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.
There are several PROPOSED methods of action, but I'm not sure how many of them have come from peer reviewed studies pre-dating COVID or having to do with other viruses in humans (as opposed to laboratory animals).
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.
I was able to read that despite having unsubcribed. I think Matt makes good points and Yasha and Matt actually agree that this drug has been politicized (like everything else). That said, I can't wrap my head around how ivermectin works against a virus. The mechanism of action (Wikipedia) is as follows:
Ivermectin and its related drugs act by interfering with nerve and muscle function of helminths and insects.[46] The drug binds to glutamate-gated chloride channels that are common to invertebrate nerve and muscle cells.[47] Ivermectin binding pushes these channels open, increasing the flow of chloride ions and hyper-polarizing the cell membranes.[47][46] This hyperpolarization paralyzes the affected tissue, eventually killing the invertebrate.[47] In mammals (including humans) glutamate-gated chloride channels are restricted to the brain and spinal cord; ivermectin cannot cross the blood-brain barrier and so it does not make it to the brain to affect mammalian channels.
Are there any resources out there that delve into how ivermectin works against the SARS COV-2 (or any) virus?
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.
"The "legacy" (economic) left, Marxists and such, as almost completely irrelevant (see the Adolph Reed vs DSA fiasco)."
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? How many of the "legacy left" had their careers and/or lives destroyed by the Red Scares alone? The message was clear and it still is - honest, consistent worker-oriented leftist thought is not allowed in this country. Duh.
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.
Every time you respond to me with petty name calling and ad hominem I think of a recent quote:
"Social media made you all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it." - Mike Tyson
To your non-points, however, I suppose that the legacy left was so self-discrediting that the U.S. government and numerous ultra-wealthy individuals and the foundations that they created were wasting the billions of dollars and countless hours they spent in crushing it, right? That's literally the vapid ahistorical core of your entire argument whether you realize it or not.
Which brings me to an oft-stated Internet phrase that I should probably be better at doing by now: "Don't feed the trolls."
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?"
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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.
We're talking about AMERICAN history here, dude. Come on...besides, I never said anything about my ideology other than that I'm pro-worker, pro-regulation, pro-welfare state, anti-imperialist, anti-war. What are you, pierce?
He certainly writes like one. Never an actual counter-argument, never revealing what his true beliefs and agenda are, and always immediately resorting to middle school insults in knee jerk fashion. Sounds a bit like Bolsonaro to me.
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.
Damn, I was going to comment after reading to this point:
"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."
To say that it's really about getting rich. I mean look at how many "likes" and comments that Taibbi piece got. He's monetizing the culture just like Greenwald.
But then you astutely pointed that out toward the end. They're getting rich off this shit and I, too, am sick of it. Hence, I unsubscribed from Greenwald and then Taibbi because while the latter still writes some interesting stuff about Wall Street and scams, he's really mainly catering to a right-of-center if not right-wing audience now, as is Greenwald. The interesting thing about Greenwald is that he also writes in Brazil and has a much more liberal/left-leaning tone. Yeah, I get it and I've gotten it for a long time - the establishment media is corrupt and rather than serving as a check on power, they act like propaganda for it. Nothing new. I personally "woke up" to this in the runup to the 2nd Iraq invasion (which Greenwald supported - in writing).
Anyway thanks for calling this out and being, well, consistently.....consistent.
thanks, yeah. people have been whipped up into this ONE TRUE CURE AGAINST THE OLIGARCHY frenzy. it's depressing and scary to watch. but the exploitative culture wars are only speeding up. and why not? people are atomized, traumatized by a year of isolation, totally distrustful of anything that smacks of authority, and they themselves have no real political movement or political community to join or meaningfully be part of in their daily, offline, actually lived lives. so the media and political vampires are out there exploiting this vacuum and weakness and instability, selling their exploitation as empowerment and democracy. i totally understand and sympathize with people caught up in this madness — which isn't even about ivermectin, not when you get down to it.
i don't have much to add beyond what i wrote. and really what can i — a grossly incompetent loser leftist berated by his own subscribers! ha! — really do?
Just look at how he attacks me when I make basic factual statements that he doesn't agree with, but never manages to provide a direct rebuttal. I told him that the American "legacy" (his word and probably in use by some of the authors he reads) left was largely crushed by a hundred years of US government/capitalist/military/law enforcement actions and propaganda and he brings up Mao, Stalin, Mussolini, etc. That's before the inevitable accusations of mental illness and of somehow magically editing ones' own comments. I'm surprised you even replied; I wish I had your self conTROLL.
re: "opening up a new front in the ongoing culture war"
What does that even mean?
