I don't think I agree with Frances' possible insinuation that everyone in the "top 12" of my list might be "controlled opposition" (my word not her's) or are not worthy of the label "contrarian."
When I look at that list, I see only people who pushed back - hard - on all the key false narratives of the last five years.
I, of course, don't agree with everything all these authors have written, but "big picture," we all seem to be thinking the same way. IMO these authors/"Contrarians" are going after the right villains and the Powers that Be probably don't like any of them.
For example, we know from the Twitter Files that the White House targetted Alex Berenson's substack.
I also find it hard to believe that, say, Big Pharma, is a fan of the work of Steve Kirsch.
I am careful to not label people as "controlled opposition" because the danger in that thinking is that soon you will find yourself alone and painted in a corner. There are plenty of people I respect on Covid, at the same time thinking that aren't quite clear on how far the turtles go down. I could be wrong. At the same time, I am constantly pushing back harder on Twitter against those who are sure masks work, that the injections were necessary, and that all ailments now are either Covid or Long Covid.
Calling people controlled opposition is common. This is useful perhaps in the sense that people can look and decide for themselves whether that's true. If the person being attacked as controlled opposition is right and has been right then dismiss the attack. Until evidence to the contrary appears.
As to why I've recently tried to highlight Robert Reich's exploding subscription numbers on Substack ... I think this could be another example of how our enemies "don't fight fair" or an example that Substack is, perhaps, going wobbly and trying too hard to curry favor with the other side.
Our side needs Substack to be a staunch supporter of our side's warriors, The "Contrarians" ... not the Narrative Protectors.
Substack is our beachhead and we need to hold this damn beach.
I view this quick column as Substack 101, or a return to the "Basics." Just about everybody now uses the term "the narrative" in just about every essay. But the importance of said narratives is rarely defined, or authors don't always tell us why it has to be defended and promoted incessantly and fiercely.
I do think I might have coined the term "Covid Contrarians," most of whom are "contrarians" about everything.
As I view it, everything the Contrarians write about is an effort to tell readers they are being duped by the Bogus Narratives.
Dr. Yeadon has a video that I wasn’t able to watch on his Substack, but I could watch it on Rumble. I asked a fellow reader in the comments of “Coffee & Covid” when did Substack start censoring, and she recommended you.
The fellow reader was Laura Kasner. I was just reading your list of “Contrarians”. Many of them I already knew about, but not all. Thank you for the compilation.
I still think Laura produces the most important Substack newsletter in the world. I say this because if her posts (and photos), by some miracle, went "viral" and reached the masses, this would almost overnight "stop the shots" ... which should be our first and most important goal/objective.
We can't change what's already happened, but we could save many lives by ... stopping the shots.
Last week I was not able to watch this video that was on Substack and I had to go to Rumble to see it. I looked for the link for you and today it is viewable.
Thank you! The vid is a good summary of the Yeadon position circa late '24. (BTW--I prefer the Debbie Lehrman and others position which posits the operation of groupthink, and some very top-level [DOD/deep-state] coordination, so that yes, most of the scientists involved were making mistakes, and no, they did not intend to cull the population, even though their refusal to come forward has subsequently made them guilty of various crimes.)
As for our technical substack issues, this is a Telegram video, not a Rumble one.
So there's A.) the mystery of why it was temporarily disabled.
And then there's B.) my own confusion about what Substack will permit to be embedded or not. I don't use Telegram, but I sure wish Substack would be clearer with their authors about what features they have at their disposal. Anyone want to chime in? Can I now embed Rumble vids if I know what to do?
"I also don’t think the people we’re fighting against are fans of these Comment Sections.
They don’t like free comments. Free speech terrifies them."
It most certainly does. And as much as they don't like free comments, they do read them. And study them. To study us. Take for instance this MIT study published early 2021 (most of it was completed earlier, but they had enough time to add in notes about how the January 6 "insurrection" two weeks pre-publication followed the same large platform communication phenomenon as dangerous anti-maskers did when challenging official narratives.)
Viral Visualizations:
How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, January 20, 2021
("This project was supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) Award 1900991, NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant 1941577, an SSRC Social Data Dissertation Fellowship, and the MIT Programs for Digital Humanities")
They most certainly do read our free comments, Stacks. Studying us. Not to be persuaded by our arguments, but to learn how to counter our free speech that gets in the way of their more enlightened expertise that our simple, selfish minds simply don't understand. They acknowledge we're smart, scientifically literate, produce work that rivals and surpasses academic rigor. But, they're right, and we're wrong. Because they say so. You'll even find the infamous censorship/propaganda queen Kate Starbird cited in it.
This study of Viral Visualizations (Meme's!! And charts. They can't meme as good as us!!) was produced before Substack became the contrarian writer go-to - after the social media like Facebook they studied kicked us off the platform...because they couldn't control us and we were so darn good and effective!
I have no doubts that the same research and study of "contrarians" is ongoing right now, here on Substack. Probably on Bill Rice Jr.'s Newsletter. And all of us. Some of those "Followers" may very well be authors of current and future studies just like this one. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the authors of this MIT 2021 study is reading this right now - HI!! As I wouldn't be surprised if they've now tapped into AI technology to help "study" our free comments, and learn how to silence us for the next phony crisis. Cat-Mouse. We study them, they study us, we study them studying us, they study us studying them studying us. Yep. Just like that.
A Townhall piece about the MIT Study:
MIT Researchers Grudgingly Admit COVID ‘Team Reality’ Is Effectively Winning Minds With Real Data
I'll share excerpts from the MIT 2021 Study in comments below. It's actually complementary of us. You'd almost think we'd be getting an award for how good we are at science-ing! But since they're right and we're wrong what I read as glowing praise they write as an indictment of us. Meaning we're dealing with outright idiots. Or outright evil. Or a combination.
I think it's also worth noting the surnames of the researchers. It's reasonable to suspect that they are familiar with China's very advanced authoritarian censorship and propaganda industry, and to question their understanding and appreciation of American values of individual freedom and liberty. They use those words as pejoratives; they do NOT share our values.
Early in 2020 I researched the CDC's pandemic planning guidance. It was very informative, told me that everything that was being done was wrong, against their own guidance. Funny thing happened. When I went back to re-read it after having sourced it in many social media shares it had changed. Several areas, particularly masking guidance (not recommended outside a healthcare facility, known ineffective) had been modified between March-April, 2020 and September 2020. So I downloaded the .pdf at the time in case they made more changes I'd have proof. And, wouldn't you know it they were modified again. I downloaded the June, 2022 .pdf. This time the Visualizations" had been modified. I saved screenshots from the previous saved version and the later version and made a meme with them side-by-side to show the changes. Mind you, this is an official archived government document, shouldn't be edited or modified for any reason. They claim was just to clean-up format. Bullshite.
The CDC pandemic planning guide link, followed by the meme .jpg's showing the side-by-side changes. It would seem as though they took the MIT study's advice and got rid of effective "visualizations" that clearly showed to short-attention readers how over the top the pandemic was being managed, even Spanish Flu level severity never called for the interventions imposed for "Covid." These images are evidence of censoring official archived government records to deal with the "problem" of effective "visualizations" the MIT study said needed to be dealt with. The implication is that even official archived government records are not true and authentic. It is impossible that this would be the only record altered. How many other records in our nation's official archives have been rewritten in the past five years? Even ones more important than this one.
