Coronavirus

[Peter]

2 hours ago, turkeyfoot said:

As news of 15 mandate free states travels (more than 25% now) folks register new feelings about their own lock down states.

Well said. I see no reason to "force" people to do what "the government" thinks is right. If you don't want to wear a mask don't, and if you do, then wear it. State mask mandates are a bit iffier. I don't want to be harassed or arrested so I will wear in it if a store has a state sign on their door. 

However, private property is different. If Walmart says you need a mask to enter, so be it. How to get around the problem of finding it hard to breath? I arrange the medal strip on my mask to move it away from my nose to allow air in and out. If I am in a store aisle and alone I may pinch and pull my mask up enough to easily breath.     

[Ellen Stuttle]

A very important guest article appeared today on Gateway Pundit:

 

=======

 

The Overwhelming Evidence of the Origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic Was Covered Up by US Government Officials, US Scientific Authorities and Their Chinese Counterparts

 

Guest post by Lawrence Sellin, PhD

Already by the end of January 2020, elements within the U.S. government and the U.S. scientific establishment were becoming increasingly concerned that the American people might learn the truth about the origin of the COVID-19.

That is, it was an artificial virus created in a laboratory in the People’s Republic of China with the assistance of U.S. scientists and funding from the U.S. government.

In addition to pressure coming directly from the Chinese Communist Party, there was, no doubt, similar coercion being brought to bear on susceptible and compliant people in Washington D.C. by international financial interests, whose investments in China would be placed in jeopardy if it was widely accepted that China manufactured the COVID-19 virus.

Similarly at stake were the careers of prominent members of the U.S. scientific establishment, who could be considered complicit or potentially culpable.

There was also the likely loss of trust by the American people in the integrity of science overall.

Like their partners in China, what U.S. government officials and members of the U.S. scientific establishment feared most was accountability.

That was the primary selfish motive for the cover-up they appeared to have initiated.

It began on February 3, 2020, when a meeting was held at U.S. National Academy of Science, led by Kelvin Droegemeier, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy; D. Christian Hassell, Senior Science Advisor, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health.

....... [See the full article]
 

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[turkeyfoot]

6 hours ago, Peter said:

Well said. I see no reason to "force" people to do what "the government" thinks is right. If you don't want to wear a mask don't, and if you do, then wear it. State mask mandates are a bit iffier. I don't want to be harassed or arrested so I will wear in it if a store has a state sign on their door. 

However, private property is different. If Walmart says you need a mask to enter, so be it. How to get around the problem of finding it hard to breath? I arrange the medal strip on my mask to move it away from my nose to allow air in and out. If I am in a store aisle and alone I may pinch and pull my mask up enough to easily breath.     

I know for you it'd be a bit much but really.... 

Who's fooling who? All of the stores I've gone into, without exception, do nothing to enforce state mandates. Its not as if they say no trespassing, violators will be shot upon finding no masks on their person. Its a fools errand to to have an employee designated to confront customers. The vast majority wear masks and the few who don't, eh. Shops need/want buyers. They don't want a scene either and they feel as the majority feels, if you take precautions yourselves that is good for most everyone. Yes, the legal system has seen fit to legalize governors mandates with penalties but there exists other penalties for not following HIPPA, where you cant know if a person is unable to wear a mask, so shop owners roll the die but risk a penalty greater than what the state might impose. Many stores had originally posted that the issue was up to the customer as in "enter at your own risk".  

Its one of the strangest things I've seen about human nature and its contemptible. When i think of the vast majority I see chickens roosting on an open pyre. ha ha 

 

[Ellen Stuttle]

On 3/3/2021 at 11:18 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I could go on, but what is the essential difference between pushing a brand name drug for money, or fudging the need to take a test for money, and endorsing cigarettes in a magazine for money? The fudged endorsement is the same. And so is the money.

Michael,

The point I was trying to make about the doctor-endorsement cigarette ads didn’t get through, so I'll try again.

What I started to wonder in my childhood about those ads wasn’t if the doctors were being bribed - which is what I interpret you as believing was happening - but whether the advertisers were really asking doctors at all.  In other words, I suspected that the testimonials were from fictional doctors, that the advertisers were outright lying, not that they were bribing doctors.  Outright lying would have been significantly less expensive than bribing.

