Thank you for talking about this Lucian. Hamlin’s cardiac arrest was a result of Commotion Cordis. It’s a sudden forceful blow to the chest that interrupts the electrical conduction in the heart. But you wouldn’t expect the conspiracy cretins to understand or believe anything that has a scientific explanation. They will grab at anything and distort it to promote their destructive conspiracies. As Lucian said, if you haven’t received your bivalent booster please get it. It’s frustrating to see people hospitalized on ventilators that could have been prevented.
Karen RN, it's possible to edit a comment after you've posted it. See the three dots to the right of Reply and Collapse? Click it and you'll see the Edit option. (You don't want to know how many times I've used this. ;-) )
They're not stupid. The lies are deliberate. DeSantis and his ilk are using these lies to manipulate their base and get people to rally around yet another conspiracy theory.
I wish I could believe it. At present, Trump's in trouble, but some pundits say he still has the evangelicals although most of the leadership has thrown him under the bus. I'm more inclined to think that once the campaigns get underway, both of these jerks will go after each other with knives and pitchforks, and DeSantis will win the nomination. However, he will not win the election because the GOP is too extremist.
AND the universities, along with the rest of the education system. I had a few friends working in a few agencies in Washington when Reagan took over, and they'd start calling me in panic only months later about all the funding suddenly evaporating.
the de-institutionalization thing had actually started earlier, and was based on a premise that would only have made sense if the government had funded the vast and complicated system of out-patient care that never happened. the same thing with methadone maintenance, which was supposed to include all kinds of rehabilitation programs, job training, etc. but nobody ever intended for that to happen. much too expensive.
the prevailing sanctification of Reagan is just so much bullshit...
Yes, ol' Ronnie Raygun made a huge pile of political hay from his anti-intellectual stances and his rants against funding colleges and mental health institutions. Ron and Dubya made their entire political careers from turning their lifelong disinterest in education & learning into a form of swaggering braggadocio.
Sorry to say, wlipman, you are—inadvertently, I've no doubt—rewriting history. Under the flag of civil liberties, closing the asylums became rather suddenly an urgent liberal goal. So sudden and urgent, nobody bothered to plan the friendly local quarters and services that were envisioned to house and treat the suddenly "liberated." Courts ordered release in the blink of an eye. Urban dwellers have lived with the consequences ever since. 'Most everything wrong today has roots in Reagan's agenda, but the abandonment of mentally ill USians is an exception only our side can be blamed for.
exactly right. but that liberal imperative DID also include a system for keeping track of the de-institutionalized and keeping them treated. the courts just weren't paying attention.
it seems to be a very American thing to avoid sitting down and thinking shit through. hence the continuing embrace of every new technology that comes down the pike with no thought whatsoever about where it might lead. Timothy Wu published a book about this something like ten years ago, but the title eludes me at the moment...lemme check...ha! "The Master Switch."
You might call that an American tradition, David. Where I grew up, in the Ohio Valley, and in WV's Kanawha Valley, the chemical industry knew an unregulated opportunity when they saw one after WWII. Local business leaders hailed the arrival as progress. Now national media present exposés about toxins like Teflon they produce. But tell that to my cousin, a goodhearted MAGAt who has devoted his worklife to Dupont—and whose only grandchild, a shiny basketball star, died of a fentanyl od (a story Manchin related to Congress). … I was sorry to read that Timothy Wu is leaving the administration, but know that wherever he's going he'll be doing something uniquely useful. —df
He destroyed the 60 bed county hospitals creating the homeless epidemic. He also took on Fauci with his HIV/AIDs foot dragging, which Trump copied in Spring of 2020.
When enough opposition existed on the left, Tip O'Neill was able to back Reagan down from his worst excesses. On mental health services, Ronnie had the left on his side as he "liberated" the mentally ill.
These conspiracy theorists are like sharks in the waters.The more chum in the water, the better.I continue to be flummoxed by the right wingers wrestling with the truth.This all goes back to my hammering on about Donald Trump being indicted and held accountable.So much of this maelstrom could be righted if this will ever happen.I hope to not sound like a broken record but the only way out for us is if he is headed down and out.Soon.
Trump will likely have only paved the way for someone worse, barring the mass media focusing on issues and not the "horse race" heading into 2024. But indicting and convicting him, sure, that helps.
I agree about the more dangerous aspect. TFG was so out of control, careening around like a wrecking ball, saying and doing absurd things regularly. Someone more polished and well-spoken, for instance, and with the same or more evil intent (if that is possible) would be truly frightening.
Just apply your imagination to the already wacko bunch and consider George "Volleyball Champ" Santos as well as Marjorie Taylor Greene. My theory is either of them and plenty more from the GOP clown parade are eager to prove they are even sicker and more stupid...
Saw “The Promise” on HBO about “the end of the Ottoman Empire”. Well, that was the “watch me, please” description, but the real context was the genocide of Armenians. Official lies, and persecution of journalists. This is what this stuff leads to, people!! Shape up!!
AND...for the most part, these dangerous edjits are all vaxxed.
You are right, there is nothing to do when creatures like the Florida governor tell lies, and are believed by their constituents, who appear to lack the ability to be curious.
Florida has had the third highest death rate from COVID among US states, from what I have read. DeathSantis has obviously been very effective as governor. Not.
Thank you for the link to this very interesting article. The part referring to people who have superficial knowledge about something and then overestimate their knowledge reminds me once again that "a little learning is dang'rous thing".