Interim Pre-pandemic Planning Guidance:
Community Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Mitigation in the United States -
Early, Targeted, Layered Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions
Thanks for doing this. As you note, this is sinister stuff and SHOULD qualify as a major scandal.
Of course, the organization/profession that could make it a "scandal" (the "watchdog" MSM) will never do so. In our New Abnormal, no real scandal becomes a "scandal."
When the National Archivist's allegation is used as predicate to raid a former president's home resulting in felony indictments for non-crrime you know there's a whole lotta wrongdoing in our nation's official archives, our history. What else have they destroyed important aspects and nuances to shape a false narrative?
"The discussion-based nature of these Facebook groups also give these followers a space to learn and adapt from others, and to develop processes of critical engagement. Long-time followers of the group often give small tutorials to new users on how to read and interpret specific visualizations, and users often give each other constructive feedback on how to adjust their graphic to make it more legible or intuitive. Some questions and comments would not be out of place at all at a visualization research poster session: “This doesn’t make sense. What do the colors mean? How does this demonstrate any useful information?” (July 21, 2020) These communities use data analysis as a way to socialize and enculturate their users; they promulgate data literacy practices as a way of inculcating heterodox ideology. The transmission of data literacy, then, becomes a method of political radicalization.
These individuals as a whole are extremely willing to help others who have trouble interpreting graphs with multiple forms of clarification: by helping people find the original sources so that they can replicate the analysis themselves, by referencing other reputable studies that come to the same conclusions, by reminding others to remain vigilant about the limitations of the data, and by answering questions about the implications of a specific graph. The last point is especially salient, as it surfaces both what these groups see as a reliable measure of how the pandemic is unfolding and what they believe they should do with the data. These online communities therefore act as a sounding board for thinking about how best to effectively mobilize the data towards more measured policies like slowly reopening schools."
...
"Additionally, followers in these groups also use data analysis as a way of bolstering social unity and creating a community of practice. While these groups highly value scientific expertise, they also see collective analysis of data as a way to bring communities together within a time of crisis, and being able to transparently and dispassionately analyze the data is crucial for democratic governance. In fact, the explicit motivation for many of these followers is to find information so that they can make the best decisions for their families—and by extension, for the communities around them."
...
"As Kate Starbird et al. have demonstrated, strategic information operations require the participation of online communities to consolidate and amplify these messages: these messages become powerful when emergent, organic crowds (rather than hired trolls and bots) iteratively contribute to a larger community with shared values and epistemologies. Group members repost these analyses onto their personal timelines to start conversations with friends and family in hopes that they might be able to congregate in person. However, many of these conversations result in frustration."
...
"Especially when these conversations go poorly, followers solicit advice from each other about how to move forward when their children’s schools close or when family members do not “follow the data.” One group even organized an unmasked get-together at a local restaurant where they passed out t-shirts promoting their Facebook group, took selfies, and discussed a lawsuit that sought to remove their state’s emergency health order (September 12, 2020). The lunch was organized such that the members who wanted to first attend a Trump rolling rally could do so and “drop in afterward for some yummy food and fellowship” (September 8, 2020).
4.2.7 Applying data to real-world situations. Ultimately, anti-mask users emphasize that they need to apply this data to real-world situations. The same group that organized the get-together also regularly hosts live-streams with guest speakers like local politicians, congressional candidates, and community organizers, all of whom instruct users on how to best agitate for change armed with the data visualizations shared in the group."
...
"These groups have been incredibly effective at galvanizing a network of engaged citizens towards concrete political action. Local officials have relied on data narratives generated in these groups to call for a lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Health (July 20, 2020). In Texas, a coalition of mayors, school board members, and city council people investigated the state’s COVID-19 statistics and discovered that a backlog of unaudited tests was distorting the data, prompting Texas officials to employ a forensic data team to investigate the surge in positive test rates."
...
“There were over a million pending assignments [that were distorting the state’s infection rate],”
the city councilperson said to the group’s 40,000+ followers.
“We just want to make sure that the information that is getting out there is giving us the full picture.” (August 17, 2020)
Another Facebook group solicited suggestions from its followers on how to support other political groups who need data to support lawsuits against governors and state health departments.
“If you were suddenly given access to all the government records and could interrogate any official,”
a group administrator asked,
“what piece of data or documentation would you like to inspect?” (September 11, 2020)
The message that runs through these threads is unequivocal: that data is the only way to set fear-bound politicians straight, and using better data is a surefire way towards creating a safer community."
"5 DISCUSSION
Anti-maskers have deftly used social media to constitute a cultural and discursive arena devoted to addressing the pandemic and its fallout through practices of data literacy. Data literacy is a quintessential criterion for membership within the community they have created. The prestige of both individual anti-maskers and the larger Facebook groups to which they belong is tied to displays of skill in accessing, interpreting, critiquing, and visualizing data, as interested parties. This is a community of practice focused on acquiring and transmitting expertise, and on translating that expertise into concrete political action. Moreover, this is a subculture shaped by mistrust of established authorities and orthodox scientific viewpoints. Its members value individual initiative and ingenuity, trusting scientific analysis only insofar as they can replicate it themselves by accessing and manipulating the data firsthand. They are highly reflexive about the inherently biased nature of any analysis, and resent what they view as the arrogant self-righteousness of scientific elites.
As a subculture, anti-masking amplifies anti-establishment currents pervasive in U.S. political culture. Data literacy, for anti-maskers, exemplifies distinctly American ideals of intellectual self-reliance, which historically takes the form of rejecting experts and other elites. The counter-visualizations that they produce and circulate not only challenge scientific consensus, but they also assert the value of independence in a society that they believe promotes an overall de-skilling and dumbing-down of the population for the sake of more effective social control. As they see it, to counter-visualize is to engage in an act of resistance against the stifling influence of central government, big business, and liberal academia. Moreover, their simultaneous appropriation of scientific rhetoric and rejection of scientific authority also reflects longstanding strategies of Christian fundamentalists seeking to challenge the secularist threat of evolutionary biology.
So how do these groups diverge from scientific orthodoxy if they are using the same data? We have identified a few sleights of hand that contribute to the broader epistemological crisis we identify between these groups and the majority of scientific researchers. For instance, they argue that there is an outsized emphasis on deaths versus cases: if the current datasets are fundamentally subjective and prone to manipulation (e.g., increased levels of faulty testing, asymptomatic vs. symptomatic cases), then deaths are the only reliable markers of the pandemic’s severity. Even then, these groups believe that deaths are an additionally problematic category because doctors are using a COVID diagnosis as the main cause of death (i.e., people who die because of COVID) when in reality there are other factors at play (i.e., dying with but not because of COVID). Since these categories are fundamentally subject to human interpretation, especially by those who have a vested interest in reporting as many COVID deaths as possible, these numbers are vastly over-reported, unreliable, and no more significant than the flu.
Another point of contention is that of lived experience: in many of these cases, users do not themselves know a person who has experienced COVID, and the statistics they see on the news show the severity of the pandemic in vastly different parts of the country. Since they do not see their experience reflected in the narratives they consume, they look for hyperlocal data to help guide their decision-making. But since many of these datasets do not always exist on such a granular level, this information gap feeds into a larger social narrative about the government’s suppression of critical data and the media’s unwillingness to substantively engage with the subjectivity of coronavirus data reporting.
