Dear friends (well, and foes),
I have followed with absolute amazement what has just happened at the Unz Review. First, Ron posted an interview of himself being questioned by Mike Whitney. With its admittedly eye-catching title (authored by Mike Whitney, not Ron Unz!) “Are the Opponents of the Covid Injections “Anti-Vaxx Crackpots” it was clear that this interview would get a lot of reactions. But what happened then truly amazed me: in one day this interview got over 1000+ comments and by now the score is at 1470+ comments. I thought I had poked the hornets’ nest hard enough with my three unmoderated posts (see here, here and here) and its total of 1181 comments over three days (this figure does not include the innumerable emails which either a) tried to convert me and, when that failed, b) called me all sorts of not very flattering names) but is tiny compared to what happened at the Unz Review.
Needless to say, the most of the comments on both sites were nasty, rude, illiterate, petulant, snarky, etc. etc. etc.
Either these were the same folks who had first tried to hijack the Saker blog with the propaganda or, at the least, they had the same mindset. They made the same personal accusations against Ron Unz as they did about me (we were flipped, threatened, bought off, etc. etc. etc.). Unlike me, Ron extensively wrote about the (frankly stupid) US accusations against China (the “Chinese Communist Party virus” in Trump-supporter “it will all be over by Easter” terminology) and he ALSO got hated on by those who hate Chinese and totally believe the anti-Chinese propaganda in Zone A.
[Sidebar: I think I found at least one real difference between the Republicrats and the Demolicans: the former hate China more, the latter prefer to hate Russia the most. Old-style paleo-Conservatives and paleo-Liberals had real differences, but their debates were much more civil and enlightening that the sorry bovine excreta which the MSM excretes nowadays]
Ron Unz, the normally always soft-spoken, hyper-tolerant and firm defender of truly free speech, had this to say about those whom I now started calling the “anti-COVID-Crusaders”: “maybe I’m wrong and very much unlike me, they decided to do extensive research on the medical question, in which case you can go over to their websites and endlessly argue with them about it, thereby beneficially departing this one“. He also spoke of “hordes of zealous anti-vaxxers infesting” his comments section. Then, when the comments were getting closer to a thousand, Ron wrote this:
Well, this thread is rapidly approaching 1,000 comments and 150,000 words, and glancing over it, seems to be 90-95% filled with zealous anti-vaxxers, just as I’d originally predicted to Mike Whitney.
I assume that the reason so many of you congregate here is that our discussions are very lightly moderated, and most of you have been banned everywhere else (no kidding! The Saker), as indeed I think a couple of you may have mentioned. If that’s correct, you really might want to be a little more polite, since if I were to lose my temper and get rid of all of you, you might not have anywhere else to go.
Wow! Coming from Ron Unz, a man truly determined to always support free speech, dissent and who has been kind and sophisticated enough to allow plenty of views on this site which he does not agree with, this is quite a choice of words. In other words, these nutjobs managed to even anger Ron Unz (quite a feat, even if a shameful one!)…
But I think Ron is wrong about one small thing: all the Q-Anon and Alt-Right websites will be absolutely delighted to “grant refuge” these poor, censored and persecuted “refugees” (unless, of course, these sites are where these guys came from in the first place!). “Alternatively endowed” folks always believe that there is safety in numbers and if they see a crowd shouting down one person, they feel safe and vindicated (look up the famous Asch conformity experiment if you are interested).
[By the way, Bernhard on Moon of Alabama posted this comment: Writing about the virus was a challenge. Not from a scientific point but due to the reaction of some commentators who were unable to accept the facts. I never before had to delete and block so much nonsense.]
Ron also noticed the same thing and so did I.
Still, I offered the anti-COVID-Crusaders three completely unmoderated threads. We all saw what happened when I did that :-)
Ron also wrote this to his trolls “most of you should consider that the echo-chamber I am currently providing you free of charge is assuredly filled to the brim with participants but is probably a rather small one“.
