The Corporate Fascist Nanny State Is A Hypocritical Virtue Signaling Beast

theamericanconservative |  People and governments always invoke the safety and security of the majority when they are taking away rights for “our own good,” just like the Patriot Act did. It’s an old playbook, joined in this century by our First Amendment nannies on social media, who electronically block efforts to organize. If you’re screeching about how rights don’t matter when lives are at stake, you’ve got company. The KKK used that argument to block black people from marching, claiming it was a safety issue. Yet California will no longer issue permits for anti-lockdown protests at any state properties, including the Capitol.

Agree? Just remember what you’re saying now about these redneck inbred gun nuts the next time someone claims a march permit can’t be issued in the interest of public safety to a group you support. It’s the same thing, rights are rights. Because you know what else can spread rapidly if “left unchecked?” Tyranny. Justice Louis Brandeis held free speech is not an abstract virtue but a key element of a democratic society. He ruled even speech likely to result in “violence or in destruction of property is not enough to justify its suppression.” In braver times when Americans challenged the safety vs. liberty argument, the Supreme Court consistently ruled in favor of free speech, reminding us democracy comes with risk. But that was another world ago, before we measured human worth in RTs.

There is science which should be informing decisions. But while claiming a small rally in Denver will cost lives, or Florida will kill people by opening its beaches, the same voices remain silent as NYC keeps its subway running 24/7. The public beach versus public transportation debate came as a new study showed that NYC’s “multitentacled subway system was a major disseminator—if not the principal transmission vehicle—of coronavirus infection,” seeding the virus throughout the city. Without a superspreader like the subway it can be contained locally. It is tragic when the virus rips through a nursing home or meatpacking plant (it is a virus after all, it will go viral), but all of those together barely touch a week’s body count in New York. Shut down mass transport.

We can put most people back to work with limited risk; the protesters are right. The virus kills a very specific patient. About half the dead are over age 65. Less than one percent of deaths are under age 44. Almost 94 percent of the dead in any age group had serious underlying medical issues (about half had hypertension and/or were obese, a third had lung problems). The death toll in NY/NJ under total lockdown: over 27,000. Death toll in much more densely populated Tokyo with “smart” lockdown: 98.

About 22 percent of New Yorkers already have the virus antibody and thus expected immunity. One logical implication of this—that large numbers already have or had the virus, and that it is harmless to them—is simply ignored. Quarantine/social distancing should be for those most vulnerable so we can stop wrecking all of society with cruder measures. Hospitals should separate patients by age. No need to keep kids from school, especially if that means isolating them inside a multigenerational household. Let them wear soggy paper masks to class, even tin foil on their heads, if it makes things easier. Online classes are lame and America doesn’t need a new generation dumber than the current one.

The New York-New Jersey area, with roughly half the dead for the entire nation, practices full-on social distancing while Georgia was one of the last states to implement a weaker stay-at-home policy. Yet as Georgia re-opens, the NY/NJ death count is over 27,000. Georgia is 892. NYC alone continues adding around 500 bodies to the pile every day, even with its bowling alleys closed.

Democrat Party Racism - Black And Brown Quarantine Violation Beatdowns

dailymail |  New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo have been pushing for enforcement instead of education, leading to heavy-handedness and a 'business as usual' attitude within the NYPD which has long been accused of marginalizing communities of color.  

'We were told we were getting a mayor who was going to change this,' Williams said. 'That's what makes some of this so difficult to swallow.' 

The mayor claims that police have actually shown restraint during the lockdown period.

'We do not accept disparity, period,' de Blasio said during a coronavirus briefing. 'On the arrests and summonses, the thing to focus on first, is the sheer fact that we're looking at numbers across a city of 8.6 million people and across a time span I believe is six weeks, the numbers of arrests and summonses are extraordinarily low.

'So, I don't, for a moment, misunderstand folks who raise alarms and concerns, or project forward concerns,' said de Blasio. 'But I say, "Hey, start with these sheer facts, that we're talking about very few people have been arrested and very few people have been summonsed." 

'And there's been a huge amount of restraint by the NYPD. That's just factually obvious from the numbers, and we intend to keep it that way only using summons and arrest when needed.

'We're dealing with something absolutely unprecedented, and there's no way in hell we are going to be able to keep people safe if we don't use the strongest, best public safety organization in this country.' 

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea also stressed that arrests are down 50 percent  across the city and believes overall social distancing enforcement has gone smoothly.

'We have been doing it with an extremely light touch,' he said. 

'We have been interacting with millions of people and given out only a handful of violations, summonses and arrests, and that's the way it should be,' Shea said. 'I don't want the NYPD to be the morality police.' 

The viral videos of black people and other people of color getting violently arrested across the city stand in sharp contrast to photos and video tweeted by the NYPD showing friendly officers handing out face masks and gently reminding people to stay 6 feet apart.

I've Never Started A Fight But Every Fight I've Ever Been In Resulted From Deficient Vice Signaling

independent |  The right's embrace of vice-signaling, and indeed of vice, is how we got Trump. It's also why his administration has been so unable to deal with a crisis requiring collective civic virtue.

Conservatives have long embraced a kind of tough-love, individualistic ethos which trumpets callousness as a good in itself. They have attacked "bleeding heart" liberals for decades for the moral sin of caring about people who are suffering, and for thinking that collectively we should try to address injustice and inequality, rather than submitting to economic Darwinism.

Little wonder, then, that the right weaponized the term “virtue-signaling" over the past few years. The phrase is now used to sneer at anyone who expresses public concern about sexism, racism, homophobia, poverty, or bigotry of any sort. If you ask someone not to use a racial slur, or not to misgender someone, you are supposedly engaged in “virtue-signaling”— which is to say, that you are only objecting to cruelty because you want other people to like you or admire you. The term “virtue-signaling" assumes that anyone who speaks about the value of virtue is hypocritical and self-aggrandizing. 

