed; she just tweeted in support of those who did.
Now to Oster. She didn't impose legal mandates or even coerce anyone to get vaxxed; she just tweeted in support of those who did.


Sorry. I wanted to see if repeating it a few times made it any more true.

[(Anonymous)]

Whom did she coerce to get vaccinated, then, or what mandate did she impose? She's employed by Brown University. They have a vaccine mandate and she doubtless approved of it at the time, but she didn't make it happen. That would have been done by the administration (president or board of trustees), who don't solicit the opinions of ordinary professors about such decisions any more than certain manufacturers asked their line workers whether they wanted to be coerced to vaccinate. If one is going to accuse people not just of promoting bad ideas but of specific acts, there needs to be something more than guilt-by-association backing it.

Oster also supported opening schools much earlier than many liberal academics, and got bashed for it. In an alternate universe where the covidian left took power and tore up the Constitution, she might get hauled into a tribunal for having spoken in favor of open schools that she herself had no power to open. Among other things, that shows that people and their beliefs don't just cluster into two tight distant groups that can be conveniently labeled Good Guys and Bad Guys. I am a fan of some of Oster's work and believe/hope that she is rational enough to change her mind on vaccines as scientific evidence emerges. Many people may not be, and that's their misfortune.

-Translucent Jejune Octopus

[(Anonymous)]

The shaming of 'anti-vaxxers' in her tweeting history is pure and simple coercion.

[(Anonymous)]

No, sorry. Threats of legal repercussions such as fines, threats of job loss or expulsion from school, and physical threats such as armed menacing of targets constitute coercion. Namecalling or insulting the types of people who don't do what you want is not coercion. In our society, there are people on the internet who will vituperatively abuse you for *anything whatsoever*, often including every possible choice one might make in a given situation, so adults who cannot stop themselves from doing whatever any random stranger announces they should do have got to stay off the internet.

-Translucent Jejune Octopus

[(Anonymous)]

Yup. It’s hard to pin the blame on any one specific person when everyone is chanting gooble gobble. But does that mean the people chanting have NO responsibility when the fever breaks?

https://youtu.be/jkfwmaKIph8

Murmuration

[tritumi]

A robust reply is welcome.

The findings of myocardial damage from various studies has, I submit, moved beyond speculation or "bad science" (such as the 'vaccines' surely are). That does not mean everyone so damaged will be a SADS victim, but the onslaught of SADS is undeniable, unless, of course, you need to define people dropping dead as bad science (and surely it is the result of bad science). The damage appears to be more severe in young males but in women of all ages, just as the reproductive damage appears to be, at least at this point on the time line.

https://www.cardio-online.fr/Actualites/A-la-une/ESC-2022/Incidence-non-negligeable-myocardites-apres-3-dose-vaccin-ARN-messager-anti-COVID-19

Myocarditis is hardly the only adverse medical outcome. Among the many studies:
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/press-release/15-of-american-adults-diagnosed-with-new-condition-after-covid-vaccine-zogby-survey-finds/
15% of American Adults Diagnosed With New Condition After COVID Vaccine, Zogby Survey Finds

And, need we cite studies of increases of "excess death" over long term national averages?

I appreciate that facing the reality is beyond unsettling. For a great many it is and must be as if now injected with anxiety, guilt, and a self-awareness of the most tragic sort. Compassion is the need; triage the practical response; indifference as likely a general defense.

Regarding Oster and the minions of the influencer class, a historical analog serves. One of the great unsung representatives of the Progressive Era, the original one in American history, that is, for me is a fellow named Randolph Bourne. He stood against the American rush to war and I recommend his essay War and the Intellectuals as the precursor to all such later discussions of the failures of our "best and brightest".

Oster herself claims "darkness" as her defense while participating in spreading darkness through denial of open scientific debate. Worse Oster and minions ranged the territory favored by a select class of small minded suck ups who believe their own theories provide them the authority to control, redefine, and harm others. We did not make the correct judgement about the vaccines and government policy because, as Oster will have it, we were "lucky".

We are lucky to be critical thinkers able to judge for ourselves independently of the mind bending and reality crushing falsities of those with malign interest, even if that interest is simply advertising personal virtue to their tribe of conformists.
Oster is not alone but, being both a trained economist who should have some capacity with basic notions of trend and data as well as a woman who has declared “I Am a Woman Who Is Prominently Discussing Vaginas.” her record is particularly visible as a servant of agitprop

You request a specific graphing of punishments relative to harms, a hard actuarial accountancy. I am not going to give you one. You are at least rational enough to clearly see that there is a hierarchy of bad actors upon whom the consequences of their actions should be judged. The call for a Nuremberg 2 will create a massive social crisis since this event is not over and those most responsible have not yet been toppled from their positions of authority. That obviously is the precursor to any policy assessing minions such as Oster. More generally, however, as I have suggested, a Truth and Reconciliation project at the national and local levels both are required. De-nazification and/or de-bathization projects can never be completely successful and blow back underground creates counter trends that re-emerge.

