Is Covid-19 a left-wing plot?

[TheCat]

Don't worry...the clickbait headline is meant to be a pisstake.....

But isn't it interesting that of the 5 World leaders I'm aware of who have caught Covid, 4 of them are right wing (bolnasaro, Trump, Johnson, anez of bolivia (centre right)). The exception being the Armenian prime minister....

But being serious for a second....I of course wish every one of those leaders who has caught it the best for a speedy recovery. Political allegiances aside, there does appear to be a correlation between apparent competence/government organisation and catching the virus as a world leader.

Obviously luck plays a part here, but as the sample size increases, perhaps virus will end up being a marker for voters as to whether their leaders actually have an idea what they are doing or not....

[KidKruger]

I think Trump wants to (has been advised to ?) avoid the debates because he realises (has been advised ?) he's an absolute liability unable to keep his mouth shut, spouting more BS every time he opens it. Let's see the test evidence. IMO he's faking it, like he's faked being POTUS the last 4yrs.

ETA: fixed typo

[Blah Blah]

I think we should wait and see if he and/or Melania develop symptoms before judging the announcement. A POTUS can work from isolation if he remains asymptomatic. But there is never any way of knowing who ends up in ICU and who doesn't. More will be known in 7 days time.

[Alan Medic]

I think the point is KK and BB, we won't see any test evidence nor evidence of symptoms. As it's usually impossible to know if what we are fed as information is true or not, we'll probably never know.

Of course if Trump were to die, that would be a difficult one to hide...

[JohnL]

He admits he has a headache and cough.

It could be speculated centrist leaders don't tell people they have Covid.

[seenbeen]

I'd say as the virus is from China it's a bit more than a left-wing plot!

[Blah Blah]

That's a fair point Alan but doctors and hospital workers do see it, and hundreds of them died during the first wave doing so. I don't think even Trump would lie about something like this, plus another seven that attended a Whitehouse function with him have also tested positive. Trump is in a high risk category, being 74, male and obese. Around 1 in 20 have died so far in that age group. And he could go from mild symptoms to seriously ill within a matter of hours. We shall see what happens.

[Alan Medic]

Trump tweeted that he is sort of ok and ended it with the word 'love'. He's either seriously ill or it's a Republican election ploy!

[Blah Blah]

If you listen to the short video he made at the Whitehouse before leaving for the hospital, you can hear he is ill. Moving him to a fully equipped hospital makes sense given that his is POTUS and how quickly patients of his age can deteriorate. There will be a moment where he suddenly gets worse, or suddenly gets better. That seems to be how this virus goes. I personally can not see why the Republican party would go down this route for electoral gain. The last thing they wanted to be at the fore of the debate was the Pandemic.

[TheCat]

It's gonna be a great death. Best death ever.

If he goes I'm sure he goes thinking he's on top

[Blah Blah]

I shouldn't laugh but that is funny Cat :D

Live update from his doctors at the moment and the interesting thing is the level of detail around his symptoms and the various immune responses that could happen and when. I say interesting because there is an unknown percentage of hardcore Trump support that thinks this virus is a hoax. I wonder what they make of it all.

Another Whitehouse advisor has tested positive meanwhile. Seems as though anyone who was at the party recently is going to test positive.

[JohnL]

He's 72 hours into his diagnosis according to his Doctors.

That means he was diagnosed on ... Wednesday afternoon

[EDguy89]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> I shouldn't laugh but that is funny Cat :D

>

> Live update from his doctors at the moment and the

> interesting thing is the level of detail around

> his symptoms and the various immune responses that

> could happen and when. I say interesting because

> there is an unknown percentage of hardcore Trump

> support that thinks this virus is a hoax. I wonder

> what they make of it all.

>

> Another Whitehouse advisor has tested positive

> meanwhile. Seems as though anyone who was at the

> party recently is going to test positive.

Beyond the supporters that think the virus is a hoax, there's the Qanon crowd who think there's a massive conspiracy from high ranking pedophiles to take down Trump.

