Wuhan Lab Leak

I've spent half a day reviewing the evidence regarding the origin of the covid-19 virus.  I'd seen this evidence before, but was challenged on the findings, so I had to go through it again.  My two major sources are an article from June 2020 with dozens of scientific citations and compelling logic, and the work of Bret Weinstein as explained via YouTube videos.  

The basic issue seems to be the politicization of the analysis and its presentation in the mainstream media.  The Weinstein case was laid on January 30 in this video in 2 segments:

• consensus science: roughly 19:16 - 25:06
• covid lab leak: roughly 25 minute - 38 minute mark

First, Weinstein notes that an inappropriate scientific consensus was reached way too early in the process of coming to terms with the origin of covid-19.  A firm conclusion of natural origin was promulgated and the lab leak hypothesis was disparaged as fake news.  

I became aware of this in June, before I encountered Weinstein, with an article entitled The Case is Building That COVID-19 Had Lab Origin.  It is an excellent article written by two PhDs and I recommend the whole thing.  Here are some lengthy excerpts:

Practically the lone undisputed assertion made so far (6/2/2020) is that all the nearest known genetic relatives of its cause, the Sars-CoV-2 virus, are found in horseshoe bats (Zhou et al., 2020). Therefore, the likely viral reservoir was a bat.  However, most of these ancestor-like bat coronaviruses cannot infect humans (Ge et al., 2013). In consequence, from its beginning, a key question hanging over the pandemic has been: How did a bat RNA virus evolve into a human pathogen that is both virulent and deadly?

The answer almost universally seized upon is that there was an intermediate species. Some animal, perhaps a snake, perhaps a palm civet, perhaps a pangolin, served as a temporary host...  Since the two previous coronavirus near-pandemics of SARS (2002-3) and MERS (2012) both probably came from bats and both are thought (but not proven) to have transitioned to humans via intermediate animals (civets and dromedaries respectively), a natural zoonotic pathway is a reasonable first assumption (Andersen et al., 2020)...

But one other troubling possibility must be dispensed with. It follows from the fact that the epicentre city, Wuhan (pop. 11 million), happens to be the global epicentre of bat coronavirus research (e.g. Hu et al., 2017).  Prompted by this proximity, various researchers and news media, prominently the Washington Post, and with much more data Newsweek, have drawn up a prima facie case that a laboratory origin is a strong possibility (Zhan et al., 2020; Piplani et al., 2020). That is, one of the two labs in Wuhan that has worked on coronaviruses accidentally let a natural virus escape; or, the lab was genetically engineering (or otherwise manipulating) a Sars-CoV-2-like virus which then escaped.

Unfortunately, in the US at least, the question of the pandemic’s origin has become a political football; either an opportunity for Sinophobia or a partisan “blame game“...

Historical lab releases, a brief history

An accidental lab release is not merely a theoretical possibility. In 1977 a laboratory in Russia (or possibly China), most likely while developing a flu vaccine, accidentally released the extinct H1N1 influenza virus (Nakajima et al., 1978). H1N1 went on to become a global pandemic virus. A large proportion of the global population became infected. In this case, deaths were few because the population aged over 20 yrs old had historic immunity to the virus. This episode is not widely known because only recently has this conclusion been formally acknowledged in the scientific literature and the virology community has been reluctant to discuss such incidents (Zimmer and Burke, 2009; Wertheim, 2010). Still, laboratory pathogen escapes leading to human and animal deaths (e.g. smallpox in Britain; equine encephalitis in South America) are common enough that they ought to be much better known (summarised in Furmanski, 2014)...

Many scientists have warned that experiments with PPPs, like the smallpox and Ebola and influenza viruses, are inherently dangerous and should be subject to strict limits and oversight (Lipsitch and Galvani, 2014; Klotz and Sylvester, 2014). Even in the limited case of SARS-like coronaviruses, since the quelling of the original SARS outbreak in 2003, there have been six documented SARS disease outbreaks originating from research laboratories, including four in China. These outbreaks caused 13 individual infections and one death (Furmanski, 2014). In response to such concerns the US banned certain classes of experiments, called gain of function (GOF) experiments, with PPPs in 2014, but the ban (actually a funding moratorium) was lifted in 2017.

For these reasons, and also to ensure the effectiveness of future pandemic preparedness efforts­, it is a matter of vital international importance to establish whether the laboratory escape hypothesis has credible evidence to support it. This must be done regardless of the problem–in the US–of toxic partisan politics and nationalism.

 The COVID-19 Wuhan lab escape thesis

The essence of the lab escape theory is that Wuhan is the site of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), China’s first and only Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) facility. (BSL-4 is the highest pathogen security level). The WIV, which added a BSL-4 lab only in 2018, has been collecting large numbers of coronaviruses from bat samples ever since the original SARS outbreak of 2002-2003; including collecting more in 2016 (Hu, et al., 2017; Zhou et al., 2018).

Led by researcher Zheng-Li Shi, WIV scientists have also published experiments in which live bat coronaviruses were introduced into human cells (Hu et al., 2017). Moreover, according to an April 14 article in the Washington Post, US Embassy staff visited the WIV in 2018 and “had grave safety concerns” about biosecurity there. The WIV is just eight miles from the Huanan live animal market that was initially thought to be the site of origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wuhan is also home to a lab called the Wuhan Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (WCDPC). It is a BSL-2 lab that is just 250 metres away from the Huanan market. Bat coronaviruses have in the past been kept at the Wuhan WCDPC lab.

Thus the lab escape theory is that researchers from one or both of these labs may have picked up a Sars-CoV-2-like bat coronavirus on one of their many collecting (aka ‘”virus surveillance”) trips. Or, alternatively, a virus they were studying, passaging, engineering, or otherwise manipulating, escaped... 

Scientific assessments of the lab escape theory

On April 17 the Australian Science Media Centre asked four Australian virologists: “Did COVID-19 come from a lab in Wuhan?“

Three (Edward Holmes, Nigel McMillan and Hassan Vally) dismissed the lab escape suggestion and Vally simply labeled it, without elaboration, a “conspiracy”.

The fourth virologist interviewed was Nikolai Petrovsky of Flinders University. Petrovsky first addressed the question of whether the natural zoonosis pathway was viable. He told the Media Centre:

“no natural virus matching to COVID-19 has been found in nature despite an intensive search to find its origins.”

That is to say, the idea of an animal intermediate is speculation. Indeed, no credible viral or animal host intermediaries, either in the form of a confirmed animal host or a plausible virus intermediate, has to-date emerged to explain the natural zoonotic transfer of Sars-CoV-2 to humans (e.g. Zhan et al., 2020).

In addition to Petrovsky’s point, there are two further difficulties with the natural zoonotic transfer thesis (apart from the weak epidemiological association between early cases and the Huanan “wet” market).

The first is that researchers from the Wuhan lab travelled to caves in Yunnan (1,500 Km away) to find horseshoe bats containing SARS-like coronaviruses. To-date, the closest living relative of Sars-CoV-2 yet found comes from Yunnan (Ge et al., 2016). Why would an outbreak of a bat virus therefore occur in Wuhan? ...

Was Sars-CoV-2 created in a lab?

In his statement, Petrovsky goes on to describe the kind of experiment that, in principle, if done in a lab, would obtain the same result as the hypothesised natural zoonotic transfer–rapid adaptation of a bat coronavirus to a human host.

“Take a bat coronavirus that is not infectious to humans, and force its selection by culturing it with cells that express human ACE2 receptor, such cells having been created many years ago to culture SARS coronaviruses and you can force the bat virus to adapt to infect human cells via mutations in its spike protein, which would have the effect of increasing the strength of its binding to human ACE2, and inevitably reducing the strength of its binding to bat ACE2.

Viruses in prolonged culture will also develop other random mutations that do not affect its function. The result of these experiments is a virus that is highly virulent in humans but is sufficiently different that it no longer resembles the original bat virus. Because the mutations are acquired randomly by selection there is no signature of a human gene jockey, but this is clearly a virus still created by human intervention.”

In other words, Petrovsky believes that current experimental methods could have led to an altered virus that escaped.

Passaging, GOF research, and lab escapes

The experiment mentioned by Petrovsky represents a class of experiments called passaging. Passaging is the placing of a live virus into an animal or cell culture to which it is not adapted and then, before the virus dies out, transferring it to another animal or cell of the same type. Passaging is often done iteratively. The theory is that the virus will rapidly evolve (since viruses have high mutation rates) and become adapted to the new animal or cell type. Passaging a virus, by allowing it to become adapted to its new situation, creates a new pathogen.