But virtue is about how you treat other people. To create virtuous communities, you need to talk about what it means to be good. Labeling virtue talk as bad means you're rejecting the pursuit of virtue as a goal. 

The right has in fact in many ways rejected the pursuit of virtue. Instead, they have chosen to create communities tied together with virtue's opposite. Conservative thinkers and pundits today frequently insist that reality does not have any place for communal and collective good, and instead call on people to admit, or even revel in, openly callous and bloodthirsty expressions of hatred or immorality. 

The most extreme example of this comes, as usual, from radio show conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.  Jones recently said that if there were coronavirus food shortages, he would eat his neighbors in order to feed his children. 

But the vice-signaler-in-chief is, of course, Donald Trump. When the 45th president initially refused to condemn neo-Nazis rioting in Charlottesville, VA, in 2017, treating the request to condemn evil as some sort of trick, he earned that title.

An NBC reporter named Peter Alexander in a press briefing in March practically begged Trump to virtue-signal, asking him if he could offer people reassurance during the crisis: "What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now, who are scared?” he asked. Trump refused the opportunity to utter some words of comfort, instead launching into a tirade in which he said the journalist was a "terrible reporter" and that it was a "very nasty question." Rather than talk about virtue, and encourage people to be virtuous, Trump invariably urges people to be callous, angry and afraid. 

A public health crisis requires public, collective action for good. To survive Covid-19, we need people to join together and make sacrifices for a collective good. We need a government willing to acknowledge those sacrifices and enact policies to make them less onerous. We need, in short, a vision of, and a commitment to, communal good.

Consciousness Does Not Compute

nautil |  This past March, when I called Penrose in Oxford, he explained that his interest in consciousness goes back to his discovery of Gödel’s incompleteness theorem while he was a graduate student at Cambridge. Gödel’s theorem, you may recall, shows that certain claims in mathematics are true but cannot be proven. “This, to me, was an absolutely stunning revelation,” he said. “It told me that whatever is going on in our understanding is not computational.”

He was also jolted by a series of lectures on quantum mechanics by the great physicist Paul Dirac. Like many others, Penrose struggled with the weirdness of quantum theory. “As Schrödinger clearly pointed out with his poor cat, which was dead and alive at the same time, he made this point deliberately to show why his own equation can’t be the whole truth. He was more or less saying, ‘That’s nonsense.’ ” To Penrose, the takeaway was that something didn’t add up in quantum theory: “Schrödinger was very upset by this, as were Dirac and Einstein. Some of the major figures in quantum mechanics were probably more upset than I was.”

But what, I asked, does any of this have to do with consciousness? “You see, my argument is very roundabout. I think this is why people don’t tend to follow me. They’ll pick up on it later, or they reject it later, but they don’t follow argument.” Penrose then launched into his critique of why computers, for all their brute calculating power, lack any understanding of what they’re doing. “What I’m saying—and this is my leap of imagination which people boggle at—I’m saying what’s going on in the brain must be taking advantage not just of quantum mechanics, but where it goes wrong,” he said. “It’s where quantum mechanics needs to be superseded.” So we need a new science that doesn’t yet exist? “That’s right. Exactly.”

After we’d talked for 20 minutes, I pointed out that he still hadn’t mentioned biology or the widely held belief that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. “I know, I know,” he chuckled, and then told me why he felt compelled to write his first book on consciousness, The Emperor’s New Mind, published in 1989. It was after he heard a BBC interview with Marvin Minsky, a founding father of artificial intelligence, who had famously pronounced that the human brain is “just a computer made of meat.” Minsky’s claims compelled Penrose to write The Emperor’s New Mind, arguing that human thinking will never be emulated by a machine. The book had the feel of an extended thought experiment on the non-algorithmic nature of consciousness and why it can only be understood in relation to Gödel’s theorem and quantum physics.

Minsky, who died last year, represents a striking contrast to Penrose’s quest to uncover the roots of consciousness. “I can understand exactly how a computer works, although I’m very fuzzy on how the transistors work,” Minsky told me during an interview years ago. Minsky called consciousness a “suitcase word” that lacks the rigor of a scientific concept. “We have to replace it by ‘reflection’ and ‘decisions’ and about a dozen other things,” he said. “So instead of talking about the mystery of consciousness, let’s talk about the 20 or 30 really important mental processes that are involved. And when you’re all done, somebody says, ‘Well, what about consciousness?’ and you say, ‘Oh, that’s what people wasted their time on in the 20th century.’ ”

Is Sir Roger Penrose's Science of Consciousness Spooky?

medium |  Thus could Roger Penrose’s position be entirely motivated by scientific anti-reductionism? Doctor Susan Blackmore certainly thinks that this is an important motivation. Or at least the programme maker in the following quote does. She writes:

“Finally they got to consciousness. With clever computer graphics and Horizonesque hype they explained that brave scientists, going against the reductionist grain, can now explain the power of the mind to transcend death. It all comes down to quantum coherence in the microtubules. And to make sure the viewer knows that this is ‘real science’ the ponderous voice-over declared ‘Their theory is based on a well established field of science; the laws of general relativity, as discovered by Einstein.’…”

Sure, Blackmore’s talking here about “near-death experiences” (NDEs). Yet those who believe in this — or at least some of them — have found succor in “quantum coherence in the microtubules”. Now don’t those things sound very scientific? Of course we’ll now need to know what quantum coherence is. (Or is it really a case of needing to know whether or not the believers in NDEs actually have any idea of what quantum coherence is?)

Of course Penrose and Stuart Hameroff can’t personally be blamed for spook-lovers quoting their work. However, a psychologist or philosopher may tell us that these two fellows — both scientists — are motivated by very similar things. After all, Hameroff himself has talked about NDEs.

Specifically, Hameroff has said that when the brain dies (or stops functioning), the information within that brain’s microtubules remains alive (as it were) or intact. Moreover, the information of the microtubules leaks out into the world (or, well, into the universe). Not only that: this microtubular information remains intact and bound together because of the power of quantum coherence.

