TrueTomHarley

I had a very brief and blunted “sharp outburst of anger” with someone over Rittenhouse. In the process of restoring peace, I observed they shouldn’t put trials on the media anyway. To get the populace all worked up when they can’t know more than 1% of the facts? It’s just done for ratings. 
The only people who (hopefully) know it all will the the 12 of the jury. Let them decide it. Or, if you are not going to let them decide it, send them home. Nobody wants to serve jury duty anyway. Broadcast the entire trial on social media and decide the outcome by ‘likes’

When a reporter asked Trump (this was some time ago) about the spate of black persons shot and killed by police, he responded that police kill a lot of persons, including white persons. If fact, they kill more white persons than blacks. Incredibly, the reporter did not seem to know this. The statement had to be “fact checked.” The next day came the admission that—yes, what Trump said is technically true, but that’s only becasue there are more white people than black people.
If you follow the news of police shooting as reported by media, you might think that the very purpose of police was to kill black people. I wrote my proposed solution in ‘No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash’ (since withdrawn for rework):
In the course of their job, police shoot hundreds of people per year. How should one report this? Put all shootings on TV. All of them. Run them 24/7 in the order in which they occur. Create a dedicated channel: The Shooting Channel. Make it freely available. Give every network a cut so no one will complain about ratings. Promote “The Shooting Channel” heavily. Ban shootings on any other channel.
Put white-on-black shootings on. Put black-on-white shootings on. Put black-on-black shootings on. Put white-on-white shootings on. Put Hispanic-on-Methodist shootings on. Put Buddhist-on-nudist shootings on. Put redneck Alabama white-on transgendered Vietnamese shootings on. Put them all on. Let viewers decide for themselves which shootings are significant and which are yawners. Otherwise, the newspeople will cherry-pick their favorites and start a race war. 
I did learn from my experience that much is generational. Those of my generation are not the slightest bit shocked that during a time of unrest, ordinary people should assemble so as to protect livelihoods at risk. But there is a younger generation that thinks first of how when someone shouts “Fight!” people who just love to fight on any pretext will come running to extract their pound of flesh, and bring their guns with them. I have to admit, if you viewed in that way (which I don’t in this instance) it does change your view of the outcome.
I even triggered the remark that I am out of touch with the thinking of the current generation. Tell me something I didn’t know.

When a reporter asked Trump (this was some time ago) about the spate of black persons shot and killed by police, he responded that police kill a lot of persons, including white persons. If fact, they kill more white persons than blacks. Incredibly, the reporter did not seem to know this. The statement had to be “fact checked.” The next day came the admission that—yes, what Trump said is technically true, but that’s only becasue there are more white people than black people.
If you follow the news of police shooting as reported by media, you might think that the very purpose of police was to kill black people. I wrote my proposed solution in ‘No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash’ (since withdrawn for rework):
In the course of their job, police shoot hundreds of people per year. How should one report this? Put all shootings on TV. All of them. Run them 24/7 in the order in which they occur. Create a dedicated channel: The Shooting Channel. Make it freely available. Give every network a cut so no one will complain about ratings. Promote “The Shooting Channel” heavily. Ban shootings on any other channel.
Put white-on-black shootings on. Put black-on-white shootings on. Put black-on-black shootings on. Put white-on-white shootings on. Put Hispanic-on-Methodist shootings on. Put Buddhist-on-nudist shootings on. Put redneck Alabama white-on transgendered Vietnamese shootings on. Put them all on. Let viewers decide for themselves which shootings are significant and which are yawners. Otherwise, the newspeople will cherry-pick their favorites and start a race war. 
I did learn from my experience that much is generational. Those of my generation are not the slightest bit shocked that during a time of unrest, ordinary people should assemble so as to protect livelihoods at risk. But there is a younger generation that thinks first of how when someone shouts “Fight!” people who just love to fight on any pretext will come running to extract their pound of flesh, and bring their guns with them. I have to admit, if you viewed in that way (which I don’t in this instance) it does change your view of the outcome.
I even triggered the remark that I am out of touch with the thinking of the current generation. Tell me something I didn’t know.