Earlier in the year when various celebrities stated they got COVID these wackos believed it was a cover used to mask the reality, which was that they were arrested for being pedophiles.

I wonder what kind of mental gymnastics they'll have to do to justify Trump getting COVID.

Easy to pass these people off was wackos (which they are) but the head of the NYPD union ended up on the news with a damn mug showing his support for Qanon. So unfortunately some significant people do believe this garbage.

[Robbie]

JohnL Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> He's 72 hours into his diagnosis according to his

> Doctors.

>

> That means he was diagnosed on ... Wednesday

> afternoon

I was thinking that at first, but later when pressed he clarified the timeline of events.

[Robbie]

> Beyond the supporters that think the virus is a

> hoax, there's the Qanon crowd who think there's a

> massive conspiracy from high ranking pedophiles to

> take down Trump.

There was a conspiracy though. Plenty of documents have been declassified this year which allure to this fact. Whether they are pedophiles or not is another thing.

The John Podesta emails, Anthony Weiner laptop, as well as the cases of Epstein and Maxwell, indicate that there are indeed a large number of prominent individuals involved in pedophelia. That's not a baseless theory by any means.

[Blah Blah]

If you say so Robbie ;) Btw, pedophilia is the sexual attraction to prepubescent children, not post pubescent teenagers. Epstein may well have been trafficking and abusing under aged girls, but that is sexual abuse of a minor, not pedophilia. The difference matters, because different countries have different ages of consent. In Austria, Germany and Italy for example, the age of consent is just 14. If you are going to throw words like pedophilia around, at least understand what they mean first.

[EDguy89]

Robbie Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> There was a conspiracy though. Plenty of documents

> have been declassified this year which allure to

> this fact. Whether they are pedophiles or not is

> another thing.

>

> The John Podesta emails, Anthony Weiner laptop, as

> well as the cases of Epstein and Maxwell, indicate

> that there are indeed a large number of prominent

> individuals involved in pedophelia. That's not a

> baseless theory by any means.

Well duh there have been pedophiles in political positions. Tale as old as time and they should all be weeded out and destroyed.

However, the real cases shouldn't be used in any way to attempt to legitimatize ANYTHING that the Qanon followers believe.

Here's a shortlist of some of the things they've claimed:

-Merkel is the grandchild of Hitler

-The Clintons organised the mass shooting in Vegas a few years ago

-The Kim family of North Korea was installed as a puppet leader by the CIA

-Claimed that a chlorine solution would help cure COVID

-Whenever they've been wrong they've claimed to purposely be spreading falsehoods so the REAL truths will shine through

The most hilarious to me is the child trafficking ring that they're supposedly uncovering via furniture vendors. Crate and Barrel selling expensive furniture with human names = selling children....Apparetly.

All these things derived from "coded" messages. For example, recently when Trump tweeted the whole thing about getting COVID he ended it with "TOGETHER" which they've taken as code "TO GET HER". As in Hilary Clinton.

Do people in positions of power use their positions to exploit and abuse children? Of course they do.

However, as Qanon would suggest, it's a left-wing issue that the right is righteously trying to fight.

News to them would be to know that their right wing hero probably had sex with plenty of underage girls while hanging out with Epstein.

[Blah Blah]

You forgot to mention pizzagate EDguy.

Where every time John Podesta mentioned pizza and hot dogs in those leaked emails (because campaign teams order a lot of pizza and fast food to get them through the many late nights they work) the Q Anon cult insisted it was code for ordering children for sexual abuse! One guy, drove across states, tooled to the teeth with automatic weapons, to a pizza parlour, to find and rescue the abused kids he was convinced were being trafficked from there. It was all nonsense, fed to him by other cultists. Fortunately no-one was hurt but it highlights how dangerous these conspiracy fantasies are in the minds of some.

You only have to look at the comments below any youtube news clip on Trump's covid progress to see how deranged these people really are.

[Robbie]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> If you say so Robbie ;) Btw, pedophilia is the

> sexual attraction to prepubescent children, not

> post pubescent teenagers. Epstein may well have

> been trafficking and abusing under aged girls, but

> that is sexual abuse of a minor, not pedophilia.

