Lots of stuff going on in the world, and it's hard to focus on one or two items, not to mention I have my own life to conduct and wreck . . . Much of what passes for news, however, is of a dubious nature. What has been driven home in the last several years is how once venerable institutions have fallen to the progressive onslaught and become purveyors of hysterical, politically motivated rubbish. The schools, universities, the media, Hollywood, the legal profession, the law enforcement and intel agencies, the political parties, even the military all have degenerated to varying degrees in the face of that onslaught. We are awash by and adrift on a sea of fake news all designed to cow us into giving ever more power to the permanent bureaucratic elites.
We have, of course, as much discussed here, the most fabulous hoax of them all, the "man-made global climate change" nonsense. We also have the hysteria over "internet neutrality," Brexit, and, of course, the American elite's two favorite hoaxes, RUSSIAN COLLUSION (!) and the ongoing impeachment farce which seeks to overturn the 2016 election and invalidate the 2020 election.
There are many more of these hoaxes out there; I am sure you can turn naming them into a party drinking game.
Among other things, this destruction of our institutions means it is harder and harder to discern what is really happening.
One of the more recent examples of something happening which is hard to decipher is the Coronavirus scare. Is it real? Is it yet another existential threat to mankind? Is it overblown? Is it, instead, worse than the rising oceans, Spanish flu, the plague, Y2K, SARS, delayed aid to Ukraine, Alex Jones, mercury in seafood, a Rebel Wilson movie, etc? Who knows? Nobody does, that's who. Nobody.
Is this a real threat? We are dealing with an authoritarian and highly corrupt government in China which is incapable of telling the truth. We really have no idea what is going on in China. How many are infected? We don't know. How many have died? We don't know. Is it underreported in China? If so, does that lead to exaggeration in the outside world? We don't know. If it's that serious why isn't travel to and from China cut-off? Immigration from China? Business in China? I have been to China, and, frankly, it's an authoritarian Third World country with large foreign currency reserves, abysmal living and public health conditions, and a very corrupt governing elite determined to become Masters of the Universe. Don't look for the truth to come from China . . . or from our Chimerica business clan.
The Truth is out there, we just don't know where.
North Korea closing their border with Communist China is a very unusual and unsettling move. Not much would cause Lil' Kim to do that to his lord and master.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see.
Sounds like you were unimpressed by China, Mr. Amselem. I was in China last year, and saw something different -- at least at the street level.
ReplyDeleteChina managed to build a nationwide genuine high speed rail system in about the same time it has taken California to make a bunch of lawyers rich talking about building one. There is nothing like the social dysfunction one sees on the streets of London or San Francisco. Chinese people did not seem downtrodden or frightened; they own their apartments, drive their private cars on excellent inter-city toll roads, and bitch about their stock portfolios. And the tourist facilities (for internal Chinese tourism) are quite amazing.
Certainly, the Chinese government has its issues. But so does our own Deep State of unfireable bureaucrats. The sad fact is that today we need to be cautious about accepting any statement from any government anywhere.
This leads to the cynical view that the current coronavirus scare is just another case of 'never letting a crisis go to waste'. Since the Climate Change scam is looking increasingly threadbare, the Powers That Be would appreciate another excuse to keep their boots on the necks of us peons.
That pretty well sez it ALL!!
DeleteAdmittedly it has been 20 years since I lived and worked in China (Guangzhou). But from what I have read/heard over the years, some things haven't changed so much. Still an environmental wasteland, to the people's detriment (remember the air quality issues leading up to the Beijing olympics? Good times.) More repressive than when I lived there, judging by the social credits and software facial recognition. I've never trusted the Chinese government, before during and since my years there. Oh, let's ask the citizens of any number of African countries how things are under their Chinese colonial masters.
ReplyDeleteBased on my experience with the open air market in Guangzhou I can easily imagine the coronovirus originating there. Unless , of course, it came from the research lab that was set up in Wuhan in 2017.
ReplyDeleteI just can't stand Trump... yet... both the GOP and the Democrats have *no* competition for him. I'm glad I'm not following the news since October 2018. If Trump stays in office, America gets what it deserves. If Trump is removed from office, America 'gets what it deserves'. I'm starting to think I don't actually have a bone in this fight.
ReplyDelete- reader #1482
Or a brain in your head, apparently
DeleteVery possible.
Delete- reader #1482
“What has been driven home on the last several years is how once venerable institutions have fallen to the progressive onslaught and become purveyors of hysterical, politically motivated rubbish. The schools, universities, the media, Hollywood, the legal profession, the law enforcement and intel agencies, the political parties, even the military all have degenerated to varying degrees in the face of that onslaught. We are awash by and adrift on a sea of fake news all designed to cow us into giving ever more power to the permanent bureaucratic elites.”