I had a very brief and blunted “sharp outburst of anger” with someone over Rittenhouse. In the process of restoring peace, I observed they shouldn’t put trials on the media anyway. To get the populace all worked up when they can’t know more than 1% of the facts? It’s just done for ratings. 
The only people who (hopefully) know it all will the the 12 of the jury. Let them decide it. Or, if you are not going to let them decide it, send them home. Nobody wants to serve jury duty anyway. Broadcast the entire trial on social media and decide the outcome by ‘likes’

I worry about this video and the last, for fear I could get hooked on them and never come up for air again in my life. They are very well done.

Whether it makes sense or not, there's a huge story there, and a lot of the evidence comes from many sources that might seem surprising. It's not really an exception to the idea that communism must still be sabotaged wherever possible. In this case the sabotage was drunken capitalism. And, of course, the form of government is less important to the US and Western allies than the idea of keeping all other other economies too weak. If it still seems like an exception to the rule, there is a lot to say here, but I'll save it for later.
The US also destroyed the Japanese capitalist economy, beginning in the 1980's, with specific trade policies. For now, I'll also just leave this topic for later. This doesn't mean that the US doesn't want shining examples of democracy producing strong economies. It's just that certain types of direct competition couldn't be allowed under particular historical circumstances.
It's almost too easy to see it with Central and South America. Coups, assassination attempts, kidnappings, riots, sanctions, embargoes, sabotage, US backed terrorism, training small armies in bordering countries. There is also the constant drone of reporting only on dissatisfaction, and twisting facts everywhere. Yesterday morning I listenedd to BBC news on NPR:
the big anti-China story of the week, that you mentioned earlier (where I suspect the tennis player just knew she'd need and want some privacy after the bombshell). a story about how the leftist parties of Chile will have to run off in the next election against a growing faction that will even admit openly to wanting another Pinochet a story about how a precinct in Venezuela finally voted in a right wing opposition party candidate The BBC topics the week before included daily mentions of protests in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, supposedly sham elections in Central America, etc.
A major point of all this news, especially the last couple of 60 Minutes that I watched, was to make sure that the US audience does NOT see any leftist/socialist government as "democratically" elected. The NYT even ran a piece decrying the fact that the Chinese people overwhelmingly "elect" to have a communist government because it does so much for them. It was almost like: "Why can't the people in China see how terrible their government is, the way we see it?" This popularity of communist governments with the people is, of course, why Chinese people (and their government) can claim to have a democratically "selected" government. They would say it is more representative of their interests than the US version of elected, but unrepresentative, democracy.
Hey! I saw that!! 😉
There's a historical and current reason for this. It goes for Cambodia and Laos, too. There actually has been a bit of fomenting again about Vietnam, but not at all to the point of "demonizing" them. I've heard the rumors here that US State Dept folks have expected Vietnamese communism to fall during a couple of previous US presidencies. But now it's actually looking more entrenched. A particular mode of government (like communism) doesn't have to look quite as good as shiny capitalism to still be better than what they had recently gone through.
Also, this ties back to the most viable method to weaken a superpower. In this case the superpower is China, and every method is used to try to foment unrest related to China (Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan, Inner Mongolia). If nationalist breakaway parties can be formed it could take a powerful country and break it into weaker pieces.
In this case Vietnam was thought to be a part of that equation. The arguments over who can fish how far out from their own borders in the South China Sea have probably gone on for over a thousand years. Japan hates China and the US has considered allowing them to arm their own military which would serve US purposes in case of a skirmish over this. (And the US floods Taiwan with military equipment for the similar reasons.) Vietnam and the Philippines have the same issue with China Sea fishing too, and Vietnam has had a negative history with China since Mao. (Mao stupidly funded and helped militarize variously chosen "sides" all over the place, including the muhajideen in Afghanistan, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge communism. And it did much damage to Viet Nam especially when Sino-Russian relations broke down.
I've heard that the US loves it that the China Sea conflict is ongoing and has encouraged the Philippines to stand up to China. The US keeps a fleet there too in case any provocation can start and escalate. The US was supposedly really miffed that Duterte was elected again after saying he won't stand up to China militarily, but will just do his best to get along. If Vietnam would at least stand up with a voice against China, then the US could amplify that voice. And demonizing Vietnam would keep it from falling into trade partnership with the US if a split over communism develops. China is taking advantage by building rails and transportation in Laos, and plans to further help Cambodia and VietNam too.
The TPP and Pivot to Asia initiatives were set to help break the economic growth of China by favorable trade partnerships with countries all around that would exclude China. I think Trump either didn't realize that this was the purpose, or he knew that a lot of constituents didn't realize it, and therefore thought best politically to discard it as just an Obama/Hillary thing. But it would have had a more "successfully" negative effect on China's economy than the trade wars he initiated. China ended up winning the trade wars, and this caused a lot of farmers to change their minds about Trump while he was still in office.
Suicide is nothing to squid kid about so I had to scratch my comment about so many also dying from deadly games of red light, green light, etc.
At least I can laugh at anthro[po]morphic coal. But I wouldn't want to "lignite" any hard feelings under the surface. I didn't think you'd "mine."
You might have meant "anthracite," but here's my anthropomorphic coal joke:
Q. Peat and Re-Peat were in a bog. Peat fell out. Who was left?
A. Re-Peat.
Q. Peat and Re-Peat were in a bog. Peat fell out. Who was left?
A. Re-Peat.
etc, etc, etc