The most famous such experiment was conducted in the lab of Dutch researcher Ron Fouchier. Fouchier took an avian influenza virus (H5N1) that did not infect ferrets (or other mammals) and serially passaged it in ferrets. The intention of the experiment was specifically to evolve a PPP. After ten passages the researchers found that the virus had indeed evolved, to not only infect ferrets but to transmit to others in neighbouring cages (Herfst et al., 2012). They had created an airborne ferret virus, a Potential Pandemic Pathogen, and a storm in the international scientific community...

Was the WIV doing experiments that might release PPPs?

Since 2004, shortly after the original SARS outbreak, researchers from the WIV have been collecting bat coronaviruses in an intensive search for SARS-like pathogens (Li et al., 2005). Since the original collecting trip, many more have been conducted (Ge et al., 2013; Ge et al., 2016; Hu et al., 2017; Zhou et al., 2018).

Petrovsky does not mention it but Zheng-Li Shi’s group at the WIV has already performed experiments very similar to those he describes, using those collected viruses. In 2013 the Shi lab reported isolating an infectious clone of a bat coronavirus that they called WIV-1 (Ge et al., 2013). WIV-1 was obtained by introducing a bat coronavirus into monkey cells, passaging it, and then testing its infectivity in human (HeLa) cell lines engineered to express the human ACE2 receptor (Ge et al., 2013)... 

In 2017, again with the intent of identifying bat viruses with ACE2 binding capabilities, the Shi lab at WIV reported successfully infecting human (HeLa) cell lines engineered to express the human ACE2 receptor with four different bat coronaviruses. Two of these were lab-made recombinant (chimaeric) bat viruses... 

Together, what these papers show is that: 1) The Shi lab collected numerous bat samples with an emphasis on collecting SARS-like coronavirus strains, 2) they cultured live viruses and conducted passaging experiments on them, 3) members of Zheng-Li Shi’s laboratory participated in GOF experiments carried out in North Carolina on bat coronaviruses, 4) the Shi laboratory produced recombinant bat coronaviruses and placed these in human cells and monkey cells. All these experiments were conducted in cells containing human or monkey ACE2 receptors. 

The overarching purpose of such work was to see whether an enhanced pathogen could emerge from the wild by creating one in the lab. (For a very informative technical summary of WIV research into bat coronaviruses and that of their collaborators we recommend this post, written by biotech entrepreneur Yuri Deigin)... 

It is hard to overemphasize that the central logic of this grant was to test the pandemic potential of SARS-related bat coronaviruses by making ones with pandemic potential, either through genetic engineering or passaging, or both... 

Given the research and collection history of the Shi lab at WIV it is therefore entirely plausible that a bat SARS-like coronavirus ancestor of Sars-CoV-2 was trained up on the human ACE2 receptor by passaging it in cells expressing that receptor.

[On June 4 an excellent article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists went further. Pointing out what we had overlooked, that the Shi lab also amplified spike proteins of collected coronaviruses, which would make them available for GOF experimentation (Ge et al., 2016).] 

How do viruses escape from high security laboratories?

Pathogen lab escapes take various forms. According to the US Government Accountability Office, a US defense Department laboratory once “inadvertently sent live Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax, to almost 200 laboratories worldwide over the course of 12 years. The laboratory believed that the samples had been inactivated.” In 2007, Britain experienced a foot and mouth disease outbreak. Its’ origin was a malfunctioning waste disposal system of a BSL-4 laboratory leaking into a stream from which neighbouring cows drank. The disposal system had not been properly maintained (Furmanski, 2014). In 2004 an outbreak of SARS originating from the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Beijing, China, began, again, with the inadequate inactivation of a viral sample that was then distributed to non-secure parts of the building (Weiss et al., 2015).

Writing for the Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists in February 2019, Lynn Klotz concluded that human error was behind most laboratory incidents causing exposures to pathogens in US high security laboratories. While equipment failure was also a factor, of the 749 incidents reported to the US Federal Select Agent Programme between 2009-2015, Klotz concluded that 79% resulted from human error.

But arguably the biggest worry is incidents that go entirely unreported because escape of the pathogen goes undetected. It is truly alarming that a significant number of pathogen escape events were uncovered only because investigators were in the process of examining a completely different incident (Furmanski, 2014). Such discoveries represent strong evidence that pathogen escapes are under-reported and that important lessons still need to be learned (Weiss et al., 2015)... 

Nevertheless, on April 16th Peter Daszak, who is the President of the EcoHealth Alliance, told Democracy Now! in a lengthy interview that the lab escape thesis was “Pure baloney”. He told listeners:

“There was no viral isolate in the lab. There was no cultured virus that’s anything related to SARS coronavirus 2. So it’s just not possible.”

Daszak made very similar claims on CNN’s Sixty Minutes: “There is zero evidence that this virus came out of a lab in China.” Instead, Daszak encouraged viewers to blame “hunting and eating wildlife”.

An investigation is needed, but who will do it?

If the Shi lab has anything to hide, it is not only the Chinese Government that will be reluctant to see an impartial investigation proceed. Much of the work was funded by the US taxpayer, channeled there by Peter Daszak and the EcoHealth Alliance. Virtually every credible international organisation that might in principle carry out such an investigation, the WHO, the US CDC, the FAO, the US NIH, including the Gates Foundation, is either an advisor to, or a partner of, the EcoHealth Alliance. If the Sars-CoV-2 outbreak originated from the bat coronavirus work at the WIV then just about every major institution in the global public health community is implicated...

Complete transparency would potentially dispel the gales of blame coming its way; especially on the question of whether Sars-CoV-2 has an engineered or passaged origin. If Zheng-Li Shi and Peter Daszak are correct that nothing similar to Sars-CoV-2 was being studied there, then those notebooks should definitively exonerate the lab from having knowingly made an Actual Pandemic Pathogen.

Given the simplicity and utility of this step this lack of transparency suggests that there is something to hide. If so, it must be important. But then the question is: What?

A thorough investigation of the WIV and its bat coronavirus research is an important first step. But the true questions are not the specific mishaps and dissemblings of Drs Shi or Daszak, nor of the WIV, nor even of the Chinese government.

Rather, the bigger question concerns the current philosophy of pandemic prediction and prevention. Deep enquiries should be made about the overarching wisdom of plucking and counting viruses from the wild and then performing dangerous ‘what if’ recombinant research in high tech but fallible biosafety labs. This is a reductionist approach, we also note, that has so far failed to predict or protect us from pandemics and may never do so. 

It's hard for me to imagine a more convincing case in support of the lab escape hypothesis.  And sure enough, by January 2021 the lab leak hypothesis was gaining traction even in the mainstream media.  

'Growing body of evidence' that COVID-19 leak from Chinese lab a 'credible possibility,' Trump official claims (1/4/2021):

Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger made the claim in a recent virtual conference call with British lawmakers regarding China. During the call, Pottinger asserted that officials within China have rejected the theory that the virus originated from a wet market in Wuhan.

WHO advisor: COVID-19 pandemic likely started via lab leak (1/23/2021): 

“There’s no irrefutable evidence,” said Metzl, who was appointed to the WHO’s expert advisory committee on human genome editing in 2019 and is also the author of Hacking Darwin.  “There’s just more evidence and as more evidence arrives, the case for accidental lab leak, in my view, increases.”

Perhaps in response, a team from the World Health Organization went to Wuhan and issued a statement on February 9.  From Nature: 

members of the WHO team reported conclusions from their month-long investigation into the origin of the coronavirus, which was first reported as cases of ‘viral pneumonia’ in Wuhan in December 2019. The researchers largely discounted the controversial theory that the virus accidentally leaked from a laboratory

Dwyer says that the team didn’t see anything during its visits to suggest a lab accident. “Now, whether we were shown everything? You can never know. The group wasn’t designed to go and do a forensic examination of lab practice.” (emphasis added)

The Weinsteins (Bret and his wife Heather) emphasize that a forensic examination, of the kind not conducted by the WHO team, is needed (although there is documentation of evidence already being destroyed).   Most importantly, they note the WHO team concluded that there is a possibility of two other origins for the virus:

• that the origin of the virus might have been outside of China.
• that the virus could have spread on frozen wildlife and other cold packaged goods.

