"Probably nobody important in his lifetime will acknowledge it, but Berenson’s calm, rational, and diligent reporting has been crucial to breaking the spell of Corona in the West."
A lot fairer than his claim yesterday that you are a "nihilist".
Berenson’s strength is his weakness. His core competency is pharma.
He is making a fool of himself on the Ukraine issue. Suddenly, he finds the MSM reporting trustworthy, even though one can see the same covid-hysteria-lie signature all over.
It took quite a lot of poking the bear to get it to attack, but ultimately the NWO counted on Putin being a man of his word (unlike his tormentors). Despite Russia being promised that NATO would move "not one inch" closer to their borders, it grew from something like 11 member states at the collapse of the USSR to more than double that now (around 30, IIRC), with most or all of them being former Warsaw Pact nations that are considerably closer to Russia physically than one inch.
Despite that, and despite the anti-Russia rhetoric from the US (such as "blaming" Putin for getting Trump elected, which of course was way beyond Putin's capability in a country like the US), Putin tried repeatedly to address the issue of a hostile alliance (which NATO has proven itself to be) encroaching on Russia, only to be spurned and openly mocked. He let everyone know Ukraine was the line in the sand, so of course the thing to do would be to stage a coup, install a NWO puppet, and have that puppet try to join NATO (among other things).
At that point, Putin has no good options. He can back down and let himself be known as a paper tiger, and in the process let his country be encircled by newly emboldened hostile forces, or he can do something about it as he had promised. Which of these he chose is obvious.
Some people have sneered at this notion, saying things like "I thought Putin was smart, but he walked right into the NATO trap." So what would not walking into the trap look like? Doing nothing despite his enemies flagrantly crossing his line?
Invading Ukraine was not the act of a madman. It was an eminently rational act of one who finds himself the target of western aggression for several reasons. He's not a globalist, for one, so naturally the globalists think he has to go. Soros has named Putin, Xi, and Trump as enemies... all three of them nationalists, not globalists.
For the CIA and NATO, the cold war never really ended. Both were created during the early days of the cold war for the purpose of waging the cold war, and for them, that was their glory days. When they prevailed and their foe was vanquished, they just kept going as if Russia was the same country as the USSR, making it clear to Putin that they still saw him as a KGB officer in service of the Soviet Union. Now they get their wish; Putin has invaded another country and given them grounds to hysterically shriek about how Putin is a threat with bloodlust and desire for conquest, thus justifying their continued existence and cloak-n-dagger games.
Good post. I'll just add that I saw a short news video featuring several Russians including Putin. They were discussing how the United States was pushing the demise of the petrodollar with sanctions that left little else for the sanctioned countries to do but find alternatives to the petrodollar and swift. I remember watching the video thinking that the speakers were not specifically out to sabotage the petrodollar or unipolar world but were incredulous that the USA was doing just that.
Despite his association with the WEF, I've suspected that Putin is not onboard with their agenda. I also see him as a nationalist. Is he? Isn't he? There is not a world leader that can function without knowing about and engaging with the WEF, doesn't mean compliance to WEF.
Ah, so I'm not the only one to detect some flaws in him. I bailed out early this year, not long after his on-air attack on Malone that seemed rather irrational. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But I decided it was time to leave when he posted about the latest study that trashed Ivermectin. Now I don't take a position one way or the other, but I do fault a man who bills himself as a dedicated journalist, who takes at face value a study that is (likely) funded and staffed by entities with huge conflicts of interest. I'll admit I did not even look at the study, but that is beside the point. I expected Alex would do so, but not a word. Apparently "follow the money" and "Cui bono?" are not taught to journalists? Your comments but validate my decision to part company with Alex.
Fully agree. The IVM reaction reveals Berenson’s scientific illiteracy and naivety, while the pro-Ukraine stance shows a failure to understand Western paranoia, expansionism and scapegoating of Russians.