I totally agree. Which makes their threats of “defunding” or “cancelling” me (or Unz or MoA) laughable, assuming we cared in the first place.
These nutjobs think that they are millions worldwide, maybe even a majority.
Those still capable of thought know otherwise.
Also, writing thousands of times that, say, 2+2=5 does not make it true. Frederick Douglass once brilliantly said that “One and God make a majority“, but that is way too subtle a point for these crackpots to consider – they prefer the “safety” of the herd, and the bigger the herd the better they feel. Poor people…
Finally, Ron wrote this:
This thread is already well over 1,000 comments long, so maybe the thing to do is just trash all the subsequent comments by anti-vaxxers that contain insults or aren’t substantive. With luck, they’ll be so outraged, they’ll leave this website and never come back.
That is also how I feel about these folks and I want them gone. Forever!
I tried to allow COVID-discussions in the Cafe, but these anti-COVID-Crusaders not only managed to hijack the Cafe, they also decided that the Cafe was their personal “free for all”. They were wrong.
Ron is getting fed up, Bernhard is maybe also getting fed up and, frankly, so am I. And Ron Unz has clearly experienced the same thing which the trolls did to our Cafe, here is what he wrote about this: “Hordes of anti-vaxxers had begun descending upon this website a few months ago, probably because some of my regular columnists had begun running anti-vaxx articles. As a result, those same anti-vaxxers began cluttering up the comment-threads of other articles, including my own, that had absolutely no connection to vaxxing.” (emphasis added)
I have decided to put an end to this and here is my first “defensive” measure (there might be more in the future):
Starting this Wednesday at 00:00 the “Cafe exception” about COVID-topics has been canceled. In other words, the moderation rule #19 (please see all the rules here) has now been expanded to the entire Saker blog. There will be no exceptions and “smart-asses” will be mercilessly banned.
At this point in our discussion, there is something I already shared with my friends and I want to share with you all: in my entire life I have never come across any group which manages to combine a truly phenomenal level of ignorance, with no less phenomenal levels of bigotry, intolerance and nastiness. I see only one explanation to all this:
==>>The anti-COVID-Crusade is a crypto-religion; a cult if you prefer<<==
What do I mean by that?
Here is how I think this secular-religion appeared:
First and foremost, all the governments in Zone A truly do have a long record of lying about anything and everything. Second, western BigPharma also has a massive record of lies and truly inhuman policies. As for the western “free and independent media” – it is the worst collection of presstitutes in history and they lie way, waaaaay more, than the Soviet or Nazi media ever would have dared. So the immense mistrust from millions to those three (gov, BigPharma, MSM)”singing the exact same song” is hardly surprising.
Second, there are some very smart folks out there who managed to make millions off this distrust of Big Pharma by peddling all sorts of “alternative medicines”, some of which is superb, and but of it (95%+ in my personal experience, which is extensive since I have zero trust in modern pill-pushers who call themselves “Doctors”) is simply snake oil. Here is just one (famous) example:
“(Dr) Mercola, whose claims about other products have drawn warnings from regulators, has also given at least $4 million to several groups that echo the anti-vaccine message. His net worth, derived largely from his network of private companies, has grown to “in excess of $100 million,” he said in a 2017 affidavit.”
Third, I think that it is clear that the Q-Anon/Alt-Right folks are not too bright or adequately educated, and they are mostly ignored by much of the right side of the IQ Bell Curve. The COVID pandemic gave them a golden opportunity to become noticed (which always converts to $$$ for that type of folks).
This is also true of irrelevant, talent-less and dull bloggers and self-appointed virologists.
The combined effects of the causes listed above created a political movement which is much more similar to fanatical religious movements than a discussion group on virology. Not being trained in, or even used to, logical thought, these folks totally failed to realize that sometimes even liars sometimes speak the truth (for whatever reason). That can include even governments, BigPharma or even the Zone A propaganda machine. In fact, if these three only and always lied, nobody would listen to them or take them seriously. So to lie well, you need to carefully mix falsehoods with true facts. Ergo: liars to use the truth, even when lying!