The Vice article that Yasha linked to (for more details, lol) was such total garbage, pure mental sewage flowing into an ideological echo chamber, that I didn't bother reading past the first screen of ideological diarrhea and vomit.
Ok, explain why Yasha is linking to Vice-dot-com, a horrible, corporate, neoliberal, globalist monetizing engine, to an article that is oozing with ridiculous culture wars rhetoric, TDS, gross distortions, guilt by association, etc.
You are massively contradicting yourself, which is no surprise given that most leftists are grossly unaware of their cognitive biases.
You never criticize neoconservatives or the far right American history of suppressing, sabotaging, coup-ing, death-squad-ing of democratically elected leftist leaders. Hmmm....
Hey Pierce — You can abuse me all you want but you better keep things respectful when addressing other people in my comment sections. Get ahold of yourself.
Yasha is an almost completely irrelevant, obscure (apparently failing) leftist, writing to an echo chamber of dysfunctional, CYNICAL people of no overall significance.
Both Taibbi and Greenwald have specifically written about appealing to a populist audience across the left-vs-right ideological rectum/spectrum.
Both Taibbi and Greenwald have written on the futility of hiding failure behind ideological purity and infantile litmus tests for anti-bourgeois posturing.
If your schtick is all about being a marginalized, failed writer (that can only recycle dead ideas) that is incapable of being successful and who blames your career failure on others, you will never have a large enough audience to matter.
Most of Taibbi and Greenwald's audiences are bored by dysfunctional leftist thinkers with outmoded ideas and psychological dysfunctions that are incapable of self-reflection, much less an ability to evolve to something beyond the left-vs-right narrative. There is no shortage of dysfunctional leftist thinkers, and they are proliferating (well into the 3rd generation?).
Preeeeetty sure I've seen comments from you expressing the exact opposite about Yasha in the past year or so. You were pretty complimentary at one point, but I don't recall exactly which post it was under.
That said, you're clearly a subscriber so what gives? Is your schtick supporting obscure and apparently failing leftist writers? LOL
Can you actually articulate an ideology or at least a decent suggestion about where we should all go from here? I'm genuinely interested. I don't even care if you casually toss around baseless insults as is your habit. I just want to know where you're coming from on a real policy meets people basis.
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.
True, but are the Democrats - as in the DNC - really another "side" in this equation? Are the Democrats really "leftists"? What we've got is the right and the Democrats - a party that allows center left to center right thought; that's all.
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.
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]
May have answered my own question here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41429-021-00430-5
There are several PROPOSED methods of action, but I'm not sure how many of them have come from peer reviewed studies pre-dating COVID or having to do with other viruses in humans (as opposed to laboratory animals).
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.
I hope you mean you're using it on people with COVID and not yourself as a prophylactic. I see the word "doc" in your handle so you might be a doctor.
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.
I was able to read that despite having unsubcribed. I think Matt makes good points and Yasha and Matt actually agree that this drug has been politicized (like everything else). That said, I can't wrap my head around how ivermectin works against a virus. The mechanism of action (Wikipedia) is as follows:
Ivermectin and its related drugs act by interfering with nerve and muscle function of helminths and insects.[46] The drug binds to glutamate-gated chloride channels that are common to invertebrate nerve and muscle cells.[47] Ivermectin binding pushes these channels open, increasing the flow of chloride ions and hyper-polarizing the cell membranes.[47][46] This hyperpolarization paralyzes the affected tissue, eventually killing the invertebrate.[47] In mammals (including humans) glutamate-gated chloride channels are restricted to the brain and spinal cord; ivermectin cannot cross the blood-brain barrier and so it does not make it to the brain to affect mammalian channels.
Are there any resources out there that delve into how ivermectin works against the SARS COV-2 (or any) virus?
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.
"The "legacy" (economic) left, Marxists and such, as almost completely irrelevant (see the Adolph Reed vs DSA fiasco)."
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? How many of the "legacy left" had their careers and/or lives destroyed by the Red Scares alone? The message was clear and it still is - honest, consistent worker-oriented leftist thought is not allowed in this country. Duh.
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.
