I was gonna write something much longer about this ridiculous ivermectin push that people like Matt Taibbi and the rest of the new reactionary right has been involved in.
So sorry to see you pushing a pro-vaccine position on this issue and highlighting the Oxford study-to-be which is guaranteed to come to the same erroneous negative conclusion as it did with hydroxychloroquine - tip: follow the money. Had you taken the time to actually research the data on Ivermectin (most of which is available here: https://covid19criticalcare.com/) you'd have seen that the global experience supports the use of Ivermectin rather than the big Pharma/WHO cartel profiting from dubious gene therapy products which neither confer immunity nor prevent transmission of C-19 and the complication rate of which (per VAERS - https://vaers.hhs.gov/) far exceeds that of any prior vaccine product allowed to remain on the market.
It was sad, but predictable that the issue would become bound up in right-wing NeoCon & ultra right-wing politics ('liberal' is a misnomer... they don't exist in the mainstream American political system) since it was utterly predictable that, whatever the merits of any particular treatment method, its endorsement by one side or the other automatically discredited it to the other. Sadly, Taibbi decided to discuss this issue rather than make the case for Ivermectin & equally sadly, Yasha decided to address this from the 'right-far-right' spectrum, rather than to do due diligence and report on the reality.
I have not pursed Ivermectin's method of action but its action as an anti-viral has been recognized for a decade or more when it was tried (in the laboratory, I believe) against SARS CoV-1 & MERS and found to be active. I've reviewed the data supporting its use & safety (after millions of doses over decades) and believe it to be a better bet than the gene therapy offered as 'vaccinations' and am currently utilizing it according the FLCCC's 'I-MASS' protocol.
The I-MASS protocol is prophylactic & I've been on it for many months at this point - I've no intention of taking the faux 'vaccine' gene therapy. I'm a retired physician.
About "pro-vaccine" position -- it is all about costs versus benefit, correct.
People are HAPPY to be vaccinated and be free of fear of dying by slowly suffocating.
All else is -- just a noise. Including spreading "information," without any supporting logic and justification, that Matt Taibbi's has suddenly morphed in a right-winger.... a la despicable Likudnik Bari Weiss ;-))
Your people may be happy to be vaccinated, but my people will not live in a state, study at a university or take a job at a company that mandate vaccination. We see it as an undeclared world war against people. We'll see who will win.
Hi Yasha, I know what you mean about Taibbi, and big pharma, and Cuba.
But, to be fair, when you write...
"It's all about opening up a new front in the ongoing culture war: they’re holding up ivermectin as proof of how totalitarian and evil the libs are."
...that seems a bit of a stretch to me.
Even down here in New Zealand it's all a bit strange on the topic.
Being married to a nurse (30 years at the job) I'm able to access someone with a bit of knowledge and professional detachment. Also, as it happens, I was visiting my doctor this week to check out some sun damage on my hands (too much surfing 😳).
I asked both...they both said the same thing:
"It's confusing as to why the topic of off-label medicine is such a big deal".
The doctor said that her colleagues are all confused as to why they can't have access to something that looks like it works (in NZ is not available for prescription). She directed me to this recent peer-reviewed meta-analysis paper:
As I was leaving the doc said something like "it's pretty weird when we can't prescribe stuff that might help".
Just sayin'
Doubly weird when you scroll down a page like https://ivmstatus.com/ and see the Ivermectin in treatment packs in other countries?
Interestingly, I believe it was one of the authors of that paper my doctor pointed me to, that finally convinced the UK to relent and think about doing a study:
From the linked BBC article:
"...The drug has become controversial after being promoted for use across Latin America and in South Africa, despite being so far unproven. Previous studies of Ivermectin have generally been small or low quality..."
The reason it is unproven is because it costs money to do massive studies. There is no financial incentive to do a massive study.
These comments don't have much to do with the substance of this piece. As least not what I appreciate about it. Which is the degree to which people are eagerly whipped into a frenzy for their particular point of view. Maybe not new, but the deepest kind of culture I have seen. And I agree that certain journalists are deliberately, or accidentally on purpose, feeding that frenzy.
Leftists have been whipped into a frenzy of incompetence and psychological dysfunction for a very long time (1960s, 1990s, take you pick).
We now have totalitarians on the cultural-left (SJWs, New Clerisy, The Elect, etc.) in an alliance with the corporate-state (including the corrupt D party establishment) and the military-industrial-complex.
The "legacy" (economic) left, Marxists and such, as almost completely irrelevant (see the Adolph Reed vs DSA fiasco). No one expects a new version of Mao or Castro to pop up in the world and lead an international class revolution as far as I can tell. The legacy left is a dead end movement, incapable of evolving into anything other than a bizarre mutation of what it was supposed to be against.
The New Clerisy/Elect has engaged in gross violations of free speech, via censorship.
Yasha has completely failed to adequately or accurately address the actual failures of the left, OR the scientific issues, OR how science is being censored.
You are an idiot that isn't capable of anything other than gaslighting and deflection. You have ZERO capacity for honest self-reflection (authentic interior awareness).
The legacy left failed because its ideas (class revolution) were shitty, inadequate and incapable of keeping up with cultural evolution (the "crisis of meaning").
The left discredited itself, and Yasha's article is just another pebble on a mountain of evidence of such failures (see Habermas' theory of communicative action). He is projecting his own cynicism on others, a classic leftist rhetorical trick that is meaningless.
By contrast, see Freddie DeBoer, and actual, honest (self-critical) leftist who is trying to get past the wasteland of both legacy and cultural leftism.
More idiotic gaslighting and deflection, no surprise.
Your gross hypocrisy is astonishing:
Yasha is turning into a smear artist (not surprising for a leftist).
Being a smear artist is the DEFINITION OF "AD HOMINEM"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yasha is obviously projecting his own cynicism on people he is envious of that are more successful.
You are gripped by toxic groupthink and ideological tribalism, same as 99.99999999% of the left. You are purely dysfunctional.
The legacy left failed because it is incoherent (Marx failed to understand basic human nature, such as nationalist-tribal and spiritual impulses) and a magnet for violent, psychologically disturbed assholes. See Orwell, etc.
