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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

“Emails exchanged between them after a conference call on 1 February 2020, and only now forced into the public domain by Republicans in the US Congress, show that they not only thought the virus might have leaked from a lab, but they also went much further in private. They thought the genome sequence of the new virus showed a strong likelihood of having been deliberately manipulated or accidentally mutated in the lab. Yet later they drafted an article for a scientific journal arguing that the suggestion not just of a manipulated virus, but even of an accidental spill, could be confidently dismissed and was a crackpot conspiracy theory.”

Matt Ridley

14 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Ferox

    Between the suppression of inquiries into the origin of the virus, the suppression of early treatment information (and the treatments themselves), the suppression of any questions in social media about the wisdom or efficacy of the vaccines, the widespread state coercion to submit to endless vaccines and boosters which plausibly causes serious immune deficiencies (search VAIDS), the public statements by some of the elite currently pushing this vaccine that we need to depopulate the planet, and the suppression of trials information for the so-called testing of the vaccines, isn’t it time to wonder if maybe some of the tin-foil-hat brigade are finally having their stopped-clock moment?

    I personally trust some of those elites as far as I could throw their private jets. If they say that the sky is blue I start to wonder if maybe it hasn’t been magenta this whole time. And I think that if the vaccines and vaccine mandates turn out to be a mechanism for environmentally motivated genocide then those same elites should never feel safe to show themselves in public again. An excellent use of the anonymity of blockchain tech would be to place large bounties on all their heads.

  • Johnathan Pearce

    Ferox, one thing that no-one appears to have measured yet – it is early days – is whether these constant vaccine boosters will reduce child fertility rates, already low in much of the West and starting to fall in the developing world. When combined with other factors, the next “panic” will be about a declining population, rather than “overpopulation”.

    I doubt there is some tight conspiracy, but my betting is that lockdowns, suppression of healthy sexual activity (lockdowns don’t encourage men and women to hook up), and suppression of healthy sex drives mean the Green movement gets to achieve its population control mania. Paul Erhlich and the rest of them must be pleased.

    I am currently reading Lionel Shriver’s acidic satire on misanthropic environmentalists in Africa, called Game Control. I won’t spoil the plot for those who haven’t read the book, but it involves attempts to use HIV to control birthrates in Africa.

    I don’t have kids and have taken the vaccine. But if I was 25 years younger and thinking of starting a family, I’d be wary.

    In my gut, I have a feeling that at some point, some very unpleasant facts are going to come out about the vaccines, the conflicts of interest of those promoting some of these boosters, and the shenigans around Western funding for Wuhan.

  • Tammly

    What should be obvious now to the general public from this episode, is that scientists cannot be trusted per se. Science as a built edifice can be trusted but individuals debating and working on science’s cutting edge cannot.

  • Barbarus

    Science as a built edifice can be trusted but individuals debating and working on science’s cutting edge cannot

    Probably the exact opposite is (still) the case. Most working scientists are interested in their work – that’s why they are scientists – and like to get it right. The scientific “establishment” however – the committees, the funding bodies, the managers of publications – are open to political manipulation. The spokesmen for “science” are from the latter group.

  • Rudolph Hucker

    Are these the same emails mentioned by Robert Malone?

    Tidal Wave of Documents on Gain-of-Function and the Leak of the Virus
    https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/tidal-wave-of-documents-on-gain-of

    Project Veritas Documents Released
    https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/project-veritas-documents-released

  • Rudolph Hucker

    Matt Ridley again, this time in a Telegraph article:

    I was duped by the Covid lab leak deniers
    That senior scientists saw evidence for theories that they trashed in public has shattered trust in science

    Inch by painful inch, the truth is being dragged out about how this pandemic started. It is just about understandable, if not forgivable, that Chinese scientists have obfuscated vital information about early cases and their work with similar viruses in Wuhan’s laboratories: they were subject to fierce edicts from a ruthless, totalitarian regime.

    It is more shocking to discover in emails released this week that some western scientists were also saying different things in public from what they thought in private. The emails were exchanged over the first weekend of February 2020 between senior virologists on both sides of the Atlantic following a meeting arranged by Sir Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, with America’s two top biologists, Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

    Freedom of Information requests sent last year produced farcical results in both Britain and America: ghost emails with all the contents redacted. Now, the US government has been forced to make unredacted versions available to Republicans on the House of Representatives’ oversight committee for an “in camera review”.

    Thankfully, staffers transcribed some of the contents. They show that Dr Fauci, Dr Collins and Sir Patrick Vallance, our Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, were briefed, on and after February 1, by several virologists who thought at the time that the new virus showed signs of having been manipulated in the laboratory.

    Not only did they never breathe a word of this suspicion to the media or the public, they rubbished it. The meeting on February 1 led to an article from the very virologists who were making the case that the virus showed signs of having been in a lab. Yet, in the words of Dr Collins, the job of that article was to “settle” the matter and “put down this very destructive conspiracy” lest the rumours do harm to “international harmony”.

    etc

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/12/duped-covid-lab-leak-deniers/

  • Exasperated

    Why do you suppose other governments around the world are not agitating for complete disclosure and demanding restitution? They can’t all have been in on the effort to engage in this high-risk experimentation or the coverup in the aftermath. Who or what is holding the world governments in lock step?

  • Paul Marks

    Yes – the virus was “improved” in the Wuhan lab (that was done by the Chinese – but paid for by order of Peter Daszak of the “Eco Health” Alliance and the World Health Organisation, and by Tony Fauci and others in the American bureaucracy).