Every time you respond to me with petty name calling and ad hominem I think of a recent quote:
"Social media made you all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it." - Mike Tyson
To your non-points, however, I suppose that the legacy left was so self-discrediting that the U.S. government and numerous ultra-wealthy individuals and the foundations that they created were wasting the billions of dollars and countless hours they spent in crushing it, right? That's literally the vapid ahistorical core of your entire argument whether you realize it or not.
Which brings me to an oft-stated Internet phrase that I should probably be better at doing by now: "Don't feed the trolls."
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.
utopian!!! LMAO!!! hahahahahahah
Was my response to your original reply what you interpreted as a "threat of violence"? Hahaha!!!
"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.
We're talking about AMERICAN history here, dude. Come on...besides, I never said anything about my ideology other than that I'm pro-worker, pro-regulation, pro-welfare state, anti-imperialist, anti-war. What are you, pierce?
you really are a retarded piece of shit incapable of thinking outside a narrow echo chamber.
He certainly writes like one. Never an actual counter-argument, never revealing what his true beliefs and agenda are, and always immediately resorting to middle school insults in knee jerk fashion. Sounds a bit like Bolsonaro to me.
""""" 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.
"The doc who has been fighting for Ivermectin's recognition most famously, Pierre Kory, is a long-time Democrat---for what that's worth."
It's worth very little if the point is to conflate Democrats with "the left."
Damn, I was going to comment after reading to this point:
"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."
To say that it's really about getting rich. I mean look at how many "likes" and comments that Taibbi piece got. He's monetizing the culture just like Greenwald.
But then you astutely pointed that out toward the end. They're getting rich off this shit and I, too, am sick of it. Hence, I unsubscribed from Greenwald and then Taibbi because while the latter still writes some interesting stuff about Wall Street and scams, he's really mainly catering to a right-of-center if not right-wing audience now, as is Greenwald. The interesting thing about Greenwald is that he also writes in Brazil and has a much more liberal/left-leaning tone. Yeah, I get it and I've gotten it for a long time - the establishment media is corrupt and rather than serving as a check on power, they act like propaganda for it. Nothing new. I personally "woke up" to this in the runup to the 2nd Iraq invasion (which Greenwald supported - in writing).
Anyway thanks for calling this out and being, well, consistently.....consistent.
P.S. to anyone interested in just how MUCH money some of the Substack authors are making, here you go: https://guzey.com/substack-earnings/
thanks, yeah. people have been whipped up into this ONE TRUE CURE AGAINST THE OLIGARCHY frenzy. it's depressing and scary to watch. but the exploitative culture wars are only speeding up. and why not? people are atomized, traumatized by a year of isolation, totally distrustful of anything that smacks of authority, and they themselves have no real political movement or political community to join or meaningfully be part of in their daily, offline, actually lived lives. so the media and political vampires are out there exploiting this vacuum and weakness and instability, selling their exploitation as empowerment and democracy. i totally understand and sympathize with people caught up in this madness — which isn't even about ivermectin, not when you get down to it.
i don't have much to add beyond what i wrote. and really what can i — a grossly incompetent loser leftist berated by his own subscribers! ha! — really do?
re: "which isn't even about ivermectin, not when you get down to it."
You are grossly incompetent.
The legacy information ecosystem has been disintegrating for decades, due to postmodern social conditions, neoliberalism, globalism, etc.
All that has been under discussion for decades.
Are you editing you own comments after people respond to them??????????
no idea what you're talking about. as far as i can tell substack doesn't even allow the editing of comments, only deletions.
Just look at how he attacks me when I make basic factual statements that he doesn't agree with, but never manages to provide a direct rebuttal. I told him that the American "legacy" (his word and probably in use by some of the authors he reads) left was largely crushed by a hundred years of US government/capitalist/military/law enforcement actions and propaganda and he brings up Mao, Stalin, Mussolini, etc. That's before the inevitable accusations of mental illness and of somehow magically editing ones' own comments. I'm surprised you even replied; I wish I had your self conTROLL.
you are a mentally dysfunctional, infantile buffoon that can't escape your tiny, tribalistic echo chamber
incompetent nitwit seeking ego gratification
re: "opening up a new front in the ongoing culture war"
What does that even mean?
The Vice article that Yasha linked to (for more details, lol) was such total garbage, pure mental sewage flowing into an ideological echo chamber, that I didn't bother reading past the first screen of ideological diarrhea and vomit.
GROSS INCOMPETENCE.
What does it mean? It means MONETIZING IT, pierce. DUH!!!