To repeat: the left is a magnet for violent, psychologically disturbed, dysfunctional assholes.
YOUR vapid ahistorical blabbering is yet another pebble on the mountain of evidence.
YOUR vapid, ahistorical blabbering ignores the many testimonies from many leftists that came to regret their failure to denounce Stalin, Mao, Castro.
YOUR vapid, ahistorical blabbering ignores the many testimonies from leftists that came to regret their obsequious groveling to leftist groupthink and ideological tribalism.
YOUR vapid, ahistorical blabbering ignores the millions of people killed by communists while spineless leftists in the west stood silent.
YOUR vapid, ahistorical blabbering ignores the fact that the left is full of shitty ideas and worse people that are incapable of inspiring others or forming effective ways of changing the world.
Ultimately the only thing you are defending are your own idiotic utopian delusions.
"I wonder why. I mean, it couldn't be the century-long campaign by the corporate/oligarch/MIC/government elite to stamp out and crush any real leftist movements in the USSA, could it?"
-----
comments:
1. communists openly and repeatedly stated that their goal was to destroy capitalism for about 100 years, depending on definitions, timelines, and so forth.
are you really so poorly educated and uninformed that you don't understand basic facts of history?
20 million killed in Mao's Cultural Revolution?
2. standard fascist rhetoric, for instance Mussolini, was an illogical mix of grandiose myths about the magical will of the people and "racist" VICTIM narratives.
Criticism was censored.
Your rhetoric follows Mussolini's basic rhetorical structure:
The left is a glorious/utopian ideology AND it is suppressed by evil capitalists.
You love censorship, or are at least giddy at the opportunity to gratify your ego by making excuses for the corporate cultural-left when it engages in censorship.
There's a baseless rant. In case you haven't noticed, there's a fascization of the world going on. It's being carried out by people who claim to be fighting fascism and imply that they are protecting us from unstoppable threats. This means that they do not want this disease to be easily curable. Even their so-called vaccines are designed to fail (e.g. if a variant immune to the vaccine appears) if it meets their needs. It may be profitable for Big Pharma, but that's just a side effect
It's unfortnate you have chosen---and yes it is a choice--- to disparage something you likely know little about, but then to politicize it too when your apparent arch-nemesis "that goddamned TAIBBI again!" writes something about it.... ah well, we are all individuals when it is said and done, eh wot?
Now I could be stepping up to the firing squad here but I studied, yes, researched and studied Ivermectin long before starting on it myself. Which I did, one year ago. The science, the rigorous statistical analysis, is pointing to its efficacy as being actually BETTER than any of these vaccinations with no side effects. So there's that. It just happens to smother the SARS-Cov-2 spike protein quite handily.
Now I'm 70 years old, have my mental faculties about me, and will stand and debate you point by point (but non-politically) on this if it doesn't turn into a feces-flinging free-for-all of ego vs ego and disparagement.
For the record, I am likely further 'left' than you. The doc who has been fighting for Ivermectin's recognition most famously, Pierre Kory, is a long-time Democrat---for what that's worth. The source for a basic working knowledge of this drug is FLCCC.net. That's Front Line Covid Critical Care. These are highly respected, top in their fields doctors. And quite international in scope.
You will find that there have been many stop and go trials and outright national OTC prescriptions of this drug in 3rd world countries. Mexico is one of the latest after a stop and go start. Malaysia just said yea, various Indian states have had undeniable positive results; Peru has had remarkable results too; but like in every country where the drug was under political pressure, their case rates and mortality climbed the cliff---only to fall right off once Ivermectin was reintroduced. Anyway, you can either rip into me or actually look at the source which will lead you to other sources.
I really enjoy the vast majority of your writing, I love learning about things I know very little or nothing about, and your life experience(s) and variety of geographic locales visited will continue to fascinate me. Conversely I could teach you more about Alaska ("as if," I know...) than likely anybody else you might ask for information of it most anywhere---because I've lived it and because I love it. So I know it from end to end, onside and out, life and death, for 70 years, working mostly on its salt waters, out to Attu and to the Canadian border on the Arctic Ocean. I know when to be confident and when to shut up and listen.
Just saying, I have a head start on you re: Ivermmectin. I hope you will look into it further.
Yasha I was very sorry to see you wandering out of your expertise zone on this one, and inadvertently passing on some misleading assertions. If you or your readers would like a non partisan source of expert information about Ivermectin, I suggest looking either at TrialSite News, or at the evidence gathered by high level front line care experts, either Dr Kory at the FLCC, or Dr Tess Lawrie at the UK equivalent. Dr Lawrie's credentials and a relevant article can be accessed at the following link. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Theresa-Lawrie
I would also like to flag up the naivete of your closing reference to 'an unproven... treatment'. If you had any experience of working in government policy circles, you would know very well that what counts as 'proven' or 'unproven' is NOT just a scientific research issue: That if there is sufficiently strong interest in one side or another of a policy issue, research can very easily be - and often is - selectively approved or criticised accordingly, because there are ALWAYS unanswered questions. Every good piece of serious research raises many new questions - this is the nature of the subject. Check out the wonderful episode of the British TV comedy 'Yes Minister' about one particular piece of inconvenient research findings, in which the sharp old civil servant explains to the Minister how to rubbish a piece of research and prompt the researcher to modify the conclusions in the desired manner, without even having bothered to read the report.
Your work on weaponising immigrants has been very insightful, and is what prompted me to subscribe to your substack. But sadly this article about Ivermectin is extremely ill informed and shallow, therefore dangerous, because some of your readers could be harmfully mislead by the remarks you have passed on.
Matt Tiabbi is no expert on the medical issues either, but at least his article is within his area of expertise relating to the US media and its censorship behaviours.
Please get back to writing about the stuff on which you have so much valuable new insight to offer.
One irony: Substack was created to get around the censorship of corporate-cultural-left totalitarians. And here we are reading Yasha's projections of his own leftist cynicism on Substack.
The point about the "simplified reactionary culture war" is possibly well founded, however, the Ivermectin vehicle you have used to illustrate it seems ill founded.