Most fundamentally, the groups we studied believe that science is a process, and not an institution. As we have outlined in the case study, these groups mistrust the scientific establishment (“Science”) because they believe that the institution has been corrupted by profit motives and politics. The knowledge that the CDC and academics have created cannot be trusted because they need to be subject to increased doubt, and not accepted as consensus."
"Hochschild explains the intractable partisan rift in American politics by emphasizing the importance of a “deep story”: a subjective prism that people use in order to make sense of the world and guide the way they vote. For Tea Party activists [FF - MAGA!!], this deep story revolved around anger towards a federal system ruled by liberal elites who pander to the interests of ethnic and religious minorities, while curtailing the advantages that White, Christian traditionalists view as their American birthright. We argue that the anti-maskers’ deep story draws from similar wells of resentment, but adds a particular emphasis on the usurpation of scientific knowledge by a paternalistic, condescending elite that expects intellectual subservience rather than critical thinking from the lay public."
...
"Projects that examine the cognitive basis of visualization or seek to make “better” or “more intuitive” visualizations will not meaningfully change this phenomenon: anti-mask protestors already use visualizations, and do so extremely effectively. Moreover, in emphasizing the politicization of pandemic data, our account helps to explain the striking correlation between practices of counter-visualization and the politics of anti-masking. For members of this social movement, counter-visualization and anti-masking are complementary aspects of resisting the tyranny of institutions that threaten to usurp individual liberties to think freely and act accordingly."
...
"6 IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
This paper has investigated anti-mask counter-visualizations on social media in two ways: quantitatively, we identify the main types of visualizations that are present within different networks (e.g., pro- and anti-mask users), and we show that anti-mask users are prolific and skilled purveyors of data visualizations. These visualizations are popular, use orthodox visualization methods, and are promulgated as a way to convince others that public health measures are unnecessary."
...
"While academic science is traditionally a system for producing knowledge within a laboratory, validating it through peer review, and sharing results within subsidiary communities, anti-maskers reject this hierarchical social model. They espouse a vision of science that is radically egalitarian and individualist. This study forces us to see that coronavirus skeptics champion science as a personal practice that prizes rationality and autonomy; for them, it is not a body of knowledge certified by an institution of experts. Calls for data or scientific literacy therefore risk recapitulating narratives that anti-mask views are the product of individual ignorance rather than coordinated information campaigns that rely heavily on networked participation. Recognizing the systemic dynamics that contribute to this epistemological rift is the first step towards grappling with this phenomenon, and the findings presented in this paper corroborate similar studies about the impact of fake news on American evangelical voters and about the limitations of fact-checking climate change denialism"
...
"Powerful research and media organizations paid for by the tobacco or fossil fuel industries have historically capitalized on the skeptical impulse that the “science simply isn’t settled,” prompting people to simply “think for themselves” to horrifying ends. The attempted coup on January 6, 2021 has similarly illustrated that well-calibrated, well-funded systems of coordinated disinformation can be particularly dangerous when they are designed to appeal to skeptical people. While individual insurrectionists are no doubt to blame for their own acts of violence, the coup relied on a collective effort fanned by people questioning, interacting, and sharing these ideas with other people. These skeptical narratives are powerful because they resonate with these these people’s lived experience and—crucially— because they are posted by influential accounts across influential platforms."
...
"This paper presents a community of users that researchers might not consider in the systems building process (i.e., supposedly “data illiterate” anti-maskers), and we show how the binary opposition of literacy/illiteracy is insufficient for describing how orthodox visualizations can be used to promote unorthodox science. Understanding how these groups skillfully manipulate data to undermine mainstream science requires us to adjust the theoretical assumptions in HCI research about how data can be leveraged in public discourse.
What, then, are visualization researchers and social scientists to do? One step might be to grapple with the social and political dimensions of visualizations at the beginning, rather than the end, of projects."
...
"There are exciting threads of visualization research that investigate how users’ interpretive frameworks can change the overarching narratives they glean from the data"
...
"...we show that data visualizations are not simply tools that people use to understand the epidemiological events around them. They are a battleground that highlight the contested role of expertise in modern American life"
To me people don't seem to understand what we're up against. Maybe because they aren't that way themselves and their knowledge and education hasn't equipped them to understand. The M.I.T. apparatchiks and their handlers and string pullers don't care about individual freedom and liberty. They don't want that for the world they have envisioned. They are ideologues and all they want is population control and power and wealth for themselves. They aren't interested in anything else and if they could they would kill anyone who opposes them and have gulags, breadlines and starvation. There are numerous historical examples of exactly this. Now technology will make this easier for them.
One of the things that is part of these people who affirm the narratives, is they claim to be contrarian. On X, for instance, a lot of people who still herald the mask as the single most important medical invention in history, will claim that they are that "lone wolf courageously wearing the mask in a sea of unmasked faces" They are the ones that stand now in the face of government apathy and they lie in the face of continued Covid infectivity. My answer to that is...
Good point, Jimmy. Everybody we are fighting thinks they are brave warriors fighting for a great cause. Or this is their pose. For example ...
The fearless trial lawyer fighting for the Little Man.
The "rebel rockers" who will always stand up to The Man.
The truth-crusading journalist who lives to challenge people with great power.
Everyone in "public health" who thinks they are actually improving public health - when they are making it far worse.
The knowledge/truth seeking college professor.
The politicians standing up for "the people" when they are doing everything they can to stand up for Big Pharma/Big Medicine/Big Ag/Big Finance/The Military Industrial Complex.
It used to be that anyone could be a "Journalist" - most 'press' were middleclass 'contrarians' hustlers not outright agent-provocateurs who throttle the narradigm as do today. Who would keep watch on the Watchers - with no trustworthy 4th Estate? The talking-meat-puppets who present the 'allowed' narrative of today (any whitecoated 'Expert' for that matter) will never be trusted again after losing all trust by attacking 'contrarians'... deferring to democidal leadership, the "Experts" and higher-ups in their deathcult people-pyramid. The word 'Contrarian' lacks extinction rebelliousness.
I prefer "dissident." "Contrarian" implies that the person has an inherent instinct or desire, operating at all times and in all situations, to disagree, to seek out the alternative view. I wouldn't deny that I have that trait, but past my younger years, I recognize the need to keep it in check, to appreciate when the majority or conventional opinion is getting something largely right.
See the key conversation b/t Violet and Lily near the end of Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress--the contrarian and the norm-seeker need each other. There's a role for both.
"Dissident" suggests rather that the regime itself is illegitimate, or partakes of totalitarian patterns. Dissidence puts contrarian instincts to serious community-serving uses, and it judges the larger situation correctly. It puts us in the footsteps of heroes likes Havel, Solzhenitsyn, Bonhoeffer, and suggests the work of artists/thinkers like Dylan, Ellison, Strauss, and Arendt.
The dissident stance does not revel in rebellion or suspicion for their own sakes, knowing with thinkers like James Ceaser or Chantal Delsol that there are regimes and ways of life that should not be subjected to over-done criticism that expects the impossible and is satisfied with nothing. 70s-90s America for example--pretty good society. Like Tocqueville, it worries and entertains fears for the future, but it still gives credit to the aspects of modern democratic society that deserve it.
In the 20s we realized that our ruling pattern of life had become totalitarian at heart. (See your graphs about how the media has become the guardian for the official narratives--that's way more than a standard type of failure.) It has been overtly so since 2014-ish, and the pattern likely got baked into most our elite institutions sometime during the 90s or aughts without most of us realizing. This is what the Covid/Vax disaster, and the Censorship/Suppression pattern tied to it, revealed. Hence the need for dissidence. Hence our near-total rejection of our present elites.