Hameroff goes even further. He’s stated that this phenomenon explains why the subject can experience — see? — himself hovering over his own body. That is, Hameroff seems to endorse near-death experiences. Yet even if “information” (P.M.S. Hacker would have a field day with this word — see here) did leak out into the universe, how would that make it the case that the body which hovers above also has a body and sensory experiences? Microtubular information in the air doesn’t a physical person make. And without a physical body, there are no sensory experiences or anything else for that matter. Thus this is like claiming that if you turn the computer off and then smash it up so violently that its material structure shatters into dust, then the “information” inside would still be intact and would simply float in the air above it. In other words, the soul of the computer would still exist. Unless Hameroff is simply telling us about what he thinks people imagine (or hallucinate) when they’re having a NDE. Though if that’s the case, why all this stuff about microtubular information leaking into the air or even into the universe?

This spooky anti-reductionist motivation is further explained by the philosopher and materialist Patricia Churchland and also the philosopher Rick Grush. According to Blackmore,

“they suggest, it is because some people find the idea of explaining consciousness by neuronal activity somehow degrading or scary, whereas ‘explaining’ it by quantum effects retains some of the mystery”.

Churchland is even more dismissive when she says (as quoted by Blackmore):

“Quantum coherence in the microtubules is about as explanatorily powerful as pixie dust in the synapses.”

To put it more philosophically and simply, Penrose and Hameroff’s position appears to be a defence of traditional dualism. Or, at the very least, the belief in NDEs certainly backs up traditional dualism. And, as we’ve just seen, Hameroff has defended NDEs.

Dualism, Intuition and Free Will

Traditional philosophical dualism has just been mentioned. Here again we can tie Hameroff and Penrose to the concerns (or obsessions) of traditional philosophy. That is, Hameroff hints that his and Penrose’s positions may solve the traditional problems of free will, “the unitary sense of self” and the source and nature of intuition/insight. More specifically, all these philosophical conundrums can be explained by quantum coherence in the microtubules. In terms of simply-put examples, free will is down to quantum indeterminacy; non-locality is responsible for “the unity of consciousness”; and non-algorithmic processing is the baby of “quantum superposition”.

In the technical terms of mind-brain interaction, and as a result of accepting mind-body dualism, the brain and mind can be mutually involved in quantum “entanglement” which is “non-local”. Thus, put simply, we can have mind-to-brain causation. Though this would of course depend on seeing the mind as not being the brain or not even being physical (in a strict or even a non-strict sense). This would put both the mind and brain in the same holistic package and that would help all of us explain…. just about everything!

Quantum Consciousness: Orch-OR Is Better Supported Experimentally Than Any Other Theory Of Consciousness

oxford |  The Penrose-Hameroff ‘Orchestrated objective reduction’ (‘Orch OR’) theory suggests consciousness arises from ‘orchestrated’ quantum superpositioned oscillations in microtubules inside brain neurons. These evolve to reach threshold for Penrose ‘objective reduction’ (‘OR’) by E=h/t (E is the gravitational self-energy of the superposition/separation, h is the Planck-Dirac constant, and at the time at which Orch OR occurs) to give moments of conscious experience. Sequences, interference and resonance of entangled moments govern neurophysiology and provide our ‘stream’ of consciousness. Anesthetic gases selectively block consciousness, sparing non-conscious brain activities, binding by quantum coupling with aromatic amino acid rings inside brain proteins. Genomic, proteomic and optogenetic evidence indicate the microtubule protein tubulin as the site of anesthetic action. We (Craddock et al, Scientific Reports 7,9877, 2017) modelled couplings among all 86 aromatic amino acid rings in tubulin, and found a spectrum of terahertz (‘THz’) quantum oscillations including a common mode peak at 613 THz. Simulated presence of 8 different anesthetics each abolished the peak, and dampened the spectrum proportional to anesthetic potency. Non-anesthetic gases which bind in the same regions, but do not cause anesthesia, did not abolish or dampen the THz activity. Orch OR is better supported experimentally than any other theory of consciousness.

Not Sanguine About Common Citizens Fathoming The Unadvertised Behavior Of Their Elites

reuters |  An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people familiar with the paper told Reuters. 

The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said. 

As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report’s content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter. 

The report was drawn up by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, China’s top intelligence body. 

Reuters has not seen the briefing paper, but it was described by people who had direct knowledge of its findings. 

The report described to Reuters warned that anti-China sentiment sparked by the coronavirus could fuel resistance to China’s Belt and Road infrastructure investment projects, and that Washington could step up financial and military support for regional allies, making the security situation in Asia more volatile.

Three decades ago, in the aftermath of Tiananmen, the United States and many Western governments imposed sanctions against China including banning or restricting arms sales and technology transfers. 

One of those with knowledge of the report said it was regarded by some in the Chinese intelligence community as China’s version of the “Novikov Telegram”, a 1946 dispatch by the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Nikolai Novikov, that stressed the dangers of U.S. economic and military ambition in the wake of World War Two. 

Novikov’s missive was a response to U.S. diplomat George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” from Moscow that said the Soviet Union did not see the possibility for peaceful coexistence with the West, and that containment was the best long-term strategy. 

The two documents helped set the stage for the strategic thinking that defined both sides of the Cold War.

Tibetan Common Citizens May Not Agree With The Tibetan Elites In Exile

historicly.substack |  The American position on Tibet's sovereignty changed depending on how they felt about the current government of China. During World War II, the US government claimed China held sovereignty over Tibet. In 1948, when Tibetans claimed autonomy, the US state department accused them of having "ill-faith." Tibetan officials even possessed Chinese passports.

However, all of this changed in 1949 after the Communists took control of China. The State Department wrestled with the question of whether or not they should strategically recognize an independent Tibet. They reasoned that it would be advantageous because “Tibet will be one of the few remaining non-Communist bastions in Continental Asia." As the People’s Liberation Army victory became imminent, the US government decided that they supported an “independent Tibet.”