I listened to a "karen" sitting behind me in the diner last night -- she went on and on and on about doctors being wrong all the time, and trans stuff is people wanting to change the sex of their kids like China pushed male babies and how the video of Paul Pelosi getting beaten with a hammer was fake news. My SIL says her father's COPD isn't the result of long haul covid and bronchitis like his doctor said, it is from the vaccine and booster her father got . . . You are right, there is nothing we can do about their meanness, their obscene lack of humanity, and their complete ignorance. Sure glad I got all my vaccines and boosters, chances are I will outlive those Selfish Ones.
Thanks for continuing to shine a light on this because like all infestations, ignorance spreads more easily in darkness.
Whenever I hear that kind of anti-science propaganda and weaponized lies I'm reminded of the movie "Inherit The Wind" and the speech Spencer Tracy gives as Clarence Darrow:
"Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we’ll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind.”
Thank you, Lucian. I was reminded of this yesterday when a ‘friend’ of mine from daze of yore (we worked at the same transportation outfit in Oregon many years ago) forwarded to me, what he obviously believes to be a hilariously funny stand-up routine by a guy I never heard of: Jim Breuer. I watched maybe 3 minutes of Breuer’s act, not even chuckling once, before cutting bait and saying, WTF? This guy is not funny. He’s just stupid. I ran it by my wife to see if maybe I was being too harsh. Nope. She agreed. The guy is a dolt. But….here he is. Up on stage….getting yuks from people who presumably think just like he does. Namely, that Covid is a joke and that people who take it seriously and (this is key!) FOLLOW THE SCIENCE, and not some dip-shit drivel on the internet that has been slapped up there by folks who just a few years earlier were the world’s foremost Constitutional scholars when Barack HUSSEIN Obama was in office (you know…“that Muslim terrorist born in Kenya!”), are worthy of ridicule and mockery because they are just so-oooooo much like trained seals (his apparent specialty in mammal impersonation) - “sheeple” ….trained to flap their flippers and bark for a tossed treat of dried fish. There is no reasoning with these people. They are so far down the rabbit hole that if they shined a light, it would come out of their mouth.
Did you respond back that you didn’t find this guy funny? I had a neighbor who used to send me crap like that. I put my foot down. His wife is lovely but he hasn’t spoken to me in 3 years. No love lost.
I didn’t. He and I have been on a divergent path for many a moon. Speaking of which, he also believes the moon landings were “fake.” I once pointed out to him that all these beliefs he has are like a religion to him. That is, they can’t be questioned. (A one-time Catholic in his youth. He did not take this well.) This is a guy who not only believes all the right-wing talking points about Covid that this idiot, Jim Breuer, is serving up to the proletariat for laughs, but a whole host of other fables like claiming the term “Conspiracy Theory” itself was coined by the C.I.A. in order to throw doubt on the Truth that only he and like-minded geniuses are able to see. The thing is, that if you research a little, you CAN find that, yes, there was this claim that the C.I.A. did just that. But….(and here is where it gets interesting), if you dig a little deeper, you will find that, actually, that is not True. The term predates the creation of the C.I.A. and it can be proven. But guys like him aren’t going to dig down to find that out. They’ve already got what they went after - something that supports their argument. He also doesn’t like to hear the term “debunked.” This is where shooting the Messenger comes into play. I learned years ago that it’s pointless to argue with him. He’s like those “Birthers” who insisted that Barack Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate was “fake” because of this, that, or the other thing. I recall telling one guy that if he actually saw and held the document itself, rubbed his finger across the embossed seal and sniffed the ink, he’d still deny it was real. At this point I don’t care what he thinks. In response to him sending me that Jim Breuer concert clip, I sent him the link to one where Breuer appears as a ‘Guest’ on Fox’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” Breuer is so off the wall that he gets that multimillionaire “East Coast Elitist” right-wing Propagandist ‘Conservative’ bloviating wind-bag to go into that patented WTF! look of bemused befuddlement that he does all the time when faced with total outlandish shite that he can’t wrap his White Privileged brain around. I sent that back to my old ‘friend’ without comment. On the piece, by the way, the ‘Young Turks’ take Breuer apart, as well as Carlson. [It’s worth checking out. You can find it on YouTube] They have a lot of fun with it. No, I have not heard back. If I never hear from him again, I will probably count that as a plus in my life. These people will exhaust you with their imperviousness to reason, science, sound logic, and being ‘fact checked.’ Thank you for your response.
Real friends take a hint—or a konk on the head. An old friend of mine is brilliant, an exquisite writer, but collects and inexplicably believes rightist tripe from obscure sources. He used to email me that junk. Each time from the first I'd make merciless fun of it—always easy (never of him). Happened enough times he stopped sending it and we're still friendly.
That’s rare these days. I don’t see that happening with my former friend. He has too much invested in all these off-the-wall beliefs he has that are just plain Wrong…Not True…False…Completely lacking in a factual basis….ersatz…bogus….shite….crapola….etc. Look, he is a huge fan of Joe Rogan. He takes all this stuff very seriously. I’m about ready to cut him loose for the last time. I think I’ll feel a lot better. (Gulp!)