I even wondered and asked him if he was paid by someone, or if he considered going back to big media. I stay because I paid. Sometimes he has a good article, but I found other outlets lately and will support them.
You may be correct about Iraq, I don't recall that. I believe Alex Berenson's focus at the New York Times was on the corruption of Big Pharma and the financial Industry.
Thanks for the update ! I did not know Berenson before I got onto his blog about covid. It is just that the Ukrainian president makes me think of Trump, I guess ! a clown, or a joker at least, totally unprepared to guide a country it seems. And a WEF member just like Ivanka. Lizards everywhere. I don't like Putin who is a former WEF also, but I think the fact that he wants the threat of American bio labs away from his border, and the 2 Russia - oriented provinces at least autonomous, makes sense to me. Of course I know nothing about politics and might be totally wrong!
If Trump was a clown and a failure, then what on earth is Biden? Also, Ivanka Trump having been a WEF young leader doesn’t mean she’s therefore their faithful zombie agent controlling her father or pushing WEF policy. Maybe she did it because her friends did. Putin too; he is now WEF public hate figure number one, in no known way their servant, despite also being a young leader in the past. Lastly, if father Trump were a lizard or puppet, the deep state doing everything to remove him, to block and reverse his policies, to risk all defrauding his reelection, would never have been necessary.
Biden is a marionet. It is very clear that he is not in charge. I do not like either of them. Whoever is in charge is pushing yet more boosters even though it is now clear to many this is not a health question. I wonder how they are going to pressure more people to subject to these dangerous shots
I'm going to guess Putin et al have plenty of their own biolabs in their own country and are developing who knows what to unleash on the world if they feel it suits their purposes. Just a WAG.
I think you can imagine that to be true. There is a map online where all the labs are worldwide. Plenty of them in very crowded arias in Europe. Belgium, Germany, etc. I did not look explicitly at Russia.
The words, today for sure, are as much weapons as his army. Lenin said it first. He also said, long ago and not for propaganda purposes, that Stalin was a great leader and that the dissolution of the USSR was 'illegal.' (for all that illegality might mean to him, but it does assert his priorities.)
Don't you love it when the same people who yelled at media lies for 2 or maybe 5 years are now just believing whatever is coming out of MSM completely? Ghost of Kiev anyone? gell-mann amnesia is right as many are saying
Isn't it weird that people who fought tooth and nail with the government about the "scamdemic", then turn around and believe in everything espoused by the government with other issues? This dude is a soy boy at best.
Alex Berenson is a plant. He maintains all of the official narratives except vaccine efficacy. He does not even talk about adverse effects. He has attacked and tried to discredit people, including Robert Malone and Joe Rogan. He ridiculed ivermectin using the fraudulent Malaysian study, which is rigged to exclude zinc, and whose real results are the opposite of what is stated. His book is to explain away a globally coordinated genocide with malicious aforethought as if it's just a bunch of mediocre government officials grappling with complex problems.
He is a former New York Times reporter, which means basically an intelligence propagandist. He is a damage mitigator, not a friend.
Did you see that doctor who propagated the vaxx red pill? He is on youtube all the time but I forgot his name, I only saw that one piece where he wakes up to the Pfizer documents... very interesting. After reading Suzanne Humphries, I am now into Eustace Mullins, Death by injection, which not only covers vaxx but also the medical complot of America, and a lot of stories I have to read in little bits, it is that bad. Not the book. What has been going on in America for over 100 years.
I'm sorry, I'm glad to see this highly educated medical professional getting g a clue, but it's pathetic watching him floundering around while he's doing it. It's just another example as yo how American higher education does everything but teach people how to actually think.
Two substack writers that you should investigate are Jessica Rose and Mathew (that's right: one 't') Crawford. They publish detailed statistical studies related to vaccine damage.
Unfortunately it's "succeeding" in its real purpose. The reason the propaganda campaign is now gearing up for jabs #4 and #5 is not because it doesn't work.
