Covid vaccine - opinions?

[Kieran]

Finally, here's a spoof on Hotez and his ever-changing "advice":

It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry. And again, has this bloke ever come out and acknowledged that his messaging is like a map drawn in with green crayon, by a child?

 

[Kieran]

And lest people forget the insanity of mainstream messaging over the last few years....

I watched this video again, and you can see how totalitarian ideas take hold in places like Canada, Italy and Austria where they tried to enforce vaccine mandates. Austria and Italy backed down, but Trudeau froze peoples bank accounts, making it impossible for them to even access their mortgage payments. These totalitarian states don’t come about because one man seized power. They tend to be at the request of the people.

From the video. Note the alleged crime: ‘questioning.’

 

[El Dude]

That’s a great video. It should come with a trigger warning. All the stupid, loaded, totally dishonest phrases. Literally stupid, “nobody is safe until everybody is safe.” What kind of illiterate person thinks in these terms. What are we, children? We can’t be kept safe from everything. The “pandemic of the unvaccinated”. Until the honchos start sneezing.

Tell me this: did any of these lying c**ts ever apologise? Did a single one of them ever say, oops? So much anger and fury and stupidity. The usual suspects there, of course. They’re like a runaway train of demented parrots…

Yeah, it is scary. I think many doctors have apologized for being so gung-ho. What is odd to me is that if all of this was really out of concern for public well-being, is shame and coercion really the way to go? Or, on the other extreme, treating people like they are stupid.

For me peak stupidity has to be this (Bill DiBlasio's infamous "vaccine burger" moment):

 

[El Dude]

I watched this video again, and you can see how totalitarian ideas take hold in places like Canada, Italy and Austria where they tried to enforce vaccine mandates. Austria and Italy backed down, but Trudeau froze peoples bank accounts, making it impossible for them to even access their mortgage payments. These totalitarian states don’t come about because one man seized power. They tend to be at the request of the people.

From the video. Note the alleged crime: ‘questioning.’

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I'm reminded of a stat that Bill Maher shared, that at one point--I think this was back in 2021--almost 50% of Democrats believed that the chances of hospitalization for Covid was about 50-50.

But this also brings up another point: All of us are victimized by propaganda from mainstream media and politicians. So when I see someone wearing a mask while driving alone, while it is tempting to think, "What a total idiot," I also kind of feel bad for them that they live in such a space of fear because they trust people who ultimately don't have their best interests in mind. The propaganda is thick and everywhere.

 

[Moxie]

Peter Hotez, oh boy. That guy is pretty much the embodiment of Big Pharma propaganda, using BS rhetoric like "anti-science."

He's a total authoritarian, advocating vax mandates, lockdowns, masks, etc. He's a Pfizer guy, not a real health guy. I wouldn't take anything he says as anything other than an attempt to earn profits for Big Pharma...and that's a charitable reading.

OK, you made 4 posts denouncing the guy being interviewed in my post, but before I read what you posted, did you listen to the interview with Brian Lehrer? It's not all about Covid vaccines, or vaccines, in general, either. I think the discuss of the politicization of science, in general has real merit. His show has won a Peabody, (for "for facilitating reasoned conversation about critical issues and opening it up to everyone within earshot," according to the Peabody committee,) and BL and his producers do vet who they speak to. Hotez is the Dean off Tropical Medicine at Baylor in Texas. And you can read about the covid vaccine he developed, without patent, using a lot of money donated by Tito's Vodka, if that's Big Pharma, to you.

Dan Cohen, who is does work as a journalist it seems, though not an especially noted one, wrote those articles you posted for The Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, which is just Steve Kirsch, who's heavy into anti-mainstream covid info, so if you want to talk "propaganda," that piece of "journalism" would qualify. And it's available only on Rumble, it seems? I know you like your alternative media outlets, but the source is sketchy, if you're looking for an impartial opinion, and not a hit piece. I'll hold up Brian Lehrer to these sources any day.

 

[Federberg]

OK, you made 4 posts denouncing the guy being interviewed in my post, but before I read what you posted, did you listen to the interview with Brian Lehrer? It's not all about Covid vaccines, or vaccines, in general, either. I think the discuss of the politicization of science, in general has real merit. His show has won a Peabody, (for "for facilitating reasoned conversation about critical issues and opening it up to everyone within earshot," according to the Peabody committee,) and BL and his producers do vet who they speak to. Hotez is the Dean off Tropical Medicine at Baylor in Texas. And you can read about the covid vaccine he developed, without patent, using a lot of money donated by Tito's Vodka, if that's Big Pharma, to you.