 In August 1950, the PLA crossed over into Tibet. Within the first few months, nearly 20,000 Tibetans joined the PLA to fight against the local ruling class. As the PLA marched further into Tibet, they started distributing free food to the hungry serfs, which earned them popular support and aid.  

The PLA could have invaded Lhasa in October 1950, but they stopped their advancing troops and sent an envoy to the Dalai Lama asking him to negotiate an agreement. The Dalai Lama, with the advice and consent of the British, agreed to send delegates to negotiate. The PLA soldiers were redeployed to build a road from Beijing to the capital city of Lhasa, Tibet. 

In May 1951, the Tibetan delegates did end up signing an agreement that was quite favorable to the aristocrats. Point 4 of the agreement said, "The central authorities will not alter the existing political system in Tibet. The central authorities also will not alter the established status, functions, and powers of the Dalai Lama. Officials of various ranks shall hold office as usual." 

While the rest of China had immediate land redistributions, Chairman Mao made a concession, and the agreement said, “In matters relating to various reforms in Tibet, there will be no compulsion on the part of the central authorities. The local government of Tibet shall carry out reforms of its own accord, and, when the people raise demands for reform, they shall be settled by means of consultation with the leading personnel of Tibet."  

In the next few years, CCP's government did, indeed, build infrastructure projects. The PLA built roads that allowed trucks to travel within the interior. One vehicle, in two days, could carry what sixty yaks took twelve days to transport. Tibetans received more food, and the price of goods dropped by two-thirds in two years. Tibet got electricity. As the New York Times reported, Tibet got its first radio broadcasts. The CCP government also set up a state-bank in Tibet. Peasants received non-usurious loans and very low-interest rates, which made them less dependent on the feudal estates. According to the CIA, PLA also canceled the extremely onerous taxes for the peasants for three years.  

They built new schools. According to Dawa Norbu, serfs were given $1 to $1.50 to have their children attend schools, giving serfs more leverage to bargain against the elite class. 

Tibet According To Richard Gere And The Dalai Lama

tibetoffice |  Tibet’s status following the expulsion of Manchu troops is not subject to serious dispute. Whatever ties existed between the Dalai Lamas and the Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty were extinguished with the fall of that empire and dynasty. From 1911 to 1950, Tibet successfully avoided undue foreign influence and behaved in every respect as a fully independent state.

Tibet maintained diplomatic relations with Nepal, Bhutan, Britain, and later with independent India. Relations with China remained strained.

The Chinese waged a border war with Tibet while formally urging Tibet to “join” the Chinese Republic, claiming all along to the world that Tibet was one of China’s five races. In an effort to reduce Sino-Tibetan tensions, the British convened a tripartite conference in Simla in 1913 where the representatives of the three states met on equal terms. As the British delegate reminded his Chinese counterpart, Tibet entered into the conference as an “independent nation recognizing no allegiance to China.” The conference was unsuccessful in that it did not resolve the differences between Tibet and China. It was, nevertheless, significant in that Anglo-Tibetan friendship was reaffirmed with the conclusion of bilateral trade and border agreements. In a Joint Declaration, Great Britain and Tibet bound themselves not to recognize Chinese suzerainty or other special rights in Tibet unless China signed the draft Simla Convention which would have guaranteed Tibet’s greater borders, its territorial integrity and full autonomy. China never signed the Convention, however, leaving the terms of the Joint Declaration in full force.

Tibet conducted its international relations primarily by dealing with the British, Chinese, Nepalese, and Bhutanese diplomatic missions in Lhasa, but also through government delegations traveling abroad. When India became independent, the British mission in Lhasa was replaced by an Indian one. During World War II Tibet remained neutral, despite combined pressure from the United States, Great Britain, and China to allow passage of raw materials through Tibet.

Tibet never maintained extensive international relations, but those countries with whom it did maintain relations treated Tibet as they would any sovereign state. Its international status was no different from, say, that of Nepal. Thus, when Nepal applied for membership in the United Nations in 1949, it cited its treaty and diplomatic relations with Tibet to demonstrate its full international personality.

The turning point in Tibet’s history came in 1949, when the People’s Liberation Army of the PRC first crossed into Tibet. After defeating the small Tibetan army and occupying half the country, the Chinese government imposed the so-called “17-Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet” on the Tibetan government in 1951. Because it was signed under duress, the agreement lacked validity under international law. The presence of 40,000 troops in Tibet, the threat of an immediate occupation of Lhasa, and the prospect of the total obliteration of the Tibetan state left Tibetans little choice.

As open resistance to the Chinese occupation escalated, particularly in Eastern Tibet, the Chinese repression, which included the destruction of religious buildings and the imprisonment of monks and other community leaders increased dramatically. By 1959, popular uprisings culminated in massive demonstrations in Lhasa. By the time China crushed the uprising, 87,000 Tibetans were dead in the Lhasa region alone, and the Dalai Lama had fled to India.

In 1963 the Dalai Lama promulgated a constitution for a democratic Tibet. It has been successfully implemented, to the extent possible, by the Government-in-exile.

Covid: Complications and Kwestins

theconversation |  Some evidence suggests that patients experience low oxygen saturation days before they appear in the ER. If so, is there a way to treat patients earlier?

Even before symptoms arise, people infected with SARS-CoV-2 show damage to their lungs. This is likely why low oxygen saturation – that is, below-normal oxygen levels in their blood – occurs before the patient goes to the ER. Restoring those levels to normal is presumed, though not proven, to be beneficial; giving patients supplemental oxygen via a nasal cannula, a flexible tube that delivers oxygen, placed just inside the nostrils, will restore oxygen to normal levels unless disease worsens to the extent that mechanical ventilation is needed.

Young adults are having strokes with COVID-19. Does this suggest the illness is more of a vascular disease than a lung disease in that age group?