ReplyDeleteTHIS x 1,000,000. Very well stated.
Michael Fumento has been right for decades regarding viruses.
ReplyDeletehttps://nypost.com/2020/01/23/dont-buy-the-media-hype-over-the-new-china-virus/
Whaaaa??? But the health care system is FREE in China. They are a socialist utopia! How can they suggest it's inferior to the US health care system, when my university professor proved over and over again to me that our system is the worst! It's just basic math (that I didn't understand, and I suspect neither did he.. but what can you ask for in an english literature course anyways?)
Delete- reader #1482
My husband and I spent a night at the National Infectious Disease hospital in Guangzhou. It was suspected my husband might have typhus (thankfully, only food poisoning). I had to stay up all night to monitor his IV because they had no sensor system. Speaking very little Chinese, I had to flag down the nurse to let her know it was time to change the IV bag -- because if the bag had run out air would have entered his vein and then it would have been curtains for him. Needless to say, the hospital was not nearly as grandiose as its name. It was eye-opening to say the least. The next morning, my husband was determined to leave no matter what (there were other issues with them trying to administer potassium, etc etc) and the staff was totally flummoxed and anyone daring to question the doctor/refuse further treatment etc etc. Oh, and the stories I could tell about some of my Chinese staff and their family members trying to seek medical treatment. Socialist paradise my ass.
DeleteUltimately, the current “outbreak” in Wuhan is materially not a threat - without something akin to an Imperial Japanese invasion, I don’t see Chinese waterworks engineers abandoning pumping substations, nor powerline workers abandoning maintenance and repair schedules.
ReplyDeleteWuhan has experienced a mass-casualty event before.
And while disease was a contributing factor then, it was not - and almost never is - the primary cause.
Wuhan's population was not decimated by a viral or bacterial infection, so much as it was decimated by an Imperial Japanese (and Communist) war –
- just as the Holy Roman Empire and its disparate kingdoms weren't decimated by a bacterium, so much as they were decimated by a Muslim invasion. The “Black Death” is not about the Bubonic Plague – something that has been uncritically parroted by the historically ignorant or agenda-driven “post-Enlightenment” crowd. Disease in isolation does not cause a death spiral on a civilizational scale.
Rather, the true cause of Europe's depopulation was the economic decline throughout the disparate elements of what was the Roman Empire in the face of Islamic conquests (The Ottoman Turks) pounding on the gates of Constantinople, cutting off trade from the Mediterranean and Aegean, siphoning away entire villages of white prisoners to slave markets over the decades – many European nobles sold their own people to the Muslim and Jewish slave traders to keep themselves solvent.
The depredations, decline, and loss of basic services taken for granted in civilized society were the preconditions for the spread deadliness of all diseases (hardly limited to Bubonic plague, which may not even have been the most prevalent disease). After all, it was civilized society, technology and its logistics which permitted dense populations to grow and sustain themselves in the first place.
Knock away the foundational trade and economic activity that sustains a civlized system with the violence and spasms of a War, and the entire edifice falls - along with the population it once supported.
This death spiral has been repeated in history countless times.
The Japanese conquest of the Oriental Mainland in WW2, and encroachment on the Northern Plains (“China’s” historic agricultural region), is one relevant example. It wasn’t Japanese infantry or artillery that killed on a civilizational scale in WW2 (a few hundred thousand was bad, yes, but not the death-blow in and of itself); it was the abandonment of civil infrastructure that caused the society to atomize, making population centers vulnerable - its people unclean and malnourished - to widespread disease, dysentery, lacking waste removal, etc – concurrent with the inability to deliver and maintain supplies of basic needs from food to soap.
"Lots of stuff going on in the world and it's hard to focus on one or two items . . . Much of what passes for news, however, is of a dubious nature." WLA
ReplyDeleteAnother, "The Sky is Falling" story, debunked:
What the media won’t tell you about the Australian wildfires
By Joe Bastardi |January 27th, 2020|Climate|243 Comments
I will be shorter than usual (that’s a relief).