Dan Cohen, who is does work as a journalist it seems, though not an especially noted one, wrote those articles you posted for The Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, which is just Steve Kirsch, who's heavy into anti-mainstream covid info, so if you want to talk "propaganda," that piece of "journalism" would qualify. And it's available only on Rumble, it seems? I know you like your alternative media outlets, but the source is sketchy, if you're looking for an impartial opinion, and not a hit piece. I'll hold up Brian Lehrer to these sources any day.

I just listened to it. I share his frustration regarding the politicisation of vaccines. That said I won't be taking anymore covid boosters for the moment. I've relegated the whole thing to be on a par with the annual flu jab. I'm simply not in crowded spaces often enough to justify it for my personal needs. I take his point about the profiteering of the anti-vax movement, but also note the profiteering of the pharmaceutical industry as well.

 

[Moxie]

I just listened to it. I share his frustration regarding the politicisation of vaccines. That said I won't be taking anymore covid boosters for the moment. I've relegated the whole thing to be on a par with the annual flu jab. I'm simply not in crowded spaces often enough to justify it for my personal needs. I take his point about the profiteering of the anti-vax movement, but also note the profiteering of the pharmaceutical industry as well.

Thanks for listening, and the rest is fair. I didn't post it to convince anyone to get another jab. i just thought there was stuff in there that was relevant to this conversation, specifically the mixing, as it were, of science and politics.

 

[Kieran]

Yeah, it is scary. I think many doctors have apologized for being so gung-ho. What is odd to me is that if all of this was really out of concern for public well-being, is shame and coercion really the way to go? Or, on the other extreme, treating people like they are stupid.

For me peak stupidity has to be this (Bill DiBlasio's infamous "vaccine burger" moment):

Was he appointed or was he elected, I mean..

 

[El Dude]

OK, you made 4 posts denouncing the guy being interviewed in my post, but before I read what you posted, did you listen to the interview with Brian Lehrer? It's not all about Covid vaccines, or vaccines, in general, either. I think the discuss of the politicization of science, in general has real merit. His show has won a Peabody, (for "for facilitating reasoned conversation about critical issues and opening it up to everyone within earshot," according to the Peabody committee,) and BL and his producers do vet who they speak to. Hotez is the Dean off Tropical Medicine at Baylor in Texas. And you can read about the covid vaccine he developed, without patent, using a lot of money donated by Tito's Vodka, if that's Big Pharma, to you.

Dan Cohen, who is does work as a journalist it seems, though not an especially noted one, wrote those articles you posted for The Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, which is just Steve Kirsch, who's heavy into anti-mainstream covid info, so if you want to talk "propaganda," that piece of "journalism" would qualify. And it's available only on Rumble, it seems? I know you like your alternative media outlets, but the source is sketchy, if you're looking for an impartial opinion, and not a hit piece. I'll hold up Brian Lehrer to these sources any day.

I don't trust anyone in mainstream media anymore, because at this point I don't think real journalism can be presented there because of financial incentives (e.g. something like 70-80% of tv news show funding is from Big Pharma..."Brought to you by Pfizer"; and of course old Mr Bill Gates funds just about everyone). It doesn't matter if it is Fox, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT, or NPR (including folks like Lehrer)...I see all as just different flavors of establishment propaganda.

So for me, it comes down to sorting through independent media which can be tricky, of course, but that's where I'm at. And don't confuse someone creating a news piece and then presenting on a platform with writing it for them. I could be wrong, but I don't think that Steve Kirsch oversaw Cohen's piece.

When you say Cohen isn't an "especially noted one" journalist, to me that's like writing off a piece of music because it isn't in the BIllboard top 40. If you require your music to be top 40, or your news to be mainstream, I don't know what to say.

What I find baffling is how folks who consume MSM news always consider propaganda and "misinformation" coming from A) The other side of the political spectrum and/or B) independent/non-mainstream outlets. It is never the mainstream, never "my team." This is the same old Dem vs. Rep bs that the ruling class fosters through their propaganda arms, aka the MSM, as a means to disempower and divide the populace, and further imperialist goals and corporate profits. It is a Punch and Judy show and we all suffer for it, while the bankers laugh all the way to their vaults.