COVID-19 can be a devastating disease to multiple organs and systems in the body, including the vascular and immune systems. A lung infection is the primary cause of disease and death. There are examples of the clotting system being activated and causing strokes, perhaps caused by an immune system responding abnormally to COVID-19. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently updated its official list of symptoms. Does this suggest anything unusual about COVID-19?

This new information is due to a greater number of infected individuals being studied. The update simply reflects a better understanding of the full spectrum of illness due to COVID-19, from asymptomatic to presymptomatic to severe and fatal infections.

Covid and Bloodclots?

wired |  As if it weren’t enough that the new coronavirus can steal away your ability to breathe and make your immune system turn against you, now we know this fearsome pathogen can also literally curdle your blood. News of the “bizarre, unsettling” complication—one that’s been killing young and middle-aged patients with Covid-19—made headlines last month. “ It crept up on us,” one doctor told The Washington Post for a story published on April 22. “We are scared,” said another.

Other outlets quickly added to the terrifying coverage. Vox cited a hematologist who called the disturbing new outcome “unprecedented … This is not like a disease we’ve seen before.” AFP described the “mysterious” clotting phenomenon as the coronavirus’s “latest lethal surprise.” The New York Times wondered if it might explain another unexpected symptom seen in patients: swollen, red and purple “Covid toes.” There was coverage of a 41-year-old Broadway star, hospitalized with the virus, who’d had to have his leg amputated due to a clot. Yet for all the seeming strangeness of these cases, it’s stranger still that so many people would be acting so bewildered. In fact, researchers have long known about the link between infectious diseases and blood clotting. There’s even data to suggest a heightened risk of fatal heart attacks—a related complication—among those who get plain old influenza.

The study of disease-induced clotting stretches back more than a century. Writing in 1903, pathologists described the same phenomenon in typhoid fever. Adam Cunningham, an immunologist at the University of Birmingham, notes that many common bacteria, such as Helicobacter pylori and Escherichia coli, have also been associated with an increased risk of blood clots. If this fact has mostly been forgotten, it may be on account of our success at treating such infections. “One of the things that probably made a big difference was the introduction of the antibiotic era, so many of the pathogens didn’t get that severe,” Cunningham says.

Covid and Kawasaki?

apnews |  Dozens of U.S. children have been hospitalized with a serious inflammatory condition possibly linked with the coronavirus and first seen in Europe.

New York authorities announced Wednesday that 64 potential cases had been reported to the state. The advisory followed an alert earlier this week about 15 cases in New York City.

A few other U.S. children have been affected during the pandemic, including a 6-month-old infant in California diagnosed with COVID-19 and Kawasaki disease, a rare condition that causes swelling in blood vessels.

 Fever, abdominal pain and skin rashes are common symptoms, while some New York children have developed heart inflammation requiring intensive care. Most had evidence of current or past coronavirus infections. 

Medical groups in Britain, Italy and Spain warned doctors last month to look out for the condition.

Some doctors say the New York cases increase the likelihood that the syndrome is a rare complication of COVID-19 although that remains to be proven.

“It raises our antenna a bit and tells is we need to be vigilant about unusual and more severe complications of COVID-19” in children, said Dr. Larry Kociolek, an infectious disease specialist at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.

Common Citizens vs. Elites In Control Of Governments

alt-market |  Certain assumptions are almost always present in war, and the biggest assumption made by people is that the fight is between two governments and two nations. This is usually not the case. In fact, the real fight is the governments and the elites that control them versus the common citizens of both nations. This fact is backed by considerable evidence collected by researchers like Antony Sutton. His book 'Wall Street And The Bolshevik Revolution' as well as his book 'Wall Street And The Rise Of Hitler' outline a clear and provable conspiracy by global elites to fund both sides of any given conflict and then benefit through further globalization when the ashes settle.

I have been warning for many years about this same dynamic being created between the US and the East, specifically Russia and China. In my articles on what I call the “false East/West paradigm”, I give ample evidence that the very same money elites which control Washington also greatly influence nations like China through a shared ideology.

Yes, that's right, the elites of China and the elites of the US are on the same team and have the same goals. There is no war, at least not at the top of the pyramid. Their stated goals include the creation of a one world digital currency system controlled by the International Monetary Fund and a 24/7 surveillance society in which every person on the planet is tracked through biometrics and through the blockchain. Without the tracking, participation is denied. In other words, you submit or you starve.

The pandemic, or the war on the “invisible enemy” as Trump calls it, is an excellent cover event for these goals. China has already launched its own tracking apps and immunity passports using cell phones and QR codes. These same measures are being pushed forward here in the US by elites like Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The revelation that China's Wuhan Lab received millions of dollars in funding from the US government for work on SARS-like viruses, greenlit by none other than Dr. Fauci in 2015, is but one of many instances in a long trail of aid and support that came from the West and the UN to China, from weapons development to economic support to viral research.

Did the US help create a monster? If we did, it was a monster that the elites absolutely wanted and have a specific use for.

I have long believed that China would be the primary villain used as a catalyst to trigger the “economic reset” that the globalists desire, but the roles of the US and China will remain ambiguous and amoral as this conflict drags on. For many in the US, China is seen as an economic pirate and now the cause of the coronavirus pandemic. As I noted in last week's article, this is in some ways true but not the whole truth. Without the aid (or the blind eye) of Western governments and the World Health Organization, the spread of the pandemic would not have been possible.

Now, the other big distraction, the trade war, is about to return to mainstream discussion, and in the trade war we see the forever war unfold.

To be clear, the trade war never ended. I have said that the Phase 1 deal was a farce of epic proportions and that it was designed to fail as China would never be able to fulfill the promises they made to increase US export purchases. Well, we'll never know now as the coronavirus has become the prevailing excuse to nix the trade deal and accelerate trade tensions. Of course, in this case Trump plays the monster as he initiates renewed trade attacks on China in the middle of a global crisis; at least, that is what the mainstream media is saying.

China Has Long Prepared for War With The West

independent |  For China, this is not just any economic crash. It is one the country's leaders have steeled against for more than a decade. 