Awesome!

Better throw in a bone for the dog @Pudgy. I mentioned how I would listen to Rush if driving with the car radio, but otherwise no. However, in my janitorial years, which ended well before my retirement, I used to record and play back his show every night. During Clinton’s presidency (and Clinton seems to have been a reasonably sound president, as presidents go) Rush had some impersonator who would adapt Beatles songs and sing in his booming Clintonesque voice, cracking at the peaks. They were sidesplittingly funny:
I’m a real nowhere man, sitting here in Washington, making all my nowhere plans for you, buddy. Don’t care bout you point of view. I know what is best for you….and so forth. (Sung to the tune of Nowhere Man, of course) Pudgy might even be able to recall all the lyrics.
Also for Pudgy: It is Rush that made me realize that my own Dad never cared for politics. On a trip of the three Harley boys—my dad, myself, and my brother—to visit family in Ohio, my brother and I conspired to play Rush when his show came on. It was no more than 10 minutes, if that, then my dad began to grouse about ‘You like that? All that contention and arguing?’
He didn’t care for politics. All these years I had imagined he did, since at family gatherings politics was a frequent topic of discussion. Turned out that my mom’s dad, a staunch conservative, would carry on endlessly about it, and Dad was just too circumspect and amiable to tell his father-in-law to zip it.
Recently, now that Pop has died, I accompanied my brother, who is into ancestry. Believe it or not, he tracked down the grave of my great great great great grandfather. It’s off a dirt road drivable only by serious SUV, which is itself off a dirt road. The tiny gray speck at the focal point of the first pic is my brother’s non-SUV car. We had to walk from there.
I’m getting so I like to tell stories, and I do it right here on the old hen’s website, to reward her for being so indulgent with me.
”Making all my nowhere plans for you, buddy!!” I love how that song ends.

You would think so. That makes perfect sense. But there are so many cases in which academics has been purchased so as support whatever is the preferred view. For every case of academics forming the preferred view, there is another in which the preferred view forms academics. See the response I gave you re Pharma and the Brazilian study that has superseded the doctor-patient relationship. Many maintain that the evolution of college and school curricula is another example in which the preferred view molds academics.
To adapt the words of Yakov Smirnoff and satisfy JWI, is this a great [world] or what that can turn soundness of mind on its head? Nor can we look to “academics” for support on the origin of life. Certainly not with regard to any flood. Nor on the utility of blood transfusion. Apparently not with secular dating chronology. And not in what is called social “science,” even gender “science.” Is the foregoing all examples of Jehovah turning the wisdom of the wise into foolishness?
The earthly organization is not blind to academics but it certainly doesn’t allow itself to be shoved around by it, nor even its hand-in-glove “critical thinking” that is all the rage today, which so manifestly can be hijacked by other interests as to be anything but a reliable guide—something to factor in, but no more.
From Day 1 the organization has run experiences to illustrate whatever point they make that will infuriate academic devotees of “critical thinking” and, truth be told, sometimes even some of us. “Consider Danny,” it will say. “He and his wife decided to put God to the test by doing such and such” and it goes on to relate the successful outcome. It’s a single example. What about Sammy and his wife who also did such and such and it turned out horrendously for them? But in fact, as long as you do not claim it as more “proof” than it is, as long as you do not claim it is guaranteed outcome everyone will experience,, I guess you can reason this way. I mean, everyone else does when trying to motivate you into doing something. College recruiters certainly do. So it’s okay. Very few things can be reduced to simple enough terms so that “academics” or “science” or “critical thinking” can be of overriding use.
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2021/11/a-scientist-pours-one-liquid-after-another-upon-a-duck-placed-on-the-table-his-companion-carefully-calibrates-the-results-on.html