There is a growing body of evidence from research that Ivermectin is a useful prophylactic against SARS-CoV-2 infection. For instance:
"Conclusion: Two-dose ivermectin prophylaxis at a dose of 300 μg/kg with a gap of 72 hours was associated with a 73% reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers for the following month. Chemoprophylaxis has relevance in the containment of pandemic."
"Conclusions: Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified."
sure. like i wrote, “Maybe ivermectin will be proven to have some positive effects. But the people pushing this new ivermectin narrative don’t care about public health, one way or another. It's all about opening up a new front in the ongoing culture war: they’re holding up ivermectin as proof of how totalitarian and evil the libs are.”
re: "the people pushing this new ivermectin narrative don’t care about public health, one way or another"
That is a stunningly toxic and repulsively CYNICAL take.
The reality of the "culture wars" is that the left has been almost universally exposed for its inability and/or unwillingness to use fact and evidence based arguments. (Internal critics of the left, such as Orwell, Rorty, Lakoff, Lasch, Learner have been pointing this out for a long time.)
You really need to seek psychiatric support if you think such a grotesque projection of your own failures and cynicism on someone like Bret Weinstein isn't flagrantly obvious to your readers.
As an evolutionary biologist, Weinstein has been fighting against the anti-rationalist, anti-science kooks on the far left since the 1990s. (See Pinker's discussion of the "blank slate".)
There is little doubt that the "right" is using the suppression of proven effective remedies and prophylactic treatments as an attack vector on "libs", just as the Democrats engaged the first steps culture war under the covid rubric as part of their campaign to oust Trump by focusing first on his support for HCQ and then on his eschewing of face masks. Neither side in this cares about health, they score points for political purposes based on a calculus of what will gain them most in the electoral and sponsorship stakes.
There are only two sides: 1) the elites who think they own the world – all of its resources and all of its people, and 2) the rest of us.
The rest is politico-psychodrama designed to beguile and manipulate populations into passively assisting the elites get wealthier and advancing the interests of one elite group over another. As they stand now, left and right have no meaning apart from being different faces of the same bent coin.
just to be clear, we can find different studies to cite. here's a recent one — a double-blind, randomized trial that found it did nothing:
"In this randomized clinical trial that included 476 patients, the duration of symptoms was not significantly different for patients who received a 5-day course of ivermectin compared with placebo (median time to resolution of symptoms, 10 vs 12 days; hazard ratio for resolution of symptoms, 1.07).
The findings do not support the use of ivermectin for treatment of mild COVID-19, although larger trials may be needed to understand effects on other clinically relevant outcomes."
As above: "Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance"
Strange article -- I think that Matt's article was written with objectivity and integrity -- on topic of current record / interest (including interest among censors ;-)) ). And even stranger sentences a la placing a despicable Likudnik Bari Weiss together with Matt... !!! :
- "I was gonna write something much longer about this ridiculous ivermectin push that people like Matt Taibbi and the rest of the new reactionary right has been involved in."
- "Culture war — that's what this the sudden embrace of ivermectin by the new respectable/reactionary right is all about."
- "But that’s what reactionaries like Taibbi and Bari Weiss and Brett Weinstein are doing."
- And -- at the end: "Next up: get your Hate, Inc. silver ion supplements! They'll protect you from liberal Silicon Valley censorship!"
Despite that "Hate!" is truly on more masterpiece among Matt Taibbi's wonderful and perfectly timed books.
In summary -- Matt Taibbi is now sorted into a --- "reactionary right" - an assertion without any ( ANY ) discernible logic, evidence and support. Somewhat similar to TYT's Cenk & Ana despicable accusations against Aaron Mate.
I’m sorry you take offense at my characterization of a guy you clearly very much respect. But I indeed group Matt in with those people. That’s what he’s become these days.
Yasha, any labeling, especially quite insulting/offensive labeling, need at least rudimentary justification (logic used, facts, evidence, pattern) -- yet you have so far provided - none at all ?!?!
That was the original SMEAR piece (Taibbi said it was too absurd to respond to or something like that). It is now turning into a pattern of SMEAR pieces.
The censors and totalitarians on the cultural left are economically driven by such SMEARS, as well as TDS and other gross psychological dysfunctions (see dozens of TAIBBI articles citing real evidence).
Is Yasha dipping his toe in the water? Will he sell out and become yet another full time SMEAR artist writing for for-profit neolib corporate media?
I fail to see any relevance. What emotions? Science does not care if a vaccine is made by capitalists or communists. Cuban vaccines (cheap?) are presumably never going to used in the USA, and are not a meaningful part of the discussion. Seems like a silly deflection verging on gaslighting.
None of the discussion of censorship and ivermectin has anything to do with the ripoffs by big pharma producing/distributing COVID vaccine, it is about a bizarre attempt to shut down public debate.
I didn’t explain my background and all the details in my head.
The fitness industry is loaded with people using pharma/herbs off label. From performance to longevity and in between. I dislike how the government often makes them illegal without research after a scare story. Then gurus go “it works look the government is liars”. Sometimes they work and sometimes they cause major health problems but ultimately both parties cause an absolutist distrust in institution. I was emotional about censorship coming from that background.
I disagree with censorship. I think if an idea is weak it shouldn’t need the might of a thousand swords. If an idea is strong it can hold up to criticism. By blocking an idea it gives fuel to its believers but bickering over which possible wrong idea is right or wrong when there’s a solution already seems kind of fruitless.
That all being said publically funded “private” big pharma can fuck itself then get machine gunned and then it can fuck those holes, choke on its blood and die in a gutter covered in covid laced feces.
Yes, the new age/holistic/organic/herbal/whatever stuff is full of appalling scams (as well as some legit stuff), I saw the early version of that stuff in 1980 in the hippy subculture. Arguably the worse case is Mercola, a spinoff of Alex Jones conspiracy empire (estimated by PBS in their documentary on AJ to be #1 billion/year).
The state-corporate pharma system is also deeply corrupt, something that Bret Weinstein has been pointing out for a long time.
Thus, the actual problem that should be under discussion: is it possible to reform the corrupt institutions that practice real science?