China's top policy planners have long assessed the geopolitical ramifications of the next big economic crisis - the one that would bring their decades of miraculous growth to a halt.

Official policy papers reflect Beijing's awareness that this event would not only serve as a critical test of the Chinese Communist Party's domestic rule, but could reshuffle the balance of powers among China and Western nations.

“After a big crisis, what is redistributed is not merely wealth within a country, but the relative power of all nations,” wrote China's chief economic architect Liu He, who has since risen to vice premier, in a 2013 study of recessions.

China reported a 6.8 per cent drop in economic output for the first quarter of 2020, its first contraction on record since the death of party founder Mao Zedong in 1976. In recent weeks, president Xi Jinping has launched a construction campaign akin to that seen in America in response to the Great Depression, while touting poverty relief and investment in advanced technology to help boost both the output of coronavirus-hit factories and consumer spending.

Since Mr Xi came to power in 2012, he has fast-tracked political preparations for the end of economic growth. He has flooded the airwaves with wartime-esque propaganda that lauds individual sacrifice for the national interest, while quashing budding pockets oCf dissent before they could grow.

“Xi Jinping's political control policies all along have been guided by a recognition that someday the economic miracle will begin to sputter,” said Richard von Glahn, a China economic historian at UCLA. “The coronavirus has accelerated the timetable.”

In 2010, China's top leaders commissioned a team led by Mr Liu to study the Great Depression and 2008 financial crisis. The project included officials from China's central bank and banking regulator, and resulted in hundreds of pages of analysis and policy recommendations published three years later.

This early preparation may give China a head start in its crisis response. As most of the world 

remains engulfed in day-to-day pandemic relief, China has begun broader strategic pushes, inching outward its sphere of influence in the Pacific and declaring greater control over Hong Kong. Beijing's overseas push has been made easier by the Trump administration's domestic focus, with the United States withdrawing from some of its traditional international roles.

Globalization In The Wake Of The First Pandemic War

valdaiclub |  International institutions still represent a compromise between the power capabilities of their participants and the need for relative civilisational interaction between them, writes Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club. Institutions cannot be effective or on their own  it always depends on the ability of states to agree and the presence of objective structural prerequisites for this.

In the second half of April contradictions between China and the United States led to the disruption of the tele-meeting of the G20 countries. Due to the fact that this grouping is considered the most representative and, at the same time, the least binding in terms of decision-making, it was considered until recently the most promising in the context of a “crumbling” world order and the growth of national egoism. However, the first round of the most important interstate confrontation of the new era already called into question the very possibility of discussions between the leaders of the 20 most economically and politically important countries of the world. Somewhat earlier, the US government announced that it plans to stop funding the World Health Organisation (WHO), where it is the main donor. Washington does not like much at the WHO. But the main thing is that China has so far been able to exert more influence on its work than the United States itself. Donald Trump is trying to correct this imbalance in the ways characteristic of his policymaking. The result is not yet obvious. 

Living in a Crumbling World. Valdai Club Annual Report

In each of its annual reports since 2014, the Valdai Discussion Club has consistently spoken of the need to restore global governance – meaning the resolution of emerging and growing problems through institutions-based cooperation between states holding particular political and economic importance to world affairs. This is the fifth such report, and it has the unpleasant task of reporting that the world has now passed a critical juncture with regard to the formation of an effectively functioning international order based on global governance. That is, the world is now moving in a different direction. It has slipped into a clear and undeniable trend of unilateral decision-making. And, although this process is essentially unmanageable, we must strive to understand its consequences.

Report_Living in a Crumbling Worldpdf 1.02 MB

Does The History Of The World Voyage From The East To The West?

asiatimes |  Fasten your seat belts: the US hybrid war against China is bound to go on frenetic overdrive, as economic reports are already identifying Covid-19 as the tipping point when the Asian – actually Eurasian – century truly began. 

The US strategy remains, essentially, full spectrum dominance, with the National Security Strategy obsessed by the three top “threats” of China, Russia and Iran. China, in contrast, proposes a “community of shared destiny” for mankind, mostly addressing the Global South. 

The predominant US narrative in the ongoing information war is now set in stone: Covid-19 was the result of a leak from a Chinese biowarfare lab. China is responsible. China lied. And China has to pay.  

The new normal tactic of non-stop China demonization is deployed not only by crude functionaries of the industrial-military-surveillance-media complex. We need to dig much deeper to discover how these attitudes are deeply embedded in Western thinking – and later migrated to the “end of history” United States. (Here are sections of an excellent study, Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment’s Encounter with Asia , by Jurgen Osterhammel).  

Only Whites civilized

Way beyond the Renaissance, in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, whenever Europe referred to Asia it was essentially about religion conditioning trade. Christianity reigned supreme, so it was impossible to think by excluding God. 

At the same time the doctors of the Church were deeply disturbed that in the Sinified world a very well organized society could function in the absence of a transcendent religion. That bothered them even more than those “savages” discovered in the Americas.  

As it started to explore what was regarded as the “Far East,” Europe was mired in religious wars. But at the same time it was forced to confront another explanation of the world, and that fed some subversive anti-religious tendencies across the Enlightenment sphere. 

It was at this stage that learned Europeans started questioning Chinese philosophy, which inevitably they had to degrade to the status of a mere worldly “wisdom” because it escaped the canons of Greek and Augustinian thought. This attitude, by the way, still reigns today.

Uh.., About That New 4-F Medical Disqualification From "Selective Service"...,

livescience |  After the new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 enters the human body, it seems to reach sites well beyond the lungs — it's been found in the kidneys, heart, liver and gastrointestinal tract. And now, researchers have detected the virus in semen, according to a small study.

However, the findings, published Thursday (May 7) in the journal JAMA Network Open, don't necessarily mean that the virus can be sexually transmitted through contact with semen.