True. That's why I would never say they originated for that purpose, only that the popularity in retelling them served a new purpose. I thought it was very astute when you applied this even more generally, even to some of us, saying:
With respect to Western sabotage in many Eastern European countries that tried communism, you said:
That's quite true, too. Which is exactly what I had in mind when I said:
But there was also a lot of direct interference that most people haven't read about. The initial "Operation Gladio," for example, was when the CIA (at the time just one of the offices of army or naval intelligence) purposely set out to destroy and sabotage communist parties in Italy, France, Switzerland and Germany after WWII. They trained local armies in sabotage, promoted terrorist activities, and were even involved in massacres, most with a primary goal of breaking up communist parties which were being clamored for in many European countries more than ever before.
As an aside, especially for those who would like to think of Hitler as socialist or communist, it should be remembered that this is also one of the ways Hitler himself came into power. Hitler, working as an intelligence agent after WWI, worked to sabotage the communists parties rising after WWI. There were several communist parties in Germany and Hitler worked to attack and sabotage and purge them in his own "CIA" operation, finally getting the support of a large group, (something like "berniecrats against communism") in Germany to outnumber the communists for the 1933 election. This is why the famous 1946 confessional poem by Niemöller, in its final version, goes like this, as carved on a memorial:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Adam Smith in the late 1700's and Karl Marx in the 1800's, speak of the inevitable wastefulness of capitalist economies which always drive to excess production as part of the profit motive. It results in cycles of panics and recessions and depressions that have been with the US economy every few years, especially since the early 1800's. Obviously there were huge mistakes, such as China's (Mao's) Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution and the Five Pests Campaign, and "backyard" steel production, but the idea of a command economy was precisely to avoid these kinds of wastes, and subsequent hoarding of inventory to control pricing.
Mao may have been a slow learner but it was Mao not Deng who finally accepted that he should open up for trade with Nixon and Kissinger.
Clearly, they wanted to see how far production wpuld take them on their own, and initial industry was meant to meet internal purposes. In some cases wider trade would have been very useful but there was little trust of trade partners who had things they really needed. So they often over-hoped and over-hyped their initial abilities to raise agriculture production. Mao, for example, raised agriculture production just about high enough, but did not have a distribution system in place. Lenin didn't trust the West far enough to trade for necessary wheat/grains. Still, the goals were finally met in spite of several years of natural disasters all over Asia.
But we can't ignore that in Eastern Europe, the United States also refused to trade with or help communist countries after the war, except the USSR itself.
If this came from the GC prof, then he must have anticipated that it was western media that provided the propaganda to these countries. It was media that made them discontent. This was exactly the purpose of US backed VOA (Voice of America) and Radio Free Asia, etc. The US poured MILLIONS into the propaganda campaigns, especially directed at intellectuals and elites, to offer them good paying jobs in the West, promise of much better housing, etc. But our view of exoduses from Eastern Europe and Russia is also somewhat skewed by the fact that the far, far greater exoduses (exodi?) happened after the fall of communism. Even birth rates in Eastern European countries had been rising, but with the glut and orgy of capitalism after the fall of communism, THIS is what sent more people running. In fact, in Ukraine, people fled in both directions, some going to the West, but some thinking that going to a newly capitalist Russia was still a bit better off than new capitalism in Ukraine. Someone called it the largest mass migrations on earth in the century. Things were much better in the West materially, but many Eastern Europeans also had a memory of how much worse many had been off materially before communism, too. We get much of our view from elites and intellectuals who fled, after WWII, but there were migrations of poor people going in both directions, even into communist countries, wherever a living could be made. And we shouldn't forget, too, that even in Western countries, USA included, there are many places where economic conditions are worse, with dozens of people jammed into small dilapidated apartments, surrounded by crime, scraping for enough food, etc.
That's enough for one post, but I will pick up on the implication that the USSR didn't really meet their production needs until Kruschev. For now I'll just say that the very reason they were able to beat Hitler was because they had already boosted production in farm equipment, steel, railways, agriculture, buildings. (Also literacy, health, etc.) I've heard interviews with Nazi Wehrmacht fighters on one of those history channels where they admit they had been so steeped in anti-Russian racism that they expected mud-huts and no ability for the Russians to fight back with any kind of war machine. Oddly, they admit that when they flew over major cities to drop bombs, some said they were not only shocked but taken back that they might be destroying "historical moments" and landmarks, not expecting architecture and tall buildings.

