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what do you think about whitney webb? i get major anarchist vibes from her. has a less favourable position on china (then really because of surveillance state in general, this is a major problem in today’s societies in all countries tho)
Whitney Webb is interesting. There is stuff she covers that you just won’t find elsewhere, she digs DEEP. And really the stuff she is known most for she’s 100% correct. The things I disagree with her on it’s usually a different perspective rather than one on facts. Personally I understand why china has a surveillance state, but yeah Id agree it may go too far in some areas. The issue is the entire framing and discussion as if China is unique in this. China is just unique about being open about it. That’s literally it. The US if you look at per capita stats collects WAY more information from people and especially if you look at raw amounts of data. It’s just that the US is hush hush about it while china the tech is being developed and implemented openly, often to the benefit of the average worker.
The only exception really is COVID and especially vaccine stuff, where I almost fully disagree with her. But Max Blumenthal does the same shit, regardless they both mainly focus on the US and it’s crimes, lying, imperialism, etc.
About COVID, some of these lockdowns are a disaster. For example in India, the workers were driven off from the city having to walk 100s of kms and some of them died on the way. In some countries they are barred from going out without a vaccine. (and the only vaccine you can get is American made).
Most of all these COVID measures were not scientific, purely a power grab and push more vaccines and boosters into people. Again I’m full for public health and safety but these need to be scientific and well tested.
There are numerous reports of people having major side effects to COVID vaccines and in many cases deaths (due to heart attacks even little kids)
This seems to be anti-vaxx, but I’m open to you saying that I’ve misinterpreted you.
Do you mean to say the vaccines aren’t scientific? I must challenge that view if so.
I also think that if you bring up the injuries caused by side effects of Covid vaccines you also need to bring up:
Vaccines are scientific but they need to be thoroughly tested before administering to everyone. I was talking about COVID vaccine injuries and other side effects (pushing mRNA vaccines for example, there is a reason China didn’t agree to creating one, it’s not tested enough)
In that case, I think I still need to challenge this view that Covid vaccines were not scientific. I agree there were problems, but this is a universal feature of bourgeois science. That doesn’t mean the process is unscientific.
It also leads to another question:
I’ll also suggest that mRNA Covid vaccines were quite thoroughly tested and, in the time scale, ensured better outcomes than not vaccinating at all (so as to wait for more results).
And I don’t think it’s as simple as comparing the scientific differences between China and the west in relation to vaccines. China had the luxury of time by virtue of its communist leadership. Western states tried repeatedly and eventually just abandoned their populations to Covid. They rested their whole approach on the idea that technology (vaccines) would save us because they could not conceive of controlling capitalism. So the problem is not the science, but capitalism. This does mean that I partially agree with you: without capitalism, we could have better science, and could base public health policy on science.