See this video (minutes 25-38) in which they dissect the press video of WHO representative Peter Daszak describing these alternative origin theories.  They note that Daszak has a largely unreported conflict of interest, since he is a principal sponsor of the research that was being done at the Wuhan lab.  He thus  has a strong incentive to favor any hypothesis other than the lab leak hypothesis.  But Daszak doesn't present any evidence in favor of the outside China and frozen food hypotheses.  And Weinstein effectively refutes the frozen food hypothesis by noting that the frozen food must have come from somewhere the virus evolved, and there is no evidence of COVID in ferret badgers anywhere, and no effort to find such a place.  The sum total of the evidence of this theory is that frozen badger steaks were present in the market and apparently tested negative for the covid-19 virus (which doesn't make sense).

So we come full circle to the nature of scientific consensus and the process of scientifically assessing the probability of various hypotheses regarding the origin of the virus.  Back in May, Weinstein assessed the various probabilities as shown in the following diagram:

The only serious theories (reported by Weinstein in May) are lab leak (89%) and transmission via an animal intermediate (pangolin, mink, ferret badger, etc.) to a human (8%).  Since then, the Wuhan wet market hypothesis (animal to human) has been substantially discredited, and no other theory has emerged and been found realistic.

Rather, a team of people who sponsored the research have summarily rejected the hypothesis that their research could be responsible for unleashing the covid-19 pandemic and the mainstream press has reported that people who believe otherwise are conspiracy theorists.  Those with power in the scientific community have failed us, while many individual scientists have insisted on doing a more rigorous examination of the alternative hypotheses and the probability that any given hypothesis is correct. 

Awesome Moments in Sports

 https://youtu.be/9jgfVPDTfsI?t=313

The Empire Giveth

I've been down on the American Empire lately -- for assassinating presidents and civil rights leaders, electing Joe Biden, scapegoating Russia and China, making millions of people miserable in Syria, Venezuela, Iran, etc.  But it should be noted that there is a flip side to empire, which is superbly illustrated in this Monty Python piece: What Have the Romans Ever Done For Us?

Matt Taibbi provides a more detailed look at the need to keep things in perspective: 
Marcuse-Anon: Cult of the Pseudo-Intellectual

Uighur Genocide, Another Russiagate

All signs point to the hysteria surrounding supposed Uighur genocide being another round of fake news promoted by western intelligence agencies and spread uncritically by the mainstream media.  See:

• NY Times' pseudo-expert accusing China of genocide worked for far-right cult Falun Gong's publicity arm | The Grayzone
• MoA - Why Do These Uighur Witnesses' Stories Constantly Change?

It seems that Cold War forces rule us as depicted in 1984.

Writing in the Internet Era

I've recently written an article about witnessing -- speaking publicly -- about what one has observed and concluded:  The Arc of the Moral Universe

And then I ran across an article encouraging people to write -- share their opinions -- and not to read and regurgitate the corporate/government propaganda found in the New York Times.

Also, one of my favorite writers, an independent blogging psychiatrist, recently had a dustup with the New York Times.  He quit writing publicly for 6 months because the NY Times threatened to reveal his true identity (he had been writing using a pseudonym) which he felt would be dangerous for him personally in terms of his career and relationships.  He resumed public blogging this month while no longer trying to hide his true identity: Still Alive - Astral Codex Ten.  Again, the New York Times does not come off well.

Reflecting on my personal life and relationships with family and friends, I note that I get many stories passed my way from the New York Times.  It occurs to me that people in my circles feel that the New York Times is a safe source of news and world view.  With the advent of Internet cancel culture, it is indeed dangerous to express opinions publicly on the Internet.  I am somewhat immune from this being retired and therefore do not have to consider possible adverse reactions from employers or potential employers down the line.

How did we get to this place, and where do we go from here?

The answer, I believe, is that we are an aging empire.  Power tends to concentrate over time such that a military / intelligence vanguard tends to call the shots with an enormous budget and behind the scenes power over the nominal rulers.  Thus, the New York Times defers to the CIA and FBI and in discussing matters at the core of our democracy such as the assassination of presidents (JFK), potential presidents (RFK), and movement leaders (MLK).  When an insurgent such as Bernie Sanders threatened the corrupt power structures, the power structure pulls together to denounce him asl a socialist (enemy of the empire).  When an insurgent such as Donald Trump threatened the status quo, the CIA and FBI worked together to falsely paint him as a treasonous agent of archenemy Putin.  When Trump threatened to remove U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, or to make peace with N. Korea, he was overridden by empire central.  The power structure made race a major issue in an all out effort to destroy Trump, cancelling anyone who dared to oppose them.

In my view, these were not savvy moves by our elite.  Was it really necessary to spread intelligence agency lies to get rid of a buffoon such as Trump?  Was it in elite interest to whip up a frenzy of identity politics?  Were the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK successful?  How about the 2003 war in Iraq?  The war in Afghanistan?  At best, these actions have maintained the status quo over the last 60 years.  At worst, they have eroded national unity and enthusiasm for the empire.  

Some more observations:

1. Over the past 10 years, the mainstream media (MSM) has gone from being too centrist, in my view, to being too openly partisan Democratic.  Whereas the MSM has always deferred to the power elite including, especially, the intelligence agencies, they've now going to cheerleading for the Democrats as they have fought back in kind against the crazed Republicans.  Thus, I can no longer support the sane center.
2. The cancer of identity politics and outrage culture bloomed since 2016.  Thus, people are afraid and unable to discuss political topics calmly and rationally.  The supposedly scientific debate surrounding COVID 19 has been horribly partisan and unscientific.
3. Personally, I've realized that my disillusionment with our national government following the Vietnam War and the Nixon resignation was entirely justified.  Though I managed to have a career and raise a family thanks largely to my relatively privileged upbringing, the empire has continued to rot and spread war and economic injustice.  I call my present state of mind a reawokening.

So where do we go from here, with an aging empire unmoored from rational thought and behavior?  I find it hard to believe that the mainstream media will be successful in putting the cat back in the bag -- the phony national ethos (democracy) has been exposed and the trust will not be regained after the nonsense of the last 4 years including Russiagate and woke cancel culture.  Democratic believers will soon see that the wizards of wokeness and national outrage against Putin were and are sham grifters.  When all the Trump outrage is gone there will nothing constructive in its place.  The populists will resume their assaults on the impotent cultural center.

Our job is to free ourselves sooner rather than later from the tyranny of the thought police at the New York Times and Democratic party headquarters.  A wave of new movements and leaders will arise, and it is up to us to shape popular opinion through the democratic processes which are central to our value systems and which include most prominently freedom of speech.  We must talk to one another, and promote our values and those politicians who genuinely promote our values.  We need to innoculate ourselves against military intelligence leaders who lead us to rely on their secretive and undemocratic ways.  

The Internet gives us the power to see how phony the status quo is, and how bad some of the alternatives are.  Think, people, and be constructive.  Support democrats, and oppose outrage culture and identity politicians who try to pit us against one another on the basis of race, religion, gender orientation, etc.  Majority rule, minority rights!  Peaceful resolution of conflicts to the extent possible!  Turn off the rotten mainstream media and engage more constructively with your family, friends, community, and fellow travellers around the globe.

Taking Stock During the Trump Transition

 

Core Values

Belief in Democratic Process

●       Non-Violent Resolution of Issues
Majority Rule
Minority Rights

●       The Trump supporters' positions strike me as anti-democratic in the following regards:

○       Excessive support for gun "rights" => violence

○       Do not support international agreements and cooperation

○       Excessively tribal => poor protection of minority rights

●       Republicans under Trump are not a threat because they are opposed by military intelligence corporate (MIC) leaders.

●       There are serious problems with the democratic process in the U.S.

○       CIA and other intelligence agencies

■       military coups and intervention around the world

■       involvement in domestic politics

●       feeding untrue stories to media

●       assassinating Kennedy

●       harassing liberals

●       working with government and large corporations to funnel money to support the empire and the status quo domestically

●       Voting machines are subject to tampering.  Best practice seems to be paper ballots counted in public.  Unnecessarily complex systems are used.

●       Green Party espouses policies consistent with my democratic values.

 

SUMMARY: The status quo is tolerable for most people due to enormous prosperity of our society.  However, democratic institutions have become corrupt and resistant to constructive change.  Pressures are building for a political earthquake.  Trump is a tremor in this regard.

A free and responsible search for truth and meaning

●       I do not trust mainstream media to report the truth.  Has become too partisan and reliant upon CIA and similar "intelligence" agents.

●       Family, friends, and acquaintainces consider tribal affiliation more important than truth.