Have you told him how close to the edge he is with you? That could make him think—or jump. shee-rah's suggestion looks good to me too. My friend and I go waaay back, through different lives, and were always at opposite ends of the left-right scale. He was a big fan of Charles "Bell Curve" Murray and gets pseudointellectual reinforcement from places like the Claremont Institute; at least one high-profile never-Trumper is a former colleague of his. So he tries to make his positions sound defensible. Maybe he's afraid it he pushes it I'll bring up the trump-nutcase-lawyer he used to work for. I have a cousin who's over there too, your garden-variety MAGAt I could never cut loose—just a misguided sweet guy. Hope you're able to preserve something.
I don’t know, honestly. I once gave my friend a large coffee table book put out by NASA. I forget the title, but it was basically Never-Before-Published photos taken by the various Lunar Missions of….well, you guessed it….the Moon. His reaction? “Pretty Pictures”. (And it’s was an expensive book, which I had mailed to him from across the country. Ingrate. LOL!)
Look, years ago I watched an episode of a TV series devoted to examining popular beliefs: “Mythbusters”. I don’t think it’s on any more, but…I’m talking about a time that was maybe 20 years ago. They used to do these segments examining things like the belief where a grand piano has so much potential energy in it that if it is in a fire it becomes like a bomb! (“Busted!” btw…) They actually spent a whole HOUR on the Lunar Landing “Hoax” issue. Examining EVERYTHING those nut jobs believe that would rule out the historic landings being legit: from the bio-medical hazard of traveling through the Van Allen Radiation Belt, to the US flag “waving” in a non-existent wind after being being planted in the lunar surface by the Apollo XI crew, to shadows being inconsistent in photos taken from the “alleged” surface of the Moon, to the way the astronauts “hopped” about, to the lack of stars in the sky when viewed from the lunar surface, etc. They took all those issues, and MORE, (I’m sure, because it was so long ago, and I don’t remember every damn thing they covered), and using scientific data and controlled experiments showed EXACTLY WHY these claims didn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny. At the end of the show they went to an astronomical observatory and explained their mission, asking if they could contribute something. And did they ever. The observatory beamed up a laser to the Moon. It was aimed at a mirror left by one of the Apollo missions for just this kind of exercise. The laser hit the mirror and bounced back to the observatory. Since a laser beam is ‘Timed’ It showed the EXACT distance the Moon was from the Earth at that PRECISE moment. Probably right down to the millimeter. (I’m guessing here, but…you get my point.). One of the Mythbusters hosts asked, “What do you think when you hear people say “the Moon Landings were a Hoax!” She (the scientist) responded, “Honestly? I feel sorry for them.” And that’s the thing.
When you learn that the astronauts themselves thought the lunar missions were so dangerous that they had maybe a 50% chance of getting to the Moon and making it back home alive, you will understand just how f***ing heroic these guys were. And they weren’t doing it for big bucks, either! These were regular Joes who were married, had families, and for the most part were just military pilots who had applied for the chance to go on these very risky missions into Space and beyond the relatively “Safe” confines of Earth orbit. There was no Big Money in it for them. The whole “Hoax” conspiracy theory undercuts their genuine bravery in taking on something that oddsmakers agreed was a crap shoot like no other. Do it and you return a Hero. Screw Up, and you Die. That’s it. No in between.
Apollo 13, obviously, came very close to being a disaster, and not because of a Screw Up. But…just one of those things where something completely unanticipated happened. THAT is why I have so much of a problem dealing with people like my friend. They undercut the notion that sometimes we humans are capable of some really extraordinary things. And the US Space program of the 1960’s was just that. Literally thousands of people (40,000, perhaps?) working for a whole lot of different companies and contractors all contributing SOMETHING to achieve a common goal. Remember Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom’s “speech” to an assembled throng of assembly workers at a plant constructing Atlas rockets used to launch future Mercury flights? This is what he said: “Do Good Work”. That’s it. The workers went wild, and they had a banner designed with those words emblazoned on it to hang over the huge factory floor from the rafters. It reminded all those hourly workers what was at stake. This is why these Moon Landing Deniers vex and dishearten me. They cheapen our greatest of all abilities. That propensity of we humans to sometimes do the “Impossible!” It’s what defines us as a species.
Paul—I worked evenings for years and missed that show among the many. Anybody's first reaction to Robin St. Taw's comment here has to be tl;dr, but in the present-day context it's fascinating.
Dunno if it's still on the air, but for years Pacifica broadcast a weekly show hosted by Bonnie something that swallowed whole every hoax theory around. Hearing the crazies weave their fantasies was mesmerizing. A friend of mine, an arts administrator, used to host a charming monthly salon. Every month or two somebody would show up with some totally unpredictable guests. As it happened, her loft was almost literally in the shadow of the World Trade Center. Many if not most of us had participated up-close that awful morning. The next-closest firehouse was downstairs from her. The night a pair of 9/11 deniers turned up as guests at a salon I heard nobody challenge them. I suspect—like me—anyone who discovered that about them was too gobsmacked to engage. Now I get my hoax jollies as bedtime stories on the syndicated overnight UFO radio show, which is also the tip of a fringe-right iceberg.
I realized the other day it may be time to tune it out. Some of the stuff rhymes enough with reality I could pick up BS that sounds reasonable and forget where I got it—the very reason I don't read the nyPost. I guess what it comes down to is such nonsense can be bemusing as long as the source is known not to be trustworthy and you can not take it seriously.
