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weinstein, brett

// evergreen?

Fascist victim complex'::(style="background-color:#ffcc66ff"):}: :{Ocasio-Cortez ridicules Kellyanne Conway as she clings to government post

Brett Wilkins Common Dreams

September 09, 2021

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined left-leaning politicians and pundits Wednesday who took swipes at Kellyanne Conway after the former senior adviser to ex-President Donald Trump said she would not comply

i forgot that he came out of MMA. cf BTB

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/ivermectin-conspiracy-theories/

Proponents of ivermectin as a treatment for covid are now in damage-control mode after a series of stories about people overdosing on horse paste and sheep drench from feed stores.

Such luminaries as Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Brett Weinstein and United States Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) stoked demand for the dewormer, only to have the craze blow up in the faces when the ginned-up demand outstripped the pharmaceutical supply and people started self-medicating with horse paste.

The zeal of the ivermectin prophets was self-defeating. The whole point of being an Ivermectin Guy is that you can indulge in antivaxx conspiracy theories while sounding smarter than the Microchip Guys. That's why they get so mad when you call it "horse paste."

Internet tough guy Joe Rogan will have you know that the ivermectin he (supposedly) took for his (supposed) covid was (supposedly) from a doctor. "Bro, do I have to sue CNN?" Rogan grumbled. "They're making shit up. They keep saying I'm taking horse dewormer." It's an image thing: Rooting for Team Horse Paste pushes you over the line from "bold independent thinker" to "utter crackpot."

The Basic Ivermectin Conspiracy Theory goes like this: There's a cheap cure for covid butBig Pharma doesn't want you to have it, because it's a generic drug. A more elaborate version, shared by the host of the aptly-named Dark Horse podcast on Tucker Carlson's show, posits that the government is refusing to acknowledge ivermectin as a safe and effective treatment for covid because to do so would somehow undercut the Emergency Use Authorizations for covid vaccines.

This makes no sense, given the government is funding an ivermectin trial. But it's not about the logic. It's about feeding the anti-vaxx fantasy that vaccine mandates will evaporate if we go all in on ivermectin. Human prescriptions for ivermectin soared from fewer than 4,000 a week pre-pandemic to nearly 90,000 a week in August.

Surging demand has caused shortages in pharmacies and feed stores alike. Docs and vets worry the fad will keep the drug out of the hands and off the hides of the creatures who really need it.

The hype beasts of the Intellectual Dark Web dangle a miracle cure in front of their credulous audience and pretend to be shocked when they hit up the feed store. Ivermectin boosters know that ethical doctors won't prescribe ivermectin for covid because there's no evidence it's a safe or effective against the virus. Indeed, the American Medical Association strongly advises against prescribing ivermectin for covid outside of a clinical trial.[so does mfgr]

Ivermectin kills the covid virus in a Petri dish, but only at concentrations that will never be matched in the human body — even if you take enough to choke a horse. The most famous clinical trial purporting to show benefit in humans waswithdrawn after it was determined the authors plagiarized the text from pro-ivermectin press releases and fabricated their data. The data are so implausible some experts question whether the trialever happened. Pro-ivermectin trials have a funny habit of appearing as pre-prints making fantastical claims before being retracted amid allegations of fraud or conflict of interest.

Ivermectin has a good safety record when it's prescribed by a doctor or a vet to treat parasites, but ivermectin-related calls to the nation's poison control centers have quintupled, because people are guesstimating doses of livestock meds. It's a fool's game. No safe or effective dosage has been established for covid because there's no good evidence it works. Ivermectin partisans are always reminding us that some guys won a Nobel Prize for using ivermectin to treat something else. They're showing their ignorance of medicine. The drug, the dose, and the diagnosis actually matter.

However, the real harm of the ivermectin craze is not the relatively rare—though completely pointless—horse paste ODs. It's the much larger group of people who are using ivermectin as an excuse not to get vaccinated, whether they're currently taking the drug or not. If you're on the fence about vaccination, the myth that ivermectin cures covid makes it easier to skip your shot.

Some pundits have chided irreverent commentators for poking fun at people who eschew a free, safe and effective vaccine and pay for animal drugs that won't cure covid. Americans aren't eating horse paste because it's a noble rural tradition to self-medicate from the tractor supply. Grifters played on people's hopes for a quick covid fix and their fear of vaccines, and now their fans are paying the price.

