Silo-ized Media Fails to Prevent Discussion: A Civilized Exchange in the Era of CoVID [Updated]
A Civilized Exchange in the Era of CoVID
[Image: JU]
Publication date: 2021-09-28
Update: 2021-11-28. Culture section added.
Sorry. This is an article over an article, with commentary. Two beverages are required.
Introduction: Human Geography
Being mostly a student of mathematics and science I was most happy during a recent discussion with my son that he has become increasingly interested in scientific subjects. All credit must, of course, go to his teachers! Nonetheless, one subject, Geography, emerged and our discussion wandered into the two fundamental aspects of "Geography"; physical and human. I loved physical geography, learning about how over time different regions' physical form is influenced by weather patterns, its ecology and underlying tectonics. But, I emphasized to my son, human geography is really a statistical quantitative discipline and is the basis for the formation of government policies.
Essentially, the human geographer takes an area of the planet and divides it in some way into regions and then using the best available data (hi, Census!) to categorize the human population by any number of measures: religion, income, age, educational level, ability to drive a tractor, can read Portuguese, whatever the hell the policy makers want. Human geographers are the unseen heroes of successful policy implementation. Its a hellishly difficult topic as the reliability of the data needs to be communicated clearly to policy makers who all too often lack understanding of the precise terminology the geographers would like to use to describe the data.
Divide and Profit
A recent book by Matt Taibbi, “Hate Inc.” looks at the columnar separation of the USA's corporate media. The horizontal axis is the all to misleading linear "left/right" spectrum across which the media organisations found a place. The strategy was lead by Rupert Murdoch, an Australia media "mogul" by directing Fox News to focus on "their" conservative demographic. In the age of click-bait driven Internet delivered "news" it pays to deliver story after story that reinforces a created echo chamber. Equivalently CNN, MSNBC and others carved out their chambers and the information market is segmented not by region but political alliance.
This in itself would not be such a bad thing, apart from the echo chamber problem, but these medias are also ruled by editors with political allegiances and infested with intelligence operatives (Operation Mockingbird) which preclude certain narratives and encourage others, irrespective of evidence. When one puts together a populace that is significantly aware of how the other medias are lying to them and place trust in their own echo chamber this creates not only media profits but a polity divided against itself.
New Media
Against this backdrop of the "siloization" of established media, a new "bloggers in basements" media emerged in the middle of the first decade of this century. This "new media" were asking questions which were taboo for established media. A similar problem of "siloization" is present but largely enforced by political ideology rather than an economic model and one could wander amongst the "bloggers" and learn of interesting questions to be asked. To put the established media to shame, many of these "bloggers" would cite their references so that the reader could assess the quality of their source material.
One the one side you have established media writing stories within an "Overton window" of allowed discussion citing anonymous officials. On the other the you have someone calling it as they see it and citing their source materials. This, of course, could not be allowed. Influence over the media is critical for maintaining power, as Goebbels and Rove knew well.
Many of the early "dot com" or "silicon valley" startups were funded by In-Q-Tel the investment arm of the CIA, and these were the places that the power structure visited to control these "bloggers". Through variously turning attacks on speech via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and later descending into the insanity of "Fact Checking" we arrive at today's media. Video footage shot by a freelancer is removed from publication by publisher X for "community guidelines infringement” while the same footage licensed to established media is still published by the same publisher under their channel. Many variants on this theme exist. This completely hypocritical stance has been on display again and again for at least the last two years. Still not enough, the credit card processors got involved and started denying "bloggers" the use of their payment processing facilities. It is quite insane and relentless. When is it good that banks are censors?
But, this all means that the "bloggers" are succeeding.
Conspiracies upon Conspiracies
The other natural response is the Cass Sunstein approach, get them fighting amongst themselves!
There are two major problems with "conspiracy theories". The first is that they exist (not the theories, the conspiracies), and the second is that it was a term coined and promoted by the CIA during the Warren hearings into the assassination of JFK. However, this too is a boon. Anyone seriously using the dismissive term has a struggle between their two brain cells trying to maintain their ignorance or the cognitive dissonance upon which their equilibrium or bank balance depends. Mark them down as lost in the woods.
So, while one has the two-cell conspiracy theory slingers flying around alternative and social media, there are also multi-celled actors casting even more crazy theories to divert and distract those who are hunting in the new media space for interesting questions and evidence to support those inquiries.