(It deals with what Yasha is unwilling, or unable, to - the deep dysfunctional effect of postmodern social conditions and ideologies on the the knowledge/information ecosystem, including in the leftist dominated education and media sectors.)
When any discussion on safe treatments was banned and sick people not given any treatment, and just told to quarantine, it stopped being important whether someone was on the political right or left. I never thought I would like American evangelicals, but the time has come that I hope they will save us from mandatory vaccination.
The legacy left has dismally failed for over 50 years to stop globalists and the corporate-state from throwing working people under the bus.
The cultural left got in bed with the corporate-state as the neoliberal order was being constructed and postmodern social conditions set in as network effects disrupted the information ecosystem.
Write an article that explains why the left has failed (numerous internal critics of left have already explained this) and how to correct those failures that is not stupid or another shitty smear piece and I'll send you $250.
Yasha, while I understand your point and I'm not an anti-vaxer, but just to point out that India has been rolling out Ivermectin because many millions have not had access to vaccines. Numerous reputable studies have been done in India and Ivermectin has proven to have anti-viral properties which have proven some effectiveness. It's very cheap as well. I know that it must sound odd that an anti-parasitic drug should have anti-viral qualities, but apparently that's the case. I discovered this on a channel "Dr John Campbell" on Youtube. He's not an anti-vaxer. He is quite a reliable health professional who has been doing lot of research on COVID and what's been happening in the last 18 months. He's not prone to conspiracy. Check it out. I think you will find it interesting.
Yasha, Please specifically look at the bullshit that you article inspired.
----------------
"Mango M3 Huffy" said:
"I wonder why. I mean, it couldn't be the century-long campaign by the corporate/oligarch/MIC/government elite to stamp out and crush any real leftist movements in the USSA, could it?"
-----
comments:
1. communists openly and repeatedly stated that their goal was to destroy capitalism for about 100 years, depending on definitions, timelines, and so forth.
are you really so poorly educated and uninformed that you don't understand basic facts of history?
20 million killed in Mao's Cultural Revolution?
---
2. standard fascist rhetoric, for instance Mussolini, was an illogical mix of grandiose myths about the magical will of the people and "racist" VICTIM narratives.
Criticism was censored.
Your rhetoric follows Mussolini's basic rhetorical structure:
The left is a glorious/utopian ideology AND it is suppressed [VICTIMIZED] by evil capitalists.
You love censorship, or are at least giddy at the opportunity to gratify your ego by making excuses for the corporate cultural-left when it engages in censorship.
I read the above, quickly, and it was as bad as the first screenful I read earlier.
Gaslighting. Distortions. Contradictions.
Questions:
1. How is Vice-dot-com, which is presumably some kind of profit-driven media corporation, less guilty of whoring themselves out for profit than the "IDW"???
2. The article is full of idiotic rhetoric, and its primary point rests on guilt-by-association.
It doesn't actually address the objections of Weinstein, and breezes over the censorship, which isn't a surprise given that Vice-dot-com is in the same camp, the cultural-left, New Clerisy, as the people pressuring YouTube to censor anything that remotely resembles something that reminds them of how they got triggered into severe TDS a year ago.
3. The "IDW" was a joke, as was clearly explained by Eric Weinstein.
The "IDW", which doesn't really exist, has nothing to do with the topic.
Again, for-profit, sleazy totalitarians on the cultural left such as Vice-dot-com are more interested in SMEARS than facts.
I guess SMEARS gain more clicks/views and thus ad profits?????
And why for GAWD's sake is Yasha citing a shitty, for-profit clickbait site full of horrible, crappy journalism that panders to stupid readers as a source for a SMEAR piece on Taibbi in which he criticizes Taibbi for writing for profit???
The contradictions that leftists will lower themselves to for ego gratification are astonishing.
So sorry to see you pushing a pro-vaccine position on this issue and highlighting the Oxford study-to-be which is guaranteed to come to the same erroneous negative conclusion as it did with hydroxychloroquine - tip: follow the money. Had you taken the time to actually research the data on Ivermectin (most of which is available here: https://covid19criticalcare.com/) you'd have seen that the global experience supports the use of Ivermectin rather than the big Pharma/WHO cartel profiting from dubious gene therapy products which neither confer immunity nor prevent transmission of C-19 and the complication rate of which (per VAERS - https://vaers.hhs.gov/) far exceeds that of any prior vaccine product allowed to remain on the market.
It was sad, but predictable that the issue would become bound up in right-wing NeoCon & ultra right-wing politics ('liberal' is a misnomer... they don't exist in the mainstream American political system) since it was utterly predictable that, whatever the merits of any particular treatment method, its endorsement by one side or the other automatically discredited it to the other. Sadly, Taibbi decided to discuss this issue rather than make the case for Ivermectin & equally sadly, Yasha decided to address this from the 'right-far-right' spectrum, rather than to do due diligence and report on the reality.
NOTE: Ivermectin: Can a Drug Be "Right-Wing"? - Matt Taibbi [https://taibbi.substack.com/p/ivermectin-can-a-drug-be-right-wing-ca7?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMTExOTI0LCJwb3N0X2lkIjozODAxODcyMiwiXyI6InptdjdPIiwiaWF0IjoxNjI0NjY5OTcxLCJleHAiOjE2MjQ2NzM1NzEsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0xMDQyIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.0Jy88dVRnDdIXp2ZEUFgaSbBfZe9Rvk1otZdZdxSKAo]
I have not pursed Ivermectin's method of action but its action as an anti-viral has been recognized for a decade or more when it was tried (in the laboratory, I believe) against SARS CoV-1 & MERS and found to be active. I've reviewed the data supporting its use & safety (after millions of doses over decades) and believe it to be a better bet than the gene therapy offered as 'vaccinations' and am currently utilizing it according the FLCCC's 'I-MASS' protocol.
The I-MASS protocol is prophylactic & I've been on it for many months at this point - I've no intention of taking the faux 'vaccine' gene therapy. I'm a retired physician.
About "pro-vaccine" position -- it is all about costs versus benefit, correct.