> The difference matters, because different

> countries have different ages of consent. In

> Austria, Germany and Italy for example, the age of

> consent is just 14. If you are going to throw

> words like pedophilia around, at least understand

> what they mean first.

Correction, my bad.

The raping of children, not pedophilia. Let's not downplay these acts as sexual abuse.

[EDguy89]

Yeah Pizzagate was bad.

It's a highly dangerous group, and unfortunately it's not an issue only in the US.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/20/the-qanon-conspiracy talks about some people in the UK who are in support of it.

On the surface it seems fine which helps lure people in. They're against pedophiles. Great, who isn't?

Then when you go further down the rabbit hole and it turns out that Tom Hanks is a pedophile who was arrested earlier in the year but said he had COVID to cover it up. 5G towers have been set up to distribute deadly viruses and keep people in check. Whose behind it all? Well the left-leaning government funded by jewish pedophiles.

Who are the people susceptible to this? Uneducated, disenfranchised, and sometimes vulnerable people who feel like they've been kicked to the curb by society. They feel like life has done them wrong and, in reality, there isn't some nice convenient answer to resolve the problems in their life. Sometimes life is just cruel. So, what's easier than that? Shadowy figures who operate their seedy businesses from their high positions of power, of course.

If you or anyone you know start touting this nonsensical rhetoric, challenge it HARD.

It's not enough to brush people off as being delusional or out of their mind. We all know two or three people like this. Unfortunately, we're in the age of technology and that brushing them off isn't good enough anymore. Once upon a time, the platform those people had to voice their opinion was as far as their voice would carry. Which is to say not very far. Now, our social media platforms have created such fantastic connectivity, but the downside is that these people have found one another and determined that, no, they're not alone.

For every 1 person at those rallies that attract small numbers, just remember that there are probably hundreds upon hundreds who believe it but didn't show.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[Robbie]

> However, as Qanon would suggest, it's a left-wing

> issue that the right is righteously trying to

> fight.

Qanon are the people that follow Q posts. There is a difference. The followers do go off on a tangent at times, claiming both Merkel and Theresa May were related to Hitler.

Q has made it clear, and posted many examples of such, that 'children issue' occurs amongst both Republicans and Democrats.

https://qresear.ch/q-posts/4630

https://qresear.ch/q-posts/4631

https://qresear.ch/q-posts/4632

https://qresear.ch/q-posts/4633

'The most hilarious to me is the child trafficking ring that they're supposedly uncovering via furniture vendors. Crate and Barrel selling expensive furniture with human names = selling children....Apparetly'

The Wayfair scandal (the furniture company you referred to) did not come from Q or QAnon. This was part of the Save Our Children movement which is non-political and worldwide. That movement focuses solely on child abuse, sex trafficking and the like. This is another theory that has never been debunked. Fact checkers claim it has been, purely because the company itself came out and said that it wasn't true.

The names that you refer to were of missing children. These were unique names too, not your generic John or Emma. All of these items only had 1 in stock, tool 4-6 weeks for delivery, and were clearly priced at approx x100 the retail value.

I found 1 item myself on their website - an infant night light which had a known pedophelia symbol on it, again only 1 in stock taking 4-6 weeks for delivery and was on sale for $20k. This item was worth ?50 max. Very suspicious.

[Blah Blah]

If you say so Robbie ;)

EDguy, there is currently little research in to the psychology of those sucked into conspiracy theories (only one professor in the UK carries out any in depth research into that currently) mainly because in the past, those things have tended to go hand in hand with cult psychology and most of the research has gone into that area, with anyone outside of any cult (immediate friends and family excepted) being largely unaffected.

Social media has presented a new dynamic that warrants research though. In many ways, there are similarities with cults, in that someone, or something acts as a figurehead, that draws vulnerable people in. What has been seen with social media, is how fragmentation of wild ideas can inflate into a never ending spiral, referred to as the rabbit hole, and leading to a psychosis that poses wider questions around mental health. It is the easy accessibility to networks of that stuff that has become the problem and indeed, normally rational thinkers are now being drawn in at the fringes, questioning things they should be logically able to reason on, and dismiss at any other time.