 

SUMMARY:  As partisan cold warfare has heated up, the Democrats smell victory and will try to consolidate their gains.  The leadership is somewhat unified under the false propaganda of empire.  Miscalculation, more losing war efforts, and domestic disarray are probably as a result.

 

The Events of January 6 at the Capitol

Was this attempted coup?  My friend comments:

 

Trump truly is trying to overthrow the workings of our government so as to remain in power. To me that’s a coup. The minions he loosed on the Capitol while the election approval process was underway were either a distraction or an effort to stay approval of the election results.

 

1.     Whatever his motives, Trump is clearly failing.

2.     There are grounds for concern about the democratic process which denied the Trump presidency for 4 years on false claims of Russian collusion.

3.     Glenn Greenwald provides needed context:

There is a huge difference between, on the one hand, thousands of people shooting their way into the Capitol after a long-planned, coordinated plot with the goal of seizing permanent power, and, on the other, an impulsive and grievance-driven crowd more or less waltzing into the Capitol as the result of strength in numbers and then leaving a few hours later. That the only person shot was a protester killed by an armed agent of the state by itself makes clear how irresponsible these terms are. There are more adjectives besides “fascist treason” and “harmless protest,” enormous space between those two poles. One need not be forced to choose between the two.

 

The capitol protest was a skirmish in a war that Trump is losing.  Anti-Trump forces (Democrats) correctly see this as a victory for their side and are thus making a big deal about it.

Democrats Control the Executive and Legislative Branches

Of greater significance, the Democrats remarkably won the 2 Senate seats in Georgia and now have an effective majority in the Senate because VP Harris will have the tiebreaking vote.

●       This may be a manifestation of improved voting procedures in Georgia which has a long history of suppressing the black vote.  Republicans around the country have won elections by dubious means, with the result that their actual support has been smaller than their representation in Congress.

●       Dems had a similar situation in 2008 when Obama one the presidency and Dems had a large majority in the Senate as well as the House.  That did not go well as the Tea Party emerged and was not effectively countered by the Dems.  The Dems are now energized and ready for whatever the Trump supporters throw at them. 

●       It's likely that the Dems will be content to marginalize the Trumpers, and will not make any great progress otherwise in governing the nation.  They are overwhelming in favor of the status quo and have no significant platform other than defeating the Trumpers.

●       I'm glad that the Trumpers have been soundly defeated.  However, they may come back with more effective leadership.  As I write this, Republican strategists are plotting ways to reclaim power.  These will most likely involve ploys to sabotage the Biden presidency by manufacturing outrage.  Will the media bite?

 

SUMMARY:  The partisan dynamic and domination of the mainstream media by the Democrats should fade, but this tendency will be fought by the Democrats who will seek to keep the outrage going.  Republican outrage leaders will be contained to the fringes for the short term.  There is a leadership vacuum in both parties that will attract imperial wannabees such as Buttigieg and Rubio.  Eventually, the earthquake will arrive in the form of some disaster such as nuclear war or economic depression.  Then will there be room for constructive change.  The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice because politics based upon injustice eventually collapse and the truth wins out. 

Fear of COVID and Masks Outdoors

 Letter written to friends 1/5/2021:

Democracy and the Trump Legacy

 Sharing this letter I wrote to friends:

Being Woke to the Praetorian Guard - Version 2

This post is an update to a previous version: Being Woke to the Praetorian Guard, Version 1

A version with a further update is available here.

Being Woke to the Praetorian Guard, Version 1

This post has since been superseded by Version 2, and a Version 3.

I've just written an epistle or two which I want to save for possible future reference.  Here they are:

This I Believe

Introduction

In recent years, and more frequently since I retired in spring 2018, I've pondered and written down some of the things I believe to be true that are not common knowledge. This is somewhat similar to, but more controversial than, the essays you will find from the National Public Radio show This I Believe.

My core belief system is based on the idea that biological and cultural evolution are shaped and directed by win-win interactions, as expressed in the book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright.  This leads to my valuing Getting to Yes, a guide to interacting with others.   

This essay goes beyond these core beliefs and values to look at specific theories and facts -- 

1. What do I know? (believe to be true, though I could be wrong)
2. What don't I know?

I expect the list to change over time.

An overriding lesson I have learned is to look at controversial issues using my own common sense.  In case after case, the conventional wisdom defies common sense.  Once common sense is applied, then the pieces fit together reasonably.  Common sense consists of considering both sides of an issue, along with the motives involved.  With respect to the cases below, one side of the issue has won the day with regard to the mainstream media and the conventional wisdom.  Thus, I am questioning "the facts" and recent history as widely accepted across the U.S. global empire.

Common sense leads me to consider the reason why only one side of some issues is considered legitimate.  Most people do not have the time to dwell extensively on such matters.  It is convenient to accept a well established narrative and move on.  I have done that most of my life, but in retirement and with access to the Internet have had time and capability of looking at both sides of confusing episodes.  I learned that it is valuable to weigh circumstantial evidence in forming an accurate mental model of the world.  While there may be no proof for the things "I know" which are listed below, consideration of the likelihood (Bayesian probability) of certain matters based upon circumstantial evidence leads to a more robust mental model.

Government and Empire

The bottom line is that the U.S. empire is overextended, yet it is politically difficult to cut back.  For example, political support for Israel makes it difficult to cut back in the Middle East.  Support for the U.S. led empire by many Ukrainians, Afghans, east Asians, and Latin Americans makes it difficult to cut back in these areas.  Political control of the empire, though centered in Washington DC, is subject to immense pressure from many places around the world.  Intelligence agencies, which are above the law to a large degree and insulated from political pressures, have the job of protecting the empire.  Buttressing the empire around the world is proving difficult, especially when political direction is uncertain.  Thus, the task of buttressing the empire has evolved into solidifying the political direction.  Whether or not this is a good thing for people such as myself is secondary, in this essay, to ascertaining the truth of selected items of conventional wisdom.  Once we have a better handle on the facts, then we can better use the democratic process to find a constructive way forward.

Russiagate

The widely reported Russia-Trump conspiracy is perhaps the most significant event of my adult life in shaping my current worldview, as expressed in this essay.  My view is that this was a conspiracy theory unsupported by facts, yet widely believed by Democrats and widely reported as fact in the mainstream media.  Over the last 4 years, I've written extensively about why I feel this way and discussed this with Democratic friends, family, and strangers on the Internet.  I believe very strongly that the Democratic / intelligence community / mainstream narrative of Trump - Russia collusion has been disproven yet not acknowledged by Democrats.  Moreover, the narrative of Russian interference in the 2016 election seems similarly unfounded, yet to question said interference is considered grounds for censorship and almost treasonous.  

My certainty on this matter is such that I've lost faith in the government and mainstream media to accurately report the truth in many other matters. A lifetime of belief in American institutions has been thoroughly eroded. Matters that I previously saw as unknowable, such as the John Kennedy assassination, now seem to clearly fit a pattern that has lasted throughout my lifetime.

UPDATE 1/21/2022: Matt Taibbi reporting clarifies origin of FBI Trump-Russia investigation -- It was  Steele after all (not Mifsud / Papadopolous).

January 6

Added 1/3/2022:  It's now clear to me what happened with regard to the riot on January 6.  I am indebted to Darren Beattie of Revolver News for providing a coherent explanation with a ton of supporting evidence including video from the capitol area on January 6 and in the days leading up to the riot.  Informants and operatives connected to the FBI removed the barriers around the capitol and herded people leaving a Trump rally into the capitol building.  This was captured on video and the leaders have been disappeared from public view, including one who was on the FBI most-wanted list until his identity was revealed by Beattie.  The people were unarmed and had no intention of overthrowing the government, despite widespread news reports to the contrary.  There may have been other legal, political, and military intrigues about, but the riot was designed to discredit these, not implement them.  

Ukrainegate / Impeachment

I know that the "whistleblower" was a CIA insider and firmly in the Biden camp.  This has not been reported by the mainstream media but is common knowledge elsewhere.  I know that Biden did an explicit quid pro quo as VP and lead Obama Administration official on Ukraine policy.  The video of this has been widely seen and discussed outside of the mainstream media, which has not denied its validity.  The mainstream media has made blanket assertions that Biden did nothing wrong, which may be true in the sense that his actions are in line with the preferences of "the empire" -- i.e. the intelligence agencies and careerists in the State Department.  

Similar to Russiagate, the impeachment on the basis of opposition to Trump by professionals in the intelligence community was set in motion right at the beginning of the Trump Administration. 