People are HAPPY to be vaccinated and be free of fear of dying by slowly suffocating.
All else is -- just a noise. Including spreading "information," without any supporting logic and justification, that Matt Taibbi's has suddenly morphed in a right-winger.... a la despicable Likudnik Bari Weiss ;-))
Your people may be happy to be vaccinated, but my people will not live in a state, study at a university or take a job at a company that mandate vaccination. We see it as an undeclared world war against people. We'll see who will win.
Hi Yasha, I know what you mean about Taibbi, and big pharma, and Cuba.
But, to be fair, when you write...
"It's all about opening up a new front in the ongoing culture war: they’re holding up ivermectin as proof of how totalitarian and evil the libs are."
...that seems a bit of a stretch to me.
Even down here in New Zealand it's all a bit strange on the topic.
Being married to a nurse (30 years at the job) I'm able to access someone with a bit of knowledge and professional detachment. Also, as it happens, I was visiting my doctor this week to check out some sun damage on my hands (too much surfing 😳).
I asked both...they both said the same thing:
"It's confusing as to why the topic of off-label medicine is such a big deal".
The doctor said that her colleagues are all confused as to why they can't have access to something that looks like it works (in NZ is not available for prescription). She directed me to this recent peer-reviewed meta-analysis paper:
https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/Abstract/9000/Ivermectin_for_Prevention_and_Treatment_of.98040.aspx
As I was leaving the doc said something like "it's pretty weird when we can't prescribe stuff that might help".
Just sayin'
Doubly weird when you scroll down a page like https://ivmstatus.com/ and see the Ivermectin in treatment packs in other countries?
Interestingly, I believe it was one of the authors of that paper my doctor pointed me to, that finally convinced the UK to relent and think about doing a study:
From the linked BBC article:
"...The drug has become controversial after being promoted for use across Latin America and in South Africa, despite being so far unproven. Previous studies of Ivermectin have generally been small or low quality..."
The reason it is unproven is because it costs money to do massive studies. There is no financial incentive to do a massive study.
These comments don't have much to do with the substance of this piece. As least not what I appreciate about it. Which is the degree to which people are eagerly whipped into a frenzy for their particular point of view. Maybe not new, but the deepest kind of culture I have seen. And I agree that certain journalists are deliberately, or accidentally on purpose, feeding that frenzy.
thank, yes.
Leftists have been whipped into a frenzy of incompetence and psychological dysfunction for a very long time (1960s, 1990s, take you pick).
We now have totalitarians on the cultural-left (SJWs, New Clerisy, The Elect, etc.) in an alliance with the corporate-state (including the corrupt D party establishment) and the military-industrial-complex.
The "legacy" (economic) left, Marxists and such, as almost completely irrelevant (see the Adolph Reed vs DSA fiasco). No one expects a new version of Mao or Castro to pop up in the world and lead an international class revolution as far as I can tell. The legacy left is a dead end movement, incapable of evolving into anything other than a bizarre mutation of what it was supposed to be against.
The New Clerisy/Elect has engaged in gross violations of free speech, via censorship.
Yasha has completely failed to adequately or accurately address the actual failures of the left, OR the scientific issues, OR how science is being censored.
Appalling.
You are an idiot that isn't capable of anything other than gaslighting and deflection. You have ZERO capacity for honest self-reflection (authentic interior awareness).
The legacy left failed because its ideas (class revolution) were shitty, inadequate and incapable of keeping up with cultural evolution (the "crisis of meaning").
The left discredited itself, and Yasha's article is just another pebble on a mountain of evidence of such failures (see Habermas' theory of communicative action). He is projecting his own cynicism on others, a classic leftist rhetorical trick that is meaningless.
By contrast, see Freddie DeBoer, and actual, honest (self-critical) leftist who is trying to get past the wasteland of both legacy and cultural leftism.
More idiotic gaslighting and deflection, no surprise.
Your gross hypocrisy is astonishing:
Yasha is turning into a smear artist (not surprising for a leftist).
Being a smear artist is the DEFINITION OF "AD HOMINEM"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yasha is obviously projecting his own cynicism on people he is envious of that are more successful.
You are gripped by toxic groupthink and ideological tribalism, same as 99.99999999% of the left. You are purely dysfunctional.
The legacy left failed because it is incoherent (Marx failed to understand basic human nature, such as nationalist-tribal and spiritual impulses) and a magnet for violent, psychologically disturbed assholes. See Orwell, etc.
To repeat: the left is a magnet for violent, psychologically disturbed, dysfunctional assholes.
YOUR vapid ahistorical blabbering is yet another pebble on the mountain of evidence.
YOUR vapid, ahistorical blabbering ignores the many testimonies from many leftists that came to regret their failure to denounce Stalin, Mao, Castro.
YOUR vapid, ahistorical blabbering ignores the many testimonies from leftists that came to regret their obsequious groveling to leftist groupthink and ideological tribalism.
YOUR vapid, ahistorical blabbering ignores the millions of people killed by communists while spineless leftists in the west stood silent.
YOUR vapid, ahistorical blabbering ignores the fact that the left is full of shitty ideas and worse people that are incapable of inspiring others or forming effective ways of changing the world.
Ultimately the only thing you are defending are your own idiotic utopian delusions.
"Mango M3 Huffy" said:
"I wonder why. I mean, it couldn't be the century-long campaign by the corporate/oligarch/MIC/government elite to stamp out and crush any real leftist movements in the USSA, could it?"
-----
comments:
1. communists openly and repeatedly stated that their goal was to destroy capitalism for about 100 years, depending on definitions, timelines, and so forth.
are you really so poorly educated and uninformed that you don't understand basic facts of history?
20 million killed in Mao's Cultural Revolution?
2. standard fascist rhetoric, for instance Mussolini, was an illogical mix of grandiose myths about the magical will of the people and "racist" VICTIM narratives.
Criticism was censored.
Your rhetoric follows Mussolini's basic rhetorical structure:
The left is a glorious/utopian ideology AND it is suppressed by evil capitalists.