Ellen

[Peter]

We will get our second covid-19 shots in a couple of weeks, and our mortality and hospitalization rates will sink to five or ten percent . . . or less. Just curious. Does anyone dispute that? Peter

I should add, our mortality rate will lower "if we get the coronavirus."

[Peter]

Ellen wrote, “Outright lying would have been significantly less expensive than bribing.”

When Reagan was running for President they used an old ad he did for cigarettes against him. I remember, almost precisely, when the “warning” was placed on all packs of cigarettes, and I had just driven (proudly with my new license) to a grocery store when a truck pulled up to deliver and it had a rendition / advertisement of a pack of cigarettes on the side, without the warning label. Some people started getting mad at the driver because it did not have a warning.

My Mom and Dad were still smoking then and my Mom who had come with me to the California store actually agreed with them. She knew cigarettes affected her breathing and she hated that she was addicted to them and needed to put out money to buy them . . . but she couldn’t / wouldn’t quit. Both of my parent’s lives were shortened because of smoking, and my Dad died horribly from Emphysema.   

From Wikipedia . . . .   In 1966 the Federal government mandated that cigarette packs have a warning on them from the surgeon general . . . .  There are three levels of warning, CAUTION, WARNING and DANGER:^[ Caution indicates a potentially hazardous situation that, if not avoided, may result in minor or moderate injury. Warning indicates a potentially hazardous situation that, if not avoided, could result in death or serious injury. Danger indicates an imminently hazardous situation that, if not avoided, will result in death or serious injury. This word is limited to the use in the most extreme situations.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

What I started to wonder in my childhood about those ads wasn’t if the doctors were being bribed - which is what I interpret you as believing was happening - but whether the advertisers were really asking doctors at all.  In other words, I suspected that the testimonials were from fictional doctors, that the advertisers were outright lying, not that they were bribing doctors.  Outright lying would have been significantly less expensive than bribing.

Ellen,

According to the bio of Bernays, he used real doctors. And he didn't pay them bribes. He paid them ad fees just like any celebrity gets paid for endorsements. A lot of times, they got free cigarettes and only that.  

(As an aside, his biggest coup for cigarettes was not getting doctor endorsements. It was getting women to start smoking. Half of the population back then--women--didn't smoke. The few who did were looked down on. He made it cool for women to smoke. His uncle was Sigmund Freud, so he wed the "phallic symbol," "oral fixation" and emerging feminist movement to smoking. During the Easter Day Parade in NYC in 1929, he had a group of flappers stop strategically in front of where he had a huge press gaggle assigned. They pulled out their "torches of freedom" and lit up. The story spread like wildfire across the US and the profits of cigarette manufacturers practically doubled overnight.)

But, to give you something more concrete than "I read Berrnays's bio," I did a quick search and found an article about doctors and cigarette ads.

When Cigarette Companies Used Doctors to Push Smoking
Before studies showed that cigarettes caused cancer, tobacco companies recruited the medical community for their ads.

Quote

The first cigarette company to use physicians in their ads was American Tobacco, maker of Lucky Strikes. In 1930, it published an ad claiming “20,679 Physicians say ‘LUCKIES are less irritating’” to the throat. To get this number, the company’s ad agency had sent physicians cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes and a letter asking if they thought Lucky Strikes were “less irritating to sensitive and tender throats than other cigarettes,” while noting “a good many people” had already said they were.

Unsurprisingly, many doctors responded positively to this biased, leading question, and Lucky Strike ads used their answers to imply their cigarettes must be medically better for your throat. In 1937, the Philip Morris company took that one step forward with a Saturday Evening Post ad claiming doctors had conducted a study showing “when smokers changed to Philip Morris, every case of irritation cleared completely and definitely improved.” What it didn’t mention was that Philip Morris had sponsored those doctors.

Philip Morris continued to advertise “studies” it sponsored through the 1940s, the decade that saw the introduction of penicillin. “The American public is thinking about medicine in such a positive way and science in a positive way,” says Gardner, who co-authored an American Journal of Public Health article about doctors in cigarette ads. “So framing it that way seems like it’ll help appeal to people.”