My latest post discusses what those conservatives who call themselves "dissident conservatives," will have to do if Trump and his team betray MAHA and thus maintain the corrupt "conservative" leader participation in media suppression. https://pomocon.substack.com/p/dissident-mutiny You'll see in my usage that "dissident" is not a free-floating category--I think rather that it must be attached to the specific political philosophy commitments of authentic conservativism.
My definition of contrarian is different. I view it more as a personality trait than pro or anti anything, even anti-authorized narrative. Most people conform to the people they're most associated with. If most of those people are anti-government, anti-vax, or whatever, they'll be the same. I came of age in the Vietnam years. The anti-war, anti-establishment position so common among my peers wasn't a sign of willingness to challenge anything. That was the easiest way to roll. Many are surprised so many "rebels" of the 60s are on board with the tyranny today. They shouldn't be. They were never rebels, contrarians, or had any spine whatsoever.
I consider myself a contrarian. Not because of any particular position. But because whatever I hear, my first inclination is to challenge it. That results in me being anti-authoritarian, and anti-tyranny simply because the tyrants always suck, and the authorities almost always do. Not so much because I'm against any particular policy.
I'm not sure to what degree most in the "medical freedom" movement are true contrarians, by my standards. For example, regarding the clots, and recent news that all vaccinated hearts are damaged, I immediately think - if these horrible clots are so widespread, and if all jabbed hearts are damaged, why don't we see the performance of elite athletes affected? NFL, MLB, NBA, and NCAA athletes are going about business as usual. Seems if their hearts were damaged, or a high percentage of them had horrible clots in their veins, they'd have a problem performing at their usual elite level. There is no such change. I'm not saying there are no clots. Nor am I saying hearts aren't damaged. I just see a mystery that needs an explanation. But whenever I point out the athletes, who are nearly all jabbed, perform as well as ever, those posts are ignored. "Medical freedom" proponents may not be as open-minded as they think.
I like the distinction/different criteria you've applied. It's a great point that should be added in this discussion.
I've also wondered why more NFL/NBA athletes aren't "falling out" from heart ailments at the rate, say, soccer athletes in Europe have been. (This is well documented IMO).
That is, the number of "vaccine" deaths and "medical emergencies" among athletes from outside America seem to be larger than in the States.
I'd add that the number of "weekend" athletes or long-distance runners or people who drowned (perhaps from heart attacks stressing their heart) seems, from my guess, to have grown significantly. I know I've found a good number of "died suddenly" athlete deaths - very possibly due to their vaccination status - that were suppressed or have never been investigated. (For example, an Alabama State football player and a manager on the basketball team of the University of Alabama).
I think these deaths have spiked noticeably ... but, as you point out, not (conspicuously) in the sports leagues we all follow in the Sports Pages in America.
We're not getting good analysis or data, which makes a better analysis harder to perform. This, I'm sure or suspect, is "by design" and intentional.
I agree there are more deaths. Non-US soccer players particularly, although prep, non-D1 college, and amateur athletes in the US have died. Agree on the drownings. That's not what I'm referring to. My issue is that there is no impact on the athletic performance of high-level athletes. I single out high-level because those are the most observable. Probably all athletes. If you have heart damage, or clots in your veins, or the "coffee-ground" material, how can you run or swim just as fast, jump as high, or be as strong as you were before? Well, maybe it wouldn't affect such "burst" activity, but surely you wouldn't be able to go hard for as long before your heart or circulatory damage would have an impact. Basketball, football, and soccer players aren't giving out partway through the games, any more than ever. Even more illustrative are the objectively measurable events. Times in track and swimming events don't show noticeable numbers of previously competitive athletes, who "mysteriously" can't perform as before. I'm surprised we aren't seeing any drop-off. I think this needs to be explained. Maybe younger (although Dowd documents jab damage is widespread among under 40s), extremely fit bodies are immune to the clots, "coffee grounds", and heart damage. But if that's it, then why do some drop dead, if not from such damage? As a computer professional, I'm aware performance increases or decreases depend on whatever is the "bottlenecK". IOW, if your hard drive, or internet speed is why your PC is slow, speeding up or slowing down the CPU or RAM won't help or hurt. Maybe the damage is there, but leaves enough heart capacity, or circulatory capacity that there is no performance hit, because muscle power and lung capacity fail first, and are unaffected by the jabs. But it sure seems like the clotting would absolutely have an effect, particularly on timed endurance events like 10k runs or marathons, as extreme examples. Not seeing any of this, which seems very odd to me.
Tenacity, perseverance, & persistence with integrity will pay off in better dividends than the supposed wave of success Reich is riding. Keep keepin' on!
politicians, bureaucrats and people in general ( in regard to "government policy" and political solutions) should make Chesterton's Fence the first thing they look at when making decisions. Of course this will never happen because there isn't enough wisdom and intelligence.
It was probably some kind of "conspiracy" to dumb-down the world population via education "reforms." The effect of these reforms - and lower academic standards - took decades to manifest themselves, but they have now.
The Powers that Be fear people smart enough to call them out.
One of the ways I determine whether someone is really, what you call a contrarian or not, is, if their views gradually change to a more main-stream or approved narrative stance over time. A true "contrarian" does not accommodate to the "party-line" of the main-stream but continues to show in more detailed ways how the main-stream narrative(s) is wrong. I call that type of gradual accommodation, a bait and switch technique which is designed to derail serious resistance to approved narratives. Unfortunately, when analyzed in detail, using that metric, some of the MFM contrarians have IMHO, failed the test.
It's a catch-all term. I'm open to other labels/descriptive terms that might describe a group of 144 writers. What word would you use to describe the authors in my list?
Ideally a taxonomy in SKOS or an ontology in RDFS or OWL would be used or made for it. Subclasses would inherit properties etc. A superclass thats more general could define them all, subclasses defining specializations.
I don't think I agree with Frances' possible insinuation that everyone in the "top 12" of my list might be "controlled opposition" (my word not her's) or are not worthy of the label "contrarian."
When I look at that list, I see only people who pushed back - hard - on all the key false narratives of the last five years.
I, of course, don't agree with everything all these authors have written, but "big picture," we all seem to be thinking the same way. IMO these authors/"Contrarians" are going after the right villains and the Powers that Be probably don't like any of them.
For example, we know from the Twitter Files that the White House targetted Alex Berenson's substack.
I also find it hard to believe that, say, Big Pharma, is a fan of the work of Steve Kirsch.
I am careful to not label people as "controlled opposition" because the danger in that thinking is that soon you will find yourself alone and painted in a corner. There are plenty of people I respect on Covid, at the same time thinking that aren't quite clear on how far the turtles go down. I could be wrong. At the same time, I am constantly pushing back harder on Twitter against those who are sure masks work, that the injections were necessary, and that all ailments now are either Covid or Long Covid.
Calling people controlled opposition is common. This is useful perhaps in the sense that people can look and decide for themselves whether that's true. If the person being attacked as controlled opposition is right and has been right then dismiss the attack. Until evidence to the contrary appears.
As to why I've recently tried to highlight Robert Reich's exploding subscription numbers on Substack ... I think this could be another example of how our enemies "don't fight fair" or an example that Substack is, perhaps, going wobbly and trying too hard to curry favor with the other side.
