Perfect example of Media, Political Propaganda…
Florida’s COVID-19 response has been described as reckless , dangerous , and anti-science. Its Republican governor weathered months of scorn for loosening pandemic restrictions ahead of other state leaders. Its case counts, when on the rise, are often cited by critics as evidence that the entire Republican approach to managing the virus has failed.
And rarely, i.e. never, is there are forensic review of the narratives that are gobbled up and regurgitated… But it’s still an Existential Threat to Humanity on a Global Scale (so let’s mandate vaccines for small children)
Few of the more dramatic predictions about the result of DeSantis’ approach have come to pass.
Yes, that’s a more 1990’s edition and a few things have changed in society since the 1990’s.
I found a bootleg pdf of it, lol.
I’d prefer it without the spirituality part.
Also, while I haven’t read it - the contents seem to suggest that he has a monolithic image of women, while the book I referenced suggests it addresses just one of many types of women.
Third, I don’t like the idea of establishing myself or other men in terms of “superior” because that would infer that those different from the author are inferior or lesser than the author - which I don’t believe is actually a spiritual way to see the world. So there’s a kind of paradox. I don’t believe a man who lets the woman lead is inferior - if it makes him happy more power to him.
Ray - There is NOTHING in the book about Man Superior, Women Inferior. It’s about YOU becoming a Superior version of YOURSELF which will then enable you to become a gift for women in your life.
There is nothing in my post that said this either, lol.
I said I do not like the idea of evaluating MEN as superior or inferior due to whether or not they follow one specific path.
As for being a “gift to women” - again, I don’t agree with saying one type of man is a superior “gift to women” and another type of man on a different path is lesser “gift to women”.
Ok - let’s look at the facts. Forensics are based on facts.
In Florida as of today 58,142 people have died of COVID. 3.6 million confirmed cases (impossible to know the total number of actual cases) Now the numbers are decreasing. Florida has a population of 21 million.
Now, lets look at the facts of Hawaii - a state that implemented draconian controls. Hawaii Deaths from COVID - 873. Total documented cases - 79,941. Total population 1.46 million
Deaths per million:
Florida: 2,707
Hawaii: 617
That’s 4.5 times the rate of deaths
Cases per million:
Florida: 168,833
Hawaii: 56,461
That’s almost 3 times the rate - but we will never know the full amount because testing relied on the efficiency of distributing test kits.
Do you understand these numbers?
More people died in Florida alone from COVID than all the soldiers who died in the Vietnam war - and the data suggests a very strong correlation between deaths and lack of controls.
To ignore clear facts and numbers is, in fact, reckless and anti-science. Regardless of predictions - the numbers are grim.
Vaccines for small children have been mandated in public schools for 100 years. That is the status quo. It seems to be you are the one who feels an existential threat, particularly since you keep repeating that term it must constantly occupy your thoughts.
I am not experiencing an existential threat, that’s for sure. The pandemic was essentially over for me in late spring when I got my second dose of vaccine.
@raybennett how does Hawaii compare to California or NY?
Neither are tiny islands so might be better comparisons.
Congratulatuons to Hawaii for the minimal Covid impact.
What are you wanting to compare?
I suppose you could break out the calculator and crunch some numbers if you wanted to state your point specifically.
But essentially your point seems to be making up that the media is using numbers and facts and this is somehow propaganda.
I note the article mentions New York - without taking into account that it was the first to see the spread, and did not have controls in place during the start of the first spike. There weren’t even test kits at that time. So to say New York is a case of strict controls just isn’t the case - in the beginning there were zero controls because nobody knew how bad COVID would be.
Mother of all Info War/Propaganda events in US political history? Not a good look to have 2016 Clinton Campaign lawyers pimping proven false by $42M Mueller investigation at center of pimping falsified research without disclosing they worked for Clinton. Ooopsies?
The indictment of Hillary Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to the FBI sheds new light on the pivotal role of Democratic operatives in the Russiagate affair. The emerging picture shows Sussmann and his Perkins Coie colleague Marc Elias, the chief counsel for Clinton’s 2016 campaign, proceeding on parallel, coordinated tracks to solicit and spread disinformation tying Donald Trump to the Kremlin.
RCIs MBFC Rating
Bias Rating: RIGHT-CENTER
Factual Reporting: MOSTLY FACTUAL
Country: USA (44/180 Press Freedom)
Media Type: Website
Traffic/Popularity: Medium Traffic
MBFC Credibility Rating: HIGH CREDIBILITY
Some truths need to be stated boldly and with clarity, and deflecting the tone only serves to mute, or silence altogether.
I’ve come to the notice of BigTech, beginning in february 2018, and they’ve been tampering with my name’s search results since. When you google my name, my research articles don’t populate the search results like they used to. Books that I’ve unpublished keep being listed on my author’s page on google, while my most recent book does not (the “author’s space” on the first page that comes up when someone googles my name). I’ve contacted them about this, but to no avail.