Sadly, in our days, the vast majority of those who speak the out the loudest have zero exposure to, or training in, logical thinking. But, of course, they are utterly unaware of that and think that they have the “right” to their own opinion, which nobody is disputing. What I am disputing is their very ability to form something which could be considered as an “opinion”. Furthermore, what these folks don’t have the right to is to make up a) “their own facts” and to then b) to articulate their argument around logical fallacies (for the logically challenged who are willing to learn, I can recommend these two websites here and here). I like to say that even though we all have a “right” to an opinion, we don’t all and always have the *competence* to even to formulate a thought which could eventually amount to something worthy of being called “an opinion” (or even a hypothesis or theory).
Nowadays, there are main two ways most opinions arise:
- The emetic way: they are just shot out of mouths and keyboards with no control, method or internal coherence. Folks using them typically struggle with reading a long text, they prefer videos, and their “views” inevitably take the shape of a sequence of short slogans, all proclaimed and affirmed with great gravitas.
- The logical way: they are the end product of a process of meticulous research and analysis. This approach typically takes time and is very labor-intensive. It also often hinges on the level of education of the person(s) doing the research and analysis. Typically, this methods requires a lot of reading, often to challenging texts.
By the way, ignorant religious bigots when challenged in their beliefs typically get offended and angry very fast: for them the “offending person” is disparaging something which is hallowed and sacred (to them). Thus rather than disagreeing with a point, they get personally offended by it. Loud, dull and ignorant people also quickly can explode in anger, but they are deeply insecure and because they feel personally rejected or even ridiculed. Finally, fanaticized people always want to convert everybody (including, apparently, Bernhard, Ron and myself). When they fail, the go into a rage. We see all these patterns of behavior amongst all the hardcore the anti-COVID-Crusaders.
By the way, Ron noticed something similar when he wrote: (emphasis added)
When I write my own articles, especially the long ones that run 9,000 words or more, they require an enormous amount of reading and thought, and usually take weeks of sustained effort. But with the Q&A I didn’t bother with any of that, but just replied straight away to his questions. The whole thing only took me a few hours, and now gives me a perfect excuse to henceforth trash all the off-topic anti-vaxx comments everywhere else. If you don’t like that, go away to LifesiteNews or Off-Guardian or whatever other anti-vaxx websites are out there. I get the impression that lots of other websites with stricter moderation standards automatically trash all anti-vaxx comments these days, which is why they don’t get inundated with this nonsense.
By the way, much of the official propaganda about COVID (Fauci, CNN, etc.) also has obvious religious overtones: The US legacy Ziomedia also called those who do not believe the official propaganda “extremists”, “fanatics” “Putin agents” or even “internal terrorists” (not quite yet, but this might happen in the very near future). Just as there are anti-COVID-Crusaders, there are also pro-vaxx-Crusaders out there too.
I have always despised any and all crusades and Crusaders, these latest ones won’t change that.
Still, by itself, the initial knee-jerk reaction of distrusting the official propaganda is a healthy one. But after that, a serious data collection and subsequent analysis must take place.
But just like the “enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend”, I would say that “the debunker of a liar does not necessarily speak the truth“. And that is why these anti-COVID-Crusaders failed to understand:
- Sometimes even liars speak the truth (whether voluntarily or when forced to)
- The debunker of a liar can himself/herself be just as wrong/dishonest as the first liar.
The anti-COVID-Crusaders seem to stuck in a “binary mental landscape” where their only options are either to “follow” Bill Gates or Joseph Mercola. That is, of course, and thank God, totally false.
So it is hardly surprising that what we are seeing is a kind of a weird “secular-religious war” (?) in with both sides mostly busy lying (or carefully selecting only some facts, same difference) about the facts and insulting the “heretics” on the other side.