The irony re: Hotez is that he's very much prone to the politicization of science, and that has been pretty much the MO of mainstream media since the beginning of covid, wanting to frame any variation of "vaccine hesitation" as right wing, when it didn't start that way; it only became that way through MSM framing. Hotez was among the many who criticized Trump for saying the death rate was much lower than that initial figure of 3.4%; Trump said it was "a fraction of 1%" and all of your mainstream champions castigated him for that, calling it dangerous misinformation. The irony, of course, is that their 3.4% was the dangerous misinformation and Trump was right. It was a ploy to sell gene therapies in the guise of "vaccines" and it worked, unfortunately.

 

[Moxie]

I don't trust anyone in mainstream media anymore, because at this point I don't think real journalism can be presented there because of financial incentives (e.g. something like 70-80% of tv news show funding is from Big Pharma..."Brought to you by Pfizer"; and of course old Mr Bill Gates funds just about everyone). It doesn't matter if it is Fox, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT, or NPR (including folks like Lehrer)...I see all as just different flavors of establishment propaganda.

So for me, it comes down to sorting through independent media which can be tricky, of course, but that's where I'm at. And don't confuse someone creating a news piece and then presenting on a platform with writing it for them. I could be wrong, but I don't think that Steve Kirsch oversaw Cohen's piece.

Just a question: did you listen to the radio story that I posted? Or have you already decided it's not for you? I was hoping to hear you had, and I'd read/watch what you posted as a quid pro quo. It's only fair, right?

When you say Cohen isn't an "especially noted one" journalist, to me that's like writing off a piece of music because it isn't in the BIllboard top 40. If you require your music to be top 40, or your news to be mainstream, I don't know what to say.

Alt-journalism isn't alternative music. Journalism is a craft, a vocation, and an art, and it's best done with some education and ethics behind it. Same with documentary filmmaking. Just because you can post something on youtube doesn't make you a documentary filmmaker. Just because you write for an alternative website doesn't mean you're not a shill. I'm sure there are people out there on the internet with credentials and much to say, but it's worth checking under the hood before you buy.

What I find baffling is how folks who consume MSM news always consider propaganda and "misinformation" coming from A) The other side of the political spectrum and/or B) independent/non-mainstream outlets. It is never the mainstream, never "my team." This is the same old Dem vs. Rep bs that the ruling class fosters through their propaganda arms, aka the MSM, as a means to disempower and divide the populace, and further imperialist goals and corporate profits. It is a Punch and Judy show and we all suffer for it, while the bankers laugh all the way to their vaults.

What I find baffling is how you are so skeptical of MSM, yet seemingly not so about alternative media. I posted what I did with a notation as to who the interviewer and the interviewee were, with basic credentials. I also posted a blurb to help anyone decide if they wanted to listen to it, and how long it would take. You posted a few different things after with no annotation as to provenance. Did you even look at the provenance before you posted? You said above, "I could be wrong, but I don't think Steve Kirsch oversaw Cohen's piece." Where is the skepticism? Yes, you could be very wrong. But also, it's funded by a think-tank with an agenda. I thought that was exactly the stuff you object to. If you don't like that from MSM, why do you accept it from alternative media?

If you're going to be so cautious about mainstream media, when, whether you like it or not, you know where it's coming from, a least in your opinion, why so little caution about the random posters on the internet? In that vein, you posted a video by a Matt Orfalea. He's basically a kid whose credentials look like internships. (Yes, I looked him up on Linked-In and imdb. And yes, he's done some work for Matt Taibbi on substack. Which surely has to be for free, or cheap, if you've ever visited substack.) Anyone can hang a shingle and pretend they're more than they are. And yet, you're willing to give his ability to cobble together video clips and post them on youtube more credence than actual journalists. Or the dean of a major university.

I don't think I've made this about Dems v. Republicans. I get that there are people that ride both lines. (Such as Matt Taibbi, mentioned above.) You think they are found only in the alt media, but I would say that they can be found also in MSM. If one is willing to be open-minded.

The irony re: Hotez is that he's very much prone to the politicization of science, and that has been pretty much the MO of mainstream media since the beginning of covid, wanting to frame any variation of "vaccine hesitation" as right wing, when it didn't start that way; it only became that way through MSM framing. Hotez was among the many who criticized Trump for saying the death rate was much lower than that initial figure of 3.4%; Trump said it was "a fraction of 1%" and all of your mainstream champions castigated him for that, calling it dangerous misinformation. The irony, of course, is that their 3.4% was the dangerous misinformation and Trump was right. It was a ploy to sell gene therapies in the guise of "vaccines" and it worked, unfortunately.