At least they cannot yet force online publishers to refuse to publish me at all, but that time will come soon enough.
Our western cultures are escalating into a tyranny footing; consider the hysteria that is taking place in Australia (and increasingly, elsewhere), with this Covid bullshit. Biden is not a leader but a puppet doing the bidding of a self-appointed oligarchy operating behind the scenes (the “DeepState” concept that used to do the rounds). How else could a candidate with obvious signs of dementia have been elected as president? These are increasingly dangerous times, and BigTech are at the center of it. They will silence good science in the interests of their agenda. You can count on it.
One thing’s for certain. We can no longer count on our search engines to deliver, impartially, what we are looking for. The wild-west days of the internet, where anyone with a passion, a voice and an internet connection could establish an online presence (like it was before Trump), are well and truly over. Some of us planted the seeds of change back in those wild-west days.
History doesn’t just repeat, it remanifests in new forms, sometimes more dangerous forms. And in our case, I think that we are witnessing the emergence of an unprecedented form of Dark Ages. If things look crazy-stupid, out-of-control today, they’ll be motivated to impose new levels of tyranical control tomorrow; Stalin, eat your heart out. I fear for the silencing of the good science that might save us from ignorance.
What is it that worries BigTech? Here is an example, where Cassie Jaye describes the original motivation behind her documentary to catch out and then demolish the men’s right movement, only to come to the realization that she can no longer call herself a feminist:
You want me to play nice? I’m not sure what the best approach is in dealing with what we are up against. But speaking softly is not the way to make an impression.
Regardless of whether we regard my concern as just another conspiracy theory, I anticipate a time when many of today’s conspiracies will become tomorrow’s news… unless, of course, the new tyranny silences everything before that can happen.
Those among us who have family roots in the former Soviet Union might remember how it starts. THIS is how. Déjà vu all over again.
Proponent - “It’s different this time.”
Commoner - “So how is it different? Just exactly how will this collectivist nirvana work out at least slightly better than the previous horrific stains on humanity?”
Proponent - “This time it’s Meta. You’re a hater and racist, systematically so, hate women and gays and and some other really bad stuff too, like privileged.”
Commoner - “I have to go to work now. Enjoy your mostly peaceful protest.”
Proponent - “See, now you’re doing those death ray micro aggressions on me.”
One thing I found interesting about living in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism was just how easily people can flip-flop between ideologies, but still retain the same personality. The ideology is just the veneer - a thin coating for many people. Their deeper philosophy that allows this is need to force compliance in others. In my mind the Trump supporter and the militant feminist share this these deeper traits, and I noticed this trait in former communists in the late 1990’s. They believe there is one right way, but have difficulty explaining it or discussing it. They often express anger when you try to break down exactly what their point of view is.
Honestly facebook has always been nefarious. Just look at how it was developed. I was an early adopter of google in 1998 and was amazed at what I found back then. Nothing like today. The change came when Google changed it’s ownership and business model in 2004 and became a public company. It’s around that time they started to have aspirations of global domination under the guise of making things more convenient.
For the crackdown on tracking, we have to go to an interesting place - the busting up of the Dark Web silk road in 2014 (though of course they were using tracking technology before then). Under the auspices of law enforcement protecting the common good, they developed techniques to track people suspected of criminal activity. Yes - the silk road was a freaking horrific space so I’m not saying it shouldn’t have been closed. But the techniques used to bring it down were then turned on the next target - bootleg Hollywood movies distributed through torrents. The Pirate Bay and other torrent aggregators went down in 2014 and now there is a strong case to be made that the current Pirate Bay is a sting operation. Facebook’s tracking algorithm became blatantly obvious t me around this time when I got an ad in my facebook feed for LDS derivatives for research purposes based on a site I had browsed on another computer. I like to keep my work and personal life 100% separate, and I kept getting friend suggestions from my work environment. I figured out this was based on my personal email and phone number being in at least one other person’s address book (like my boss), and then his email being in hundreds of people’s address book.
What I am disappointed in is when people get on the bandwagon only when their chosen side wants to win an election, then suddenly never talks about the subject when their chosen side is in office.
Vigilante groups such as Anonymous, Oathkeepers, preppers, and so on are an example of this. All through the Obama years there was an amazing amount of anti-tyranny social media content across all platforms. It was a full court press for 8 years to get that “guy” out of office and keep Hillary out of office. Then in November 2016 the silence across all these channels was deafening.
What I see as the similarity between the rise of totalitarianism today and 100 years ago is the lack of any actual consistent ideology except being “against the elite”. Communism came into power because the proletariat was against the bourgeoise, and they didn’t think beyond the idea of taking their neighbor’s property. Today we have the populist movement growing against the “elite liberals” but there isn’t any kind of consistent philosophy or policy beyond being against something. The most obvious of these is Trump being all in on vaccines and being proud that he was the one in office to push their development - but at the same time his refusal to advocate using those same exact vaccines because he lost. I could go on and on about policy flip-flops and 180 turns that happened in 2016 and 2020. Fiscal responsibility is another conservative policy that has gone completely out the window because it’s unpopular with the new proletariat.