Syrian Chemical Weapons

I know that the U.S. and Britain have subverted international institutions such as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.  They lied about Assad using chemical weapons in Syria, then covered up the whistleblowers who leaked the truth.

UPDATE 12/16/2021:  A lot more evidence has come in supporting this.  

Skripal / Navalny

I know that the so called novichok poisoning of Sergei Skripal is a fabrication of the U.S. and British intelligence services.  This is obvious nonsense, yet is accepted uncritically by the mainstream media.  The Navalny incident is in the same vein.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

In reading about this on Wikipedia, there seems to be overwhelming evidence that pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region accidentally shot down this passenger airplane. Apparently, Netherlands and Australia have concluded that Russian rebels are responsible. However, given the amount of Cold War lying I've witnesses in this time period, I don't trust Wikipedia or the mainstream press or U.S. allied governments in matters of this nature.  So I'll have to put this one in "don't know".  

Here is a documentary short film presenting the pro-Russian side: SUNDAY SCREENING: ‘MH17: Call for Justice’ (2019).  See also The Official and Implausible MH-17 Scenario.

Assassinations in USA

Here I am referring to the assassinations of JFK (1963), MLK (1968), and RFK (1968).  

JFK Assassination

I am now prepared to say that I know that U.S. intelligence agencies were involved in the JFK assassination.  This comes 57 years after the event, including my entire adult lifetime.  Previously I have considered the truth behind this assassination to be unknowable.  I am now prepared to declare US intelligence agency involvement as something that is knowable, even if the precise details are hidden.

It has always strained my credulity to believe that Oswald acted alone.  Yet, there have been numerous investigations and seemingly no concrete evidence to prove that he was part of a conspiracy.  I've had a Eureka moment, not through any one astounding revelation, but rather in the form of a straw that breaks the camel's back.  I recently read an account of the JFK assassination which claims that Oswald was a U.S. intelligence agent.  "Of course he was", I thought to myself.  I was only able to make sense of this after I had learned not to trust the mainstream media.

• He was a U.S. marine.  How many communist Marines have you ever encountered or even heard of?  What are the chances that the Marine Corps would permit an openly avowed communist to serve in its ranks? While Oswald was serving in the Marine Corps, he became fluent in the Russian language. How is that possible?
• We know the CIA and other U.S. intelligence services recruit agents, and that it is a difficult job with high risk.  Oswald seems like an obvious candidate:  
  "he was placed in juvenile detention at the age of seven for truancy, during which time he was assessed by a psychiatrist as "emotionally disturbed", due to a lack of a normal family life. After attending 22 schools in his youth, he quit repeatedly, and finally when he was 17, to join the Marines. Oswald was honorably released from active duty in the Marine Corps into the reserve and defected to the Soviet Union in October 1959. He lived in Minsk until June 1962... After leaving the Marine Corps, Oswald traveled to the Soviet Union, walked into the U.S. embassy, renounced his citizenship, and stated that he intended to give any secrets he learned while serving in the military to the Soviet Union. Later, when he stated his desire to return to the United States, with a wife with family connections to Soviet intelligence, Oswald was given the red-carpet treatment on his return... Later, when Oswald ended up in Dallas, his friends were right-wingers, not left-wingers. He even got job at a photographic facility that developed top-secret photographs for the U.S. government. How is that possible? Later, when he ended up in New Orleans, he got hired by a private company that was owned by a fierce anti-communist right-winger"
• Oswald was murdered after he shot Kennedy by a sketchy figure with ties to organized crime.
• The CIA was working with organized crime around that time in attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro.
• The CIA at that era was engaging in political assassinations in countries around the world:
  "Following World War II, the United States became secretly engaged in a practice of international political assassinations and attempts on foreign leaders. For a considerable period of time, the U.S. Government officials vehemently denied any knowledge of this program since it would be against the United Nations Charter... In 1975, the U.S. Senate convened the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Res (D-Idaho). The Church Committee uncovered that CIA and other governmental agencies employed a so-called tactic of "plausible deniability" during decision-making related to assassinations. CIA subordinates were deliberately shielding the higher-ranking officials from any responsibility by withholding the full amount of information about planned assassinations."
• "From the start, the Warren Commission proceedings were shrouded in “national-security” state secrecy, including a top-secret meeting of the commissioners to discuss information they had received that Oswald was an intelligence agent. When Warren was asked if the American people would be able to see all the evidence, Warren responded yes, but not in your lifetime.  Does that make any sense? If the assassination was, in fact, committed by some lone nut, then what would “national security” and state secrecy have to do with it? ... In April 2018, President Trump issued an order to the National Archives to continue keeping thousands of CIA records relating to the John Kennedy assassination secret from the American people."
• "Lyndon Johnson, the CIA, and the JCS had the perfect excuse to shut down the investigation and pin the crime only on Oswald: If they instead retaliated, it would be all-out nuclear war... when Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade alleged from the start that Oswald was part of a communist conspiracy, Johnson told him to shut it down for fear that Wade might inadvertently start World War III."  
• The conventional wisdom, which is obviously contradictory, is thus:
  • Oswald acted entirely alone (the finding of the Warren Commission)
  • Details must be kept secret because they would reveal Russian involvement, and thus risk nuclear war.

I don't know why people in the U.S. national-security business assassinated Kennedy.  I've just picked up an Audible book on this topic, which is very favorably and convincingly reviewed.  It appears that there was a consensus that he was soft on national security from a cold war perspective.

UPDATE 12/16/2021:  My belief that JFK was assassinated by Deep State has been reinforced since this was initially written.

RFK and MLK Assassinations

I don't know if there were conspiracies regarding the assassinations in 1968 of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.  It seems possible given the probable culprits in the JFK assassination and the opposition of both RFK and MLK to the Vietnam War.  I would have to do the hard work of researching outside of the mainstream media, and revisiting widely accepted "facts" to come to a definitive conclusion.

UPDATE 7/9/2021: I've recently "read" (Audible) books about these 2 assassinations and it seems likely that both were CIA/FBI directed conspiracies.  

January 6, 2021 ("insurrection")

UPDATE 10/25/2021:  The capitol riot was an FBI-led operation.  The documentation / explanation here is convincing: Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears To Have Led The Very First 1/6 Attack On The U.S. Capitol

The Future

Obviously, I don't know what will happen in the future, but I'm hoping it will be helpful to give some thought to the future in light of what I've learned.  

As with perhaps most governments in the history of the world, the U.S. government is ruled by force more than by democratically elected leaders.  At the national level, at least, the politicians are subservient to the "security" professionals.  The national mythology concerning civilian control may be losing sway, yielding chaos such as we have seen with the Trump presidency. 

The most likely way forward, in my opinion, is for more blatant rule by force.  The Democrats have already dropped the veil which previously disguised there reliance upon the security establishment for power.  The next logical step would be for a leader to step forward who recognizes this and declares it necessary for national stability.  As much as we dislike the Chinese and Russian models, we secretly realize that they are more successful.  

The next U.S. political strongman could come from either the Democratic or Republican parties.  Republican leaders have long given only weak lip service in support of democracy.  Democrats effectively went the same way in 2016, and the incoming Biden Administration has the support of the military-industrial-intelligence-media complex.  Such a solid front could enable a faction to take control of the country, and lead to the breakup of the Republicans.  The main destabilizing factor would then be internal to the Democratic party with competing vested interests such as between the military and business.

Culture

Media

As documented above in what I know about government and empire in the contemporary United States, the mainstream media is extremely unreliable when it comes to reporting facts in any way related to "national security", which includes politics on the national level.  The Internet, however, has made it much easier to uncover the truth.  Thus, there is already considerable pressure to censor the many independent outlets which report facts and opinions contrary to establishment narrative.

Other powerful nations such as China and Russia censor the press, including the Internet, and it is not clear if the U.S. can continue to be exceptional in this regard.  

In sum, I distrust the mainstream media and trust various alternative media journalists such as Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Bret Weinstein, Heather Heying, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, and Robert Wright.

Economics

In the decade since I first learned about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), it's become more widely accepted as an accurate description of how national monetary systems work.  Conventional economics has been exposed as superstitious dogma similar to Medieval Age Christianity.  I know that MMT accurately describes the monetary economy.

I don't know what the best economic system is.  I lean toward socialism, as it has worked well, in combination with capitalism, in Nordic and other European countries.  These mixed economies tend to have the best track record.  But the pressures of human technological development on the environment seem unsustainable and lead me to believe that capitalism must be reined in more than is done today by the U.S. and its allies around the world.  A Chinese model, with greater governmental control over the capitalist process, may be necessary for sustainability.