Most  try to fight what is coming by various means or look to human organizations to resolve it.
I listened to Kennedy give a summary of his book - it is quite damning near the end and shows the links between the military industrial complex - its secret branches and the pharma industrial complex. 
 here it is:  https://www.corbettreport.com/fauci/

This is the problem with a Mercola and Breggin’s books—their limited perspective. They are both sharply critical of the ‘great reset’ but they lose sight, imo, that a reset truly is needed. It is just that you can’t trust man to do it.

Try https://breggin.com

There was a time in the past that Russia also pretended to come out of it links to Marxism to a more free market - but it was a ploy to build up again. Very few countries escape once they are communist.
Russia (large oil producer) made an agreement with Arabia to protect them (just as Kissinger organized in 1973 - to give protection in place of oil being sold in the dollar).  Now Saudi can sell in any currency and USA dollar is seeing the last of their crutch to hold up the economy.  Next day Russia made an agreement with another big oil country - Nigeria..... which also has big ties to China!   And to show disrespect to USA that they cannot do anything about the new deals - Russia and China put the new frightening nuclear supersonic missiles on their submarines - you know the ones that can go around the earth and cannot be shot down and then plunge down to earth  like an asteroid.

Great. Just great. Think how THAT will look on his FB page, Brother Sensitive.

No. It is a viewpoint of a JW Elder (if he is that) concerning you.

[where it will be placed without the context that illuminates it.]

I didn’t get that sense. Rather, it seemed to be more akin to the “gallows humor” cops develop as they resign themselves to the viewpoint that much of their most diligent efforts will be undone by snafus at higher levels. That’s not to say that such jokes would not be wildly popular in the West, but it doesn’t seem they were originated for that purpose.
 
The sense I got from two series of lectures is that they sabotaged themselves, making any Western sabotage beside the point. It is the aspect of ‘command economies’ that disincentivize initiative and thereby make trade with outside powers impossible because whatever goods are produced soon fall behind in the quality that competitiveness spawns. I gather that those communist economies had no interest in trade anyhow, except with other satellite countries—and even feared it, since goods could not be imported without the attitudes of entrepreneurship and relative freedoms that enabled them—attitudes corrosive to those communist govennments. Western media was blocked to the extent possible, since when it was not possible, Eastern Europeans saw just how much better Western Europeans lived, and that fostered still more discontent with their governments.  The prof, who has lived and taught in Russia, said the success of the Beatles, along with rock & roll in general, terrified the Soviets because it was a completely popularly driven phenomenon that created huge income with no input whatsoever from any central planning. I took this remark at face value and did not think of it as a baby boomer looking for any pretext he could find to insert his favorite band, as I do with Bob Dylan.
One of these profs points out that the Soviet economy did make reasonable progress after WWII. The country was stable, enabling some patriotism and trust—important to any economy, and it invested in infrastructure and meeting basic housing needs of its people, simply by ‘commanding’ it. But its own inefficiencies and disincentives steadily undermined it. Khrushchev pounded on the table with ‘We will bury you.” He was speaking in terms of steel production, and by quota command the USSR actually did pass by the US in terms of steel, but by that time newer technologies such as plastic made that accomplishment less than it would appear. Personal disincentives at every point eroded the system. The prof tells how restaurants frequently closed at noon, for employees wanted to eat their lunch in peace, and would only open afterwards. Factories with the imposed quota to produce a certain number of shoes might produce them all in one size, as it was easier, and no idea of consumer demand or incentive to meet it had been supplied. There is even an example of one quota being met only with left shoes.
This makes no sense at all to me and strikes me that you are trying to have it both ways. In the case of a communist, or socialist economy, yes, but Russia at the time was coming over ‘from the dark side,’ into democracy and free market. It was adopting the “right” system of government and it seems far more likely that the US would encourage it, if only in self-interest, just as they did with Germany and Japan after the WWII. 
Now, trying to sabotage a communist economy seems more likely to be a goal, and thus China presents a better target than Russia. Yet, there is reasonable, even thriving trade between the two countries—each constrained by neither wanting to import the ideology of the other—but growing nonetheless, so I think you overplay the sabotage case in the above instances. 
With small economies it is a different matter. Several examples are offered of the US thwarting the economies of South American economies when they chose the ‘wrong’ government, even when they did so democratically. 
You must understand that I’ve only made so much progress in my course auditing. I am like the Autocrat of the Breakfast table who tells of a fellow boarding house guest that appears to know everything there is to know about anthromorphic coal. On and on he speaks of it. But when conversation turns to bituminous coal, he strangely knows nothing. Turns out he has subscribed to one of those encyclopedias that used to come out in a series, and he had received and devoured only the A volume.
 

