I appreciate your honesty and analysis Stan. I’ve been following your writing for more than a decade. A lifelong lefty, the decision to “wait and see” on the injections alienated me from nearly every single person in my personal and professional life. It has been brutal. I co-founded and attend a weekly support group for those of us who for one reason or other decided to abstain and paid a price in our lives. A sociologist and list maker, I’ve been compiling lists of doctors, other health care providers, researchers, social scientists, journalists, etc who have been publicly critical of various aspects of the pandemic response. Just thought you’d find it interesting to hear from someone who has been demonized by the world I formerly aligned myself. A precious gift and funny story is that the whole thing led to a reconnecting w a conservative cousin. We were close in childhood and grew apart in adulthood - her into a more religious life and me into a secular life as a social scientist. We regularly express our gratitude at our reconnection ❤️
The link is best heard, not read. As a rule, I prefer text over other formats, both for the ease of quoting excerpts and because I can practically always read the transcript of a conversation faster than I can listen to it- but the "uncorrected transcript" attached to that link is, hands down, the worst text transcription I've ever read. So I recommend watching/listening to the mental effort required to disentangle the coherence from the gobbledegook in the text, a task that's destined to be only partially successful if that transcript is all that one has to go on.
I also have the C-span link posted on my own Substack, Iconoclasms, as the most recent entry, and had intended to embed the link and write some commentary of my own appended to it. However, in the meantime I found myself wrapped up in other things, so to speak- like getting my Christmas presents mailed out in time, for the first time ever- so I decided to invoke the Sanity Clause until I could clear enough free time to assemble my thoughts.
And then, wouldn't you know it, Stan just provided this splendid overview on most of the issues I intended to address, in more detail than I had even considered including. I'll still have something to say about the covid imbroglio, but Stan has already put forth pretty much an identical position to my own, and articulated it as well as anyone who uses the English language to write nowadays.
I don't know what it's going to take in order to get more Americans to read Stan Goff. Particularly academics, and the established leading lights of the Prestige Media. Maybe he should fake some credentials: "Professor Stan Goff, PhD., Brown University..." using all the proper letterheading and fonts, etc.
Thanks for the link Mascot! I used it and watched. Lot of important points made, though I feel like the panel went too easy on the CDC. Makary was the closest to how outraged we all should be. I think the most important point he made (around the 1 hour 16 minute point) was the one about how deeply cruel it was to keep people physically separated from their dying loved ones. Absolutely a human rights violation. It was stunning to me then, and it has continued in places. And the woman in the audience who commented a couple of minutes later at around 1hr 18mins had powerful points too. But by the end I was left feeling like these folks arent the ones who will help fix this mess. I'm glad they realize what a disaster it was, but their failure to take adequate account of conflicts of interest and injuries from these vaccines is glaring.
One point Stan didn't emphasize about the pharma companies and the vaccines is the unprecedented amount of profit they're generating for companies like Pfizer. The windfall has been so enormous- and it's accumulated so quickly- that news stories aren't even really able to keep up with it. It's only been two years since the vaccine rollout, after all. I've tried to find the single most comprehensive story with the most reliably confirmed and up to date numbers, and I wasn't equal to the task. So I'll just link my entire keyword search, which pulls up an assortment of mostly relevant reports https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pfizer+vaccine+profit+record+billion&t=newext&atb=v336-1&ia=web
When the vaccines were first released, I had the impression that vaccines were not a main source of profit for big Pharma; because they involve only a few dosage units (and most frequently only one or two doses required to provide lifetime protection, in my experience), I had thought that they wouldn't generate the profits of a drug designed to be used daily in a medication regime. I had also naively thought that these already successful capitalist enterprises would refrain from profiting on the back of a global virus epidemic, and make their vaccine product available at cost, or close to cost.
That isn't what happened. Instead, the covid vaccine has provided to be the single most profitable pharmaceutical product in history. And the net worth of Pfizer corporation has doubled in two years.
I'm wary of explanations for any event such as the covid outbreak that posit conspiracy for the purpose of profiteering. As with reflexively taking data correlations as proof of cause and effect, that explanation presents itself as too much of an easy answer to simply be accepted without a lot more examination. "Cui bono?" is an entry point for further investigation. Not a conclusion, the way it's often implied when it's put as a rhetorical question..
But the pharmaceutical companies are not exactly putting such rumors to rest with their windfall profiteering from the crisis. And the unprecedented emphasis on requiring continual boosting- not just annually, but practically seasonally- does not inspire confidence in the motives of these massive drug companies, either.