It sounds like our orbits have overlapped at some point. I was a New Yorker and a Jersey boy at some points in my life. I recall Pacifica Radio, although not that particular program. And…yes, my friend is VERY into UFO lore. He often used to send me breathless mandates to “….look at the latest ‘evidence!” which he would ‘fwd’ at distressingly all-too-frequent intervals. Naturally, watching these ‘Great Reveals’ took time, and I tired of having to sit through what amounted to a whole lot of speculation as to what this, that, or the other thing was, only to surmise in the end that, clearly….the supposed UFO “experts” couldn’t agree on what was observed and….one could draw their own conclusions. For Example: an aviator might opine that the “objects” behaved in such a manner that a human body would not survive such rapid changes in direction, velocity, speed, etc. But, hell, that doesn’t prove anything. Who says these objects were even occupied, let alone by life forces that approximate our own all-too-delicate human biology. Bottom Line I tired of always telling him that whatever I had seen in these videos/tales was “interesting,” although they hardly added up to conclusive evidence of what he (and all these other folk) were pushing. Look at the Qanon loons. They openly talk about ‘Lizard People’ and ‘Space Demons.’ It’s just too damn tiresome to have to respond to their off-grid obsessions. Thankfully, he eventually stopped sending me UFO stuff. These days he seems more focused on stupid Covid nonsense.
I find it totally easy to dump people because of their right-wing political views. Once I know that about them, they become worthless pieces of human garbage to me and I want nothing more to do with them.
Ha-ha! I actually think he’s more of an anarchist than aligned with either main political party. He’s, of course, all about guns, freedom of speech, martial arts, and uses a lot of familiar “talking points” that suggest he wouldn’t have a problem with the collapse of this country’s social/political order. That’s the problem with people like him. They think they are so smart to be able to be “in” on this shared knowledge of special fringe material, but have no clue as just what a descent into societal collapse would mean for themselves, their families, and everything else. Remember what happened in Yugoslavia. One minute they’re hosting the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, the next they’ve descended into internecine madness and bloodshed because of perceived threats ginned up and promoted by power-hungry authoritarian wannabes like we see right here in the U.S.A.
My entire family and I have had all 5 available shots - original vaccines and boosters. The worst side effect was a sore arm, which apparently means it's working. We each had one COVID infection, milder than a cold.
My business partner, a retired physician, went down the YouTube conspiracy rabbit hole. He believes the vaccine side effects are killing and disabling millions of people worldwide. His "proof" is an FDA/CDC database called Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).VAERS has been manipulated by conspiracy theorists and bad actors all over the world (Russia?), as anyone can submit one or more adverse events without any sort of validation. Sadly, my partner, a man of science and medicine, is beyond logic or persuasion. Loons indeed.
VAERS.gov states up front that it exists to be on the lookout for any problems with vaccines. It states that no claims have been vetted and no one should draw conclusions that vaccines cause adverse events.
There is a dot com VAERS website that exists to claim vaccines cause deaths or injuries because they reportedly happened after people were vaccinated. No mention of the millions of doses which caused nothing but a sore arm. Nor that the Covid virus itself causes heart problems much more frequently than does the vaccine.
Exactly this. People who are unsophisticated about propaganda techniques or prone to believing conspiracy theories fall for these unsupported claims all the time. Facebook and YouTube are particular cesspools of disinformation
I would suggest that breaking this scourge of mindless conspiracies into two parts might have some value:(1) those who create them, and (2) those who readily accept them as real. The Dunning-Kruger effect, IMO, plays a big part in both groups. The creaters have intent: they want to sow chaos, disruption, uncertainty, doubt, and anger. They may think they have superior insight into a given situation, when they don't. They may want to attack inividuals, institutions, establishments, political enemies, and even undermine civilization. They may know, in some instances, that what they have concocked makes no sense or isn't real, but also know that there is a vast and eager audience for it regardless. In other words punking the masses of dumkopfs, maybe even just for the fun of it. The second and larger group, the adopters of the conspiracies, may be weakminded souls who lack the intellectual ability to deconstruct the nonsense, but think they know more than they do, or they are hearing something they agree with so that makes it valid. Confirmation bias is very powerful in many of us even some with good critical thinking skills. There have always been conspiracies in fact, and in peoples' imagination and suspicions. That some are real muddies the waters with uncertainty about what to believe. For those trying to overthrow democracy uncertainty about reality is a powerful tool. That's why, again IMO, we are seeing so much ridiculous nonsense being spread on social media. And Mr Musk has become a big part of the problem. I believe we're going to see an epidemic of it at least for the next two years.
Thanks for the posting about this and bringing it into focus. What to say--these people are evil, pure and simple. Not just misguided or stupid, etc.. No other way to put it.
Thank you for talking about this Lucian. Hamlin’s cardiac arrest was a result of Commotion Cordis. It’s a sudden forceful blow to the chest that interrupts the electrical conduction in the heart. But you wouldn’t expect the conspiracy cretins to understand or believe anything that has a scientific explanation. They will grab at anything and distort it to promote their destructive conspiracies. As Lucian said, if you haven’t received your bivalent booster please get it. It’s frustrating to see people hospitalized on ventilators that could have been prevented.
It’s actually Commotio Cordis. Auto correct strikes again
Karen RN, it's possible to edit a comment after you've posted it. See the three dots to the right of Reply and Collapse? Click it and you'll see the Edit option. (You don't want to know how many times I've used this. ;-) )
Thank you for the tip Susanna!
Yes, Karen, thanks for pointing that condition out.
They're not stupid. The lies are deliberate. DeSantis and his ilk are using these lies to manipulate their base and get people to rally around yet another conspiracy theory.