The study involved 38 men in Shangqiu, China, who had tested positive for COVID-19 and were experiencing symptoms of the disease or had recently recovered. Participants provided semen samples, which doctors analyzed for the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The researchers detected SARS-CoV-2 in sperm from six participants, or 16% overall. Of these, four patients were currently experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, and two patients had recently recovered.  Fist tap Big Don

WELP - THAT SPLAINS THAT!!!

npr |   The nation's top military officer says the Pentagon is still weighing its options when it comes to recruitment and COVID-19, several days after an internal memo surfaced publicly that suggested all recovered patients would be ineligible to join the military. That interim guidance was revised Wednesday to suggest that only those who had been hospitalized would be disqualified — but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley, told NPR that even the latest version remains just a draft.

"During the medical history interview or examination, a history of COVID-19, confirmed by either a laboratory test or a clinician diagnosis, is permanently disqualifying," officials stated in the earlier version of the document, which the Pentagon has confirmed as authentic.  Fist tap Dale.

Judge Moyes, Brah....., You Plumb Forget You In Texas?!?!?!

dallasnews |  The fast-moving sequence of events that sprang her from jail, though, left some local lawyers and state Democrats distressed over state GOP leaders’ hasty back-pedaling from public health orders on the novel coronavirus.

Critics from the legal profession and Texas’ minority political party accused Abbott and other top Texas Republican politicians of advocating selective enforcement that aided a white business owner from Far North Dallas – all the while, setting a bad precedent.

“Greg Abbott dangles political red meat for his base while ignoring his own established guidelines and executive orders,” said Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party.

“Abbott wants Texans to focus on the trivial,” to divert attention from deaths from COVID-19, Garcia said in a written statement.

U.S. Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Terrell, though, tweeted, “Great move by Governor @GregAbbott_TX.”

Abbott spokesman John Wittman declined to comment on criticism of the Republican governor’s intervention.

In Washington, President Donald Trump attributed Luther’s release to Abbott -- though it was her lawyer’s victory in obtaining an emergency order from the state Supreme Court, not Abbott’s action, that did the trick.

Abbott, during a White House visit, was happy to take credit.

“She is free today,” Abbott said, explaining the executive order he issued earlier in the day “saying that in the state of Texas, no one can be put behind bars because they’re not following an executive order. So that includes the woman.”

“Good,” said Trump, adding, "I was watching the salon owner and she looked so great, so 

professional, so good. And she was talking about her children. She has to feed her children.”

The day began with Luther in jail and Abbott, who’d criticized her jailing on Wednesday, tweaking his coronavirus orders to prohibit confinement -- a punishment he’d stressed in all his stay-at-home and closure orders in March and last month.

Abbott announced he was eliminating confinement as a punishment for violating the emergency orders over COVID-19, and said they would apply retroactively.

That meant Luther should be freed from the Dallas County Jail before her week-long sentence was completed, if Abbott’s latest tweak is “correctly applied,” he said in a news release.

Profound Suffering Is The Fire In Which Herd Mentality Is Forged

consentfactory |  There comes a point in the introduction of every new official narrative when people no longer remember how it started. Or, rather, they remember how it started, but not the propaganda that started it. Or, rather, they remember all that (or are able to, if you press them on it), but it doesn’t make any difference anymore, because the official narrative has supplanted reality.

You’ll remember this point from the War on Terror, and specifically the occupation of Iraq. By the latter half of 2004, most Westerners had completely forgotten the propaganda that launched the invasion, and thus regarded the Iraqi resistance as “terrorists,” despite the fact that the United States had invaded and was occupying their country for no legitimate reason whatsoever. By that time, it was abundantly clear that there were no “weapons of mass destruction,” and that the U.S.A. had invaded a nation that had not attacked it, and posed no threat to it, and so was perpetrating a textbook war of aggression.

These facts did not matter, not in the slightest. By that time, Westerners were totally immersed in the official War on Terror narrative, which had superseded objective reality. Herd mentality had taken over. It’s difficult to describe how this works; it’s a state of functional dissociation. It wasn’t that people didn’t know the facts, or that they didn’t understand the facts. They knew the Iraqis weren’t “terrorists.” At the same time, they knew they were definitely “terrorists,” despite the fact that they knew that they weren’t. They knew there were no WMDs, that there had never been any WMDs, and still they were certain there were WMDs, which would be found, although they clearly did not exist. 

The same thing happened in Nazi Germany. The majority of the German people were never fanatical anti-Semites like the hardcore N.S.D.A.P. members. If they had been, there would have been no need for Goebbels and his monstrous propaganda machine. No, the Germans during the Nazi period, like the Americans during the War on Terror, knew that their victims posed no threat to them, and at the same time they believed exactly the opposite, and thus did not protest as their neighbors were hauled out of their homes and sent off to death camps, camps which, in their dissociative state, simultaneously did and did not exist.

What I’m describing probably sounds like psychosis, but, technically speaking, it isn’t … not quite. It is not an absolute break from reality. People functioning in this state know that what they believe is not real. Nonetheless, they are forced to believe it (and do, actually, literally, believe it, as impossible as I know that sounds), because the consequences of not believing it are even more frightening than the cognitive dissonance of believing a narrative they know is a fiction. Disbelieving the official narrative means excommunication from “normality,” the loss of friends, income, status, and in many cases far worse punishments. Herd animals, in a state of panic, instinctively run towards the center of the herd. Separation from the herd makes them easy prey for pursuing predators. It is the same primal instinct operating here.

What Role Did The Spanish Flu Play In The Origin Of The Third Reich?

politico |  A new academic paper produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York concludes that deaths caused by the 1918 influenza pandemic “profoundly shaped German society” in subsequent years and contributed to the strengthening of the Nazi Party.

The paper, published this month and authored by New York Fed economist Kristian Blickle, examined municipal spending levels and voter extremism in Germany from the time of the initial influenza outbreak until 1933, and shows that “areas which experienced a greater relative population decline” due to the pandemic spent “less, per capita, on their inhabitants in the following decade.” 

The paper also shows that “influenza deaths of 1918 are correlated with an increase in the share of votes won by right-wing extremists, such as the National Socialist Workers Party” in Germany’s 1932 and 1933 elections.