I've done enough research for you. Tell me where Peter Hotez has been politicizing covid since the beginning as "right-wing." Or even now. I could use a citation for the above. Please explain what you mean about 3.4% v. 1%. Do you mean US? When was this date fixed? Also, let's remember that it was Trump who pushed hard for a vaccine. To his credit, IMO.

 

[Moxie]

That’s a great video. It should come with a trigger warning. All the stupid, loaded, totally dishonest phrases. Literally stupid, “nobody is safe until everybody is safe.” What kind of illiterate person thinks in these terms. What are we, children? We can’t be kept safe from everything. The “pandemic of the unvaccinated”. Until the honchos start sneezing.

Tell me this: did any of these lying c**ts ever apologise? Did a single one of them ever say, oops? So much anger and fury and stupidity. The usual suspects there, of course. They’re like a runaway train of demented parrots…

No, this is not a great video. First of all, it's hyper-edited, so that no one makes more than a one sentence statement, therefore, no context. Secondly, it's full of sensational illustrations like from "The Shining." This is not information, it's manipulation. I honestly looked for one with the opposite opinion as an illustration, but couldn't find one. If that tells you anything. You like it because it is in keeping with what you want to believe. But it was made by a kid with software skills, though with basically no journalistic credentials. (I looked them up. See my above to El Dude.) I don't mind watching a video of opinions even if they are different from my own, but this is nothing but propaganda. And cheesy, at that.

 

[Kieran]

No, this is not a great video. First of all, it's hyper-edited, so that no one makes more than a one sentence statement, therefore, no context. Secondly, it's full of sensational illustrations like from "The Shining." This is not information, it's manipulation. I honestly looked for one with the opposite opinion as an illustration, but couldn't find one. If that tells you anything. You like it because it is in keeping with what you want to believe. But it was made by a kid with software skills, though with basically no journalistic credentials. (I looked them up. See my above to El Dude.) I don't mind watching a video of opinions even if they are different from my own, but this is nothing but propaganda. And cheesy, at that.

Now now missus, give yourself a shake. I don’t like things because they’re in keeping with what I ‘want to believe.’ With this, I believe! I lived it, remember? You don’t know the context behind all those sentences?

The context was the same in Ireland as it was everywhere. Politicians, the health industry and the media trying to cajole, threaten and manipulate people into taking an innovative vaccine. And to do this they used literally idiotic and insulting catchphrases like, ‘nobody is safe until everyone is safe.’ An infant could see the illogic of that one.

Did the people in the video not say the words attributed to them? And were they not wrong? Yes they were. But weren’t they angry and threatening, while also being wrong? Threatening to curtail peoples liberty while warning people not to think for themselves. Again, this is how totalitarianism begins. Witness Canada. Austria. Italy.

It’s a great video, I enjoyed the way it’s like a blunt force instrument skewering careerist liars like Fauci and Biden. And I don’t even think a blunt force instrument can skewer…

 

[Moxie]

Now now missus, give yourself a shake. I don’t like things because they’re in keeping with what I ‘want to believe.’ With this, I believe! I lived it, remember? You don’t know the context behind all those sentences?

The context was the same in Ireland as it was everywhere. Politicians, the health industry and the media trying to cajole, threaten and manipulate people into taking an innovative vaccine. And to do this they used literally idiotic and insulting catchphrases like, ‘nobody is safe until everyone is safe.’ An infant could see the illogic of that one.

Did the people in the video not say the words attributed to them? And were they not wrong? Yes they were. But weren’t they angry and threatening, while also being wrong? Threatening to curtail peoples liberty while warning people not to think for themselves. Again, this is how totalitarianism begins. Witness Canada. Austria. Italy.

It’s a great video, I enjoyed the way it’s like a blunt force instrument skewering careerist liars like Fauci and Biden. And I don’t even think a blunt force instrument can skewer…

OK, then you're entertained by that video because you believe it. But it's entertainment and propaganda, but not information. One sentence sound bites have no context.

 

[Kieran]

OK, then you're entertained by that video because you believe it. But it's entertainment and propaganda, but not information. One sentence sound bites have no context.