You love censorship, or are at least giddy at the opportunity to gratify your ego by making excuses for the corporate cultural-left when it engages in censorship.
you really are a retarded piece of shit incapable of thinking outside a narrow echo chamber.
""""" Jason Hunt """""
Is a grotesque brain damaged buffoon
There's a baseless rant. In case you haven't noticed, there's a fascization of the world going on. It's being carried out by people who claim to be fighting fascism and imply that they are protecting us from unstoppable threats. This means that they do not want this disease to be easily curable. Even their so-called vaccines are designed to fail (e.g. if a variant immune to the vaccine appears) if it meets their needs. It may be profitable for Big Pharma, but that's just a side effect
It's unfortnate you have chosen---and yes it is a choice--- to disparage something you likely know little about, but then to politicize it too when your apparent arch-nemesis "that goddamned TAIBBI again!" writes something about it.... ah well, we are all individuals when it is said and done, eh wot?
Now I could be stepping up to the firing squad here but I studied, yes, researched and studied Ivermectin long before starting on it myself. Which I did, one year ago. The science, the rigorous statistical analysis, is pointing to its efficacy as being actually BETTER than any of these vaccinations with no side effects. So there's that. It just happens to smother the SARS-Cov-2 spike protein quite handily.
Now I'm 70 years old, have my mental faculties about me, and will stand and debate you point by point (but non-politically) on this if it doesn't turn into a feces-flinging free-for-all of ego vs ego and disparagement.
For the record, I am likely further 'left' than you. The doc who has been fighting for Ivermectin's recognition most famously, Pierre Kory, is a long-time Democrat---for what that's worth. The source for a basic working knowledge of this drug is FLCCC.net. That's Front Line Covid Critical Care. These are highly respected, top in their fields doctors. And quite international in scope.
You will find that there have been many stop and go trials and outright national OTC prescriptions of this drug in 3rd world countries. Mexico is one of the latest after a stop and go start. Malaysia just said yea, various Indian states have had undeniable positive results; Peru has had remarkable results too; but like in every country where the drug was under political pressure, their case rates and mortality climbed the cliff---only to fall right off once Ivermectin was reintroduced. Anyway, you can either rip into me or actually look at the source which will lead you to other sources.
I really enjoy the vast majority of your writing, I love learning about things I know very little or nothing about, and your life experience(s) and variety of geographic locales visited will continue to fascinate me. Conversely I could teach you more about Alaska ("as if," I know...) than likely anybody else you might ask for information of it most anywhere---because I've lived it and because I love it. So I know it from end to end, onside and out, life and death, for 70 years, working mostly on its salt waters, out to Attu and to the Canadian border on the Arctic Ocean. I know when to be confident and when to shut up and listen.
Just saying, I have a head start on you re: Ivermmectin. I hope you will look into it further.
Cheers.
Yasha I was very sorry to see you wandering out of your expertise zone on this one, and inadvertently passing on some misleading assertions. If you or your readers would like a non partisan source of expert information about Ivermectin, I suggest looking either at TrialSite News, or at the evidence gathered by high level front line care experts, either Dr Kory at the FLCC, or Dr Tess Lawrie at the UK equivalent. Dr Lawrie's credentials and a relevant article can be accessed at the following link. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Theresa-Lawrie
I would also like to flag up the naivete of your closing reference to 'an unproven... treatment'. If you had any experience of working in government policy circles, you would know very well that what counts as 'proven' or 'unproven' is NOT just a scientific research issue: That if there is sufficiently strong interest in one side or another of a policy issue, research can very easily be - and often is - selectively approved or criticised accordingly, because there are ALWAYS unanswered questions. Every good piece of serious research raises many new questions - this is the nature of the subject. Check out the wonderful episode of the British TV comedy 'Yes Minister' about one particular piece of inconvenient research findings, in which the sharp old civil servant explains to the Minister how to rubbish a piece of research and prompt the researcher to modify the conclusions in the desired manner, without even having bothered to read the report.
Your work on weaponising immigrants has been very insightful, and is what prompted me to subscribe to your substack. But sadly this article about Ivermectin is extremely ill informed and shallow, therefore dangerous, because some of your readers could be harmfully mislead by the remarks you have passed on.
Matt Tiabbi is no expert on the medical issues either, but at least his article is within his area of expertise relating to the US media and its censorship behaviours.
Please get back to writing about the stuff on which you have so much valuable new insight to offer.
One irony: Substack was created to get around the censorship of corporate-cultural-left totalitarians. And here we are reading Yasha's projections of his own leftist cynicism on Substack.
The point about the "simplified reactionary culture war" is possibly well founded, however, the Ivermectin vehicle you have used to illustrate it seems ill founded.
There is a growing body of evidence from research that Ivermectin is a useful prophylactic against SARS-CoV-2 infection. For instance:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33592050/
"Conclusion: Two-dose ivermectin prophylaxis at a dose of 300 μg/kg with a gap of 72 hours was associated with a 73% reduction of SARS-CoV-2 infection among healthcare workers for the following month. Chemoprophylaxis has relevance in the containment of pandemic."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/
"Conclusions: Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance. Furthermore, results from numerous controlled prophylaxis trials report significantly reduced risks of contracting COVID-19 with the regular use of ivermectin. Finally, the many examples of ivermectin distribution campaigns leading to rapid population-wide decreases in morbidity and mortality indicate that an oral agent effective in all phases of COVID-19 has been identified."
sure. like i wrote, “Maybe ivermectin will be proven to have some positive effects. But the people pushing this new ivermectin narrative don’t care about public health, one way or another. It's all about opening up a new front in the ongoing culture war: they’re holding up ivermectin as proof of how totalitarian and evil the libs are.”
re: "the people pushing this new ivermectin narrative don’t care about public health, one way or another"
That is a stunningly toxic and repulsively CYNICAL take.
The reality of the "culture wars" is that the left has been almost universally exposed for its inability and/or unwillingness to use fact and evidence based arguments. (Internal critics of the left, such as Orwell, Rorty, Lakoff, Lasch, Learner have been pointing this out for a long time.)
You really need to seek psychiatric support if you think such a grotesque projection of your own failures and cynicism on someone like Bret Weinstein isn't flagrantly obvious to your readers.