I don't disagree with some aspects of your point, but you are flat out wrong about COVID. If you had read Pandemia, or had just read eugyppius' review that you are now commenting on, you would know that Berenson fought just about every establishment narrative on COVID, including masks and lockdowns. He fought them well before just about anyone else with a voice stood up to fight.
You are also wrong about the vaccines. Berenson has been very vocal about side effects and vaccine injuries and, again, was there ahead of almost any other public figure.
Yes, the man is immature. Yes his hot takes on some political topics are embarrassing. Yes, he has a nasty habit of attacking people who ought to be his allies in a sanctimonious and arrogant way.
IMO he deserves credit for what he has done, credit eugyppius gave generously despite being subjected to petty Berensonian sniping the other day. Even if you can't give credit, though, you ought to have your facts straight on the COVID stuff.
I literally have 7 copies, less than 6 feet away. I bought them to give them out, and then I did not. Pandemia is a whitewash, made to distract from RFK Jr's "The Real Anthony Fauci".
> or had just read eugyppius' review
I read it.
> Berenson fought just about every narrative on COVID, including masks and lockdowns
Masks are obviously ineffective. They are obviously about psychological submission. Lockdowns are obviously for the economic destruction of society. They impoverish the middle class, enrich and empower the largest corporations, and make everyone dependent on the state.
Here too, Berenson argues the "ineffectiveness" of these measures. This is defending the people behind them, because he makes it out as if the reason is stupidity. He does not expose how these measures have been very effective in their REAL intent, and discredits those who point it out.
> Berenson has been very vocal about side effects and vaccine injuries
Point me to these mystery articles. I've been a paid subscriber almost as long as he's been on Substack, and somehow missed all this. Somehow, all Alex can muster is "vaccine happy valley".
Meanwhile, Steve Kirsch generates entire volumes of compelling evidence on vaccine harm:
> Even if you can't give credit, though, you ought to have your facts straight
How about this, then: you are a propagandist, too. No reasonable person defends a pillar of propaganda with such rhetoric and gusto, unless they're damage mitigators, also.
Please rethink your entire life. What you're working for is anti-human. It's to annihilate life.
I'm not going to reply to most of this; by and large, it speaks for itself.
However, I thought it would be fun to accept your challenge. I said Berenson has been very vocal about side effects and vaccine injuries to which you replied "Point me to these mystery articles".
Challenge accepted. Now, I am lazy, so I'm not going to look very hard. But here are the ones I found just going back less than a month, to Feb 23, referencing vaccine injury or side effects, including the side effect of possibly making people more vulnerable to COVID infection and/or death:
Like I said, I wasn't willing to put in much effort so that was just from browsing back to Feb. 23. If you are willing to put in more effort, say by going back further or just reading the new articles as they come out, you might find a few of your own.
I also highly recommend Berenson's Kindle booklet on the vaccines. It is superior to what he wrote in Pandemia and covers vaccine injury more thoroughly. I was, frankly, disappointed with the Pandemia chapter on the vaccines, as I understand eugyppius to have been. In Pandemia he just refers to the booklet and quotes some tiny part of it, no original material, and not even the best parts from the booklet.
I stand by what I said previously. You should get your facts straight, and I recommend you do this before you try to slap the label of "propagandist" on anyone else. It's a bad look to combine name calling with being badly uninformed.
I can't account for Alex's blind spots but all seem to have them. I enjoyed the exposition in Pandemia and agree it's a solid well researched book and quite readable.
I feel quite comfortable disagreeing with my true friends and this pandemic has enlightened me about some former friends. Alex is not a personal friend but a reliable voice over many matters.
