Than you Alex. I appreciate all the work you are doing around this topic of vaccines. I am now a paid member of your substack and will continue to support your endeavors in respectable and honest journalism. I don’t always agree with you, but you’ve earned my full respect for challenging the narrative that has engulfed us thee past 16 months.
The most racist President in our history is now going to target black and brown neighborhoods by sending out stormtroopers because they believe minorities are unable to locate a pharmacy and also not educated enough to obtain an ID.
I'd be really, really worried about the effect of all this propaganda if I thought for a moment that Hollywood hadn't shot its credibility full of holes long ago. The only people who don't know these writers are a joke are the writers themselves.
I can say with confidence that this American has missed every one of those 30 views. Thank goodness for the mute button. This is dystopian. Why are they so intent on getting a needle in every arm? The jabs are leaky. They will not stop infection or transmission of the virus and are likely accelerating the creation of immune escape variants. Is this incompetence or malfeasance?
Vaccines do not automatically confer immunity, as immunity is built from a healthy immune system. Why have there been so many cases of asymptomatic Covid infections? The key data are mortality rates which, in this case, mirror the flu.
Yes, thank you for all you've done re the pandemic and the wide variety of impacts and issues with it. It's the way reporting should be.
So I picked up what is I think your first book? The Faithful Spy. And lo and behold, I'm reading about terrorists plotting to create...a pandemic (that word not used in the novel), using a variant of the plague. Clearly you'd researched the plague, its variations, and how it might be spread, not to mention how the terrorists considered using other diseases but chose plague. A post-9/11 book after anthrax and the rest. Deja vu! It's disturbing how so many Times reporters with this kind of knowledge, with the proclivity to research and analyze issues, have not been able to keep a place at the Times. Good job!
I suspect that vaccine hesitancy arrives because a lot of us mistrust anything being pushed. We have become jaded by adverts promising great things only to discover an inferior product has been well advertised. I wonder if this reverse psychology is at work?
AB: is there reflection by this cohort of 'like minded' people, that doing this might alienate half their audience when they insert propaganda into content which folks consume as a distraction from all this crap? I presume not.
Do you have a sense about the "why" this group thinks that they're right, and that it's natural for them to take on this task to influence the dummies? Just hubris?
In my experience, those who create popular culture in Hollywood and NYC have a general disdain for regular people, and don't believe the regular folks have the capacity or the will to be well informed. For some its because they left small town life and now think they know better, for most they were raised to think they are smarter and better educated than everyone else.
When interacting with this type of person, if you veer outside of the Approved Talking Points they do not think, 'hm, perhaps another point of view?' They feel sorry for you for not being as well informed as they are. They think you've been taken in by fake news or whatever.
As I'm typing this it sounds so crazy, these are very intelligent people behaving this way, but that has been my experience.
that sniffs true. I don't have experience like Berenson does with the Hollywood types. I do have experience with the Tech VCs, and this is definitely the case. Tho they tend to build tech to serve the masses, so spend a lot of time A vs B testing UX, and don't care if the user is on team Red or Blue. Clearly - where applicable - they care about the content being allowed to be displayed via their UX.
That's a really interesting point, the tech people need to serve everyone w/ their product whereas the culture/educator people, I think, see the ideas they espouse as both their product and a kind of currency, or status signifier?
Maybe why the tech/vc types have tended to be more skeptical and less political than writers/journalists/educators who have their identities baked into their opinions...
Alex, the “newer” Law and Order: Organized Crime series was about a criminal that stole vaccine vials and had a party for the connected to get the shot first. Complete lack of creativity! P.s. thank you for standing up and bringing the truth. I check you on Twitter almost daily (don’t have an account, thank God); have your 4 pamphlets and did the pre-order if your book. Must be a challenge to write with events changing daily and sometimes hourly! Best wishes.
Than you Alex. I appreciate all the work you are doing around this topic of vaccines. I am now a paid member of your substack and will continue to support your endeavors in respectable and honest journalism. I don’t always agree with you, but you’ve earned my full respect for challenging the narrative that has engulfed us thee past 16 months.