The pros say Trump will destroy DeSantis in a one on one, then, he will lose if he runs...Double Dips in DeSantistan!!!
I wish I could believe it. At present, Trump's in trouble, but some pundits say he still has the evangelicals although most of the leadership has thrown him under the bus. I'm more inclined to think that once the campaigns get underway, both of these jerks will go after each other with knives and pitchforks, and DeSantis will win the nomination. However, he will not win the election because the GOP is too extremist.
Thank you for this! We are wanting to set up a bivalent booster ASAP. It will be our fourth booster, I believe.
What does it take for these people to just shut up?
I guess it'll be death.
Because their hero is running for office again, and there's just no end to it.
They're suffering from a terminal case of Dunning-Kruger and they just don't know it, and we have to suffer from them forever.
God, I wish the American education system was better.
This all goes back to Ronald Reagan killing the funding necessary for the support of the asylums in this country.
AND the universities, along with the rest of the education system. I had a few friends working in a few agencies in Washington when Reagan took over, and they'd start calling me in panic only months later about all the funding suddenly evaporating.
the de-institutionalization thing had actually started earlier, and was based on a premise that would only have made sense if the government had funded the vast and complicated system of out-patient care that never happened. the same thing with methadone maintenance, which was supposed to include all kinds of rehabilitation programs, job training, etc. but nobody ever intended for that to happen. much too expensive.
the prevailing sanctification of Reagan is just so much bullshit...
Yes, ol' Ronnie Raygun made a huge pile of political hay from his anti-intellectual stances and his rants against funding colleges and mental health institutions. Ron and Dubya made their entire political careers from turning their lifelong disinterest in education & learning into a form of swaggering braggadocio.
Sorry to say, wlipman, you are—inadvertently, I've no doubt—rewriting history. Under the flag of civil liberties, closing the asylums became rather suddenly an urgent liberal goal. So sudden and urgent, nobody bothered to plan the friendly local quarters and services that were envisioned to house and treat the suddenly "liberated." Courts ordered release in the blink of an eye. Urban dwellers have lived with the consequences ever since. 'Most everything wrong today has roots in Reagan's agenda, but the abandonment of mentally ill USians is an exception only our side can be blamed for.
exactly right. but that liberal imperative DID also include a system for keeping track of the de-institutionalized and keeping them treated. the courts just weren't paying attention.
it seems to be a very American thing to avoid sitting down and thinking shit through. hence the continuing embrace of every new technology that comes down the pike with no thought whatsoever about where it might lead. Timothy Wu published a book about this something like ten years ago, but the title eludes me at the moment...lemme check...ha! "The Master Switch."
You might call that an American tradition, David. Where I grew up, in the Ohio Valley, and in WV's Kanawha Valley, the chemical industry knew an unregulated opportunity when they saw one after WWII. Local business leaders hailed the arrival as progress. Now national media present exposés about toxins like Teflon they produce. But tell that to my cousin, a goodhearted MAGAt who has devoted his worklife to Dupont—and whose only grandchild, a shiny basketball star, died of a fentanyl od (a story Manchin related to Congress). … I was sorry to read that Timothy Wu is leaving the administration, but know that wherever he's going he'll be doing something uniquely useful. —df
Welcome homeless, Ronnie's legacy.
LOL.
He destroyed the 60 bed county hospitals creating the homeless epidemic. He also took on Fauci with his HIV/AIDs foot dragging, which Trump copied in Spring of 2020.
When enough opposition existed on the left, Tip O'Neill was able to back Reagan down from his worst excesses. On mental health services, Ronnie had the left on his side as he "liberated" the mentally ill.
These conspiracy theorists are like sharks in the waters.The more chum in the water, the better.I continue to be flummoxed by the right wingers wrestling with the truth.This all goes back to my hammering on about Donald Trump being indicted and held accountable.So much of this maelstrom could be righted if this will ever happen.I hope to not sound like a broken record but the only way out for us is if he is headed down and out.Soon.
Trump will likely have only paved the way for someone worse, barring the mass media focusing on issues and not the "horse race" heading into 2024. But indicting and convicting him, sure, that helps.
I'm not so sure about "worse." more dangerous, very possibly. but nobody could possibly be sicker. or more stupid.
I agree about the more dangerous aspect. TFG was so out of control, careening around like a wrecking ball, saying and doing absurd things regularly. Someone more polished and well-spoken, for instance, and with the same or more evil intent (if that is possible) would be truly frightening.
And that person might actually accomplish the right-wing fantasy of replacing our democratic republic with a christo-fascist theocracy.
The Nat C's are here!
Just apply your imagination to the already wacko bunch and consider George "Volleyball Champ" Santos as well as Marjorie Taylor Greene. My theory is either of them and plenty more from the GOP clown parade are eager to prove they are even sicker and more stupid...
Race to the bottom by the GOP...again.
Where'd you get the underline function? Thanks.
Saw “The Promise” on HBO about “the end of the Ottoman Empire”. Well, that was the “watch me, please” description, but the real context was the genocide of Armenians. Official lies, and persecution of journalists. This is what this stuff leads to, people!! Shape up!!
And leading, sadly, to persecution of anyone going against the official narratives.
AND...for the most part, these dangerous edjits are all vaxxed.
You are right, there is nothing to do when creatures like the Florida governor tell lies, and are believed by their constituents, who appear to lack the ability to be curious.