It is very hard to cover everything at once. I think even Berenson's view points will change over time. Every day new grub comes up, that he did not know yet. I do not like his war stories, but the blog about covid kind of saved me. I thought I was the only one to see what was going on and darn afraid LOL
I have had similar thoughts. While I'm too lazy to take his Pandemia off the shelf, as I recall, it is basically a reformatted Twitter feed (His) account of the pandemic, with the occasional helping of a news article and a slice of his very important personal life (like the off-limits playground.) Yep, this is "Metro' section stuff, not investigative journalism. Unless I missed it, there is very little about the international cooperation from the beginning, the known US involvement in the Wuhan lab, the likely origin of the virus, conflicts of interest in FDA and other government, Gates et al. deep state (intelligence agencies), the international links. A lot of this stuff is not even secret, and was knowable even in 2020. I knew some of it. Much of it (a lot!) appears in RFK Jr. Fauci book.
I agree with your analysis. While I like "Pandemia", it is nowhere near the equal of RFK Jr.'s "Fauci." Berenson is at best a washed up NYT hack trading on some past successes, at worst a paid scribe to hidden agencies, likely the above named entities.
I'm an atheist, but Jesus was very insightful when he said that you could tell a tree by its fruit.
I did the Kindle and agree with the rework of his pamphlets and twitter. RFK's book is stellar and should be a wake-up call that will be studiously ignored because it attacks too many sacred cows.
The mess that our government has become as all this stuff gets revealed is troublesome. Not sure a string of Trump types have a chance at a rebuild. But usually things that can't continue forever will end. That so many have allowed themselves to be so corrupted is tragic. Truth arrives whatever it may mean.
I lost most of my affection for Berenson when he bizarrely went after Malone, but even so you may be a little harsh in your assessment here. I think of him more as narcissistic than malicious, but maybe I am wrong.
In any event you are right in the middle of the bullseye with TRAF. That is the one book to read about this Covid craziness (indeed, it is the one book to read if you want to find out what happened to Western health care). If required reading was enforceable by law (who knows? maybe that is coming) then TRAF should be the first thing on that list.
Quite possible. They know that we are not all stupid and they need to throw the more aware among us some juicy to placate us. However, even people with blinders can get a glimpse. Hard to know which it is.
Typical…Fauci, Soros, Gates, our military, etc,etc,etc are building facilities, funding and financing the production of deadly viruses, under the pseudo name of gain of function, well before Trump even enters office and it is Trumps fault.
All that I see in your YouTube video is a President that is relying on the so called top health experts in our government and reacting to what they are telling him needs to be done to fight the deadly virus. They convinced him the mRNA vaccines were safe. They were lying to him about everything, including the safety about the injections. Not just lying about the injections, but they were the people behind making the deadly virus in the first place. Question.....who could he have turn to get second opinion? You are taking using the military to help get the mRNA injections to the public as quickly as possible totally out of context. Sorry you still sound like a typical lefty...with it it all Trumps fault. You sound like an Alex echo.
I've been working on this review off and on for two weeks and announced it was upcoming in postscript to my Tuesday post, before Berenson posted anything about me.
He linked to your review today, and was pretty magnanimous about it. In a good way, I thought. I wasn't going to buy the book but based on your review I think I will. I'm in the US, where we tend to be pretty insular, and it was fascinating to read the European take on things.
What other folks do is about who they are and Alex is a stereo-type Upper Manhattan creature w New York Times ink in their veins. They relish their name recognition and flaunt their self importance in countless petty perks as if getting a table at la-di-da de jour validates their own egomaginary status. It doesn't diminish the value of the work but it's nicer when it's not in spite of the character.
Indeed it was and an accurate, well earned compliment but it was given in the self serving spirit of elevating someone praising Alex's book and stroking his ego, not a magnanimous gesture.
I like that we can all disagree without all the hysterics. Anytime I read something online I always try to dial down the intensity of what is said by 20-40% due to the nets' obvious communication limitations that seem to push everyone into emotionally laden text and tone.
It was instantly clear to me that this review involved analysis and insight unlikely to have come together overnight (even quicker with time difference?). The summarizing, analysis and orthogonal insights (especially the penultimate paragraph) reminded me of the latter half of the last century when a book review from the New York Review of Books, or perhaps even one by Virginia Woolf, might be the best thing read in one's day.