    Whether the virus “leaked” or was deliberately released, I do not know.

    Even if the virus (the virus the establishment “improved” – to make it more dangerous to humans) accidently “leaked” (and then the World Health Organisation and Tony Fauci in America pretended it was no threat and allowed it to spread around the world) – the international establishment jumped on the excuse to push policies, such as “lockdowns”, that had long wanted to push.

    They also SMEARED Early Treatment of Covid 19 – which could have save the lives of most of the people who died. That rather puts an end to the absurd idea that they wanted to “save lives” – remember these people (the international establishment) think the world is greatly overpopulated, they have no interest in “saving lives”, their policies are not designed to do that.

    Most of us here have known all of the above since 2020 – I remember (back in 2020) “blocking” people who kept pushing the official line, some of whom even called themselves libertarians. I was sick and tired of their lies – even then.

    Will the people responsible for these crimes, Tony Fauci Peter Daszak and the rest, be punished?

    I doubt it.

    Indeed the international establishment are far more likely to punish us – after all they have the power and we do not.

    Watch out for the “Climate Lockdowns” – or whatever they will be called.

    Agenda 21 has led into Agenda 2030 – Collectivist Totalitarian “Build Back Better” of the Corporate State “Great Reset”. All “legally nonbinding” of course – one must not be a “paranoid conspiracy theorist”.

    As the front page of the Daily Telegraph quoted yesterday – lies were necessary, according to the international scientists, for the cause of “international harmony”.

    No one will be punished for these lies – or for the millions of dead human beings.

    And “international harmony” (i.e. World “Governance”) may well demand even more radical action in future.

    Remember various establishment figures, such as the Secretary General of the Commonwealth, were supporting world “governance” (the end of both national sovereignty and individual liberty) as far back as 1988-1989.

    If it is not Covid, it is “Climate Change” or something else – the excuse to get rid of national sovereignty and individual liberty changes, but the objective of totalitarian collectivism, remains the same.

    And the main Corporations back all of it. It is not just governments and NGOs that go to “Davos” gatherings and all the rest of the evil – the main “Woke” Corporations go as well, and endorse it all, full on Saint-Simon style TECHNOCRACY. Harking back all the way to Sir Francis Bacon and other theorists I used to laugh at – till I found out that lots of important people admired the “New Atlantis” and other lunatic works. And why should Big Business types and Credit Bubble bankers NOT support the Saint-Simon style Technocracy plans for world governance? After all under this version of socialism – they would NOT be shot, they would be IN CHARGE, in the name of “The Science”.

    And it is not C02 either – remember they love the People’s Republic of China Communist Party dictatorship, which has the highest (and rapidly increasing) C02 emissions – vastly more than anyone else.

    This is not about C02 and it is not about Covid 19 – it is, and always was (going back at least to the start of the 1990s), about international “governance” – totalitarian collectivism.

  • Ferox

    Who or what is holding the world governments in lock step?

    Some of the leaders of those governments probably believe the prevailing narrative, or believe that the world’s leading nations wouldn’t do anything dishonest. Some of them probably don’t care – how much has COVID affected Africa?

    It is not remotely necessary for all the world’s governments to be acting in lockstep in order for it to be true that some of the world’s governments (and non-government “leaders” – Bill Gates etc.) are working toward actual goals that do not correspond with their putative goals.

  • Exasperated

    Ferox

    Not even for reparations? That was the point.

  • Ferox

    Why would those governments demand reparations if they don’t think anything wrong was done? Governments, especially those governments without virtually limitless resources, can be fooled as easily as ordinary people can be.

    Are you arguing that unless every government in the world is either (a) conspiring, or (b) demanding answers and payments, that it must be true that all the COVID scheming is actually legitimate, above-the-board behavior?

  • Exasperated

    Are you aware of any government that has questioned, or even challenged, the narrative, despite significant economic and/or humanitarian losses? Not even, Iran?

    Are you arguing that unless every government in the world is either (a) conspiring, or (b) demanding answers and payments, that it must be true that all the COVID scheming is actually legitimate, above-the-board behavior?

    No, I am asking why other governments haven’t voiced any suspicions; unless they have, and it has been suppressed by the media.
    Maybe other countries do perceive the NIH etc. as heroic bystanders stepping into the fray to save the world. To be clear, I lean toward the belief that there was, at the very least, a collegial relationship between US government agencies, prominent scientists in the West and scientists in China, such that they shared material, data and guidance. I could be wrong, maybe China, the USA, and the WHO aren’t sneaky and deceptive or covering their asses regarding dodgy experimentation or a lab leak, but then why go scorched earth on any dissent.

  • Alan Peakall

    The formulation that lies were necessary for the cause of international harmony has a retro 1970s feel to it … Ah I remember – the Foreign Office response to those Polish emigres who insisted on telling the truth about Katyn. To roughly paraphrase: I see where you are coming from, I guess you should just tick this box marked “I don’t care about the risk of nuclear war”.

  • Paul Marks

    Alan Peakall – the policy of Appeasement towards the People’s Republic of China has not reduced the risks of war, it has INCREASED the risks of war.

    As for the Foreign Office people you mention – they turned out to be Soviet Agents of Influence (those officials should have been sent to prison – not given power over policy and then a nice pension at their end of their life of treason). There are now many PRC Agents of Influence in the Western World – sadly Barry Gardiner is the tip of the iceberg.

    The present time does indeed have a “feel” to it – it reeks of Appeasement, whether of the 1970s or the 1930s.