These multi-celled actors are not someone living in their mother's basement, but are funded by government agencies. Take the Integrity Initiative as an example.
Poisoning the Well
During the decade plus during which I've been wandering among the corners of the internet in which this "new media" publishes I have been given many a great lesson. The most important are to understand the perspective of the person speaking, and to validate their sources. To re-iterate, I want interesting opinions backed up by linked sources. That’s it. From there, I don't care what you are saying, I'll come to my own conclusion. Many a time I disagree with someone I think provide the best analysis.
Aside in Point
It recently came to light that General Milley had without approval contacted some elements of the Chinese leadership to let them know that the USA was not planning on or intending to start a war (nuclear or not) with China. Ray McGovern, who is a most excellent person to listen to, was most indignant about this being a violation of the chain-of-command. Yes, Ray, you are correct. But, is this a bad thing? Paul Jay's analysis behind the Jan 6th events at the USA Capitol exposed a right wing/military coup. None of it is entirely clear, but the Chinese may have been quite concerned that Trump controlling the nuclear "codes" had lost his marbles. Is Milley's reassurance that "we don't want to start another world war" such a bad thing?
Another way to put this is, is the USA's political system so distanced from its people that the military are the only sane voice? It scares the shit out of me.
Back to the Well. These independent voices in the corners of the Internet have started to align the response to the CoVID-19 pandemic with various other control mechanisms, the response to 9/11 being the most prominent. This is risky and unhelpful.
The Two Sides of the Die
Firstly, to support these independent voices, they are correct in seeing power structures using the pandemic as a mechanism for creating further control. "Never let a good crisis go to waste" and all that. And, yes, this further encroachment on civil liberties follows on from such insanity as the USA PATRIOT Act, all of the above limitations of speech which I described, and much more. Hi Edward Snowden.
This is a horrific confluence of events with a significant lack of trust in both government and the media in the USA and some parts of Europe, and having to deal with a pandemic, or scamdemic, as some refer to it, at the same time.
It is a power play.
It is a pandemic.
[Image: Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19 (USA)]
To my alternative media friends, yes these are CDC statistics, and the CDC did some stoopid things (make our own test!) and Fauci is a political stooge. But, these are the stats from the human geographers. They do not make policy decisions. They publish numbers. And, my god, whilst hunting for stats I was so annoyed all around, but the CDC’s site is fantastic. Look at the above. The vertical scale is linear. Hey! How often do you get bullcrap stats with skewed scales? These are TOTAL statistics. You can argue about the orange line all you want, but look at the raw numbers. What happened in January 2018 is another question …. The USA is close to a worst case in handling the pandemic, but it shows you that something was excess killing 10 to 20 000 USA citizens every week during the winter of 2020/2021.
Get that into your head and think carefully about how to respond. Different countries using different strategies under different circumstances have had different outcomes in dealing with CoVID-19. Cherry picking your stats does not change the existence of the pandemic, and using that to fuel resentment is completely counter-productive.
I have been frustrated by a combination of wise council and alarmist rhetoric coming from these quarters. On the one hand the advice is community formation and collective action, which is a known successful resistance to autocracy and oligarchy, while on the other is alarmist commentary not declaring but implying militant resistance. Violence always plays into the hands of the group that are legally allowed to use violence against you; the government.
I present below a discussion on CoVID-19. The key word is discussion.
I had a “chat” with a friend and hope that showing that people can still be thoughtful and civil may inspire others.
A CoVID Discussion
An old friend who has been in what could be described as the epicenter of the Australian struggle with the CoVID outbreak, the City of Melbourne in the State of Victoria, has consented to this republication of his thoughts.
They are considerate, thoughtful, and heartfelt. He reaches his own conclusion. His article is shown first, followed by my response interleaved with his response to that, prefixed by “JU”.
Its a couple of adults coming to terms with each other and the world around them.
A Values Based Perspective on Vaccination (JU’s article)
Regardless of whether you think vaccines are great or dangerous, of whether COVID is from nature or a lab cultured conspiracy, we can probably all agree that continuing to be in lockdown is disastrous.
For those of us in Victoria, it’s particularly bleak and people are really starting to lose it. Domestic violence 1 and mental illness 2 have skyrocketed. It’s especially hard on kids 3 . Self harm and suicidal ideation have gone through the roof. Bullying is also on the rise. We’re all at risk of collapsing into a pit of despair, pain and anger, turning on each other and ourselves as the threads of hope slip through our fingers.