As an evolutionary biologist, Weinstein has been fighting against the anti-rationalist, anti-science kooks on the far left since the 1990s. (See Pinker's discussion of the "blank slate".)
Your brain is what is left after a dog eats its own shit and vomits it back up.
Total retardation.
There is little doubt that the "right" is using the suppression of proven effective remedies and prophylactic treatments as an attack vector on "libs", just as the Democrats engaged the first steps culture war under the covid rubric as part of their campaign to oust Trump by focusing first on his support for HCQ and then on his eschewing of face masks. Neither side in this cares about health, they score points for political purposes based on a calculus of what will gain them most in the electoral and sponsorship stakes.
There are only two sides: 1) the elites who think they own the world – all of its resources and all of its people, and 2) the rest of us.
The rest is politico-psychodrama designed to beguile and manipulate populations into passively assisting the elites get wealthier and advancing the interests of one elite group over another. As they stand now, left and right have no meaning apart from being different faces of the same bent coin.
just to be clear, we can find different studies to cite. here's a recent one — a double-blind, randomized trial that found it did nothing:
"In this randomized clinical trial that included 476 patients, the duration of symptoms was not significantly different for patients who received a 5-day course of ivermectin compared with placebo (median time to resolution of symptoms, 10 vs 12 days; hazard ratio for resolution of symptoms, 1.07).
The findings do not support the use of ivermectin for treatment of mild COVID-19, although larger trials may be needed to understand effects on other clinically relevant outcomes."
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777389
As above: "Meta-analyses based on 18 randomized controlled treatment trials of ivermectin in COVID-19 have found large, statistically significant reductions in mortality, time to clinical recovery, and time to viral clearance"
Hi Steven
Well, things are heating up on the topic, no doubt about it!! I just stumbled upon this legal notice.
It seems old news, as it is dated May 25th, but it is from a group of Indian lawyers:
https://indianbarassociation.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Legal-Notice-to-Dr.-Soumya-Swaminathan_Chief-Scientist-WHO-1.pdf
Topic seems familiar 😉
Strange article -- I think that Matt's article was written with objectivity and integrity -- on topic of current record / interest (including interest among censors ;-)) ). And even stranger sentences a la placing a despicable Likudnik Bari Weiss together with Matt... !!! :
- "I was gonna write something much longer about this ridiculous ivermectin push that people like Matt Taibbi and the rest of the new reactionary right has been involved in."
- "Culture war — that's what this the sudden embrace of ivermectin by the new respectable/reactionary right is all about."
- "But that’s what reactionaries like Taibbi and Bari Weiss and Brett Weinstein are doing."
- And -- at the end: "Next up: get your Hate, Inc. silver ion supplements! They'll protect you from liberal Silicon Valley censorship!"
Despite that "Hate!" is truly on more masterpiece among Matt Taibbi's wonderful and perfectly timed books.
In summary -- Matt Taibbi is now sorted into a --- "reactionary right" - an assertion without any ( ANY ) discernible logic, evidence and support. Somewhat similar to TYT's Cenk & Ana despicable accusations against Aaron Mate.
This is very close to madness - in my opinion.
I’m sorry you take offense at my characterization of a guy you clearly very much respect. But I indeed group Matt in with those people. That’s what he’s become these days.
Yasha, any labeling, especially quite insulting/offensive labeling, need at least rudimentary justification (logic used, facts, evidence, pattern) -- yet you have so far provided - none at all ?!?!
That was the original SMEAR piece (Taibbi said it was too absurd to respond to or something like that). It is now turning into a pattern of SMEAR pieces.
The censors and totalitarians on the cultural left are economically driven by such SMEARS, as well as TDS and other gross psychological dysfunctions (see dozens of TAIBBI articles citing real evidence).
Is Yasha dipping his toe in the water? Will he sell out and become yet another full time SMEAR artist writing for for-profit neolib corporate media?
Yes, I did but have forgotten about it -- many thanks.
I like both of them but -- both Yasha and Evgenia have some old grudges against Matt which I don't fully understand and -- no longer want to... ;-))
Something that happened long ago and has nothing to do with current woke insanity.
Update - Matt's follow up on "right-wing" drug ;-))
Ivermectin: Can a Drug Be "Right-Wing"?
A potential Covid-19 treatment has become hostage to a larger global fight between populists and anti-populists
Ivermectin: Can a Drug Be "Right-Wing"? - TK News by Matt Taibbi (substack.com)
Update and ALARM !! -- even the renown Glenn Greenwald has just joined his "reactionary right-wing" colleague Matt Taibbi....
See an interview on (oh my God - Fox !!) on Google censorship of ivermectin discussion while -- Oxford (a Big farma) is testing it...
The world is coming to an end... ;-))
IT’S TIME TO BUILD by Marc Andreessen IT'S TIME TO BUILD - Andreessen Horowitz (a16z.com)
https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/
Great point on Cuba’s vaccine. I must admit when I read his article it fed into some emotions.
I fail to see any relevance. What emotions? Science does not care if a vaccine is made by capitalists or communists. Cuban vaccines (cheap?) are presumably never going to used in the USA, and are not a meaningful part of the discussion. Seems like a silly deflection verging on gaslighting.
None of the discussion of censorship and ivermectin has anything to do with the ripoffs by big pharma producing/distributing COVID vaccine, it is about a bizarre attempt to shut down public debate.
I didn’t explain my background and all the details in my head.
The fitness industry is loaded with people using pharma/herbs off label. From performance to longevity and in between. I dislike how the government often makes them illegal without research after a scare story. Then gurus go “it works look the government is liars”. Sometimes they work and sometimes they cause major health problems but ultimately both parties cause an absolutist distrust in institution. I was emotional about censorship coming from that background.
I disagree with censorship. I think if an idea is weak it shouldn’t need the might of a thousand swords. If an idea is strong it can hold up to criticism. By blocking an idea it gives fuel to its believers but bickering over which possible wrong idea is right or wrong when there’s a solution already seems kind of fruitless.