1) Star Wars: Episode IX -The Next Booster
2) Apocalypse Not
3) Avengers: Double Masked Avenger
4) Home Alone
5) The Lyin King
The most racist President in our history is now going to target black and brown neighborhoods by sending out stormtroopers because they believe minorities are unable to locate a pharmacy and also not educated enough to obtain an ID.
I'd be really, really worried about the effect of all this propaganda if I thought for a moment that Hollywood hadn't shot its credibility full of holes long ago. The only people who don't know these writers are a joke are the writers themselves.
Breitbart himself purportedly said "politics is downstream of culture."
I'd suggest that 'the only people' doesn't cover vast swaths of Americans who are unknowingly influenced by this stuff.
I can say with confidence that this American has missed every one of those 30 views. Thank goodness for the mute button. This is dystopian. Why are they so intent on getting a needle in every arm? The jabs are leaky. They will not stop infection or transmission of the virus and are likely accelerating the creation of immune escape variants. Is this incompetence or malfeasance?
Vaccines do not automatically confer immunity, as immunity is built from a healthy immune system. Why have there been so many cases of asymptomatic Covid infections? The key data are mortality rates which, in this case, mirror the flu.
Asymptomatic spread was a lie. This was concocted to shut down in person voting.
Yes, thank you for all you've done re the pandemic and the wide variety of impacts and issues with it. It's the way reporting should be.
So I picked up what is I think your first book? The Faithful Spy. And lo and behold, I'm reading about terrorists plotting to create...a pandemic (that word not used in the novel), using a variant of the plague. Clearly you'd researched the plague, its variations, and how it might be spread, not to mention how the terrorists considered using other diseases but chose plague. A post-9/11 book after anthrax and the rest. Deja vu! It's disturbing how so many Times reporters with this kind of knowledge, with the proclivity to research and analyze issues, have not been able to keep a place at the Times. Good job!
I suspect that vaccine hesitancy arrives because a lot of us mistrust anything being pushed. We have become jaded by adverts promising great things only to discover an inferior product has been well advertised. I wonder if this reverse psychology is at work?
AB: is there reflection by this cohort of 'like minded' people, that doing this might alienate half their audience when they insert propaganda into content which folks consume as a distraction from all this crap? I presume not.
Do you have a sense about the "why" this group thinks that they're right, and that it's natural for them to take on this task to influence the dummies? Just hubris?
In my experience, those who create popular culture in Hollywood and NYC have a general disdain for regular people, and don't believe the regular folks have the capacity or the will to be well informed. For some its because they left small town life and now think they know better, for most they were raised to think they are smarter and better educated than everyone else.
When interacting with this type of person, if you veer outside of the Approved Talking Points they do not think, 'hm, perhaps another point of view?' They feel sorry for you for not being as well informed as they are. They think you've been taken in by fake news or whatever.
As I'm typing this it sounds so crazy, these are very intelligent people behaving this way, but that has been my experience.
that sniffs true. I don't have experience like Berenson does with the Hollywood types. I do have experience with the Tech VCs, and this is definitely the case. Tho they tend to build tech to serve the masses, so spend a lot of time A vs B testing UX, and don't care if the user is on team Red or Blue. Clearly - where applicable - they care about the content being allowed to be displayed via their UX.
That's a really interesting point, the tech people need to serve everyone w/ their product whereas the culture/educator people, I think, see the ideas they espouse as both their product and a kind of currency, or status signifier?
Maybe why the tech/vc types have tended to be more skeptical and less political than writers/journalists/educators who have their identities baked into their opinions...
Alex, the “newer” Law and Order: Organized Crime series was about a criminal that stole vaccine vials and had a party for the connected to get the shot first. Complete lack of creativity! P.s. thank you for standing up and bringing the truth. I check you on Twitter almost daily (don’t have an account, thank God); have your 4 pamphlets and did the pre-order if your book. Must be a challenge to write with events changing daily and sometimes hourly! Best wishes.