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

Bret Samuel Weinstein /:{ˈwaɪnstaɪn:(style="border-bottom:1px dotted"):}:/ (born 21 February 1969) is an American podcaster and author. He served as a professor of biology at Evergreen State College, but resigned in the aftermath of the 2017 Evergreen State College protests, which brought him to national attention. Along with his brother Eric Weinstein, he is among the people referred to collectively as the intellectual dark web.[3][4] Weinstein has been criticized for making false statements about COVID-19 treatments and vaccines.[5][6][7]

Education

Weinstein, a native of Southern California,[8] began his undergraduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. As a freshman, he wrote a letter to the school newspaper that condemned sexual harassment of strippers at a Zeta Beta Tau fraternity party.[9] After experiencing harassment for the letter, hetransferred to the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he completed his undergraduate degree in 1993.[10] Weinstein received a doctorate from the University of Michigan in 2009.[2][11]

Career

Professor at Evergreen State College

Until 2017, Weinstein was a professor of biology at Evergreen State College in Washington State. In 2002, he published The Reserve-Capacity Hypothesis, which proposed that the telomeric differences between humans and laboratory mice have led scientists to underestimate the risks that new drugs pose to humans in the form of heart disease, liver dysfunction, and related organ failure.[12][13][14]

Evergreen State College Day of Absence

In March 2017, Weinstein wrote a letter to Evergreen faculty in which he objected to a change in the college's decades-old tradition of observing a "Day of Absence", during which ethnic minority students and faculty would voluntarily stay away from campus to highlight their contributions to the college.[15] The change to the event asked white participants to stay off campus, to attend a program on race issues, while the on-campus program was designated for people of color.[16] Weinstein wrote that the change established a dangerous precedent:

There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles.... and a group encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness, which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression.The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.

— Bret Weinstein, in a message to event organizer, Rashida Love[17]

The event organizers responded that participation was voluntary and that the event did not imply that all white people should leave.[18]

In May 2017, student protests disrupted the campus and called for a number of changes to the college. The protests involved allegations of racism, intolerance and threats; brought national attention to Evergreen; and sparked further debate about free speech on college campuses.[19] During the protests, there was an altercation between protesters and Weinstein.[20][21]

Weinstein and his wife, Heather Heying, brought a lawsuit against the school, alleging that the college's president had not asked campus police to quell student protesters.[22][23] Weinstein also said that campus police had told him that they could not protect him, and that they had encouraged him to stay off campus. Instead, Weinstein held his biology class that day in a public park.[24][25] A settlement was reached in September 2017 in which Weinstein and Heying resigned and received $250,000 each, after having sought $3.8 million in damages.[19]

Post-Evergreen

Following his resignation from Evergreen, he appeared on the podcasts of Sam Harris[26] and Joe Rogan on many occasions. He moderated two debates between Harris and Jordan Peterson.[27] He appeared in the documentary No Safe Spaces, which documents the Evergreen incidents.[28] Weinstein's brother Eric coined the term "intellectual dark web" and described Bret as a member. The term refers to a group of academics and media personalities who publish and debate outside the mainstream media.[29][30][31][32]

In June 2019, Weinstein began the DarkHorsePodcast on his YouTube channel, which is usually co-hosted with his wife Heather.[33] Their guests have included Glenn Loury, Douglas Murray, Sam Harris, John Wood Jr., Thomas Chatterton Williams and Coleman Hughes, with topics often centered on current events, science, and culture.[34]

Weinstein was a 2019–2020 James Madison Program Visiting Fellow at Princeton University,which continued for the 2020–2021 year.[35][36]

Personal life and views

Weinstein is married to Heather Heying, an evolutionary biologist who also worked at Evergreen. Heying resigned from the college along with Weinstein and took a similar position during the Day of Absence controversy.[19][clarification needed]

Weinstein describes himself as politically liberal, progressive,[37][38] and left-libertarian.[39] He appeared before the U.S. House Oversight Committee on May 22, 2018, to discuss freedom of speech on college campuses.[40][41] In 2020, he announced Unity 2020, a plan to nominate for the upcoming US presidential elections a pair of suitable candidates, each associated with one of both major political parties, to govern as a team.[42][43][44]

COVID-19

Further information: COVID-19 misinformation

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Weinstein has made several public appearances advocating the use of the antiparasitic drug ivermectin to prevent or treat the disease and downplaying the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. David Gorski, in Science-Based Medicine, described Weinstein as a prominent "COVID-19 contrarian and spreader of disinformation".[5] Weinstein made baseless claims that the drug can prevent or treat COVID-19,[5][45] claims for which there is no good evidence.[46][47][48] Weinstein hosted ivermectin advocate Pierre Kory on his DarkHorse podcast to discuss the drug,[49][7] and promoted ivermectin on other podcast and television news appearances.[50][51]