“Taking care of business”

My initial response is to begrudge any video inserted in a comment. It’s generational, ‘talkin bout my generation,’ and doesn’t apply to younger people, who are used to them.
I ask, How much time is demanded? 2 minutes? or 2 hours? I have to click to find out. At least when JWI lays 30 pages on you, there they are. You can see at a glance that they are thirty pages.
Assuming I get past this, then I must hunt up a set of headphones unless alone, for fear others in the house may not want to hear the unknown stuff, as I myself am not sure I want to hear it.
Anyhow—at last I watched this video from College Humor, which I like a lot. But it is not really PSomH. The ding dong in the video has had nothing happen to her but identifies with calamity nonetheless. PSomH has had plenty of CSA calamity (before he became a JW, and assuming he is Butler, as many have said). Xero might not know this, as Butler revealed this long ago. Some experiences are so horrific that they warp your judgment forever more.

Great. Just great. Think how THAT will look on his FB page, Brother Sensitive.

On the other hand I read in Scott Adams' book "Loser Think" that thinking you can read the minds of people is loser think. I try not to do that. I don't hate people I don't know and hate never met. Nor do I (beyond the bloodless agape) "love" people I've never met. I feel good about the brotherhood and I've had this confirmed where ever I've traveled. I don't know the governing body personally, as individuals, but I have respect for them, but at the same time, I recognize they are ordinary humans being used in extraordinary ways, but I don't look at them as being in control because I don't believe they are. If some imagine that, it's their problem, not mine, but I also don't know if any do imagine that. The bible tells me to stare intently at the chief agent and perfecter of my faith, which is Jesus and this is what I try to do. Those who look away at people or the people Jehovah uses whether these be sacred or secular authorities, the scriptures still make clear what our individual responsibilities are and we act wisely when we focus on these things under our control rather than on the past, or what we imagine the past to be, or the future which is also not ours to foretell or control. All we have is now and whether we choose to believe and obey Jehovah when he tells us "This is my Son, listen to him." or not. I think we might all feel a bit more peace if we did these this.
But...we're all going to miss the mark, including me and that's to be expected too. Just keep getting up and trying again.

My initial response is to begrudge any video inserted in a comment. It’s generational, ‘talkin bout my generation,’ and doesn’t apply to younger people, who are used to them.
I ask, How much time is demanded? 2 minutes? or 2 hours? I have to click to find out. At least when JWI lays 30 pages on you, there they are. You can see at a glance that they are thirty pages.
Assuming I get past this, then I must hunt up a set of headphones unless alone, for fear others in the house may not want to hear the unknown stuff, as I myself am not sure I want to hear it.
Anyhow—at last I watched this video from College Humor, which I like a lot. But it is not really PSomH. The ding dong in the video has had nothing happen to her but identifies with calamity nonetheless. PSomH has had plenty of CSA calamity (before he became a JW, and assuming he is Butler, as many have said). Xero might not know this, as Butler revealed this long ago. Some experiences are so horrific that they warp your judgment forever more.

Great. Just great. Think how THAT will look on his FB page, Brother Sensitive.