I appreciate your honesty and analysis Stan. I’ve been following your writing for more than a decade. A lifelong lefty, the decision to “wait and see” on the injections alienated me from nearly every single person in my personal and professional life. It has been brutal. I co-founded and attend a weekly support group for those of us who for one reason or other decided to abstain and paid a price in our lives. A sociologist and list maker, I’ve been compiling lists of doctors, other health care providers, researchers, social scientists, journalists, etc who have been publicly critical of various aspects of the pandemic response. Just thought you’d find it interesting to hear from someone who has been demonized by the world I formerly aligned myself. A precious gift and funny story is that the whole thing led to a reconnecting w a conservative cousin. We were close in childhood and grew apart in adulthood - her into a more religious life and me into a secular life as a social scientist. We regularly express our gratitude at our reconnection ❤️
If you haven't yet seen/heard this C-Span panel doing a preliminary assay of the CDC response to covid, it's well worth listening to. https://www.c-span.org/video/?524736-1/centers-disease-controls-handling-covid-19#
The link is best heard, not read. As a rule, I prefer text over other formats, both for the ease of quoting excerpts and because I can practically always read the transcript of a conversation faster than I can listen to it- but the "uncorrected transcript" attached to that link is, hands down, the worst text transcription I've ever read. So I recommend watching/listening to the mental effort required to disentangle the coherence from the gobbledegook in the text, a task that's destined to be only partially successful if that transcript is all that one has to go on.
I also have the C-span link posted on my own Substack, Iconoclasms, as the most recent entry, and had intended to embed the link and write some commentary of my own appended to it. However, in the meantime I found myself wrapped up in other things, so to speak- like getting my Christmas presents mailed out in time, for the first time ever- so I decided to invoke the Sanity Clause until I could clear enough free time to assemble my thoughts.
And then, wouldn't you know it, Stan just provided this splendid overview on most of the issues I intended to address, in more detail than I had even considered including. I'll still have something to say about the covid imbroglio, but Stan has already put forth pretty much an identical position to my own, and articulated it as well as anyone who uses the English language to write nowadays.
I don't know what it's going to take in order to get more Americans to read Stan Goff. Particularly academics, and the established leading lights of the Prestige Media. Maybe he should fake some credentials: "Professor Stan Goff, PhD., Brown University..." using all the proper letterheading and fonts, etc.
Can I get my new credentials from Duke instead? (-;
leave it somebody to monetize this. https://www.fakediplomamall.com/project_category/usa/page/22
I'd venture that there are DIY workarounds. Welcome to the post-El Myr/Warhol frontiers of Art. We now have the technology.
There are probly better templates than this example, but it will suffice with some added calligraphy and enlargement. Mutatis mutandis, as it were. https://images.diplomaframe.com/products_padded/127049_5677_1200_630.png
I recommend putting it behind glass.
If anyone asks about authentication, just say "I forgot." That might throw them off.
Thanks for the link Mascot! I used it and watched. Lot of important points made, though I feel like the panel went too easy on the CDC. Makary was the closest to how outraged we all should be. I think the most important point he made (around the 1 hour 16 minute point) was the one about how deeply cruel it was to keep people physically separated from their dying loved ones. Absolutely a human rights violation. It was stunning to me then, and it has continued in places. And the woman in the audience who commented a couple of minutes later at around 1hr 18mins had powerful points too. But by the end I was left feeling like these folks arent the ones who will help fix this mess. I'm glad they realize what a disaster it was, but their failure to take adequate account of conflicts of interest and injuries from these vaccines is glaring.
One point Stan didn't emphasize about the pharma companies and the vaccines is the unprecedented amount of profit they're generating for companies like Pfizer. The windfall has been so enormous- and it's accumulated so quickly- that news stories aren't even really able to keep up with it. It's only been two years since the vaccine rollout, after all. I've tried to find the single most comprehensive story with the most reliably confirmed and up to date numbers, and I wasn't equal to the task. So I'll just link my entire keyword search, which pulls up an assortment of mostly relevant reports https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pfizer+vaccine+profit+record+billion&t=newext&atb=v336-1&ia=web
When the vaccines were first released, I had the impression that vaccines were not a main source of profit for big Pharma; because they involve only a few dosage units (and most frequently only one or two doses required to provide lifetime protection, in my experience), I had thought that they wouldn't generate the profits of a drug designed to be used daily in a medication regime. I had also naively thought that these already successful capitalist enterprises would refrain from profiting on the back of a global virus epidemic, and make their vaccine product available at cost, or close to cost.
That isn't what happened. Instead, the covid vaccine has provided to be the single most profitable pharmaceutical product in history. And the net worth of Pfizer corporation has doubled in two years.
I'm wary of explanations for any event such as the covid outbreak that posit conspiracy for the purpose of profiteering. As with reflexively taking data correlations as proof of cause and effect, that explanation presents itself as too much of an easy answer to simply be accepted without a lot more examination. "Cui bono?" is an entry point for further investigation. Not a conclusion, the way it's often implied when it's put as a rhetorical question..
But the pharmaceutical companies are not exactly putting such rumors to rest with their windfall profiteering from the crisis. And the unprecedented emphasis on requiring continual boosting- not just annually, but practically seasonally- does not inspire confidence in the motives of these massive drug companies, either.
Liability-free. They are monsters. One of my favorite writers on the topic is Toby Rogers. Here is his substack for today. It might be a bit too far out for you, but if you read it, you might understand why the panel you shared fell a little flat for me. :) https://open.substack.com/pub/tobyrogers/p/175-years-of-scholarship-down-the?r=qi1z5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web Thanks for the exchange!
Powerful statements. Conclusion was 110%, for me anyway. TYTY.