I believe it because I lived through it. I believed it before I saw the video, and yes, it was entertaining. But the context is what we all lived through.

 

[Federberg]

 

[Kieran]

It’s good to see people fessing up to this. There’s a whole decade of apologies owed to a lot of people, and a lifetime of scepticism owed to others, especially ones who abused their authority…

 

[britbox]

The comments on that Twitter post are telling.

 

[Kieran]

I heard a very interesting piece on a show on my local public radio station today. I know I've turned Federberg onto Brian Lehrer, but he is about the smartest and most fair person out there. He might be the most trusted man in the NYC area. This is an interview with Dr. Peter Hotez.

Fighting for Science | The Brian Lehrer Show | WNYC

A scientist speaks from the frontlines of the fight against vaccines, and other scientific misinformation.

www.wnyc.org

The blurb:

"From the frontlines of the fight against vaccine, and other scientific misinformation, Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, co-director of the Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development, and professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and the author of The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist's Warning (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023), offers a framework for separating the politics from the science."

Dr. Hotez developed a Covid vaccine outside of big pharma, amongst other things. He also has an autistic child and speaks directly to the science discounting that being vaccine-related, (though I don't think anyone here still believes that.)

He has an illuminating take on anti-science, and the convergence with politics. If you can spare 33 minutes.

I didn't get to listen to this interview due to time pressures, but his name popped up today on a Bret and Heather Weinstein video where for the first 3 minutes they made merry at the idea of Hotez complaining of politics interfering with science, before they moved on to other things. They're referring to an interview he did for Nature.com, promoting his book. So I read the interview and casually perused the web to see if he himself was in fact part of the politicising of science.

In the article he blames "the right-wing media [who] need to keep stoking the faux outrage machine, which is how they monetize the Internet. They couldn’t care less about me; it’s what I represent.' As Bret and Heather say, 'shades of Fauci.' Bizarrely according to Hotez, the right-wing media also 'resemble the 1930s, when Joseph Stalin’s regime in the [left wing] Soviet Union portrayed scientists as enemies of the state.'

So already he identified opponents or critics of the vaccines as "antiscience aggressors" and "right-wing", even though the likes of Bret and Heather - to choose but 2 vaccine critics - are liberals.

'Now, [anti-science rhetoric is] fully embraced by a major political party in the United States, and by authoritarian regimes in other countries such as Hungary and, previously, Brazil. It’s sanctioned by elected leaders in the US Congress. It’s reached a new level of organization and aggression.'

Again, he's referring to people he labels as being on the 'right-wing'.

To counter this, he suggests '[what] I’m starting to do now is talk with my colleagues about creating something like the Southern Poverty Law Center or like the Climate Science Defense Fund, for protecting biomedical scientists. We need a new type of organization , which I sometimes call the American Biomedical Scientists Defense Alliance, to counter these organized threats against science.'

Now, this has shades of Ibram X. Kendi's suggestion of amending the US Constitution to allow a totalitarian, unelected 'Department of Antiracism' to rule America. Given that not all scientists agree on the vaccines, presumably he believes that those who don't would be cast out (yet again) by his ABSDA?

Hotez vaccine views are instistinguishable from the most extreme political views regarding the vaccines. Here he co-authored an article for The Lancet recommending vaccine mandates.

Given that his own views are typical of the authoritarian left, and he blames the right for anti-science aggression (and we know what leftists mean when they blame the right wing), would you agree that although he is correct about the menace of politics interfering with science, that he's equally to blame in this himself?

 

[britbox]

It’s good to see people fessing up to this. There’s a whole decade of apologies owed to a lot of people, and a lifetime of scepticism owed to others, especially ones who abused their authority…

One thing I have to consider - is why did he assure people that the gene therapy was safe (sorry, "vaccines", ahem) ? How could he even have known one way or the other? He waited until he himself had heart issues - presumably he had patients who had the same issues before him.

 

[Kieran]

One thing I have to consider - is why did he assure people that the gene therapy was safe (sorry, "vaccines", ahem) ? How could he even have known one way or the other? He waited until he himself had heart issues - presumably he had patients who had the same issues before him.

Exactly. It was the effect of very hasty unscientific scientific conclusions. When I got my second jab in 2021, it was the same week that the New York Times cited Nature magazine as saying that the vaccine was likely to be a one off, with no need of boosters. ‘95% efficient in preventing covid.’

They hadn’t a clue, or they were lying. Or both…