To the extent that the majority of the scientific community is under the influence of big money, they have lost much credibility.
There is a former pharma executive online who states that for every dollar Pharma spends on educating you through drug ads and otherwise, they spend six times that amount “educating” the medical field. There is another Pharma VP who says: “Look, nobody has any money. Government doesn’t. Researchers don’t. Universities don’t. But Pharma has lots of money.” 
“Conduct a study for us,” Pharma says, “here’s tons of money to fund it.” If the results come back favorable to Pharma, they can expect more funding for other studies. If the results come back unfavorable, they will never hear from Pharma again. “No money has changed hands,” the VP says. “No agreements have been entered into. But everyone knows what they must do,’ as he goes on to claim this practice is universal.
The above is said of new drugs. The regulatory hurdles for vaccines, even in normal times, are lower. In abnormal times, such as now, they are lower still. The existing vaccines were ushered in at “warp speed” under the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). This US emergency provision can only be done legally if there truly is a emergency—that is, if there is no existing alternative treatment for Covid-19. Thus, it becomes very important to certain parties to demonstrate that existing alternative treatments (read primarily hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin) are no good and/or cause injury.
Yes. Some of them are medical doctors who felt impelled to do something to help their patients. Initially, there was no guidance whatsoever from health agencies upon a Covid-19 diagnosis other than get bed-rest, keep hydrated, and come to the hospital if it gets real bad—by which time it was too late. Most patients put on ventilators died.
So these doctors, mostly on their own & then they shared their results with colleagues, began experimenting with existing drugs to see if any could prevent the hospitalization that usually spelled death. They discovered and then shared with others their 80% or so success rate. One of them shared his regimen with the White House, and this is why when Trump was diagnosed with Covid, he was very soon up and running again.* Another pleaded before Congress—I heard him—that these drugs be made widely available. He stressed that he was not against vaccines, which then were only in the early stages of being developed and rolled out. He was only interested in saving his existing patients in the interim.
These doctors describe how they were aghast that, not only were the drugs not made widely available, but they were targeted for elimination. They describe their bewilderment that studies were undertaken administering these drugs at levels known to be toxic. Of one Brazilian study that came to be heralded as proof that these cheap drugs that had been around forever were dangerous, one of these doctors writes: 
“The Brazilian authors of this study must have known they were treading on dangerous territory by purposely causing many deaths. Coming from a poor area of the country, they may have felt they could get away with sacrificing their patients without local reprisals. They simply gave lethal doses of chloroquine to patients to prove that the drug and its derivative hydroxychloroquine were too dangerous to treat Covid-19”
This is an outrageous charge and these doctors were slow to make it. But a lethal dose is a lethal dose. Malfeasance is clearly demonstrated at many levels. It is assessing the motivation behind the malfeasance that is perilous and causes different docs to come to different conclusions, not always agreeing with each other. A prominent view, however, is that this campaign to discredit the drugs that demonstrably work amounts to mass murder and is the equal of previous genocides. Hundreds of thousands of people died who didn’t have to.
Didn’t many of Hitler’s medical experimenters wind up in South America? Of course, they’d be dead by now, but culture doesn’t die in an overlapping generation. I can’t picture rank and file technicians knowingly administering an experiment that kills people, but I can imagine them simply doing what they’re told, with no suspicions at all as to what their higher ups were concocting. Moreover, JWI I am sure will empathize with how poor people with the wrong skin color make good fodder for forward progress. Aren’t there examples in the US involving blacks and indigenous populations?
Some of the answer to this hinges on what you consider “academic.” The aforementioned doctor who sent his results to the White House and saved Trump also sent those results to certain official sources. These sources rejected the material because it was not a scientific study. “I understand it is not a scientific study,” he said, “it wasn’t intended to be, but it is still data.”
Scientific “studies” like the above Brazilian one are trumping actual data. They are infringing upon what these doctors consider sacred, the doctor-patient relationship. The “studies” have been used to go over the heads of doctors, who prescribe, say—Ivermecitn—and then the pharmacies refuse to fill it. (and in some cases report the doctor). What is “academic” is trampling what is real.
Some of them are widely published prior to going into this area of medical apostasy. I heard one of them say that he holds an advantage over some of his colleagues in that he has been published in some many journals that he will be difficult to take down.
All of them have been taken down, however,  on the mainstream outlets such as Facebook and YouTube. They are reduced to their own websites, where they aggregate breaking developments. How much they are actually reduced is a matter of debate. Most of them are reluctant beacons who never sought to be public figures. Their palpable integrity and manifest good motive draws people to their information. I consider them very credible. I mean, these are not the people who think Sandy Hook was a hoax.
___ * Aaron Rodgers, the quarterback, caused a major brouhaha when it was revealed that his prior claim of being “immunized” didn’t mean he was vaccinated. He was relying on something else, and then he came down with Covid-19. Of course, he missed the next game. But the one after that he led his team to a 17-0 victory. 
Doing my bit for “science,” I pointed out that it would have been 34-0 had he gone the conventional route.