People can talk all they like about how unfair it is (agreed), how myopic our governments have been across the board (very) and protest or fantasize about overthrowing them (pointless/won’t happen). The bottom line is, we’re not going to get our freedoms back until the powers that be are happy that vaccination levels are at a point that mitigates political risk. That is, if things fuck up, they can say, “it’s not my fault”. For us down south, our Dan has galvanised himself into a modern day, zinc plated 4 Teutonic Knight, fighting the holy war. He holds Catholic flavoured sanctity of life in one hand and the hallowed cricket bat of public health in the other, saving the game with a captain’s knock of 221 not out. Try arguing with that and see how far you get.
I appreciate many people are concerned about both the health risks of a relatively short testing period for the vaccines (1 year vs 8) and the degree of coercion being applied. Both are worthy of at least a raised eyebrow, probably more.
If this is you, I would like to offer my perspective, by way of an analogy, that hopefully is of value. It’s about the relationship I’ve come to accept with the virus itself.
After initially being pretty scared, I recognised that risk is part of life and to hide away from risk is also to hide from life. As a consequence, I refused to be intimidated by the prospect of lasting illness or death from COVID. Sure, I’d take reasonable precautions and respect other people’s level of concern, but generally, I’ve done what I can to just get on with things. Tangibly, this means - acknowledge the changed environment, control the controllable and try and make the best of the rest.
Yes, there may be risks taking a fast tracked vaccine and yes, there is coercion and quite possibly collusion between Big Pharma and government. If you feel this way, I’d urge you to consider how likely and how severely would you be impacted by either of these 5 ? I’d then ask you to consider the same of our extended lockdown. I’m not talking about another few weeks here, I’m talking about months and months. Even if we do arrive at this magical 70 or 80% double dose figure, it’s looking increasingly likely that the unvaxxed will be severely limited in where they can go and what they can do.
Pull back and really look at all of it. We’ve got used to lots of things that aren’t acceptable, just like the frog in the pot, slowly being brought to the boil 6 . Think about all of the rights and privileges that have been taken away, the impact this has had and will continue to have on you, the people you care about and the community that supports you. By standing up for your rights, are you removing more of them? 7
Maybe this time, it’s better to *bend over and take it in the arm* than for all of this mayhem to continue. Maybe it’s the braver thing to do. Maybe it will serve the causes you are championing better because you’ll be able to connect with people again, rather than spinning your wheels behind a screen in dopaminergic outrage. Let’s face it, if things keep going as they are, there’ll be nothing left to save anyway. To me, this is the greater risk and that’s why I got vaccinated. Not because I was overly worried about getting COVID, not because I trusted the pharmaceutical companies or the government, not because I agree with taking people’s choices away. Just because I wanted to get out of this shit show as fast as possible.
[I declared that JU had invented a new word, “dopaminergic”; Nope]
>> FYI, dopaminergic is a real word. Refers to the dopamine feedback loops connected to arousal and reward. ( sort of reward - there’s a lot of debate about this. The popularise version is that dopamine is a reward neurotransmitter but people like Lisa Feldman-Barrett will say that it is something that triggers a cascade to get you ready to expend energy. Neuroscientists eh!)
If you’d like that too, I’d recommend putting your personal misgivings to one side for a moment and having a really deep think about what is important to you and how you will best achieve it in our current predicament. Are your current actions (or inaction) taking you closer towards this or further away? There’s also a lot of really daft pseudo-information flying around 8 , so I’d urge you to similarly ponder if this serves you or whether you’re being co-opted into someone else’s narrative and mission 9 .
Conversely, if you’re frustrated with people NOT get vaxxed, maybe consider listening to why this is and with as much openness and curiosity as you can muster. Chastising memes and angry voices are not helping. Very few people have ever changed their minds from being told what a blight on humanity they are. Even if the surface sounds deranged, there’s probably something deeper down that needs a voice. You can run the above values alignment/ risk analysis on them too if you like. It might be interesting to see what you have in common.
If you can examine all of this at the deepest level tolerable, you’ll be doing yourself and the rest of us a huge favour because, regardless of where you end up, you’ll know it was aligned to your highest ideals. 10
That, my friends, is the ladder back towards the sunshine.