Florida has had the third highest death rate from COVID among US states, from what I have read. DeathSantis has obviously been very effective as governor. Not.
We Dems here in DeSantistan get jabbed on schedule...and smile gleefully.
I hope you are all wearing masks, for protection of course, but to spite him as well!
Bottom of the barrel...
A case of hope!
These really are the fking Mole People.
I thought this the most plausible explanation. https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-people-buy-crackpot-conspiracy-111400996.html
Thank you for the link to this very interesting article. The part referring to people who have superficial knowledge about something and then overestimate their knowledge reminds me once again that "a little learning is dang'rous thing".
Indeed, Susan. We all know someone who fits that description perfectly.
Thanks for the link. That was an excellent article.
I listened to a "karen" sitting behind me in the diner last night -- she went on and on and on about doctors being wrong all the time, and trans stuff is people wanting to change the sex of their kids like China pushed male babies and how the video of Paul Pelosi getting beaten with a hammer was fake news. My SIL says her father's COPD isn't the result of long haul covid and bronchitis like his doctor said, it is from the vaccine and booster her father got . . . You are right, there is nothing we can do about their meanness, their obscene lack of humanity, and their complete ignorance. Sure glad I got all my vaccines and boosters, chances are I will outlive those Selfish Ones.
I’m changing my name to Raven
Lol!
You should have asked her how bleach was working for her...still can't believe poor Dr. B sitting there trying not to break out laughing at TFG.
Thanks for continuing to shine a light on this because like all infestations, ignorance spreads more easily in darkness.
Whenever I hear that kind of anti-science propaganda and weaponized lies I'm reminded of the movie "Inherit The Wind" and the speech Spencer Tracy gives as Clarence Darrow:
"Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we’ll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind.”
Thank you, Lucian. I was reminded of this yesterday when a ‘friend’ of mine from daze of yore (we worked at the same transportation outfit in Oregon many years ago) forwarded to me, what he obviously believes to be a hilariously funny stand-up routine by a guy I never heard of: Jim Breuer. I watched maybe 3 minutes of Breuer’s act, not even chuckling once, before cutting bait and saying, WTF? This guy is not funny. He’s just stupid. I ran it by my wife to see if maybe I was being too harsh. Nope. She agreed. The guy is a dolt. But….here he is. Up on stage….getting yuks from people who presumably think just like he does. Namely, that Covid is a joke and that people who take it seriously and (this is key!) FOLLOW THE SCIENCE, and not some dip-shit drivel on the internet that has been slapped up there by folks who just a few years earlier were the world’s foremost Constitutional scholars when Barack HUSSEIN Obama was in office (you know…“that Muslim terrorist born in Kenya!”), are worthy of ridicule and mockery because they are just so-oooooo much like trained seals (his apparent specialty in mammal impersonation) - “sheeple” ….trained to flap their flippers and bark for a tossed treat of dried fish. There is no reasoning with these people. They are so far down the rabbit hole that if they shined a light, it would come out of their mouth.
Did you respond back that you didn’t find this guy funny? I had a neighbor who used to send me crap like that. I put my foot down. His wife is lovely but he hasn’t spoken to me in 3 years. No love lost.
I didn’t. He and I have been on a divergent path for many a moon. Speaking of which, he also believes the moon landings were “fake.” I once pointed out to him that all these beliefs he has are like a religion to him. That is, they can’t be questioned. (A one-time Catholic in his youth. He did not take this well.) This is a guy who not only believes all the right-wing talking points about Covid that this idiot, Jim Breuer, is serving up to the proletariat for laughs, but a whole host of other fables like claiming the term “Conspiracy Theory” itself was coined by the C.I.A. in order to throw doubt on the Truth that only he and like-minded geniuses are able to see. The thing is, that if you research a little, you CAN find that, yes, there was this claim that the C.I.A. did just that. But….(and here is where it gets interesting), if you dig a little deeper, you will find that, actually, that is not True. The term predates the creation of the C.I.A. and it can be proven. But guys like him aren’t going to dig down to find that out. They’ve already got what they went after - something that supports their argument. He also doesn’t like to hear the term “debunked.” This is where shooting the Messenger comes into play. I learned years ago that it’s pointless to argue with him. He’s like those “Birthers” who insisted that Barack Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate was “fake” because of this, that, or the other thing. I recall telling one guy that if he actually saw and held the document itself, rubbed his finger across the embossed seal and sniffed the ink, he’d still deny it was real. At this point I don’t care what he thinks. In response to him sending me that Jim Breuer concert clip, I sent him the link to one where Breuer appears as a ‘Guest’ on Fox’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” Breuer is so off the wall that he gets that multimillionaire “East Coast Elitist” right-wing Propagandist ‘Conservative’ bloviating wind-bag to go into that patented WTF! look of bemused befuddlement that he does all the time when faced with total outlandish shite that he can’t wrap his White Privileged brain around. I sent that back to my old ‘friend’ without comment. On the piece, by the way, the ‘Young Turks’ take Breuer apart, as well as Carlson. [It’s worth checking out. You can find it on YouTube] They have a lot of fun with it. No, I have not heard back. If I never hear from him again, I will probably count that as a plus in my life. These people will exhaust you with their imperviousness to reason, science, sound logic, and being ‘fact checked.’ Thank you for your response.
Real friends take a hint—or a konk on the head. An old friend of mine is brilliant, an exquisite writer, but collects and inexplicably believes rightist tripe from obscure sources. He used to email me that junk. Each time from the first I'd make merciless fun of it—always easy (never of him). Happened enough times he stopped sending it and we're still friendly.