Our side needs Substack to be a staunch supporter of our side's warriors, The "Contrarians" ... not the Narrative Protectors.
Substack is our beachhead and we need to hold this damn beach.
I view this quick column as Substack 101, or a return to the "Basics." Just about everybody now uses the term "the narrative" in just about every essay. But the importance of said narratives is rarely defined, or authors don't always tell us why it has to be defended and promoted incessantly and fiercely.
I do think I might have coined the term "Covid Contrarians," most of whom are "contrarians" about everything.
As I view it, everything the Contrarians write about is an effort to tell readers they are being duped by the Bogus Narratives.
Dr. Yeadon has a video that I wasn’t able to watch on his Substack, but I could watch it on Rumble. I asked a fellow reader in the comments of “Coffee & Covid” when did Substack start censoring, and she recommended you.
Maybe my "brand" is growing. That's one of my goals because if this IS happening my "reach" as a writer is growing.
I think the key to the operation for the other side is to thwart or suppress my reach (and those of other authors who write about the same topics).
So, if this is happening, I don't like it.
I'm looking at the macro picture here, but also the micro trends that make my essays a little more "personal."
If someone is monkeying with my business (producing a Substack newsletter), they are also harming my family or my ability to provide for my family.
The fellow reader was Laura Kasner. I was just reading your list of “Contrarians”. Many of them I already knew about, but not all. Thank you for the compilation.
I still think Laura produces the most important Substack newsletter in the world. I say this because if her posts (and photos), by some miracle, went "viral" and reached the masses, this would almost overnight "stop the shots" ... which should be our first and most important goal/objective.
We can't change what's already happened, but we could save many lives by ... stopping the shots.
Joanne - good to see you here. 🥰
Is Substack censoring?
In a left handed way I believe they are.
You mean, along the lines of shadow banning or not allowing "reach" to go as far as it could?
yes. and I just read of a substack author who has been de banked by substack.
The demonetized them? Who was it, why did it happen?
Could you link to it? My understanding is that to this day substack doesn't allow us to embed Rumble videos. But I link to them all the time.
So I don't think that was a Yeadon-specific thing.
I mean link to the specific Yeadon post.
Last week I was not able to watch this video that was on Substack and I had to go to Rumble to see it. I looked for the link for you and today it is viewable.
https://substack.com/@drmikeyeadon/note/p-152136607?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=oycca
Thank you! The vid is a good summary of the Yeadon position circa late '24. (BTW--I prefer the Debbie Lehrman and others position which posits the operation of groupthink, and some very top-level [DOD/deep-state] coordination, so that yes, most of the scientists involved were making mistakes, and no, they did not intend to cull the population, even though their refusal to come forward has subsequently made them guilty of various crimes.)
As for our technical substack issues, this is a Telegram video, not a Rumble one.
So there's A.) the mystery of why it was temporarily disabled.
And then there's B.) my own confusion about what Substack will permit to be embedded or not. I don't use Telegram, but I sure wish Substack would be clearer with their authors about what features they have at their disposal. Anyone want to chime in? Can I now embed Rumble vids if I know what to do?
Here is the one I watched on Rumble.
https://rumble.com/v5t8sr8-dr-mike-yeadon-silver-bullet.html
I disagree. They want us dead.
People that follow Reich have no place left to go. Plus, name recognition comes into play.
"I also don’t think the people we’re fighting against are fans of these Comment Sections.
They don’t like free comments. Free speech terrifies them."
It most certainly does. And as much as they don't like free comments, they do read them. And study them. To study us. Take for instance this MIT study published early 2021 (most of it was completed earlier, but they had enough time to add in notes about how the January 6 "insurrection" two weeks pre-publication followed the same large platform communication phenomenon as dangerous anti-maskers did when challenging official narratives.)
Viral Visualizations:
How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, January 20, 2021
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.07993
("This project was supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) Award 1900991, NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant 1941577, an SSRC Social Data Dissertation Fellowship, and the MIT Programs for Digital Humanities")
They most certainly do read our free comments, Stacks. Studying us. Not to be persuaded by our arguments, but to learn how to counter our free speech that gets in the way of their more enlightened expertise that our simple, selfish minds simply don't understand. They acknowledge we're smart, scientifically literate, produce work that rivals and surpasses academic rigor. But, they're right, and we're wrong. Because they say so. You'll even find the infamous censorship/propaganda queen Kate Starbird cited in it.
This study of Viral Visualizations (Meme's!! And charts. They can't meme as good as us!!) was produced before Substack became the contrarian writer go-to - after the social media like Facebook they studied kicked us off the platform...because they couldn't control us and we were so darn good and effective!
I have no doubts that the same research and study of "contrarians" is ongoing right now, here on Substack. Probably on Bill Rice Jr.'s Newsletter. And all of us. Some of those "Followers" may very well be authors of current and future studies just like this one. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the authors of this MIT 2021 study is reading this right now - HI!! As I wouldn't be surprised if they've now tapped into AI technology to help "study" our free comments, and learn how to silence us for the next phony crisis. Cat-Mouse. We study them, they study us, we study them studying us, they study us studying them studying us. Yep. Just like that.
A Townhall piece about the MIT Study:
MIT Researchers Grudgingly Admit COVID ‘Team Reality’ Is Effectively Winning Minds With Real Data
Townhall (Scott Morefield), March 29, 2021
https://townhall.com/columnists/scottmorefield/2021/03/29/mit-researchers-grudgingly-admit-covid-team-reality-is-effectively-winning-minds-with-real-data-n2587020
I'll share excerpts from the MIT 2021 Study in comments below. It's actually complementary of us. You'd almost think we'd be getting an award for how good we are at science-ing! But since they're right and we're wrong what I read as glowing praise they write as an indictment of us. Meaning we're dealing with outright idiots. Or outright evil. Or a combination.
I think it's also worth noting the surnames of the researchers. It's reasonable to suspect that they are familiar with China's very advanced authoritarian censorship and propaganda industry, and to question their understanding and appreciation of American values of individual freedom and liberty. They use those words as pejoratives; they do NOT share our values.
Early in 2020 I researched the CDC's pandemic planning guidance. It was very informative, told me that everything that was being done was wrong, against their own guidance. Funny thing happened. When I went back to re-read it after having sourced it in many social media shares it had changed. Several areas, particularly masking guidance (not recommended outside a healthcare facility, known ineffective) had been modified between March-April, 2020 and September 2020. So I downloaded the .pdf at the time in case they made more changes I'd have proof. And, wouldn't you know it they were modified again. I downloaded the June, 2022 .pdf. This time the Visualizations" had been modified. I saved screenshots from the previous saved version and the later version and made a meme with them side-by-side to show the changes. Mind you, this is an official archived government document, shouldn't be edited or modified for any reason. They claim was just to clean-up format. Bullshite.
The CDC pandemic planning guide link, followed by the meme .jpg's showing the side-by-side changes. It would seem as though they took the MIT study's advice and got rid of effective "visualizations" that clearly showed to short-attention readers how over the top the pandemic was being managed, even Spanish Flu level severity never called for the interventions imposed for "Covid." These images are evidence of censoring official archived government records to deal with the "problem" of effective "visualizations" the MIT study said needed to be dealt with. The implication is that even official archived government records are not true and authentic. It is impossible that this would be the only record altered. How many other records in our nation's official archives have been rewritten in the past five years? Even ones more important than this one.