Together, the lower spending and flu-related deaths “had a strong effect on the share of votes won by extremists, specifically the extremist national socialist party” — the Nazis — the paper posits. “This result is stronger for right-wing extremists, and largely non-existent for left-wing extremists.”

Despite becoming popularly known as the Spanish flu, the influenza pandemic likely originated in the United States at a Kansas military base, eventually infecting about one-third of the global population and killing at least 50 million people worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Germany experienced roughly 287,000 influenza deaths between 1918 and 1920, Blickle writes.

And What's Behind the Touting of Remdesivir?

"Love Passionately." Smaller letters advise: take PrEP, (it might say something about financial assistance available)  The PrEP regimen involves Gilead's drug Truveda.   Gilead has donated thousands of the pills to the federal government, but government pays for the required  prescription/ distribution/ monitoring by physicians, and at a cost multiples of times the cost of the pills.

Gilead encourages risky behavior in its advertising for this drug to curb the effects of that behavior, all at taxpayer expense. Fauci's involvement with HIV AIDS was highly controversial. Same Fauci, in league with Gates, is now behind a lockdown forcing not-sick, not-risk-taking persons to abstain from normal life functions, then advising the use of a drug produced by Gilead to cure "the invisible enemy".

A rising public awareness of the lack of integrity of career officials at yet another 3 letter federal agency. In the short term it serves as yet another excuse for draconian state policies that will result in the destruction of the economy and thus the Republic. Meanwhile there is plenty of money to be made:

NIH evaded disclosure of the massive financial links of its members to Gilead Sciences, the manufacturer of a competing drug remdesivir. Among those who failed to disclose such links are 2 out of 3 of its co-chairs." "Nearly 20% of this panel is employed by or has investment interests in Gilead."

My, imagine that. The NIH Panel on COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines is made up of 50 researchers and physicians. This panel will decide treatment recommendations for Remdesivir.

Remember in 2014 when Gilead won FDA approval for the drug Harvoni? The price per patient was $94,500 if you wanted your Hepatitis C cured.  Gilead isn’t a charity.  May 4 - Gilead receives $37.5M grant to develop/test Remdesivir—courtesy of US taxpayers. Taxpayer funded study shows small non-mortality benefit. FDA approves Remdesivir

Patient cost: $1000

Remdesivir manufacture cost: $10

Gilead projected 2020 revenue for Remdesivir: $1,000,000,000

Like A BOSS!!!

independent |  Donald Trump did not wear a mask during his visit to an Arizona mask manufacturing plant on Tuesday, which played the Guns N’ Roses cover of James Bond theme song “Live and Let Die” during the event.

Mr Trump arrived alongside other White House officials in Phoenix, Arizona, to watch the production of millions of N-95 medical masks worn by medical staff during the coronavirus  pandemic.

The president, who has been unwilling to wear a mask during the coronavirus pandemic, said on Tuesday morning that he would “if it was a mask environment”.

Workers could be seen wearing masks, whilst a sign read that all persons should wear masks, as the White House entourage looked on with goggles.

The presidential tour on Tuesday climaxed when the chorus of “Live and Let Die” played over a Honeywell executive’s explanation of how the material protected wearers from the virus that has now claimed more than 70,000 American lives.

“If this ever-changing world in which we live in / Makes you give in and cry / say live and let die” blared on the PA system as the plant executive shouted over the Guns N’ Roses cover of the popular James Bond theme ‘Live and Let Die”, written by Paul McCartney.

Coming on the same day that the White House confirmed it would disband its coronavirus task force within weeks, commentators provided their own take on Tuesday’s presidential spectacle.

Why Are "Our" Strains Of Coronavirus Different From Asian Strains Of Coronavirus?

spectator |  One of the great mysteries of coronavirus is how the epidemic has become much more severe in Europe and North America than in the Far East. A disease which appeared to be on the wane in China, South Korea and elsewhere in mid-February suddenly erupted with a vengeance in Europe in March, with death tolls quickly surpassing those in Wuhan. Various explanations have been offered: from the Chinese lying about the extent of cases and deaths to the difficulties of enforcing lockdowns and launching intrusive tracking and tracing strategies in western democracies.

But then have we really been fighting the same disease? A pre-publication paper from a team at the University of Sheffield and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico suggests one reason that Europe and North America might have suffered much more than East Asia from Covid-19 is that we have been fighting a mutation of the virus which causes it, SARS-CoV-2. The team have analysed the ‘spike protein’ in the virus and found 14 different mutations, but one in particular has caused them concern. 

Early in the outbreak – and this was true in Europe as well as in Asia – samples of the virus contained a version of the protein known as D614. But a different version, G614, began to emerge in samples from both Europe and China. In Italy and Switzerland, from early on, it was found to be the dominant version. Elsewhere in Europe, too, G614 rapidly displaced D614 – and seems to have a competitive advantage over it. Germany had a small outbreak of D614 followed by a second eruption of cases of G614. In Britain G614 quickly took over from D614. The same happened in North America – although the pattern is different across the country. In New York, samples have been almost entirely G614 whereas in Washington state – which has won praise for its handling of the epidemic – D614 has been more prevalent. The authors have been unable to track the evolution of D614 and G614 in China after 1 March owing to a lack of samples, but in Japan and Taiwan, early samples were all D614, with the G614 becoming more prevalent after 1 March.

The good news is that the G614 version of the virus does not seem to result in a greater risk of hospitalisation – indicating that it doesn’t cause a more serious form of the disease. However, that does leave open the possibility that the G614 version is much more easily transmissible –perhaps explaining why this disease has proved so much harder to contain in some places than others.

Other mutations were found to be of lesser importance, though do show some interesting patterns. One mutation was found only in Iceland – a country which has been praised for its low number of infections and deaths, in spite of not imposing a full lockdown – and another uniquely in Belgium, the country with the highest death rate in the world.