Labels such as capitalist and socialist seem counterproductive.  Specific issues and specific industries need to be handled differently.  For example, I know health care works best with a more socialist approach.  And it's clear that capitalism has worked best in industries such as autos and cell phones.  On the other hand, the auto industry has created a lot of negative side effects and cell phones may not be far behind in this regard.

Science and Technology

Fossil Fuels, Global Warming, Green Energy

• Global warming is a fact, which is what one would expect based upon the carbon cycle and the enormous amount of human activity and burning of hydrocarbons in the past 100-200 years.
• We don't know if all oil and gas comes from fossil fuels.  There is a possibility being investigated by the Deep Carbon Observatory, that some of the oil and gas we use is abiotic -- i.e. not a by-product of photosynthesis in ages past.
• Green energy is hugely important, but it is unrealistic to expect that we will be able to maintain our use of energy at current levels while phasing out fossil fuels.

Human Mind 

"the interaction between facts and theories is bidirectional. Your facts may eventually determine what theory you have. But your theory also determines what facts you see and notice. Nor do contradictory facts immediately change a theory. The process of theory change is complicated, fiercely resisted by hard-to-describe factors, and based on some sort of idea of global tension that can’t be directly reduced to any specific contradiction."

Covid Severity

• Covid is more serious in old and medically at-risk people than is the common flu.
• Covid is much less dangerous than portrayed by Democrats and the mainstream media.
• Covid vaccines are promising.  However, for those of us in the low risk population, the risks from the initial, poorly tested, vaccines may be higher than the risk from the Covid virus itself.
• Covid severity and treatment have been highly politicized by both Republicans and Democrats, with the media joining the Democrats and much of the scientific community in distorting the science.

COVID, Lyme Disease Origins

• COVID escaped from the Wuhan Lab.
• Lyme disease escaped from the secret biological weapons program on Plum Island, an island in Long Island Sound near Lyme, Connecticut.

COVID Transmission and Treatment (added 7/9/2021)

The Medical/Pharmaceutical/Scientific establishment is corrupt, ineffective, and socially toxic:

• COVID leaked from a lab in Wuhan.  Those who pointed out this possibility were condemned as conspiracy theorists by insiders with vested interests.
• The WHO and CDC were wrong on how SARS-Cov2 is transmitted.  They gave out bad advice and condemned those who turned out to be right.
• The WHO and CDC have been downplaying effective treatments such as ivermection and early treatment with anti-clotting and anti-inflammatory drugs.  Millions of lives have been lost as a result.  Those who have promoted safe, effective, and affordable treatment have been vilified and censored.  

For further discussion see: My Comments on Taibbi Post about Ivermectin

UPDATE 12/16/2021:  In addition to hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and Vitamin D, there are other effective early treatments (and prophylactics) that have been advocated by the FLCCC and like minded doctors, but have been downplayed, ignored, or actively discourage by the CDC/WHO/Pharma complex.  These include cochicine and fluvoxamine (here, here, here, here, and here).  

Rationale for not encouraging use of cheap, safe, and effective drugs:

The Rev Kev

December 16, 2021 at 7:24 am

“Ancient Greek drug could cut COVID-19 deaths – Israeli scientist”

Considering the fact that this stuff has been in use for at lest 3,500 years, perhaps the FDA do not consider that it has had time to pass its initial trials for safety. Went looking for info on why it had become so expensive and came across an article that said ‘As part of its Unapproved Drugs Initiative designed to remove unapproved drugs from the market by means of a “risk-based enforcement program” that concentrates on products that “pose the highest threat to public health and without imposing undue burdens on consumers, or unnecessarily disrupting the market,” the FDA in September 2010 ordered a halt to the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of unapproved single-ingredient oral colchicine.’ This sounds like something that Fauci did during the AIDS epidemic when in 1987, the FDA changes its regulations, making any unapproved drug illegal. You read that article and find that it was all about giving a Pharma corporation an exclusive over this stuff. Why am I not surprised-

https://www.hcplive.com/view/why-is-colchicine-so-expensive-now

Also, this pre-covid (2016) article demonstrates that the dysfunctional covid response is a matter of chickens coming home to roost following years/decades of public health politicization:   U.S. Public Health Professionals Routinely Mislead the Public about Infectious Diseases: True or False? Dishonest or Self-Deceptive? Harmful or Benign? (Peter Sandman article)

And this: 

In a move that will come as a shock to absolutely no one, YouTube is censoring clips of Joe Rogan’s interview with cardiologist Peter McCullough wherein the doctor laid out how early treatment of COVID is being actively suppressed by governments and big-pharma in favour of a blind pursuit to vaccinate everyone.

Black Holes, Higgs Boson, etc.

• I don't know if black holes exist.  
• The field of quantum physics is filled with incomprehensible and untestable mumbo jumbo.  I don't know which concepts may eventually be tested and prove useful.  

Quantum Computing

I don't know if quantum computing will ever prove to be possible or practical.  The Case Against Quantum Computing, The proposed strategy relies on manipulating with high precision an unimaginably huge number of variables

Update 1/26/2024: A Skeptical Perspective on Quantum Computing, or how to game the funding system

X-Ray Crystallography

I know that the science of physics has yielded remarkably practical technologies such as computers.  Similar in nature to quantum physics, molecular and atomic physics is often obtuse.  However, various concepts have proven testable and controllable.  One example is x-ray crystallography, used in detecting and describing DNA, as well as in mineralogy and metallurgy. 

Self-Driving Cars

I know that autonomous vehicles have been vastly overhyped and are unlikely to prove economically viable or socially efficient in the foreseeable future.  They are possible, like supersonic jets and maglev trains, but not cost effective.  Hyperloops fall into the same category.

The Future

Is science slowing down?  We seem to have plucked a lot of the low hanging technological fruit, and are chasing improbable dreams. Limitless, green energy, autonomous vehicles, and quantum computing are examples.  Moreover, we may need to intentionally slow technology down if we are to attain an acceptable level of civilizational stability and sustainability.

Summary

Things I Know

1. Russiagate is a conspiracy theory unsupported by facts.
2. The attempted impeachment of Trump over events in the Ukraine was a creation of the U.S. national security state to fight back against investigation of their own misdeeds in Russiagate.
3. The U.S. led global empire supports biased international institutions such as the Organization for Prohibiting Chemical Weapons which has lied on behalf of U.S. interests, and against Russian interests, in Syria and in the U.K. with regard to the Skripal affair.
4. JFK was assassinated by elements of the U.S. security apparatus.
5. The mainstream media is not to be trusted on issues related to national "security", including national politics.
6. Alternative media are more reliable sources of the truth, and are threatened by the security state.
7. MMT provides an accurate model for contemporary monetary systems.
8. Labels such as socialist and capitalist are used as epithets to distract from constructive thinking about economic issues.
9. Global warming is real.
10. Green energy is hugely important, but it is unrealistic to expect that we will be able to maintain our use of energy at current levels while phasing out fossil fuels.
11. The human mind works by the formation of mental models.  These models are checked when sensory data is received.  When the data does not match the model, the issue may be escalated to a higher level for model revisions.  The conscious mind is the highest level.  Mental models do not change easily.
12. Covid is a serious disease, but its severity has been exaggerated by the mainstream to stigmatize Trump Republicans.
13. The covid virus escaped from the Wuhan Lab. 
14. Lyme disease escaped from the secret biological weapons program on Plum Island, an island in Long Island Sound near Lyme, Connecticut. 
15. Atomic physics has made possible enormous technological achievements such as computers and x-ray crystallography.
16. Autonomous vehicles have been vastly overhyped and are unlikely to prove economically viable or socially efficient in the foreseeable future.  

Things I Don't Know

1. Who shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine?
2. Were there conspiracies related to the assassinations of RFK and MLK?
3. Will the first covid vaccines be more likely to save or cost lives?
4. Do black holes, with event horizons that nothing can escape, exist?
5. The usefulness of quantum physics?  
6. The possibility and practicality of a quantum computer?
   UPDATE 1/26/2024: I putting this into the "Things I Know" category.  Quantum computing will not prove practical anytime soon.