Interim Pre-pandemic Planning Guidance:
Community Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Mitigation in the United States -
Early, Targeted, Layered Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions
CDC, February, 2007
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/community_mitigation-sm.pdf
Manipulated and edited visualizations of archived official CDC document by CDC between September, 2020 and today, June, 2022:
Pandemic Severity Index by Epidemiological Characteristics
https://i.imgflip.com/6jy8fj.jpg
Summary of Community Mitigation Strategies by Pandemic Severity
https://i.imgflip.com/6jy8kj.jpg
Thanks for doing this. As you note, this is sinister stuff and SHOULD qualify as a major scandal.
Of course, the organization/profession that could make it a "scandal" (the "watchdog" MSM) will never do so. In our New Abnormal, no real scandal becomes a "scandal."
When the National Archivist's allegation is used as predicate to raid a former president's home resulting in felony indictments for non-crrime you know there's a whole lotta wrongdoing in our nation's official archives, our history. What else have they destroyed important aspects and nuances to shape a false narrative?
1 [selected excerpts]
"The discussion-based nature of these Facebook groups also give these followers a space to learn and adapt from others, and to develop processes of critical engagement. Long-time followers of the group often give small tutorials to new users on how to read and interpret specific visualizations, and users often give each other constructive feedback on how to adjust their graphic to make it more legible or intuitive. Some questions and comments would not be out of place at all at a visualization research poster session: “This doesn’t make sense. What do the colors mean? How does this demonstrate any useful information?” (July 21, 2020) These communities use data analysis as a way to socialize and enculturate their users; they promulgate data literacy practices as a way of inculcating heterodox ideology. The transmission of data literacy, then, becomes a method of political radicalization.
These individuals as a whole are extremely willing to help others who have trouble interpreting graphs with multiple forms of clarification: by helping people find the original sources so that they can replicate the analysis themselves, by referencing other reputable studies that come to the same conclusions, by reminding others to remain vigilant about the limitations of the data, and by answering questions about the implications of a specific graph. The last point is especially salient, as it surfaces both what these groups see as a reliable measure of how the pandemic is unfolding and what they believe they should do with the data. These online communities therefore act as a sounding board for thinking about how best to effectively mobilize the data towards more measured policies like slowly reopening schools."
...
"Additionally, followers in these groups also use data analysis as a way of bolstering social unity and creating a community of practice. While these groups highly value scientific expertise, they also see collective analysis of data as a way to bring communities together within a time of crisis, and being able to transparently and dispassionately analyze the data is crucial for democratic governance. In fact, the explicit motivation for many of these followers is to find information so that they can make the best decisions for their families—and by extension, for the communities around them."
...
"As Kate Starbird et al. have demonstrated, strategic information operations require the participation of online communities to consolidate and amplify these messages: these messages become powerful when emergent, organic crowds (rather than hired trolls and bots) iteratively contribute to a larger community with shared values and epistemologies. Group members repost these analyses onto their personal timelines to start conversations with friends and family in hopes that they might be able to congregate in person. However, many of these conversations result in frustration."
...
"Especially when these conversations go poorly, followers solicit advice from each other about how to move forward when their children’s schools close or when family members do not “follow the data.” One group even organized an unmasked get-together at a local restaurant where they passed out t-shirts promoting their Facebook group, took selfies, and discussed a lawsuit that sought to remove their state’s emergency health order (September 12, 2020). The lunch was organized such that the members who wanted to first attend a Trump rolling rally could do so and “drop in afterward for some yummy food and fellowship” (September 8, 2020).
4.2.7 Applying data to real-world situations. Ultimately, anti-mask users emphasize that they need to apply this data to real-world situations. The same group that organized the get-together also regularly hosts live-streams with guest speakers like local politicians, congressional candidates, and community organizers, all of whom instruct users on how to best agitate for change armed with the data visualizations shared in the group."
...
"These groups have been incredibly effective at galvanizing a network of engaged citizens towards concrete political action. Local officials have relied on data narratives generated in these groups to call for a lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Health (July 20, 2020). In Texas, a coalition of mayors, school board members, and city council people investigated the state’s COVID-19 statistics and discovered that a backlog of unaudited tests was distorting the data, prompting Texas officials to employ a forensic data team to investigate the surge in positive test rates."
...
“There were over a million pending assignments [that were distorting the state’s infection rate],”
the city councilperson said to the group’s 40,000+ followers.
“We just want to make sure that the information that is getting out there is giving us the full picture.” (August 17, 2020)
Another Facebook group solicited suggestions from its followers on how to support other political groups who need data to support lawsuits against governors and state health departments.
“If you were suddenly given access to all the government records and could interrogate any official,”
a group administrator asked,
“what piece of data or documentation would you like to inspect?” (September 11, 2020)
The message that runs through these threads is unequivocal: that data is the only way to set fear-bound politicians straight, and using better data is a surefire way towards creating a safer community."
"5 DISCUSSION
Anti-maskers have deftly used social media to constitute a cultural and discursive arena devoted to addressing the pandemic and its fallout through practices of data literacy. Data literacy is a quintessential criterion for membership within the community they have created. The prestige of both individual anti-maskers and the larger Facebook groups to which they belong is tied to displays of skill in accessing, interpreting, critiquing, and visualizing data, as interested parties. This is a community of practice focused on acquiring and transmitting expertise, and on translating that expertise into concrete political action. Moreover, this is a subculture shaped by mistrust of established authorities and orthodox scientific viewpoints. Its members value individual initiative and ingenuity, trusting scientific analysis only insofar as they can replicate it themselves by accessing and manipulating the data firsthand. They are highly reflexive about the inherently biased nature of any analysis, and resent what they view as the arrogant self-righteousness of scientific elites.
As a subculture, anti-masking amplifies anti-establishment currents pervasive in U.S. political culture. Data literacy, for anti-maskers, exemplifies distinctly American ideals of intellectual self-reliance, which historically takes the form of rejecting experts and other elites. The counter-visualizations that they produce and circulate not only challenge scientific consensus, but they also assert the value of independence in a society that they believe promotes an overall de-skilling and dumbing-down of the population for the sake of more effective social control. As they see it, to counter-visualize is to engage in an act of resistance against the stifling influence of central government, big business, and liberal academia. Moreover, their simultaneous appropriation of scientific rhetoric and rejection of scientific authority also reflects longstanding strategies of Christian fundamentalists seeking to challenge the secularist threat of evolutionary biology.
So how do these groups diverge from scientific orthodoxy if they are using the same data? We have identified a few sleights of hand that contribute to the broader epistemological crisis we identify between these groups and the majority of scientific researchers. For instance, they argue that there is an outsized emphasis on deaths versus cases: if the current datasets are fundamentally subjective and prone to manipulation (e.g., increased levels of faulty testing, asymptomatic vs. symptomatic cases), then deaths are the only reliable markers of the pandemic’s severity. Even then, these groups believe that deaths are an additionally problematic category because doctors are using a COVID diagnosis as the main cause of death (i.e., people who die because of COVID) when in reality there are other factors at play (i.e., dying with but not because of COVID). Since these categories are fundamentally subject to human interpretation, especially by those who have a vested interest in reporting as many COVID deaths as possible, these numbers are vastly over-reported, unreliable, and no more significant than the flu.
