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Uncritical support for Ben Norton against the LaRouchite cranks at The Grayzone (like Max Blumenthal). (twitter.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

103 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/766438

Some of the replies and reposts have me chuckling.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because there is a kernel of truth. Reports about negative side effects were actively supressed in the west and people concerned about those effects were immediately equated to nazis. Perfect soil for radicalization.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Not to mention the unprecedented push to immediately use experimental mRNA vaccines when old school ones would have sufficed just fine. It's like pharma wanted to do a massive experiment and we were not allowed to opt out. Even if they turn out just fine, I believe that was seriously unethical and damaged the credibility of health institutions. They also destroyed their own credibility by going back-and-forth on their statements so much - at first saying masks were useless, then saying SIKE! masks are useful and mandatory and we were fooling you before to prevent a rush on masks. How is anyone supposed to believe these lying cretins when they change their story every 5 minutes?

Obviously China took the optimal path here with 0 covid policy during the initial outbreaks until they could vaccinate enough of their population (their vaccines weren't mRNA btw, neither is Cuba's), and China is much more competent and has the credibility to make these demands of the population. Idk if that was ever possible in the US, seems like the US was just set-up and doomed to fail on COVID and a couple pharma fucks exploited that failure for massive profits.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The scaremongering about mRNA vaccines is overblown, they are nowhere near as "experimental" as some people make them out to be. Some of the vaccines having adverse side effects is not unusual, a lot of medicine does, it's always about the balance of risk vs reward, do you save more people than you harm.

Of course i have no doubt that the pharma companies cut corners on this like on any other product. It's what you get when you give such an essential task to private companies. The private sector is synonymous with corruption. It's why countries should have state healthcare and research institutions which should be kept ready to be mobilized to the task in case of national emergencies.

And the masks flip flop was because they were initially worried that they would run out of masks for medical professionals if everyone rushed to buy them. They lied to cover up how unprepared they were and because people would not like being asked to refrain from buying something that could save them from getting infected, because there is zero understanding of the concept of making sacrifices for the greater good of society in the hyper-individualist west...except when the rich tell the poor that they have to be sacrificed on the altar of the economy, that somehow is always acceptable.

Yes the West's handling was overall a complete shitshow and it is not surprising that this has driven people to conspiracy theories and undermined their faith in modern medicine. China is one of the few countries that actually had both the political will and the practical capabilities to do it right, the way it should have been done everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

they are nowhere near as "experimental" as some people make them out to be.

Even so it is kind of weird that they were basically fast tracked to the masses. Hell they even called it "operation lightspeed" if I remember correctly. I've never seen something get approved so fast. Part of me thinks that they needed something to get people to go back to work (of course service workers were always working but they seemed to also want to put the white collar workers back in line too)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well yes, of course one of the main reason that the West opted to focus heavily on vaccines instead of lockdowns was to get people back to work as soon as possible. All part and parcel of the logic of capitalism. China was able to take its time in not just developing their vaccine but in building up the confidence of the people in their efficacy, because their lockdowns and vigilant zero Covid policy greatly delayed the point at which the infection would start to run its course through the population. By that point most people were already vaccinated, the disease was much better understood, and better treatments and therapeutics had been developed. Every additional day that China waited before they opened up literally saved lives. Under capitalism this could never have been done because "muh economy". China knowingly sacrificed economic growth for the sake of saving millions of lives. And despite the apocalyptic predictions of western analysts that China would never recover from the economic consequences of zero Covid, they not only did not economically collapse but are now on track to make up all the growth they missed out on and more since they did not let millions of workers die as a capitalist government would have.