Dear Diary

Die Gedanken Sind Frei

Die gedanken sind frei
My thoughts freely flower
Die gedanken sind frei
My thoughts give me power
No scholar can map them
No hunter can trap them
No man can deny
Die gedanken sind frei

I think as I please
And this gives me pleasure
My conscience decrees
This right I must treasure
My thoughts will not cater
To duke or dictator
No man can deny
Die gedanken sind frei
Tyrants can take me
And throw me in prison
My thoughts will burst forth
Like blossoms in season
Foundations may crumble
And structures may tumble
But free men shall cry
Die gedanken sind frei

As with many people these days, I fear that society is going mad.  My friends and family are horrified to learn what I truly think, and the only way to get along is to keep some thoughts to myself.  But what do I really think?  I've found that writing down my thoughts is helpful.  It forces me to organize them and thus gives me confidence in what I believe and why.

I'm conflicted as to who to vote for in the presidential election.  I've founded that suggesting I might vote for Trump is disruptive to my personal life, since family and friends then cut off all conversation with me, at least for a time until it's clear that I won't say anything more on the subject.  On the other hand, a vote is a statement to friends and family as much as it is a means of electing our national leadership.  Self-censorship is probably not good for the country, but probably is good for me personally.

So what is best for the country?  I'm convinced that the media is toxic and curing this illness is more important than getting rid of Trump.  After all, on many things Trump is right and the mainstream media is wrong:

• Russia did not have a big influence in the 2016 election in favor of Trump.
• The intelligence community was wrong in their 2017 "intelligence community assessment".
• Adam Schiff was wrong in promoting the Steele Dossier and indicating that there is proof that Trump colluded with Russia.
• Hydroxychloroquine is not dangerous.
• Trump did not seriously suggest that people drink bleach to ward off covid-19.
• The covid pandemic is overblown.  It is not anywhere near as deadly as portrayed by the conventional media.  The lockdown of society for the last 7 months has been overdone.
• The Biden family behaved in a corrupt manner in Ukraine.
• Trump's behavior with Russia (Mueller investigation, etc) and Ukraine (impeachment) has been misrepresented.  
• The woke movement and continual shouting of "racism" in a crowded theater has resulted in much harm to the country and to minority communities in particular.
• Identitarian politics are immoral and racist, and mostly stupid as in Robin De Angelo's book "White Fragility".
• Putin is not the devil.  Trump is not Hitler.
• The U.S. foreign policy (Republican and Democratic) is driven by lies and immoral double standards.  See Syria, Afghanistan, Russia, China, Iran, Bolivia, Venezuela.

In spite of all this, I love my country and my friends and family.  Without these, I am nothing.  Politics aside, I love my relationships and do not want to harm them.

I want to acknowledge the legitimate issues underlying Trump Derangement Syndrome:

• American society is deeply unfair and has been so since its racist founding.
• Trump and the Republicans deny global warming and sensible measures to prevent our civilization from destroying the planet.
• Trump and the Republicans have a long history of lying and cheating to maintain and enhance the unjust status quo.
• Trump himself is a blustering narcissist who sets a bad model for the country.

How can so many intelligent people see only one side of the story?  We seem to be witnessing mass hysteria and self-delusional groupthink.  Perhaps this was what it was like in Nazi Germany?  Or Soviet Russia where the state media came to be disbelieved, yet to openly challenge the media was treasonous?  Maybe this was what America was like at the time of its founding, with the racist patriarchy unquestioned by the conventional wisdom?  Perhaps most countries are this way most of the time as the elite control the range of acceptable thought?

If I were to publish this and someone were to read it and ridicule me publicly for thinking out loud, would that be justified?  

Democracy or Empire?

In the news this past week:  CIA Director Haspel Blocking Declassification Of Russiagate Documents and Haspel Blocking Declassification Of Russiagate Documents To Protect CIA's Reputation

"Unfortunately those releases and declassifications according to multiple sources I've talked to are being blocked by CIA director Gina Haspel who herself was the main link between Washington and London," Davis said.

"As the London station chief from John Brennan's CIA during the 2016 election. Recall, it was London where Christopher Steele was doing all this work. And I'm told that it was Gina Haspel personally who is blocking a continued declassification of these documents that will show the American people the truth of what actually happened."

For four years, our national discourse has been dominated by the question of whether or not our president treasonously conspired with Russia. Even if there was no treason (as now is clear), the Trump presidency is viewed by many as illegitimate because it was determined by Russia. On January 6, 2017, just before Trump took office as president, the Directory of National Intelligence issued a report claiming with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. As the New York Times put it: 

In unequivocal language, the report pins responsibility for the election attack directly on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, ruling out the possibility that it was ordered by intelligence officials or simply carried out by Kremlin supporters...   

Six months later, the New York Times blasted Trump in an article entitled Trump’s Deflections and Denials on Russia Frustrate Even His Allies:  

The latest presidential tweets were proof to dismayed members of Mr. Trump’s party that he still refuses to acknowledge a basic fact agreed upon by 17 American intelligence agencies that he now oversees: Russia orchestrated the attacks, and did it to help get him elected.

The Times was wrong about this as they admitted 2 weeks later -- Trump Misleads on Russian Meddling: Why 17 Intelligence Agencies Don’t Need to Agree:

President Trump said on Thursday that only “three or four” of the United States’ 17 intelligence agencies had concluded that Russia interfered in the presidential election — a statement that while technically accurate, is misleading and suggests widespread dissent among American intelligence agencies when none has emerged.

The “three or four” agencies referred to by Mr. Trump are the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the F.B.I. and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, all of which determined that Russia interfered in the election. Their work was compiled into a report, and a declassified version was released on Jan. 6 by the director of national intelligence. It said that all four agencies had “high confidence” that Russian spies had tried to interfere in the election on the orders of President Vladimir V. Putin...

Mr. Trump was also correct about inaccurate news reports. Some, including an article in The New York Times, incorrectly reported that all 17 American intelligence agencies had endorsed the assessment. 

The Times was again wrong in reporting that "all four agencies had “high confidence” that Russian spies had tried to interfere in the election on the orders of President Vladimir V. Putin".  As the Times itself had reported on January 6:

the N.S.A. was less certain than the other agencies that Russia was trying to help Mr. Trump

So this is confusing.  As the years went by, a special prosecutor led by Robert Mueller was empowered to investigate the Russian interference and possible treason by Trump.  Mueller found nothing treasonous, but continued to support the notion that Russia interfered in the election.  However, there was a great deal of controversy regarding the finding that Trump did not conspire with the Russians, and the Democrats and mainstream media contended that was likely because Trump obstructed the investigation.  The partisan divide deepened and hardened.

Since the release of the Mueller Report, the original intelligence tied to both Russian interference and possible Trump collusion has continued to unwind, along with our domestic political fabric.  From How CIA's Brennan Overruled Dissenting Analysts Who Concluded Russia Favored Hillary:

The ICA, which was hastily put together over 30 days at the direction of Obama intelligence czar James Clapper, did not follow longstanding rules for crafting such assessments. It was not farmed out to other key intelligence agencies for their input, and did not include an annex for dissent, among other extraordinary departures from past tradecraft.

It did, however, include a two-page annex summarizing allegations from a dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.  His claim that Putin had personally ordered cyberattacks on the Clinton campaign to help Trump win happened to echo the key finding of the ICA that Brennan supported. Brennan had briefed Democratic senators about allegations from the dossier on Capitol Hill.

“Some of the FBI source’s [Steele’s] reporting is consistent with the judgment in the assessment,” stated the appended summary, which the two intelligence sources say was written by Brennan loyalists. “The FBI source claimed, for example, that Putin ordered the influence effort with the aim of defeating Secretary Clinton, whom Putin ‘feared and hated.’ “

Steele's reporting has since been discredited by the Justice Department’s inspector general as rumor-based opposition research on Trump paid for by the Clinton campaign. Several allegations have been debunked, even by Steele’s own primary source, who confessed to the FBI that he ginned the rumors up with some of his Russian drinking buddies to earn money from Steele.

Former FBI Director James Comey told the Justice Department’s watchdog that the Steele material, which he referred to as the “Crown material,” was incorporated with the ICA because it was “corroborative of the central thesis of the assessment “The IC analysts found it credible on its face,” Comey said. 

So our democracy is coming unraveled on the basis of intelligence estimates which have been reported as the truth by the New York Times and other mainstream outlets, yet do not stand the test of time.  We could clear up the matter by releasing the evidence used to formulate the intelligence estimate, but this would apparently embarrass the CIA.  Our elite media passes on the work of the intelligence community as truth even when the evidence cannot be verified because of security concerns.  Protecting intelligence sources in the new cold war is thus seen as more important than having a viable democracy based upon truth.