Another point of contention is that of lived experience: in many of these cases, users do not themselves know a person who has experienced COVID, and the statistics they see on the news show the severity of the pandemic in vastly different parts of the country. Since they do not see their experience reflected in the narratives they consume, they look for hyperlocal data to help guide their decision-making. But since many of these datasets do not always exist on such a granular level, this information gap feeds into a larger social narrative about the government’s suppression of critical data and the media’s unwillingness to substantively engage with the subjectivity of coronavirus data reporting.
Most fundamentally, the groups we studied believe that science is a process, and not an institution. As we have outlined in the case study, these groups mistrust the scientific establishment (“Science”) because they believe that the institution has been corrupted by profit motives and politics. The knowledge that the CDC and academics have created cannot be trusted because they need to be subject to increased doubt, and not accepted as consensus."
...
2 [excerpts continue]
"Hochschild explains the intractable partisan rift in American politics by emphasizing the importance of a “deep story”: a subjective prism that people use in order to make sense of the world and guide the way they vote. For Tea Party activists [FF - MAGA!!], this deep story revolved around anger towards a federal system ruled by liberal elites who pander to the interests of ethnic and religious minorities, while curtailing the advantages that White, Christian traditionalists view as their American birthright. We argue that the anti-maskers’ deep story draws from similar wells of resentment, but adds a particular emphasis on the usurpation of scientific knowledge by a paternalistic, condescending elite that expects intellectual subservience rather than critical thinking from the lay public."
...
"Projects that examine the cognitive basis of visualization or seek to make “better” or “more intuitive” visualizations will not meaningfully change this phenomenon: anti-mask protestors already use visualizations, and do so extremely effectively. Moreover, in emphasizing the politicization of pandemic data, our account helps to explain the striking correlation between practices of counter-visualization and the politics of anti-masking. For members of this social movement, counter-visualization and anti-masking are complementary aspects of resisting the tyranny of institutions that threaten to usurp individual liberties to think freely and act accordingly."
...
"6 IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
This paper has investigated anti-mask counter-visualizations on social media in two ways: quantitatively, we identify the main types of visualizations that are present within different networks (e.g., pro- and anti-mask users), and we show that anti-mask users are prolific and skilled purveyors of data visualizations. These visualizations are popular, use orthodox visualization methods, and are promulgated as a way to convince others that public health measures are unnecessary."
...
"While academic science is traditionally a system for producing knowledge within a laboratory, validating it through peer review, and sharing results within subsidiary communities, anti-maskers reject this hierarchical social model. They espouse a vision of science that is radically egalitarian and individualist. This study forces us to see that coronavirus skeptics champion science as a personal practice that prizes rationality and autonomy; for them, it is not a body of knowledge certified by an institution of experts. Calls for data or scientific literacy therefore risk recapitulating narratives that anti-mask views are the product of individual ignorance rather than coordinated information campaigns that rely heavily on networked participation. Recognizing the systemic dynamics that contribute to this epistemological rift is the first step towards grappling with this phenomenon, and the findings presented in this paper corroborate similar studies about the impact of fake news on American evangelical voters and about the limitations of fact-checking climate change denialism"
...
"Powerful research and media organizations paid for by the tobacco or fossil fuel industries have historically capitalized on the skeptical impulse that the “science simply isn’t settled,” prompting people to simply “think for themselves” to horrifying ends. The attempted coup on January 6, 2021 has similarly illustrated that well-calibrated, well-funded systems of coordinated disinformation can be particularly dangerous when they are designed to appeal to skeptical people. While individual insurrectionists are no doubt to blame for their own acts of violence, the coup relied on a collective effort fanned by people questioning, interacting, and sharing these ideas with other people. These skeptical narratives are powerful because they resonate with these these people’s lived experience and—crucially— because they are posted by influential accounts across influential platforms."
...
"This paper presents a community of users that researchers might not consider in the systems building process (i.e., supposedly “data illiterate” anti-maskers), and we show how the binary opposition of literacy/illiteracy is insufficient for describing how orthodox visualizations can be used to promote unorthodox science. Understanding how these groups skillfully manipulate data to undermine mainstream science requires us to adjust the theoretical assumptions in HCI research about how data can be leveraged in public discourse.
What, then, are visualization researchers and social scientists to do? One step might be to grapple with the social and political dimensions of visualizations at the beginning, rather than the end, of projects."
...
"There are exciting threads of visualization research that investigate how users’ interpretive frameworks can change the overarching narratives they glean from the data"
...
"...we show that data visualizations are not simply tools that people use to understand the epidemiological events around them. They are a battleground that highlight the contested role of expertise in modern American life"
To me people don't seem to understand what we're up against. Maybe because they aren't that way themselves and their knowledge and education hasn't equipped them to understand. The M.I.T. apparatchiks and their handlers and string pullers don't care about individual freedom and liberty. They don't want that for the world they have envisioned. They are ideologues and all they want is population control and power and wealth for themselves. They aren't interested in anything else and if they could they would kill anyone who opposes them and have gulags, breadlines and starvation. There are numerous historical examples of exactly this. Now technology will make this easier for them.
One of the things that is part of these people who affirm the narratives, is they claim to be contrarian. On X, for instance, a lot of people who still herald the mask as the single most important medical invention in history, will claim that they are that "lone wolf courageously wearing the mask in a sea of unmasked faces" They are the ones that stand now in the face of government apathy and they lie in the face of continued Covid infectivity. My answer to that is...
So only now is the government lying to you?
Good point, Jimmy. Everybody we are fighting thinks they are brave warriors fighting for a great cause. Or this is their pose. For example ...
The fearless trial lawyer fighting for the Little Man.
The "rebel rockers" who will always stand up to The Man.
The truth-crusading journalist who lives to challenge people with great power.
Everyone in "public health" who thinks they are actually improving public health - when they are making it far worse.
The knowledge/truth seeking college professor.
The politicians standing up for "the people" when they are doing everything they can to stand up for Big Pharma/Big Medicine/Big Ag/Big Finance/The Military Industrial Complex.
Etc.
It used to be that anyone could be a "Journalist" - most 'press' were middleclass 'contrarians' hustlers not outright agent-provocateurs who throttle the narradigm as do today. Who would keep watch on the Watchers - with no trustworthy 4th Estate? The talking-meat-puppets who present the 'allowed' narrative of today (any whitecoated 'Expert' for that matter) will never be trusted again after losing all trust by attacking 'contrarians'... deferring to democidal leadership, the "Experts" and higher-ups in their deathcult people-pyramid. The word 'Contrarian' lacks extinction rebelliousness.
I prefer "dissident." "Contrarian" implies that the person has an inherent instinct or desire, operating at all times and in all situations, to disagree, to seek out the alternative view. I wouldn't deny that I have that trait, but past my younger years, I recognize the need to keep it in check, to appreciate when the majority or conventional opinion is getting something largely right.
See the key conversation b/t Violet and Lily near the end of Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress--the contrarian and the norm-seeker need each other. There's a role for both.
"Dissident" suggests rather that the regime itself is illegitimate, or partakes of totalitarian patterns. Dissidence puts contrarian instincts to serious community-serving uses, and it judges the larger situation correctly. It puts us in the footsteps of heroes likes Havel, Solzhenitsyn, Bonhoeffer, and suggests the work of artists/thinkers like Dylan, Ellison, Strauss, and Arendt.