Thanks for reading and feel free to pass this on to anyone you feel may benefit.
Footnotes
1 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-25/coronavirus-covid-lockdowns-and-domestic-violence-data/100237406
2 https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/213/10/mental-health-and-covid-19-are-we-really-all-together
3 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-01/covid-lockdowns-mental-health-young-australians-affected/100259348
4 Colorbond even – “Made tough for Aussie conditions”
5 A typical tool to determine what level of risk is present
https://www.project-risk-manager.com/blog/risk-matrix-sizing/
6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
7 It’s a genuine question, not a cloaked statement. Sometimes it’s really important to stand up for your rights, even if it hurts you personally.
8 https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/
9 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-06/fears-misinformation-targeting-australias-diverse-communities- /100405706
10 https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/post/we-see-as-we-be. You can even do a quiz to see which cult you’re most likely to join here https://quiz.recapturetherapture.com/sf/071e0566
11
Response (this “blogger”'s response to JU, with his commentary interleaved)
The Argument from Necessity
The argument presented lays out the damage being done to society by government policy in the recently unprecedented outbreak of a global pandemic. The solution is to "take it in the arm" and thus give the slimy politicians their political escape route so that society can reknit its bonds when they are forced to not screw "us" over anymore.
The extreme arguments from the you're being micro-chipped and blue-pilled with experimental vaccines which will have you Matrix'd to hell, to the all anti-vaxxers are conspiracy theory science deniers who lost their tin hats, are not on offer. Instead, compassion is advised.
There are assumptions at play, which are worthy of consideration. How and when will "normalcy" return? Relevant lessons from history are that fear is a powerful tool for any government, and that civil rights, once removed, are almost never returned. Massive changes in societies during global wars are an exception (except for the PATRIOT Act). Is what we are seeing an incremental reduction in civil liberties to never be returned or an emergency civil liberties grab to later be eased? A little of each, perhaps.
JU: Totally agree and it’s a tough one to capitulate with forces whose mechanisms I fundamentally disagree with. It’s more that we are so fucked and separate at the moment, almost nothing useful is positive. At least if we get a semblance of civil liberties back we can them take up the fight. I’m under no illusions that oligarchs and the like will take this whole phase as a wonderful opportunity to further consolidate their power. I think you said a while ago “ never let a good crisis go to waste"
Fear
When the WHO comes out with their global health alert countries respond in their own way. The USA's decision to not use the existing testing mechanism but to develop their own instead of just taking the existing, or doing both in parallel, has got to be seen as one of the greatest public health failures in a very long time. Australia, a collection of islands, decided to do the "close the borders and test, and test, and test" strategy. Makes sense, if you think about it. But, SARS-CoV-2 is highly transmissible and all it takes is the odd cruise liner or lax management in "isolation hotels" and off it all goes again. Each time this "lockdown" policy is rolled out. Why?
JU: yep, here we wade into the was it incompetence or scheming? Even, was it made to look like incompetence and was ACTUALLY scheming? Australia has no viable plan for the future and the oversights re hotel quarantine, and even the vaccine rollout have been so monumental you’d figure an epileptic monkey would have done a better job. I think I even saw recently that some government health body announced that they’d discovered COVID was transmissible through the air. Seriously. This was min 12 months on from the start. That a respiratory virus went through the air. Yep. (Everyone gets a participation award these days, even the ones who don’t finish the race). As far as I know, it’s only QLD that are building any purpose made facilities for isolating returning OS travellers. In Vic, we stuck them all in high density apartment hotels and yep, locked the fuck down for months because the virus got out.
Even the latest outbreak of delta could have been prevented. State borders are theoretically closed, yet there are still flights from SYD-MEL every day. Go figure. The second last lockdown was caused because a couple of revivalists drove from sydney to melb and went to a few other places whilst here. Question : why were they let in? It doesn’t take too much imagination to come up with a protective mechanism for someones sofa to still be delivered without a side serving of respiratory disease.
Imagine the virus running wild in Australia and its public health sector being unable to respond; the old "bodies piling up outside the morgue" theme. This scares the shit out of politicians, so they took public health advice and implementented the lockdowns to avert this public opinion and public health disaster. But, to be able to repeatedly use lockdowns their fear needs to transferred to the citizenry.