There are two resonant trends in cultures, shame cultures and guilt cultures. Ours is a guilt culture, (I live in a shame culture). Oster tries to be clever, inverting and projecting her inversion so that she and her class maintain position and power. I will be hopeful that some adjustment to those two capacities are in order.

We are both concerned for the fabric of society. Tears and rips cannot be re-sewn unless the needle punches through the fabric to stitch it up.

Thank you again for your thought provoking comments.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for yours. I would bet good money most cardiovascular death is caused by increased clotting, not minuscule myocardial scarring. But this remains to be figured out.

I also think that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission could be a good idea, though not dragging possibly tens of millions into its docks - but who decides what is truth? These days it's a very slippery concept. Scientific studies can be designed that will "show" almost anything you want them to. Still, it would be nice for individuals who were bullied into vaccination then suffered severe side effects to tell their stories on prime-time and be offered support.

I think it's a bit of a cop-out to talk about wanting someone to be severely punished for her speech - if she names other names to earn "parole" - but then refuse to say what kind of punishment you think is fair. There's no legal risk whatsoever to supplying some details of your vision of a possible future legal regime. People openly describe desires for ethnic cleansing on the internet, inspiring extremist violence, and as long as they don't very directly threaten named individuals with imminent violence, they are not punished because of the First Amendment. (BTW, that kind of speech appears to most people to be more harmful than pro-vax-mandate speech.)

No regime on earth sentences adults to write 500 times, "I will never trust pharma executives again." People who are punished under criminal laws are deprived of property (fines or expropriation, one-time or ongoing) or liberty (probation, imprisonment/parole, or death) or both. Do you think that an unnamed person who tweeted in support of vax mandates would be imprisoned by the future government you think desirable? Would that be a few weekends in the county jail, or years at hard labor? If towards the latter end of the range, what would be done with the children and pets of all those people - because it could be a great many people depending on how widely the net was cast?

-Translucent Jejune Octopus

[tritumi]

You do seem to favor the argumentum ad nauseam, if you do not mind my noting.

It is pointless to debate SADS as a consequence of clotting vs myocardial scarring. Both arise from the spike protein and an immune response overloaded with synthetically induced instructions to manufacture spike proteins that damage the network of blood vessels and create further damage by accruing in critical organs.

The defense of epistemological relativism is invalid. What is to be considered are the spectrum of action and intent. Consider this spectrum:

+++ at risk from co-morbidity or advanced age
+++ coerced to keep employment to secure family
++ emotionally manipulated by family
++ willingly thought it protective based on available information and advice
+ willingly because want to travel
- medical personnel trained to evaluate trends
--- medical personnel insisting patients take shot
----medical administrators insisting treatment be denied unless officially approved
-- advocates of propaganda systems that inflict harm
--- administrators of propaganda systems that inflict harm
----owners of propaganda systems that inflict harm
--- scientists who accept false or dubious claims to maintain position
----scientists who participate in development and promotion of false or dubious findings
----administrators in any firm or government department or agency that mandates based on false or dubious findings
----censors, advocates of controlling debate
----politicians who support mandates based on false or dubious findings
--->inner circle of decision makers

Once again you request a hard accountancy of penalty for crime. You work it out and I will look forward to your recommendations.

[(Anonymous)]

'Tears and rips cannot be re-sewn unless the needle punches through the fabric to stitch it up.'


Just to segue wildly:
This is poetic.
I've been looking into the Bayeux Tapestry lately - there's a surprising amount of weight to
its very existence that goes beyond the event it documents -----
This phrase is metaphysical and hard-nosed at the same time. Reality on various levels. Thank you.

[tritumi]

Thanks, visited Bayeaux in 1986 on our honeymoon. A remarkable and moving testimony to how power and incentive changes history. The day before I made my wife visit Omaha Beach, where my father came ashore, fortunately on D Day +1.

Thanks also to everyone who weighed in. If I did not reply to other posters directly it is only because I was asked repeated questions by the less than translucent octopus who understandably is chagrined at the middle name!

Thanks, all.