That’s rare these days. I don’t see that happening with my former friend. He has too much invested in all these off-the-wall beliefs he has that are just plain Wrong…Not True…False…Completely lacking in a factual basis….ersatz…bogus….shite….crapola….etc. Look, he is a huge fan of Joe Rogan. He takes all this stuff very seriously. I’m about ready to cut him loose for the last time. I think I’ll feel a lot better. (Gulp!)
Just delete it with no comment.
Have you told him how close to the edge he is with you? That could make him think—or jump. shee-rah's suggestion looks good to me too. My friend and I go waaay back, through different lives, and were always at opposite ends of the left-right scale. He was a big fan of Charles "Bell Curve" Murray and gets pseudointellectual reinforcement from places like the Claremont Institute; at least one high-profile never-Trumper is a former colleague of his. So he tries to make his positions sound defensible. Maybe he's afraid it he pushes it I'll bring up the trump-nutcase-lawyer he used to work for. I have a cousin who's over there too, your garden-variety MAGAt I could never cut loose—just a misguided sweet guy. Hope you're able to preserve something.
I don’t know, honestly. I once gave my friend a large coffee table book put out by NASA. I forget the title, but it was basically Never-Before-Published photos taken by the various Lunar Missions of….well, you guessed it….the Moon. His reaction? “Pretty Pictures”. (And it’s was an expensive book, which I had mailed to him from across the country. Ingrate. LOL!)
Look, years ago I watched an episode of a TV series devoted to examining popular beliefs: “Mythbusters”. I don’t think it’s on any more, but…I’m talking about a time that was maybe 20 years ago. They used to do these segments examining things like the belief where a grand piano has so much potential energy in it that if it is in a fire it becomes like a bomb! (“Busted!” btw…) They actually spent a whole HOUR on the Lunar Landing “Hoax” issue. Examining EVERYTHING those nut jobs believe that would rule out the historic landings being legit: from the bio-medical hazard of traveling through the Van Allen Radiation Belt, to the US flag “waving” in a non-existent wind after being being planted in the lunar surface by the Apollo XI crew, to shadows being inconsistent in photos taken from the “alleged” surface of the Moon, to the way the astronauts “hopped” about, to the lack of stars in the sky when viewed from the lunar surface, etc. They took all those issues, and MORE, (I’m sure, because it was so long ago, and I don’t remember every damn thing they covered), and using scientific data and controlled experiments showed EXACTLY WHY these claims didn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny. At the end of the show they went to an astronomical observatory and explained their mission, asking if they could contribute something. And did they ever. The observatory beamed up a laser to the Moon. It was aimed at a mirror left by one of the Apollo missions for just this kind of exercise. The laser hit the mirror and bounced back to the observatory. Since a laser beam is ‘Timed’ It showed the EXACT distance the Moon was from the Earth at that PRECISE moment. Probably right down to the millimeter. (I’m guessing here, but…you get my point.). One of the Mythbusters hosts asked, “What do you think when you hear people say “the Moon Landings were a Hoax!” She (the scientist) responded, “Honestly? I feel sorry for them.” And that’s the thing.
When you learn that the astronauts themselves thought the lunar missions were so dangerous that they had maybe a 50% chance of getting to the Moon and making it back home alive, you will understand just how f***ing heroic these guys were. And they weren’t doing it for big bucks, either! These were regular Joes who were married, had families, and for the most part were just military pilots who had applied for the chance to go on these very risky missions into Space and beyond the relatively “Safe” confines of Earth orbit. There was no Big Money in it for them. The whole “Hoax” conspiracy theory undercuts their genuine bravery in taking on something that oddsmakers agreed was a crap shoot like no other. Do it and you return a Hero. Screw Up, and you Die. That’s it. No in between.
Apollo 13, obviously, came very close to being a disaster, and not because of a Screw Up. But…just one of those things where something completely unanticipated happened. THAT is why I have so much of a problem dealing with people like my friend. They undercut the notion that sometimes we humans are capable of some really extraordinary things. And the US Space program of the 1960’s was just that. Literally thousands of people (40,000, perhaps?) working for a whole lot of different companies and contractors all contributing SOMETHING to achieve a common goal. Remember Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom’s “speech” to an assembled throng of assembly workers at a plant constructing Atlas rockets used to launch future Mercury flights? This is what he said: “Do Good Work”. That’s it. The workers went wild, and they had a banner designed with those words emblazoned on it to hang over the huge factory floor from the rafters. It reminded all those hourly workers what was at stake. This is why these Moon Landing Deniers vex and dishearten me. They cheapen our greatest of all abilities. That propensity of we humans to sometimes do the “Impossible!” It’s what defines us as a species.
Paul—I worked evenings for years and missed that show among the many. Anybody's first reaction to Robin St. Taw's comment here has to be tl;dr, but in the present-day context it's fascinating.
Dunno if it's still on the air, but for years Pacifica broadcast a weekly show hosted by Bonnie something that swallowed whole every hoax theory around. Hearing the crazies weave their fantasies was mesmerizing. A friend of mine, an arts administrator, used to host a charming monthly salon. Every month or two somebody would show up with some totally unpredictable guests. As it happened, her loft was almost literally in the shadow of the World Trade Center. Many if not most of us had participated up-close that awful morning. The next-closest firehouse was downstairs from her. The night a pair of 9/11 deniers turned up as guests at a salon I heard nobody challenge them. I suspect—like me—anyone who discovered that about them was too gobsmacked to engage. Now I get my hoax jollies as bedtime stories on the syndicated overnight UFO radio show, which is also the tip of a fringe-right iceberg.