Weinstein took ivermectin during a livestream video and said both he and his wife had not been vaccinated because of their fears concerning COVID-19 vaccines.[52]YouTubedemonetized the couple's channels in response to their claims about ivermectin. Afterward, Weinstein and Heying moved their subsequent broadcasts to the alternative/fringe video sharing platformOdysee.[49] In August of 2021, Weinstein said he had misstated that a study had shown a 100% effective ivermectin protocol for the prevention of COVID.[46][53] Weinstein considers himself a supporter of vaccines in general; he believes mRNA vaccines have promise despite what he claims are "some clear design flaws".[37]Weinstein has falsely claimed that the spike protein produced by or contained within COVID-19 vaccines is "very dangerous" and "cytotoxic".[54][55][56]

Publications

References

...

AN c de v

Last week during a rally in the border city of El Paso, Texas, before thousands of his most adoring fans, Donald Trump showed America and the world–again–who he really is. Trump worked his audience up into a fever pitch as he lambasted and threatened the news media and free press. For Trump and his movement, they are the “enemy of the people.” This is a fundamental principle of authoritarianism. One of Trump’s MAGA hat-wearing supporters responded to the president’s incitement by physically attacking a BBC cameraman named Ron Skeans.

During the same speech, Donald Trump lied about his imaginary wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and about “illegal immigrants” who come to America in order to commit crimes against white people. He spun vainglorious stories out of whole cloth about his “accomplishments” and “greatness.”

Donald Trump’s values and beliefs may appear incoherent, but they are not a buffet or à la carte meal from which a person can pick and choose from. Rather, they are a nasty, incestuous knot that cannot be easily untangled. Ultimately, to wear Donald Trump’s MAGA hats or his other regalia is to share and endorse his racism, sexism, nativism, bigotry and anti-social behavior. To utter the words “Make America Great Again” with no sense of irony or foreboding is to announce one’s betrayal of human decency and distrust of democracy.

How do Trump’s MAGA hats and other clothing and slogans help to create a sense of political community for his followers? Is “Make America Great Again” an implicit threat against nonwhites, Muslims and others that he and his followers deem to be a type of enemy Other?Does Trumpism represent larger cultural battles in America about the role of academics, teachers, intellectuals and other experts in public life? Should Trump’s supporters be held morally accountable for their political decision-making and the harm that they are causing to American society?

In an effort to answer these questions I spoke with Matthew A. Sears, an associate professor of classics and ancient history at the University of New Brunswick. Sears’ essays have also been featured by the Washington Post and the History News Network. His most recent column for the Washington Post is “Why the decision to wear MAGA hats matters.”

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Professors and other educators who speak out about the threat to democracy embodied by Donald Trump and his movement have been victims of a coordinated campaign of threats and violence — including being fired from their jobs. Trumpism and the American right have birthed a type of new McCarthyism and anti-intellectualism in America. As a professor who studies literature and history, and also writes for a popular audience, how has that impacted you?

I don’t know if it is “anti-intellectual” per se, in the spirit of what we saw in fascist Italy or with the Khmer Rouge, the latter being an obvious and odious example. But there is certainly a kind of battle royale taking place between different kinds of intellectuals in America and the West.

There are people like [white nationalist leader] Richard Spencer who try to give themselves an air of academic respectability. These types try to claim that their positions are actually well-thought out, well-researched and well-sourced. They are trying to piggy-back on academic prestige.

There is the so-called “intellectual dark web.” These are all academics or academic-adjacent people. Jordan Peterson and Brett Weinstein, even Steven Pinker increasingly, and people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris can be included in that group.

This is a battle for the soul of public discourse and who gets to claim expertise on certain areas. Given my expertise and public voice, I am part of a public debate and fight over keeping or getting rid of “traditional” ideas of Western civilization and arguments and beliefs such as “The West is Best.”

As a classics professor who talks about, writes about and teaches about the Greeks and the Romans, for many of the “alt-right” or “alt-lite”I am often seen as a traitor. Why? Because I research and show how those societies were complex, problematic and different from our own. Studying ancient Greece and Rome can show us ways of how not to act and how not to organize a society. These “alt-right” and “alt-lite” types say I am “ruining” Western civilization and I’m “ruining” the classics because I don’t engage in hero worship where I say things like, “Look at these great founders of democracy, and look at these heroes like Achilles and Julius Caesar and these great men.”