Claims, by the mainstream media and Democratic party leadership, of Russian interference in our elections have been used to discredit the legitimacy of Trump's presidency.  In the interest of democracy, the evidence for the Russian interference should be declassified.  Restoring faith in our system of government is more important than protecting in our sources in the new Cold War, especially now that there is good reason to suspect that the sources have not been accurate.

Thouights on the Mainstream Media

 I'm writing this post in response to a friend who wrote the following:

I think that part of the problem is that we are not on the same page about major institutions that provide enlightened investigative reporting and editorial positions.  For me the New York Times and the Washington Post and similar newspapers have top notch reporters who have specialized skill sets that allow for in-depth analysis of important issues.  This is overseen by an editorial crew who assure that high levels of journalistic integrity are maintained.  I myself have less confidence in blogs because there is a lack of careful attention, and there certainly is no editorial review.  So--we are ending up getting our news from different sources.  And, this could have the effect of taking us in different directions. 

My feeling is that The New York Times and Washington Post and similar newspapers have deeply compromised reporters that follow the editorial imperatives of their elite sponsors.  They do not practice journalistic integrity, but rather have risen to positions of prominence because they are willing to spout the company line.  Ultimately, the bulk of the media money goes to large organizations that support the United States led global empire against perceived enemies such as Russia, China, Iran, and socialists at home and abroad.  Honest reporters have to work elsewhere, and there are many alternative outlets which provide more balanced and factual reporting and analysis.  

My opinion is not based upon inherent distrust of the establishment.  I have gone back and forth throughout my life as to the degree that I trust establishment media outlets.  Generally, I have been trusting.  But I've noticed that the major media outlets have been broadcasting information from unspecified "intelligence sources" and that this information has been proven faulty in many instances, leading to horrible mistakes both at home and abroad.

Here are some of my previous writings on the subject, along with some analyses from other sources:

• The NY Times is a Propaganda Outlet for the White Supremacist Chauvinist U.S. Empire
  (my blog, 9/5/2020)
• Media, Military Intelligence Complex, and Other Ramblings  (my blog, 2/22/2020)
• Masks, Hydroxychloroquine, and a Reason to Vote Green  (my blog, 8/4/2020)
• The Post-Objectivity Era (Matt Taibbi, 9/19/2020)
• Fake News on Russia and Other Official Enemies, The New York Times, 1917–2017 (Edward Herman in "Monthly Review", 7/1/2017)
• Politics is an American Industry (Steve Randy Waldman, 9/17/2020)
• The World: What is Really Happening (Craig Murray, 5/25/2019)
• Our Press Sucks (my blog, 6/10/2019)
• The Intelligence Community Tells Us What's Happening (my blog, 5/19/2019)
• The Terrifying Rise of the Zombie State Narrative (Crain Murray, 1/2/2020)

This is certainly an important topic.  Our country is horribly polarized due largely to a polarized media landscape.  From Matt Taibbi

We live in a time of incredible political division. Many of us have had the experience of talking to someone whose idea of reality seems to be completely alien to our own. It’s become difficult to have an argument in the traditional sense. People with differing opinions no longer seem to be working from commonly-accepted sets of facts. It’s a problem that has a lot to do with changes in how we receive and digest information, especially through the news media...  

Fundamentally, this means the press has gone from selling a vision of reality they perceive to be acceptable to a broad mean, to selling division. For technological, commercial, and political reasons this instinct has become more exaggerated with time, snowballing toward the dysfunctional state we’re in today...

Audiences are completely siloed. A Pew study that just came out showed that of the people who say Fox is their primary news source, 93% describe themselves as Republicans. For MSNBC, the number is 95% Democrats. The New York Times is 91% Democrats. Even NPR is now 87% Democrats:

So one channel is talking almost exclusively to one group of people, while other channels are talking almost exclusively to another group of people.

So it's understandable 

2 Views on Biden and Democrats

1. Our country is deeply and dangerously polarized.  Biden represents the moderation we need if we are not to tear ourselves apart.  He is inclusive and open to conservatives, as demonstrated by the support he has received from Republicans, and will therefore defuse the tension while advocating for better policies in areas such as the environment, education, and economic equity.
   
   
2. The Democrats have been the weaker party since 1980 when Reagan was elected.  In 1980, the Democrats controlled the presidency and had large majorities in both chambers of Congress.  The only Democratic presidents during this time frame have been Clinton and Obama, and the Republicans were particularly contemptuous of Obama, openly declaring that they would make his presidency unsuccessful.  Beginning with the election of Trump or slightly before, the Democrats began responding to the Republicans in kind, openly opposing Trump, regardless of facts, including an unfounded accusation of treason.  It is this movement that has driven the Biden candidacy and plunged the country into deep and dangerous polarization and nationalist madness, employing various spy agencies to set the national discourse.  The election of Biden would validate this dangerous and disturbing turn by the Democrats.  Biden must be defeated to provide space for a more intelligent and moral leadership.

2 Views on Trump and Republicans

1. Trump should be fought tooth and nail because he brings out the worst in Republicans.  For example, there are racist and violent elements in the Republican base, and Trump legitimizes these elements and brings them to power.  Get rid of Trump and people will see that such behavior cannot be successful in our country.
   
   
2. The country indeed has racist and violent people, and the Republicans have been playing with fire for decades in courting and encouraging these people.  Trump is a particularly inept figurehead for the Republican party and exposes their weaknesses.  Get rid of Trump and we may get something worse, especially if the replacement is weak and of questionable legitimacy.

The NY Times is a Propaganda Outlet for the White Supremacist U.S. Empire

I don't generally like the term "white supremacist" as it has come to be used as a reference to any injustice in our current system of governance.  "Capitalist" is better, but still too broad.  So here's a stab at a better title:

The NY Times is a Propaganda Outlet for the Chauvinistic U.S. Empire

Chauvinism is a form of extreme patriotism and nationalism, a fervent faith in national excellence and glory. It is an irrational belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people, who are seen as strong and virtuous, while others are considered weak or unworthy.

That's better, in my view.

Here's an example that recently caught my eye:

RUSSIAGATE: NYT, FB & FBI Say Anti-Trump Site, Now Shutdown, Was Russian Effort to Help Trump Win – Consortiumnews

Misgivings about who ran this site, however, can co-exist with legitimate alarm about the combined attacks by the FBI, the Times and other corporate media on the political nature — and not the accuracy — of the published content. That presents the spectacle of a leading news outlet and two social media companies joining a state security agency in an effort to trample press freedom...

PeaceData was accused of being funded by the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, which the Times says “was very active in the 2016 presidential election, and a recent bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report detailed Russian interference in support of Mr. Trump’s election.” In fact, half of IRA’s Facebook ads were purchased after the 2016 election and half of those before the election supported Hillary Clinton, and the other half, Trump. The IRA spent about $100,000 on the ads, compared to the $6.5 billion spent by the Clinton and Trump campaigns.

“Now Facebook and Twitter are offering evidence of this meddling,” the fourth paragraph of the Times story begins, although nowhere in the rest of the article is any evidence presented. The Times says Facebook made its decision based on a report — which the Times does not link to — written by a company called Graphika.

While spotlighting PeaceData’s purported links to the Russian government, the Times fails to provide readers the same service when it comes to Graphika’s own official connections, in this case to the U.S. government.

This pattern of lockstep chauvinism on the part of the U.S. establishment, including many mainstream Republicans as well as Democrats, is why I consider Democrats the bigger threat to the downtrodden of the world than I do Trump and his supporters.  The world is a big place, and there is tremendous institutional and legal support for the rights of black Americans.  This is great.  But the militarized chauvinism of Republicans and Democrats which destroyed the Middle East is on the loose, with the NY Times leading the charge.  

Putin was right about Iraq WMDs; Mueller and the New York Times were wrong. The pattern has continued and intensified in recent years, in my opinion.  I could be wrong, as only the secretive intelligence agencies know the truth of such matters.  But my best guess is that our intelligence agencies have been on the wrong side of critical stories related to war in the Middle East, domestic U.S. politics, and relations with Russia.

Accuracy matters.  And that's why I've used the term propaganda in the title of this post.  

Propaganda is communication that is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis 

I believe in the enlightenment ideals upon which the U.S. was founded, and which have been improved upon through the abolition of slavery, suffrage for women, and granting of legal rights to other minorities.  The world is a cold, cruel place in terms of power politics, and I appreciate that the NY Times and other establishment institutions are trying to spread the enlightenment, and fight back against Trumpian efforts to diminish enlightenment ideals. 

I'm a humanist and look forward to engaging constructively with as many people, whatever background or political persuasion, as possible.