That all being said publically funded “private” big pharma can fuck itself then get machine gunned and then it can fuck those holes, choke on its blood and die in a gutter covered in covid laced feces.
Ok, thanks for the clarification.
Yes, the new age/holistic/organic/herbal/whatever stuff is full of appalling scams (as well as some legit stuff), I saw the early version of that stuff in 1980 in the hippy subculture. Arguably the worse case is Mercola, a spinoff of Alex Jones conspiracy empire (estimated by PBS in their documentary on AJ to be #1 billion/year).
The state-corporate pharma system is also deeply corrupt, something that Bret Weinstein has been pointing out for a long time.
Thus, the actual problem that should be under discussion: is it possible to reform the corrupt institutions that practice real science?
If so, what would they look like?
This starts to look at that, in depth:
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
(It deals with what Yasha is unwilling, or unable, to - the deep dysfunctional effect of postmodern social conditions and ideologies on the the knowledge/information ecosystem, including in the leftist dominated education and media sectors.)
-----
If possible, please clarify this as well:
So when you say "when I read his article"
You mean Taibbi's article?
Thanks
So many hucksters out there, I feel it’s become an honorable position these days.
I’m all for change, I’d like to know how. I’ll check out thee link.
I was referring to reading the Taibbi article. I sometimes type in mysterious riddles. Sometimes in public too.
there is no safe space anymore.
Say it I’m already broken
When any discussion on safe treatments was banned and sick people not given any treatment, and just told to quarantine, it stopped being important whether someone was on the political right or left. I never thought I would like American evangelicals, but the time has come that I hope they will save us from mandatory vaccination.
The legacy left has dismally failed for over 50 years to stop globalists and the corporate-state from throwing working people under the bus.
The cultural left got in bed with the corporate-state as the neoliberal order was being constructed and postmodern social conditions set in as network effects disrupted the information ecosystem.
Write an article that explains why the left has failed (numerous internal critics of left have already explained this) and how to correct those failures that is not stupid or another shitty smear piece and I'll send you $250.
Yasha, while I understand your point and I'm not an anti-vaxer, but just to point out that India has been rolling out Ivermectin because many millions have not had access to vaccines. Numerous reputable studies have been done in India and Ivermectin has proven to have anti-viral properties which have proven some effectiveness. It's very cheap as well. I know that it must sound odd that an anti-parasitic drug should have anti-viral qualities, but apparently that's the case. I discovered this on a channel "Dr John Campbell" on Youtube. He's not an anti-vaxer. He is quite a reliable health professional who has been doing lot of research on COVID and what's been happening in the last 18 months. He's not prone to conspiracy. Check it out. I think you will find it interesting.
Yasha, Please specifically look at the bullshit that you article inspired.
----------------
"Mango M3 Huffy" said:
"I wonder why. I mean, it couldn't be the century-long campaign by the corporate/oligarch/MIC/government elite to stamp out and crush any real leftist movements in the USSA, could it?"
-----
comments:
1. communists openly and repeatedly stated that their goal was to destroy capitalism for about 100 years, depending on definitions, timelines, and so forth.
are you really so poorly educated and uninformed that you don't understand basic facts of history?
20 million killed in Mao's Cultural Revolution?
---
2. standard fascist rhetoric, for instance Mussolini, was an illogical mix of grandiose myths about the magical will of the people and "racist" VICTIM narratives.
Criticism was censored.
Your rhetoric follows Mussolini's basic rhetorical structure:
The left is a glorious/utopian ideology AND it is suppressed [VICTIMIZED] by evil capitalists.
You love censorship, or are at least giddy at the opportunity to gratify your ego by making excuses for the corporate cultural-left when it engages in censorship.
As far as I can tell Taibbi is writing about censorship. Which there's been a hell of a lot of. He's not making an "ivermectin push".
You obviously don't like the guy, but that's not a good reason for mischaracterizing his article.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/ivermectin-can-a-drug-be-right-wing-ca7
re:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5z5y/why-is-the-intellectual-dark-web-suddenly-hyping-an-unproven-covid-treatment
I read the above, quickly, and it was as bad as the first screenful I read earlier.
Gaslighting. Distortions. Contradictions.
Questions:
1. How is Vice-dot-com, which is presumably some kind of profit-driven media corporation, less guilty of whoring themselves out for profit than the "IDW"???
2. The article is full of idiotic rhetoric, and its primary point rests on guilt-by-association.
It doesn't actually address the objections of Weinstein, and breezes over the censorship, which isn't a surprise given that Vice-dot-com is in the same camp, the cultural-left, New Clerisy, as the people pressuring YouTube to censor anything that remotely resembles something that reminds them of how they got triggered into severe TDS a year ago.
3. The "IDW" was a joke, as was clearly explained by Eric Weinstein.
The "IDW", which doesn't really exist, has nothing to do with the topic.
Again, for-profit, sleazy totalitarians on the cultural left such as Vice-dot-com are more interested in SMEARS than facts.
I guess SMEARS gain more clicks/views and thus ad profits?????
And why for GAWD's sake is Yasha citing a shitty, for-profit clickbait site full of horrible, crappy journalism that panders to stupid readers as a source for a SMEAR piece on Taibbi in which he criticizes Taibbi for writing for profit???
The contradictions that leftists will lower themselves to for ego gratification are astonishing.
re: GUILT BY ASSOCIATION
From another discussion:
Cultural Marxist, PC left, SJW rhetoric*, explained:
0. gaslight
1. Deflect from what was actually said/done
2. Distort or lie about facts and evidence (such as strawmanning)
3. Cherry pick evidence to fit the (victim/diversity) narrative
4. Engage in emotive, feel good bs (special pleading) rather than use rational, objective thought
5. Use guilt by association ("you are a K-K-K/n-a-z-i") to smear people that dare to criticize PC/SJW leftist ideology.
[->] Use groupthink and scapegoating to marginalize critics of the PC left.
6. Demonize the personalities of opponents/critics.
7. Destroy the reputation, character and career of critics of the PC left
8. Use psychological violence, which could include doxxing, and threats of actual violence, against critics of the PC left.
-----
*Note: the above can be generalized to fit any ideology.