To this end, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company created a Medical Relations Division and advertised it in medical journals. Reynolds began paying for research and then citing it in its ads like Philip Morris. In 1946, Reynolds launched an ad campaign with the slogan, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” They’d solicited this “finding” by giving doctors a free carton of Camel cigarettes, and then asking what brand they smoked.

American Tobacco was a big Bernays client. It was also involved in the Torches for Freedom campaign. Notice that the doctor's survey occurred in 1930 while the Torches for Freedom stunt was in 1929.

I am sure many ads back then had made up doctors, too. Just like with infomercials these days for nutritional supplements, eyedrops to keep eyes wet, diet plans and so on. The ads I showed in my post were national ads. But, in my marketing and advertising studies, I remember seeing a few cigarette ads (probably at the local level) with doctors who used their names. I would have to dig to find a few, but they're out there.

Michael

[ThatGuy]

Doctors, schmoctors...who needs 'em. I got two words for ya: "They're toasted." - Don Draper, MAD MEN

[william.scherk]

How much was Santa paid by Bernays?

 

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by william.scherk

[Max]

6 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

 In other words, I suspected that the testimonials were from fictional doctors, that the advertisers were outright lying, not that they were bribing doctors.  Outright lying would have been significantly less expensive than bribing.

I think that "doctors" in advertisements seldom are real doctors, that in most cases they are just actors/models.

[Ellen Stuttle]

4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

When Cigarette Companies Used Doctors to Push Smoking

 

How odd.  The doctor in the picture at the link looks like a doctor friend of Father's who "smoked like a chimney."  Father smoked, too - Camels.  He tried to quit a couple times but went back to smoking.

I once attended an AMA (American Medical Association) conference dinner with him.  The room was full of smoke.

—-

I didn’t know anything about Bernays and his role in cigarette advertising.  I think you’ve talked about him before on OL, but I wasn’t paying attention.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

6 hours ago, Peter said:

We will get our second covid-19 shots in a couple of weeks, and our mortality and hospitalization rates will sink to five or ten percent . . . or less. Just curious. Does anyone dispute that? Peter

I should add, our mortality rate will lower "if we get the coronavirus."

There are indications to the contrary.  I haven’t had a chance to look into the reports yet.  Probably not wise to abandon caution.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

48 minutes ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

I didn’t know anything about Bernays and his role in cigarette advertising.  I think you’ve talked about him before on OL, but I wasn’t paying attention.

Ellen,

Eddie Bernays used to call what he did "propaganda." He even wrote a book called Propaganda (which is basically about marketing on a large scale). There was a problem, though. A huge admirer of his was one Joseph Goebbels. After the Nazi loss in WWII, the term "propaganda" was perceived by most people as gross manipulation of the public, so Bernays himself replaced it with the term "public relations" and pumped that term hard enough that it took. There's even a video somewhere of Bernays himself talking about it. I remember embedding it here on OL.

There is a lot in American life that owes its roots to Bernays. We eat bacon and eggs for breakfast--which was Bernays selling pigs. We use Dixie cups because they are "sanitary" (hi Eddie  ). And Ivory soap floats, which makes it better. Doctors said so and were glad Eddie got in touch so they could educate the public about that. You can even sculpt with Ivory soap... 

The reason Guatemala became such a political mess is due to Bernays' shenanigans for The United Fruit Company (which is basically Chiquita today). That's too long to go into, but it's one hell of a story.

Bernays was wicked smart, but he hated people. He thought most people were stupid. And he treated them as livestock to be herded by "engineering consent" (another term he liked). He was the ultimate elitist.

In O-Land, they don't talk much about Bernays because so many believe Rand's ideas make them impervious to manipulation techniques. 

Heh... Look at how many blindly believe the stories in the fake news mainstream media are true, even after you show them the lies with proof positive...

A thought just occurred to me about that, too. Whenever you see a stage hypnotist bantering with a crowd before a show, he's actually selecting people who are most open to suggestion. This same process is used, like with A/B testing, for propaganda and marketing.

For propaganda, I believe a good number of O-Land people would screen directly into perfect subjects (the Trump-haters, of course  ). You couldn't use traditional framing on them, but alter a traditional frame just a little and make it Rand-friendly and you can get them to swallow almost anything. I watch it happen all the time.

