Published On: Sun, Apr 5th, 2020

“Coronavirus” sifts the wheat and chaff in alternative media – plus other stuff

The great gift that “coronavirus” has dealt us is an opportunity to exercise our powers of discernment. By now the audience of alternative media of the English speaking world must realise that it is no good.

The alternative media has revealed itself to be not very good. Whether it is pushing the story of a manufactured bio-weapon, which is, then, to insist on SARS-COV-2 being responsible for all the death that is attributed to it, or whether it is pushing the 5G death weapon angle, which is, then, to invite corporate-media to attack all “conspiracy theories” as the ranting of lunatics, so that a mainstream audience becomes prejudiced to reasonable opposition to the consensus view, the alternative media has been found out.

Sometimes it has been discovered unashamedly towing the line for the sake of making a buck, or because it is a bait and switch operation that has switched; or at first in silence, then coming late to the party, forced to turn up for appearance’s sake. Whichever way it conducts itself, the alternative media has generally been found out.

And we’re not even talking about the pre-9/11 attitude blogosphere, which no one should waste a single solitary second with on account of its sheer redundancy.

That being said, Peter Hitchens has emerged from this classification as something that the mainstream corporate-media audience which follows him (on account of his straddling that arena too) would call a lonely voice. He is their hero in what is a frightening time, when all the firm ideas about the country being a civilised democracy start to look shaky. Hitchens is the means by which a lot of people will become brave – and that is no bad thing.

However, at this place (FBEL), he has been recognised as a gatekeeper for a long time: the place at which the mainstream corporate-media audience is stopped. Now, and because we’re feeling generous today, Hitchens probably realises that he gatekeeps, but possibly feels that there is nothing to be done about it: it wouldn’t just be a matter of retaining an audience, but also one of inner psychology, of self-censoring, of not being able to think the unthinkable. Of course, if we weren’t feeling generous, we would say he deliberately (i.e. maliciously) gatekeeps. But in actual fact, the way we feel about it has no bearing on it: we just don’t know – the why, that is, but not the wherefore.

For Hitchens, as far as can be ascertained (and please correct me if I am wrong), will not take his audience to particular and uncontroversial places with regards “coronavirus” – which is gatekeeping, by very definition. Hitchens does not appear to question the fundamental concept of Covid-19, and how, by the US Centres for Disease Controls’ own admission, SARS-COV-2 can’t be established as causal agent by a PCR test. He doesn’t, therefore, appear to question the reliability of the diagnosis of coronavirus in a patient. He limits his casting of doubt to the question of whether a death is “with coronavirus”, or “from coronavirus”. There is no “pretend coronavirus” as an option. The fact that the Imperial College modellers who created the pretext for a lockdown have a “Plan B” (involving less prohibition) never seems to have registered with Hitchens (which is hard to believe); he is asked all the time by his Twitter gadflies to supply answers instead of objections, and never points to the fact of an already existent scheme. Gatekeepers never have any solutions.

Above all else, because the material mentioned above is key to undermining the UK Government’s bludgeoning of the economy, and because Hitchens won’t get into it, but only whines about the economy being knocked on the head, is the reason that there should be no misplaced confidence in Hitchens. All gatekeepers are useful, because they attract the sheep to a fence from whence can be seen the green grass a-growing on the other side. However, they aren’t going to save anyone. Salvation is for each individual to achieve for himself (and in doing so, often, form a movement of like-motivated people).

Long time readers might be amused to see a chart showing visitor numbers to FBEL. The red line represents visits of 30 seconds and longer (the hope is that this discounts robots from the numbers), and the blue line represents visits of 30 minutes and longer.

In other news, the FBEL Twitter account has been suspended. If the reader doesn’t know, Twitter appears only to inform that a transgression of its rules has been made, and then one has to guess how such a thing has been done and appeal blindly against the suspension. The device is obvious: the appellant creates a crime when there hasn’t been one. Of course, yours truly is not going to play silly Kafkaesque games with Twitter; the details of the charge have been demanded of them, and I am still waiting. In the meantime, there has been no song and dance about the “end of freedom of speech” otherwise so beloved of alternative media in such circumstances. The only reason the matter is mentioned is because I would ask readers, if they are on Twitter (do not join especially), and if they don’t mind running the risk of being banned, to tweet out FBEL’s coronavirus articles with relevant trending hashtagged keywords. No need to send them to anyone with @ signs, just put them on the keyword timelines, which brings in a surprising amount of traffic.

Also, donations are always welcome.

Thank you.

P W Laurie

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Displaying 3 Comments
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  1. Kyle G says:

    As a “good” (i.e. reprehensible) example of Hitchens’gatekeeping, please see his article at https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/04/we-love-big-brother. He starts by predictably lamenting the loss of ancient liberties and his fellow countrymen’s timidity in the face of government tyranny, which he labels a national humiliation; but then regarding these very same restrictions on liberty, he says:

    “Actually, while regarding the whole thing as a mixture of a joke and a tragedy, I try as hard as I can to observe these restrictions. I have been known to march round food stores with a scarf swathed round my mouth and nose, like a bank robber. I keep my required distance. I thank the check-out clerks for turning out to work, as I have no doubt that most of them believe they are in danger from me.”

    Need I say more? Pathetic.

  2. Steve Jack says:

    What about OffGuardian? You seem to be ignoring (or be unaware of) their excellent contribtions to the discussion.

  3. sam says:

    I think you’re being too hard on Hitchens. He has said he’s not a scientist and doesn’t understand the science behind it but that he is sceptical of ‘experts’
    His audience probably would not be able to go further than he can anyway . It is a brave thing to stand as a lone voice int he wilderness, few do it and he should be praised for he will open lots of eyes.