Your taking (and maintaining) the high road and his coming undone speaks for itself. Sure feels like lots more are going to fall by the wayside. The strong survive.
You must reassess, but if I see a statement by Fauci or Psaki, False pope francis, I'm going to treat it differently than a statement by Mary Holland, Eugyppius or my Catholic priest.
If one of 2nd group goes to dark side, I'll know it soon enough thru other information.
You can't operate the way you do, starting from ground zero every day
To John Raymond- So, when you disagree with someone, you simply say they’re ‘wrong’. Then you go on to tell them to think and do the same as you. I can only assume you think you’re right about everything. Kind of obnoxious.
I trust a handful of people, who IMO have earned that trust. I think they're all on Substack. I pay for the content of some of them (hey, I don't have a money tree). eugyppius is in that pay list.
I trust NO ONE in government nor in the alphabet legacy media. AFAIK, I mean that literally.
IMO there are far more UNLIKE you in government than like you in government. Since I can't possibly know everyone in government, and given the government's (or governments', to mean federal AND state) incompetence, dishonesty, and authoritarianism/totalitarianism of the past 2 years, the smart play is to trust no one in government. So I do. Trust no one in government.
But I don't know you, so I neither trust nor distrust you *personally*.
However, if you were to make some official statement in your capacity in government, I wouldn't trust it. Not because it's from *you*, but because it's coming from a government official. And government officials have discredited the entire lot of you folks.
That's unfortunate, because of course there are some trustworthy people in government. But not enough to give any government official the benefit of the doubt.
I have already said elsewhere, you should assess each person, make judgment of their reliability, and continually assess.
That served me well in not taking kill shot... I Basically trust CHD in their desire to give truthful info. I give them benefit of doubt. I do reject vehemently some things they said.
Yday, and today, I begin to believe Berenson might be unethical on vaccine effectiveness... currently being debated in my mind...
So on me... I wouldn't lie to you. Don't care if you believe or not.
My grave faults lie elsewhere
You can trust a medical doctor or religious person more than me, but some of those are hired prostitutes of Pfizer.
Yes, that's right. And I immediately took him up on his offer. Until I thought of something more catchy, I had changed my profile here to "I wouldn't piss on Alex Berenson if he were on fire." 😁
Berenson attacked Eugyppius? I'm in the dark on this as I stopped paying attention to Berenson after he threw Joe Rogan under the bus for saying Die Enword.
Best I can describe it is he wrote a mild hit-piece after the Big EuG. said he was about to review Pandemia. Given Berenson's history (e.g. Malone) of throwing his Covid "competitors" under the bus, and his Gell-Mann Amnesia in regards to trusting the same lunatics he hates on Covid on Ukraine, you have a "funny duck".
"Trust but verify" is all I can tell you. That includes myself.
Bizarre. Reminds me of Trump's political advisor Stephen Miller sabotaging any and all allies in the administration so he could be the lone "immigration hawk." Insanely self-defeating, but not if ego-stroking is your sole goal.
Actually, the spell has NOT been broken in the west. Perhaps in the USA somewhat, sadly not in Canada. In Europe, I thought that the British 'government partying while everyone was in lockdown scandal' had a lot to do with it as did omicron's mildness. Canadian truckers went a long way here to knock down mandates, but I as an unvaxxed person am still unable to leave my country: not allowed on planes, trains, ships; US border closed to the unvaxxed.
Berenson has performed a service by highlighting the insanity that was our institutional response to Covid but he is betrayed by his solipsism. This is unfortunate since he can be a good reporter when he can keep his ego in a cage.
I was going too with his ivermectin piece, but the day after he had a good one and I am a paying subscriber, so I will see where he goes. I am not intended to subscribe a second year though. Lots of other interesting stuff is available, like The Expose and Epoch news
I also took exception to a recent Eugyppius post. No matter. I can think as I wish and so can he. Looking at an issue through different eyes helps my understanding as I question why I might believe something. Few of us can be completely objective about anything, try as we might.