Story is a great tool for this. Sometimes I wish I were evil and just go for it...

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Max said:

I think that "doctors" in advertisements seldom are real doctors, that in most cases they are just actors/models.

Max,

I also believe that's true--these days.

I'm pretty sure this was not as widespread in earlier times, though.

Do you have any information to look at about this or is this just an opinion? (I'm fine either way.  )

Michael

[turkeyfoot]

On 3/5/2021 at 12:57 PM, Peter said:

We will get our second covid-19 shots in a couple of weeks, and our mortality and hospitalization rates will sink to five or ten percent . . . or less. Just curious. Does anyone dispute that? Peter

I should add, our mortality rate will lower "if we get the coronavirus."

Are saying owing to the "vaccination" you are at lower risk of......SARS-CoV-2? I'd wrestle with that dubious number for a while. Think of it like this. The effective rates were said to be high 90 percentile, yes? Except for J&J's. Did that include those in the higher risk cases such as co-morbidities, age etc? I wouldn't read, into the effectiveness level, more than is there. Do you think the efficacy was proven on elderly and co-morbid folks? I wouldn't think they would qualify and even if they did I'd wonder how many in those categories would "risk" an untested "vaccine".

This is the best drilling down information I saw: The vaccine appeared to be more or less equally protective across age groups and racial and ethnic groups.

Additionally the Moderna and Phizer "vaccines" required extreme temperatures. Were there fail safes to guaranty temps were steady? J&J's can be in standard refrigeration for 3 months.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/02/02/comparing-the-covid-19-vaccines-developed-by-pfizer-moderna-and-johnson-johnson/

Once you're in the hospital for other causes (you didn't say mortality due to things other than SARS-CoV-2) all bets are off. If the Dr doesn't kill ya there are high rates of infections due to the lowered immunity.

From NIH:

Most methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections are contracted in hospitals and other health care facilities. Antibiotic use, patients' weakened immune systems, close contact among people, and open wounds all make hospitals prime breeding grounds for these bugs

[Peter]

6 hours ago, turkeyfoot said:

Most methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections are contracted in hospitals and other health care facilities.

If I survive my second shot on March 19, I will report the facts. joke. Now a family member who has gotten two shots has said the immunization is only good for two months. Say it isn't so.        

[turkeyfoot]

9 hours ago, Peter said:

If I survive my second shot on March 19, I will report the facts. joke. Now a family member who has gotten two shots has said the immunization is only good for two months. Say it isn't so.        

1-800-hell-ova-x? CCP operators are standing by.

[Peter]

To curb anxiety over Covid-19 I recommend listening to, “Sweet Haven” from the Robin William’s movie “Popeye,” “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” by Iris Dement, “Home,” by Engineer band, and Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don't Fear) The Reaper.” And get the shot.

[tmj]

I like Sympathy for the Devil, by Jagger and Richards, and have little anxiety about the China Death Plague.

[Ellen Stuttle]

6 hours ago, Peter said:

And get the shot.

No, thanks.

Remember, Peter, the big cheeses behind the development of these "vaccines" are "transhumanists" who want humankind to become basically obsolete.

Ellen

[ThatGuy]

On 3/7/2021 at 7:00 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:

No, thanks.

Remember, Peter, the big cheeses behind the development of these "vaccines" are "transhumanists" who want humankind to become basically obsolete.

Ellen

This brings up an interesting question/comparison between Transhumanists and Ayn Rand's ideas...

I don't think one could call Rand a transhumanist, and she certainly would not advocate for coerced body modifications...BUT...

As Chris Matthew Sciabbara noted, Rand had rejected the "feminist" label, despite having overlapping ideas. "She dissociated herself from modem feminism because she believed that it had embraced biological egalitarianism and collectivist statism." But then he follows that with this: "But in his work since 1968, Branden is far more concerned with the need to transcend culturally induced dualism in gender relations."

So, there is a kind of transcendence in Rand's ideas of humanity. Two particular examples come to mind.

First,  This Roark quote in The Fountainhead:
 

Quote

I love this earth. That’s all I love. I don’t like the shape of things on this earth. I want to change them.”
“For whom?”
“For myself.”