JU: Totes (agree, totally)
Being a little under a half a day ahead of my time zone, I use the public funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation's news feed on a daily basis. For a year now their top story on the national news has been about CoVID 95% of the time. It drowns out all other news, every bloody day. This is a mind fuck.
JU: Double totes. I have many ( furious) words to say on this too and the behaviour of the media in general. You would think it was Ebola ripping through here and the afore mentioned corpses rotting in the streets. Australia is weird. We have such a hair trigger panic over so many things ( “Illegal” immigrants being one of them). Maybe its to do with living on an island. Maybe it’s because we’re a pack of ignorant, entitled cunts that have never known what it’s like to go without or to be genuine threatened (by a world war or two )
Normalcy
When will things return to "normal"? The vaccines provide protection against severe outcomes upon infection, but not against transmission. What does this mean? The public health sector will not be inundated and overrun by severe case loads exceeding their capacity to provide intensive care. Is this good? Hell yeah! Who is this protecting? The citizenry, yes, but the politicians too, for that is their fear. Will it stop the virus? No! Thus, the conditions for continued lockdowns remain even after everyone is double-vaxxed if and when the news media want to repeat their well established fear propaganda.
Do you see how you have been placed in this predicament?
JU: Indeed I do. People from Europe have been commenting how weird the AU response is, as though we somehow think we can just clean up all the little virus particles into a big pile and flush them down the loo, but hen, shock horror, it’s back!!! I started writing a long piece over the illusion of sanity of life right at the beginning of this virus. Might revisit it. Basically it goes - Judaeo Christian belief that hasn’t been disentangled from our political and legal system - have to save lives at all costs cos God said so- this is back when people snuffed it at 40, so fair enough for that time, not fair enough for now - we’re all terrified of death because it’s not dealt with at all in our culture. It’s as though we can somehow escape it, should escape it, and then when it happens, it’s the worst tragedy ever - probably rooted in an aspiritual society where money has become the new (false) god. Anyway….
Hobbs Choice
If you decide not to be vaccinated you risk a higher probability of an extreme case of CoVID. This can be mitigated by various patent free preventative medicines as simple as Vitamin D, but those preventions are still not as powerful as the vaccines.
Or you can decide to be vaccinated, "do your part", "take it in the arm", you will reduce any possible pressure on your national health sector, which is a good thing. But, do not think that getting vaccinated is going to stop the spread of this virus or powerful political actors using further spread for purposes other than public health.
JU: no illusions from me. I’m happy to not get really sick too though. I spoke to someone yesterday who had got cover last year and what he described was pretty awful. Took 8 months to be able to have a drink again for example
The choice is yours. My friend delineated his decision well. I agree. My decision is about personal relationships. I know I am being railroaded, largely by public opinion and also by peer pressure. I do not share any belief that everyone being vaccinated will give any return to "normal". I expect some relaxation, but repeated use of the well established fear mongering until the next threat is rolled out.
JU : Yep, normal went a long time ago. Weird and perverted is the new normal I honestly don’t have an answer as to how to come out of all of this in a way that isn’t significantly more hobbled than entering it. This guy, Jamie Wheal, I follow seems to have the best plan I’ve seen so far.
https://www.flowgenomeproject.com/newsletter
https://www.recapturetherapture.com/
Conclusion (by this “blogger”)
I'm not looking for the truth. I'm looking for interesting questions and discussion.
Sources
Meet the Censored: Matt Orfalea, Matt Taibbi, TK News, 2021-07-16
Sunstein Won: Cognitive Infiltration of the “Alternative” Media, James Corbett, CorbettReport.com, 2021-09-13
The Term “Conspiracy Theory” Was Invented by the CIA In Order To Prevent Disbelief of Official Government Stories, Paul Craig Roberts, www.paulcraigroberts.org, 2016-08-24
Inside the temple of covert propaganda: The Integrity Initiative and the UK’s scandalous information war, Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone, 2018-12-17
Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA), current date (2021-09-28)
Excess Mortality across Countries in 2020, Ufuk Parildar, Rafael Perara, Jason Oke, The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, 2021-03-03
Chris Hedges: America’s Fate — Oligarchy or Autocracy, Chris Hedges, Consortium News, 2021-09-27
Culture
Stagger Lee - Chris Whitley & Jeff Lang, it says what it is, Jeff Lang’s youtube channel, uploaded 2017-08-29
With thanks to Jeff Lang, his music and creativity.
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