In my opinion, conspiracy theories operate like dates with a narcissist (and it is no accident either that pretty much all cult leaders have themselves been pronounced on the spectrum of NPD). The conspiracy will tell you what you want to believe, small things, so that you feel you have found the answers you have always been looking for. From there it will suck you in, until you feel you can not live without it. Finally it will leave you questioning what you believe about everything, and be incredibly hard to leave. Your world is turned upside down. I would not be surprised to find elements of co-dependency in the psychology of those drawn into conspiracy cults. And Q Anon absolutely is a conspiracy cult.

[JohnL]

QAnon reminds me a bit of continuation the Satanic Ritual Abuse scandal that went on and on through the 1980s and 1990s and you still find references to in newspapers.

In general there seemed to be no large scale organised abuse (someone will disagree and that's OK as small scale abuse definitely happened but there was no overarching conspiracy)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse

[EDguy89]

Robbie Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I found 1 item myself on their website - an infant

> night light which had a known pedophelia symbol on

> it, again only 1 in stock taking 4-6 weeks for

> delivery and was on sale for $20k. This item was

> worth ?50 max. Very suspicious.

Still got a link to this item? What is the "known pedophelia symbol"?

Also, the notion is completely ridiculous. So if I were rich and I bought a piece of furniture openly displayed on a website, 4-6 weeks later a child would be delivered to my door? Isn't that way too out in the open? Wouldn't some rich person unknowingly buy a child and then report it to the police? If they were peddling kids, wouldn't that be WAY too obvious? I feel like if I were rich, and my aim was to get a trafficked child, I'd probably go through much more secure means than, you know, a public website.

There's loads of people that believe this garbage. If they all chipped in and bought one of these "kids" wouldn't it blow the entire thing wide open? At that point it wouldn't be a conspiracy. Did none of them think to consider this option? It seems like, if they actually cared about stopping child trafficking and GENUINELY believed that kids were being sold on furniture websites, then they'd try it and inform the police the entire way. Surely there's some rich person out there who believes this junk who would have tried. Nothing has come further from it because they're not selling kids.

Here's a BBC article refuting your claim that the Wayfair scandal isn't linked to Qanon: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-53416247

Here's a good one about your fact checking statement: https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/22/fact-check-wayfair-not-involved-child-sex-trafficking/5460739002/ - Essentially, there's more than just Wayfair saying they're not doing it.

Beyond that, Qanon's ties to the Save Our Children protests is well documented. It most certainly IS a political movement. Save Our Children continues to attract the same people that follow the Qanon conspiracies. Here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/technology/save-the-children-qanon.html

Regardless of how the movement started, Save Our Children is tied to these clowns now.

[Blah Blah]

As with any crime, there needs to be hard corroborated evidence before anything can be said to had definitely happened. Sure there are times where grounds for suspicion are strong but lacking that crucial evidence to prosecute. With conspiracy theories though, there is often a ridiculous element to the argument, that in no form constitutes what can be considered as strong or hard evidence. What baffles the rest of us, is how some people are so willing to believe that stuff.

The John Podesta emails are a case in point. They are simply the correspondence of a campaign team working for Clinton during the presidential race. All they reveal is where Clinton was given advance notification of audience questions in local debates, just as Trump's team was tipped of by Fox of the debate questions in one of the head to heads. This is why he has so many smart answers prepared. There was none of that with Biden. but I digress. So yes, those emails just gave an insight into the advantages a campaign team was able to gain.

But they also mention pizza a lot and other fast food deliveries, because guess what, campaign teams work pretty much 24/7 during an election, and that means lots of takeaway food. But some cultist in the Q Anon world decided that the word pizza was in reality code for delivery of children for abuse. Complete fantasy. That Robbie then cited that in a post above, is an example of how entrenched that lunacy is. That complete fiction is stated as fact, or pointing to something dark or criminal, when in fact it was exactly what it said it was, ordering pizza!