Did Berenson ever recant his absolutely baseless attack on Robert Malone? He made it right at a potential tipping point when McCollough and Malone had just been on Rogan, and all skeptical voices should have been united.
When given the opportunity, he doubled down on his attack, making laughably false points, and I unsubscribed from his substack at that point.
Nah, I cancelled but my subscription doesn’t expire for a while - he doubled down. Then switched to believing war propaganda. Now he flounders between being gullible to any story on Ukraine and calling out lies on Covid. 🤦♀️🤷♀️
I forgave him. I considered it part of the obsessive drive that led Alex to dig so deeply into the official statistics, the history of the mRNA therapy, and the science behind it in order to inform us objectively early in the mass panic. It's possible that Dr. Malone might have exaggerated his credentials, slightly, but I can forgive that, too, since he seemed to have as good a claim as anyone to being the "inventor" of mRNA therapy. But I could see how Alex, deep into his dive into the science, might be worried that someone else may use it to discredit Dr. Malone, and, by association, Alex and the other 'rona dissidents'.
Although my experience with Malone to date are his more famous videos and a few articles, I find it amusing when a critic accuses him of being invovled with secret government projects He is completely open about his past and present contacts, including with some I'd never heard of (DTRA, I think). Might he have worked on things in the past that he can't publicly discuss? Absolutely. That is common in such lines of work. Just because he (say) consulted on some hush-hush study at one time, does not make him an agent. As with anyone, we should not take anything on faith. In my book, he has a lot more credibility than most folks, however. If Dr. Malone ever tells us how grand the mRNA vaccines are, and that we must learn to love Big Brother, it may be time to re-evaluate. 😄
I track most of the COVID authors. Alex is imperfect -- but aren't we all? I have no idea what personal tiff he has with Malone, and neither does any commenter here. Do i wish he did not use his bully pulpit to pursue that distraction? Of course. But that misses the point.
As Eugyppius correctly points out, Alex has a far larger platform than most and has mostly used it for good and right reasons. At a time when speakers-that-can-be-heard on this important topic are few and far between, religious tests on every last point are the last thing we need.
Alex is thoughtful and generally correct -- but surely not always correct. Pandemia is an excellent book and I, too, recommend it (I gave away 20 copies as Christmas presents, together with Unmasked by Ian Miller). He is one of those valuable voices in a struggle that few were willing to take on when he did. That fact matters.
I applaud Eugyppius for giving credit where credit is due (nihilism isn't exactly a slur...although probably not the right choice of words) and urge all of us interested in making progress in exposing the idiocy/evil of the established system and reinforcing the truth to not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
My sentiments exactly. Not sure why those who decided Alex has now become a super protagonist in these SubStack dramas feel it necessary to attack him. I didn't agree with him then or now but I remain interested in his viewpoint. We can follow and support those who appeal to us personally. What others do is not my concern.
"Corona is ending, but I very much fear that the crazy is just getting started." That is the golden question that I keep asking myself. How do we prevent this again?
Berenson is great because he is honest. I feel that way too many people nowadays cater to their audience, and he does not.
I don't always agree with him, but what is the point of reading somebody that you always agree with.
My only issue with this book is that it feels like an autobiography of a 23 year old. I fear the covid circus is not over and therefore it feels wrong to read books that are looking back on it.
In Alcoholics Anonymous there's a saying that could equally be applied to partial enlightenment about the Covid-19 p[l]andemic: "The monkey is off my back, but the circus is still in town." 🤡🙊
As an American who never joined Twitter, I had missed Alex and the "team reality" cohort entirely. I only discovered Alex after seeing other substack users reading him, so followed without paying, but by fall 2021 I was reading dozens of people on Substack, plus the NYT, WaPo, FT, etc, etc - so his voice hadn't really stood out to me (and I generally focus on reading from those I disagree with anyway).