And then, this, from The Romantic Manifesto:

Quote

 

Here is a passage in The Fountainhead that deals with this issue: the passage in which Howard Roark explains to Steven Mallory why he chose him to do a statue for the Stoddard Temple. In writing that passage, I was consciously and deliberately stating the essential goal of my own work—as a kind of small, personal manifesto: “I think you’re the best sculptor we’ve got. I think it, because your figures are not what men are, but what men could be—and should be. Because you’ve gone beyond the probable and made us see what is possible, but possible only through you. Because your figures are more devoid of contempt for humanity than any work I’ve ever seen. Because you have a magnificent respect for the human being. Because your figures are the heroic in man.”

…the words “possible only through you” should not be taken to mean that Mallory’s figures were impossible metaphysically, in reality; I meant that they were possible only because he had shown the way to make them possible. “Your figures are not what men are, but what men could be—and should be.”

 

Now, here, I wanted to add another quote, but I can't track it down. But it was something to the effect of Rand praising a painter who added a muscle to a figure that didn't exist, and when someone objected, the painter replied "but it SHOULD." Now, she might have put that quote into the same context as the above quote about Mallory's art . And this does suggest that Rand favored mind over muscle. And yet, as she told Nathaniel Branden, in regards to sex (and to his surprise), "the animal is not unimportant." And although in her time, such biological modifications were mainly science fiction/fantasy/allegory, modern technology has started to make some of those fantasies reality.

So it would be interesting to see how she might have approached the scientific advancements in biology that the transhumanists champion. Would she approve? Disapprove? Identify a false dichotomy? Her refusal to take a strong stand for or against evolution suggest some ambiguity as to how she might have approached it (or, for our purposes, how Objectivism might be used to approach it) . Nathaniel Branden, for his part, had made statements such as "evolution is still happening to us and through us."

[Peter]

8 hours ago, ThatGuy said:

Nathaniel Branden, for his part, had made statement such as "evolution is still happening to us and through us."

Jeesus. You're smart. I will have to reread that when it isn't so late.

Ivanhoe, son of Cedric the Saxon.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Nathaniel's statement is New Agey wooze.  He’d have made a good "useful idiot" from the technocrat manipulators' standpoint.

Ellen

[ThatGuy]

1 hour ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Nathaniel's statement is New Agey wooze.  He’d have made a good "useful idiot" from the technocrat manipulators' standpoint.

Ellen

A claim not without some merit, given Branden's association with Ken Wilber...just went looking for his evolution quote, since I had posted it from memory, when I came across this (the first result in my Google search):

"Atlas Evolved"...I haven't listened to it yet, but the title alone suggests transhumanism and evolution, and possibly a metaphorical "genetic alteration" of Objectivism...

[Edit: Just read the synopsis, and came across the term "Human potential movement". I had heard that term before in relation to Branden, forgot about that...and it does mention "self-transcendence", so it does seem that Branden IS endorsing some variant of Transhumanism...]
 

Synopsis:

"Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand’s former lover and the inspiration for her famous John Galt character, was at ground zero during the rise of the Objectivist movement. In this exclusive six-hour dialogue, Atlas Evolved: The Life and Loves of Nathaniel Branden, Nathaniel offers an intimate insider’s view of the origins, major contributions, and inevitable limitations of Rand’s philosophy and the intellectual movement it sparked. Masterfully hosted by Ken Wilber, this talk offers invaluable insight into Ayn Rand’s legacy, the human potential movement, romantic love, self-esteem, self-transcendence, and the art of conscious living."

[ThatGuy]

Haven't found the quote I'm looking for yet, but this is from an essay on his website, "Self-Esteem in the Information Age":

"Recent and emerging technological and economic realities may be driving our evolution as a species, commanding us to rise to a higher level than our ancestors. If this premise is correct, it is the most important development of the twentieth century – and in its ramifications the least appreciated. It has profound implications for the organization of the future and the values that will have to be dominant in corporate culture – values that serve and celebrate autonomy, innovativeness, self-responsibility, self-esteem (in contrast to such traditional values as obedience, conformity, and respect for authority)."