If they could, they probably would erect pyres to burn us all at the stake.
I have ZERO use for that kind of “discussions” (verbal wars) on this blog. Zero.
My personal disgust with the anti-COVID-Crusaders is now total and I consider myself done with this topic.
Also, please stop sending me emails to try to convert me, I have my own sources and, I assure you, they are better than yours, if only because mine are from Zone B, whereas yours are almost exclusively in Zone A.
[Update as of August 10th: I am STILL getting both hate mail and “conversion attempts”. From that I conclude that these folks either have problems understanding English or, much more likely, they don’t give a damn about what I or anybody else asks them: they “know” that they are right and that gives them a lifelong preaching license]
Even if you are a sincere, kind, and perfectly courteous anti-COVID-Crusader (they do exist, including several of my best friends, but they are the exception, not the rule, alas!) I ask you to stop sending my Plandemic/anti-COVID/Grand Replacement/etc propaganda. This is not your fault, but the fault of your many “comrades in arms” who literally gave me a “mental allergy” to their tone, fallacies and bigotry.
I will end this with a prediction of my own: not only won’t “millions” die (or be “replaced”) by the COVID vaccines, most of those who categorically refuse them today will eventually simply and primitively cave in to the social pressure. Some governments are now seriously considering mandatory vaccinations (which, by itself, is not necessarily wrong: the government is in charge of public health; the problem here is different – nobody trusts the government anymore, and for very good reasons) but even when others are not (say in Russia), they are still allowing A LOT of corporations and companies to pass their own rules. Including airlines. “COVID Passports”, whether government enforced by corporations will most likely happen.
My bet is that in 1-2 years the anti-vaxx hysteria will die down again, and that the majority of those who now say “never! never! over my dead body!” will quietly get vaxxed, and the few who won’t will have a self-inflicted and rather shitty life which, of course, is their right!
Speaking of Russia: keep in mind that Russia has at least one very good candidate for anti-COVID meds: Koronavir (see here for a machine translation of the details about this med). This is an extremely effective drug. According to Russian scientists it reduces the viral load by 80% overnight, even in very severe cases! A friend of mine almost died from the sars-cov-2 and I sent her that medicine with overnight shipping. She later told me that she felt better as soon as she took her first dose (full treatment is 50 pills). Of course, Zone A media will not report that.
But my point is this: why do Russian officials, who know that Russia has truly effective meds against sars-cov-2, still all advocate for vaccinations? What do they know that you don’t, or are you suggesting that they all are also working for the Bilderberger, Bill Gates, the CFR, The Trilateral Commission, Davos, the Bohemian Grove, Lizards, Great Replacers, US BigPharma and maybe even UFOs, who knows? And, as Ron Unz pointed out, both Israel and Iran ares strongly pro-vaccinations (in spite of being on the opposite ends of the political spectrum, but nevermind that). So are these Russian scientists working for Israel, Iran or maybe both?
How silly can an argument get and its author still expect a respectful and substantive reply?
That is for each of us to decide, of course. I made my decision:
I am now personally done with this topic and this crazy religious cult (there are enough crazy cults out there, the world does not need another one).
I will not allow any comments here (been there, done that, don’t need more of it). If that pisses you off, you can go the the Cafe and abuse your privileges there by trashing me and what I write. But be quick, because you will have only one day, tomorrow, to call me a “gatekeeper”, fake-Saker (I was replaced by a double, according to some!), dictator, cult leader, enemy of the White Race (sic.), “censor”, or a gullible simpleton who believes every word by the US government, BigPharma or the western legacy ziomedia. Hurry, because tomorrow at 00:00 the new rules will be enforced and Plandemic-cultists ejected. After that, you can collect in poorly moderated (or non moderated) websites (who need the traffic!) and hate no me and all those who kicked you out on account of your attitude.
I truly don’t care were you go as long as you go.
Hugs and cheers,
The Saker