I realized the other day it may be time to tune it out. Some of the stuff rhymes enough with reality I could pick up BS that sounds reasonable and forget where I got it—the very reason I don't read the nyPost. I guess what it comes down to is such nonsense can be bemusing as long as the source is known not to be trustworthy and you can not take it seriously.
It sounds like our orbits have overlapped at some point. I was a New Yorker and a Jersey boy at some points in my life. I recall Pacifica Radio, although not that particular program. And…yes, my friend is VERY into UFO lore. He often used to send me breathless mandates to “….look at the latest ‘evidence!” which he would ‘fwd’ at distressingly all-too-frequent intervals. Naturally, watching these ‘Great Reveals’ took time, and I tired of having to sit through what amounted to a whole lot of speculation as to what this, that, or the other thing was, only to surmise in the end that, clearly….the supposed UFO “experts” couldn’t agree on what was observed and….one could draw their own conclusions. For Example: an aviator might opine that the “objects” behaved in such a manner that a human body would not survive such rapid changes in direction, velocity, speed, etc. But, hell, that doesn’t prove anything. Who says these objects were even occupied, let alone by life forces that approximate our own all-too-delicate human biology. Bottom Line I tired of always telling him that whatever I had seen in these videos/tales was “interesting,” although they hardly added up to conclusive evidence of what he (and all these other folk) were pushing. Look at the Qanon loons. They openly talk about ‘Lizard People’ and ‘Space Demons.’ It’s just too damn tiresome to have to respond to their off-grid obsessions. Thankfully, he eventually stopped sending me UFO stuff. These days he seems more focused on stupid Covid nonsense.
I find it totally easy to dump people because of their right-wing political views. Once I know that about them, they become worthless pieces of human garbage to me and I want nothing more to do with them.
Must be tough for your friend to mourn your descent into Communism.
Ha-ha! I actually think he’s more of an anarchist than aligned with either main political party. He’s, of course, all about guns, freedom of speech, martial arts, and uses a lot of familiar “talking points” that suggest he wouldn’t have a problem with the collapse of this country’s social/political order. That’s the problem with people like him. They think they are so smart to be able to be “in” on this shared knowledge of special fringe material, but have no clue as just what a descent into societal collapse would mean for themselves, their families, and everything else. Remember what happened in Yugoslavia. One minute they’re hosting the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, the next they’ve descended into internecine madness and bloodshed because of perceived threats ginned up and promoted by power-hungry authoritarian wannabes like we see right here in the U.S.A.
“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.....”
Excellent '70s song reference!
My entire family and I have had all 5 available shots - original vaccines and boosters. The worst side effect was a sore arm, which apparently means it's working. We each had one COVID infection, milder than a cold.
My business partner, a retired physician, went down the YouTube conspiracy rabbit hole. He believes the vaccine side effects are killing and disabling millions of people worldwide. His "proof" is an FDA/CDC database called Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).VAERS has been manipulated by conspiracy theorists and bad actors all over the world (Russia?), as anyone can submit one or more adverse events without any sort of validation. Sadly, my partner, a man of science and medicine, is beyond logic or persuasion. Loons indeed.
VAERS.gov states up front that it exists to be on the lookout for any problems with vaccines. It states that no claims have been vetted and no one should draw conclusions that vaccines cause adverse events.
There is a dot com VAERS website that exists to claim vaccines cause deaths or injuries because they reportedly happened after people were vaccinated. No mention of the millions of doses which caused nothing but a sore arm. Nor that the Covid virus itself causes heart problems much more frequently than does the vaccine.
Exactly this. People who are unsophisticated about propaganda techniques or prone to believing conspiracy theories fall for these unsupported claims all the time. Facebook and YouTube are particular cesspools of disinformation
I would suggest that breaking this scourge of mindless conspiracies into two parts might have some value:(1) those who create them, and (2) those who readily accept them as real. The Dunning-Kruger effect, IMO, plays a big part in both groups. The creaters have intent: they want to sow chaos, disruption, uncertainty, doubt, and anger. They may think they have superior insight into a given situation, when they don't. They may want to attack inividuals, institutions, establishments, political enemies, and even undermine civilization. They may know, in some instances, that what they have concocked makes no sense or isn't real, but also know that there is a vast and eager audience for it regardless. In other words punking the masses of dumkopfs, maybe even just for the fun of it. The second and larger group, the adopters of the conspiracies, may be weakminded souls who lack the intellectual ability to deconstruct the nonsense, but think they know more than they do, or they are hearing something they agree with so that makes it valid. Confirmation bias is very powerful in many of us even some with good critical thinking skills. There have always been conspiracies in fact, and in peoples' imagination and suspicions. That some are real muddies the waters with uncertainty about what to believe. For those trying to overthrow democracy uncertainty about reality is a powerful tool. That's why, again IMO, we are seeing so much ridiculous nonsense being spread on social media. And Mr Musk has become a big part of the problem. I believe we're going to see an epidemic of it at least for the next two years.
Thanks for the posting about this and bringing it into focus. What to say--these people are evil, pure and simple. Not just misguided or stupid, etc.. No other way to put it.
Let them eat Ivermectin.