Oh yes - the first real nail in the coffin was the Patriot Act 20 years ago. That’s how deep we are into this.
I agree 100% that the Patriot Act was the beginning of a clear erosion of individual rights and encroachment of the federal government. Sadly this is a perfect example of “once passed, never gets repealed” regarding legislation. No one that I know was comfortable then or now with CIA-NSA spying on Americans. The Clinton/Obama misuse of FISA wiretapping is a perfect example. Sadly It is a very different situation when you have an enemy with 200-400M “extreme” adherents claiming to be dedicated to blowing us up.
The conservative playbook is there for all to see Ray. You even trolled it when I posted it with your “hypocrite filp flop canned response”. Now will there be a bunch of squirrel chasing and teeth gnashing implementing it? Of course. Will the Conservatives have the fortitude to crush the Marcuse-ian nightmare the DNC is attempting? Likely.
In a general sense I would characterize your concerns as personal privacy, individual rights/freedoms and government overreach (correct if I err). Your argument is that everyone went silent when 45 took office. What encroachments into personal privacy, individual rights/freedoms or government overreach did 45 implement, or sign-off on?
Covid shut down? Yes, that was a “never done before” that many were against, even if they couldn’t trumpet their objections publicly. If I remember correctly, the vast majority of mainstream media and some very prominent DNC accused Ole 45 of being a xenophobic racist for closing airports (like Hawai’i did).
The hypocrisy is they were silent until Obama took office, became vocal during Obama, went silent again during Trump, and are now vocal again. Same issue just hypocritical to only address it when the opposition is in office.
There are no longer that many Conservatives. I don’t see you as a conservative. I see you as a populist. You consume popular media uncritically.
You are joking, right? Sadly, no. You are a populist uncritical consumer of popular media. This is further substantiated when a simple google search turns up a plethora of information that would easily inform you if you just made a minimal effort:
First week - Muslim ban. lol.
Here’s a list
https://trumphumanrightstracker.law.columbia.edu/
Even a writer attempting to be unbiased came up with this conclusion:
There are two other types of constitutional dubiousness indulged by Trump that merit a dishonorable mention: corruption and unethical behavior, and the abuses that would’ve been perpetrated had his aides not disregarded his instructions.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/exit-survey-trumps-constitutional-misdeeds
The best of Trump an unbiased person can say is as follows:
The Trump Administration is not unique in having violated the Constitution.
I would counter that the sheer audacity, degree and frequency were unique to Trump.
I don’t suddenly think everything is ok now that a Democrat is in office, and I think it is hypocritical when people all of a sudden only become concerned about their rights and freedoms when the opposition is in office but then give their own party carte blanche. I honestly don’t believe you and your friends were critical or outspoken against the Patriot Act in George W’s first term in office. I didn’t hear any of that 2000 - 2008 anywhere I went except in the most extreme liberal circles. Conservatives only joined when the bandwagon did after Obama was elected and suddenly they realized how bad the law was.
Ah yes, George Bush Jnr & the neo-cons. I’ve no argument with you there. The beginning of the end.
Ray, You can find about anything you want on the web - just as you have.
And yes, you’ve busted me. The only thing I “consume” is “uncritical consumer pop media”.
If I thought you might view or read some of the long form content, I’d post it. But not surprisingly, you dismiss with a “snark and wave of the hand”. 
It’s a scary messed up world here on the mainland. 
This is a beautiful How To guide to weaponize the FBI in order to create Propaganda.
https://spectator.org/john-durhams-salad-shooter/
Uh oh… looks like Qanon has gotten to Durham who is persecuting Russian primary sources along with Hillarys lawyers. The Qonspiracy marches on…
Looks like one of the “primary” sources turns out to be a construct of Hillary’s consultants.
How does this impact our epistemological view on Trump and the gaslighting of half the US population by the mainstream media?
Also seems one of the star Impeachment witnesses Dr Fiona Hill made made initial introductions in formation of the infamous Dossier.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/dossier-critic-fiona-hill-introduced-main-source-to-steele-and-durham-says-pr-exec-1?_amp=true
Interesting breakdown on Fact Checking. Some good Epistemological discussion on Biased vs Impartial, and True Testing vs False Testing, if you can get past the decidedly Conservative/Skeptical preface.
If you agree with this line, you might be a Qanon Acolyte 
No wonder many have intuited that a red flag from a fact checker actually denotes “things that might be true but are unsayable in the present climate”.
https://unherd.com/2021/11/what-fact-checkers-get-wrong/?1636731714223