Ok, explain why Yasha is linking to Vice-dot-com, a horrible, corporate, neoliberal, globalist monetizing engine, to an article that is oozing with ridiculous culture wars rhetoric, TDS, gross distortions, guilt by association, etc.
You are massively contradicting yourself, which is no surprise given that most leftists are grossly unaware of their cognitive biases.
You never criticize neoconservatives or the far right American history of suppressing, sabotaging, coup-ing, death-squad-ing of democratically elected leftist leaders. Hmmm....
again, you are a hyper toxic idiot that is incapable of escaping your mentally sewage filled echo chamber.
GASLIGHTING. DEFLECTION. VAPID, INFANTILE DRIVEL. INCOMPETENCE. LEFTISM.
YOUR RETARDATION IS EXTREME AND COMPLETE. DUH!
Hey Pierce — You can abuse me all you want but you better keep things respectful when addressing other people in my comment sections. Get ahold of yourself.
Please note that "Mango M3 Huffy" made a violent threat and you SAID NOTHING. ASSHOLE.
Huh???
FUCK OFF ASSHOLE.
Yasha is an almost completely irrelevant, obscure (apparently failing) leftist, writing to an echo chamber of dysfunctional, CYNICAL people of no overall significance.
Both Taibbi and Greenwald have specifically written about appealing to a populist audience across the left-vs-right ideological rectum/spectrum.
Both Taibbi and Greenwald have written on the futility of hiding failure behind ideological purity and infantile litmus tests for anti-bourgeois posturing.
If your schtick is all about being a marginalized, failed writer (that can only recycle dead ideas) that is incapable of being successful and who blames your career failure on others, you will never have a large enough audience to matter.
Most of Taibbi and Greenwald's audiences are bored by dysfunctional leftist thinkers with outmoded ideas and psychological dysfunctions that are incapable of self-reflection, much less an ability to evolve to something beyond the left-vs-right narrative. There is no shortage of dysfunctional leftist thinkers, and they are proliferating (well into the 3rd generation?).
Haha:
"...an ability to evolve to something beyond the left-vs-right narrative."
That narrative pretty much describes every single comment I've seen from you here and everywhere else.
You are mentally dysfunctional.
GASLIGHTING, PROJECTION, MENTALLY DISFUNCTIONAL, MAKING VIOLENT THREATS!!!!
seek psychiatric treatment, or similar therapy
Preeeeetty sure I've seen comments from you expressing the exact opposite about Yasha in the past year or so. You were pretty complimentary at one point, but I don't recall exactly which post it was under.
That said, you're clearly a subscriber so what gives? Is your schtick supporting obscure and apparently failing leftist writers? LOL
Here's some reading for you: https://blackagendareport.com/free-speech-fetish-american-exceptionalism-steroids
AGAIN
You are obsessed with groupthink and ideological tribalism.
Yasha is turning into a smear artist, a waste of his talent.
I was hoping that he would find a different path, back to the light.
Instead he has established a pattern of AD HOMINEM bullshit that is a waste of time reading.
Did you actually read the Vice article he linked?
INFANTILE, ECHO CHAMBER GARBAGE.
He is embarassing himself, unfortunately.
And unfortunately, assholes like you are cheering him on, as expected/no surprise.
Can you actually articulate an ideology or at least a decent suggestion about where we should all go from here? I'm genuinely interested. I don't even care if you casually toss around baseless insults as is your habit. I just want to know where you're coming from on a real policy meets people basis.
you are a disingenuous piece of human excrement with brain damage
see Zizek on "we are all already eating from the garbage can of ideology"
WAKE THE FUCK UP YOU RETARDED MORON / ASSHOLE
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.
True, but are the Democrats - as in the DNC - really another "side" in this equation? Are the Democrats really "leftists"? What we've got is the right and the Democrats - a party that allows center left to center right thought; that's all.
Here's proof: https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/06/23/no-comparison-thoughtcrime-reflections-on-the-latest-imperial-smackdown-of-the-nations-best-congressperson/
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.
Agree. Functionally speaking it's the wealthy elite, their propaganda machines and politicians, their big corporations and banks - and the rest of us.
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 ?!?!
Did you not read this? https://yasha.substack.com/p/matt-taibbi-is-a-cancel-culture-hypocrite-b78
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?
You have zero understanding of the true nature, possession or exercise of power. It's pathetic, really.
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.)
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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.
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"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?"
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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?
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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