The dissident stance does not revel in rebellion or suspicion for their own sakes, knowing with thinkers like James Ceaser or Chantal Delsol that there are regimes and ways of life that should not be subjected to over-done criticism that expects the impossible and is satisfied with nothing. 70s-90s America for example--pretty good society. Like Tocqueville, it worries and entertains fears for the future, but it still gives credit to the aspects of modern democratic society that deserve it.
In the 20s we realized that our ruling pattern of life had become totalitarian at heart. (See your graphs about how the media has become the guardian for the official narratives--that's way more than a standard type of failure.) It has been overtly so since 2014-ish, and the pattern likely got baked into most our elite institutions sometime during the 90s or aughts without most of us realizing. This is what the Covid/Vax disaster, and the Censorship/Suppression pattern tied to it, revealed. Hence the need for dissidence. Hence our near-total rejection of our present elites.
My latest post discusses what those conservatives who call themselves "dissident conservatives," will have to do if Trump and his team betray MAHA and thus maintain the corrupt "conservative" leader participation in media suppression. https://pomocon.substack.com/p/dissident-mutiny You'll see in my usage that "dissident" is not a free-floating category--I think rather that it must be attached to the specific political philosophy commitments of authentic conservativism.
I often use the term dissident as well. Good distinction thanks
My definition of contrarian is different. I view it more as a personality trait than pro or anti anything, even anti-authorized narrative. Most people conform to the people they're most associated with. If most of those people are anti-government, anti-vax, or whatever, they'll be the same. I came of age in the Vietnam years. The anti-war, anti-establishment position so common among my peers wasn't a sign of willingness to challenge anything. That was the easiest way to roll. Many are surprised so many "rebels" of the 60s are on board with the tyranny today. They shouldn't be. They were never rebels, contrarians, or had any spine whatsoever.
I consider myself a contrarian. Not because of any particular position. But because whatever I hear, my first inclination is to challenge it. That results in me being anti-authoritarian, and anti-tyranny simply because the tyrants always suck, and the authorities almost always do. Not so much because I'm against any particular policy.
I'm not sure to what degree most in the "medical freedom" movement are true contrarians, by my standards. For example, regarding the clots, and recent news that all vaccinated hearts are damaged, I immediately think - if these horrible clots are so widespread, and if all jabbed hearts are damaged, why don't we see the performance of elite athletes affected? NFL, MLB, NBA, and NCAA athletes are going about business as usual. Seems if their hearts were damaged, or a high percentage of them had horrible clots in their veins, they'd have a problem performing at their usual elite level. There is no such change. I'm not saying there are no clots. Nor am I saying hearts aren't damaged. I just see a mystery that needs an explanation. But whenever I point out the athletes, who are nearly all jabbed, perform as well as ever, those posts are ignored. "Medical freedom" proponents may not be as open-minded as they think.
I like the distinction/different criteria you've applied. It's a great point that should be added in this discussion.
I've also wondered why more NFL/NBA athletes aren't "falling out" from heart ailments at the rate, say, soccer athletes in Europe have been. (This is well documented IMO).
That is, the number of "vaccine" deaths and "medical emergencies" among athletes from outside America seem to be larger than in the States.
I'd add that the number of "weekend" athletes or long-distance runners or people who drowned (perhaps from heart attacks stressing their heart) seems, from my guess, to have grown significantly. I know I've found a good number of "died suddenly" athlete deaths - very possibly due to their vaccination status - that were suppressed or have never been investigated. (For example, an Alabama State football player and a manager on the basketball team of the University of Alabama).
I think these deaths have spiked noticeably ... but, as you point out, not (conspicuously) in the sports leagues we all follow in the Sports Pages in America.
We're not getting good analysis or data, which makes a better analysis harder to perform. This, I'm sure or suspect, is "by design" and intentional.
I agree there are more deaths. Non-US soccer players particularly, although prep, non-D1 college, and amateur athletes in the US have died. Agree on the drownings. That's not what I'm referring to. My issue is that there is no impact on the athletic performance of high-level athletes. I single out high-level because those are the most observable. Probably all athletes. If you have heart damage, or clots in your veins, or the "coffee-ground" material, how can you run or swim just as fast, jump as high, or be as strong as you were before? Well, maybe it wouldn't affect such "burst" activity, but surely you wouldn't be able to go hard for as long before your heart or circulatory damage would have an impact. Basketball, football, and soccer players aren't giving out partway through the games, any more than ever. Even more illustrative are the objectively measurable events. Times in track and swimming events don't show noticeable numbers of previously competitive athletes, who "mysteriously" can't perform as before. I'm surprised we aren't seeing any drop-off. I think this needs to be explained. Maybe younger (although Dowd documents jab damage is widespread among under 40s), extremely fit bodies are immune to the clots, "coffee grounds", and heart damage. But if that's it, then why do some drop dead, if not from such damage? As a computer professional, I'm aware performance increases or decreases depend on whatever is the "bottlenecK". IOW, if your hard drive, or internet speed is why your PC is slow, speeding up or slowing down the CPU or RAM won't help or hurt. Maybe the damage is there, but leaves enough heart capacity, or circulatory capacity that there is no performance hit, because muscle power and lung capacity fail first, and are unaffected by the jabs. But it sure seems like the clotting would absolutely have an effect, particularly on timed endurance events like 10k runs or marathons, as extreme examples. Not seeing any of this, which seems very odd to me.
Bravo! Bill Rice Jr!
Tenacity, perseverance, & persistence with integrity will pay off in better dividends than the supposed wave of success Reich is riding. Keep keepin' on!
politicians, bureaucrats and people in general ( in regard to "government policy" and political solutions) should make Chesterton's Fence the first thing they look at when making decisions. Of course this will never happen because there isn't enough wisdom and intelligence.
It was probably some kind of "conspiracy" to dumb-down the world population via education "reforms." The effect of these reforms - and lower academic standards - took decades to manifest themselves, but they have now.
The Powers that Be fear people smart enough to call them out.
Thank you for clarifying.
One of the ways I determine whether someone is really, what you call a contrarian or not, is, if their views gradually change to a more main-stream or approved narrative stance over time. A true "contrarian" does not accommodate to the "party-line" of the main-stream but continues to show in more detailed ways how the main-stream narrative(s) is wrong. I call that type of gradual accommodation, a bait and switch technique which is designed to derail serious resistance to approved narratives. Unfortunately, when analyzed in detail, using that metric, some of the MFM contrarians have IMHO, failed the test.
Someone who doesn't believe in 'contrails.'
That's a noncontrailian..or maybe a contrail contratian. Now ask what someone riding in a monorail would be called if they denied contrails...
Ha!
A simple real-world test of whether someone is a contrarian:
Did the person ever have a bumper sticker or tee-shirt that said "QUESTION AUTHORITY"?
Ty for the clarification! This was wonderful! No misunderstandings! 👍
Authors should be described by their opinions or editorial policies, not by nebulous terms like 'contrarian'.
It's a catch-all term. I'm open to other labels/descriptive terms that might describe a group of 144 writers. What word would you use to describe the authors in my list?
Ideally a taxonomy in SKOS or an ontology in RDFS or OWL would be used or made for it. Subclasses would inherit properties etc. A superclass thats more general could define them all, subclasses defining specializations.
Wedge issues would define the structure.
also see
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/robert-reich-continues-to-blow-up/comment/86737915
One is either Team No viri/ No vexines or one is wrong. Simples😜