Here, from WIKI data are total acreage burnt in Australia/year since the early 70s:
https://www.cfact.org/2020/01/27/what-the-media-wont-tell-you-about-the-australian-wildfires/?mc_cid=1d61d8f1fe&mc_eid=a5fe3b9e2d
On Watch~~~
History Documented and Remembered
Why are the dems so stupid? They had nearly every possible GOP retirement they could wish for in the house, and barely eeked out a majority. They go after Trump in all the most stupid ways, in particular, ways that nobody but a tiny minority really cares about. And now they expect to win a removal from office on crap that never happened but might have been mentioned... in Ukraine? The US voter doesn't give a rat's butt about what happens outside of the US, it doesn't give even half that about what happens in Ukraine, and it doesn't give even an infinitesimal amount of a crap about what *didn't* happen in Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost like Trump was dragging a rope around with a set of instructions dangling from it entitled: "How to tie a noose."
"Hey guys! We finally got the rope! And it has secret instructions we're attempting to decode and follow as we speak. You'll see exactly what happens when we're done!" - N. Pelosi
How can they *not* see this as a trap? Everything they do here is going to reinforce every characterization Trump has ever made about the democrats. "Out of touch." "Doesn't care about the voter." "Likes to talk about this 'emoluments clause' thing... does anybody know what that is? I don't care either, because I spend my time caring about you guys."
I mean.. c'mon.. idiots...
- reader #1482
Great post - I agree 100% with this:
ReplyDelete>The Truth is out there, we just don't know where.
Best information I have read so far:
In Case You Missed It Earlier Raconteur Report. The author had great information previous on Ebola.
Musings:
I have been surprised at the lack of Medical Infrastructure in Wuhan. Plus the lying that is being done - Apartment Building 600 miles away is a Hospital. Or how this was hushed up by the Chinese in the first month or two of the outbreak. And the fact there is a Bio Weapons facility in Wuhan. And the Canadian Lab that supposedly Coronavirus samples were stolen from.
They weren't "stolen".
DeleteThey didn't need to be because the academic and medical community have largely cooperated with the Chinese Communists, and their citizen surrogates. Everything was relatively "above-board" - and if it weren't for a change in the political winds south of the border, this would be business as usual.
When a stink was made about the lab's collaboration with with Chinese labs under suspicion of gene-editing, the Canadians helped their Chinese colleagues escape questioning, particularly by the Americans.
You'll notice this is in stark contrast witht he American response which has been to ARREST the Chinese collaborators who have been caught, most recently Chinese and American academics, BEFORE they successfully smuggle bio-hazardous samples and research to China - the most recent incident being in Boston.
Again:
In America, they have to "smuggle" the samples and research out, against our attempts to arrest and prevent them.
Unlike in Canada, with a different political climate, with Canadians who are actively "sending" samples and research of their own volition, then protecting their Chinese collaborators the Americans, and smuggling them out of their reach whenever they get the chance.
"Stealing"?
Don't try to gaslight us.
I spent two years in Mainland China in the 1990's, and Chinese is my second speaking and reading language. I generally agree with Dip's assessment of the regime. However, I do not have reason to doubt that (after stealing the US manufacturing economy and much else with the connivance of Bush I and Boy Clinton) China has made significant economic strides. Although, having lived in Taiwan as well, I can't help but note that post-Deng China looks a lot more like Jiang Jishi's _China's Destiny_ than Mao's eqalitarian, autarkic vision.
ReplyDeleteI am also sceptical that this is another apocalypse. The great influenza after WWI killed far more, while last year, other strains of influenza killed 30,000 in the USA. However, it is also highly possible that the Chinese regime is not letting the world know the true extent of the problem. In either case, I am no fan of abetting the rise of the last best hope for 20th century totalitarianism.
Kepha: "... after stealing the US manufacturing economy and much else with the connivance of Bush I and Boy Clinton …"
ReplyDeleteIt is worth remembering about the immense efforts the French made in the Treaty of Versailles after WWI to de-industrialize defeated Germany. And to remember the actions the victorious Russians made in eastern Germany after WWII to dismantle entire factories in defeated Germany and send them to Russia.
While our Best & Brightest have been doing whatever it is they do in Congress, the US has lost something in the range of 50-60 Thousand factories, with the equipment often being packaged up and sent to China.
Functionally, our Political Class has subjected the people of the US to the equivalent of the kind of de-industrialization which would have followed abject defeat at the hands of a merciless enemy. And the loss of associated tax revenues has exacerbated the pension Ponzi schemes. Someone could write a book about this -- "While America Slept".
I agree that this virus is likely not that serious - it has low fatality rates (which you would expect from a virus that has a long incubation period).
ReplyDeleteWhat scares me is the fear of the Chinese government. They didn't react this fast or strongly to SARS, which really is quite nasty. It bolsters the suspicion that this is a bio-engineered disease.
The Chinese just don't know how bad it is. And, they are terrified that it might be the Doomsday Virus.