When the "Rogan Hysteria" hit in January, I decided to check out his interview with Malone, and as I was scrolling noticed he had Berenson on a few weeks earlier, and decided to give that a quick go just to orient myself with Rogans style and see what Berenson had to say.
I stuck with the whole 3 hour interview (intention to listen for 10 minutes or), never making it to the Malone interview, and promptly paid the $300 "founder fee" to Alex with a quick note letting him know I appreciated the fact that we would say "I don't know" in the course of that interview. That in itself is the rarest quality in our Covid media punditry class.
My only wish is that Berenson can move from cynic to skeptic. I also hope if he gets back his Twitter account he doesn't rejoin. I felt his effort was better spent on Pandemia.
If his lawsuit breaks Twitter and others must fall inline, any compensation he earns is minimal compared to the public benefit. It's a difficult adventure and my hopes go to getting disclosure wrung out of Twitter. If that shows government is using these platforms to control speech in a direct way, the platforms will be required to stop censoring speech as an agent of government. I fear the lawsuit may not get to discovery given the stakes.
Yeah, now I’m the cynic. No way it progresses in any meaningful way. I assume he gets a “too good to be true” settlement and reinstated before anything gets disclosed.
Likely Twitter's way out. But Berenson seems a suitably angry person who may still be honest. There is some emotion there. OTOH, there are some awfully powerful folk behind Door 2.
Hmmm...interesting "conspiracy angle" theory. Pay off the troublemaker. He agrees to update his topics to be more....compatible....with what Current Orthodoxy wishes. (e.g. Ivermectin, now Ukraine). Perhaps get Twitter account back after they settle with "undisclosed" terms. No discovery, no need to mention the elephant in the room -- of course it's back door censorship to aid the Deep State, the evidence fairly screams at one....here's a recent piece on just that topic:
Nothing to see here folks. This was all explained by Russian agents tricking Hunter Biden into accepting a laptop salted with disinformation, which he left for repair in a computer shop, years before the story broke. The PC went unclaimed, and the owner legally took ownership of it. A total intelligence set-up, yessiree!
Win-win for the Deep State. Twitter gets off lightly. No need for "discovery" which might show inconvenient consultations with government. Deep State keeps its gate keepers fully operational, Alex fattens his bank account. Maybe redecorate the place. Start a nice college fund for his kids. Everybody's happy. The only casualty? The truth, justice, freedom, etc.
It's funny, I too got Covid very early (the end of Feb / start of March), and I too was very sick with it—I have asthma, and at times could not even fill my lungs with air. But I am a statistician who used to specialise in health economics, so despite this awful experience I was never a Covid hysteric, because every piece of actual evidence already suggested from the very beginning what we now know to be true: that it is a nasty virus, just as flu is nasty, but no more than that.
I like your recollection because you admit that you were wrong. What I cannot stand is those who pretend that they were right to panic at the beginning, even after they have realised that it was unnecessary. No, the actual evidence ALWAYS signalled that Covid is no worse than flu. That was clear to me and to many others from the beginning.
Great review, I enjoyed reading Alex's book too... Perhaps it was the symbolic nature of the mask over the mouth, or the visual factor to remind people there's a "pandemic" going on, or possibly the discomfort factor to make people uncomfortable until taking the jab, but (at least here in the US) the masks were a slippery slope to compliance and economic misery.
And that is the real shame of our pandemic response. Once Nancy decided that his dismissal of the mask could be turned against him, the die was cast. I always viewed mask wearing as a talisman and a group signal that the pandemic was serious business. Remarks like that managed to get be suspended or removed from certain platforms as a spreader of misinformation. Ian Miller's constant posting of data comparables affirmed my research but the data had to arrive. I still imagine disagreeing about masks is off limits despite all the obvious data.
Making the pandemic part of the political world has not helped our response and delayed critical examination of real data about the effectiveness of HCQ or IVM, still, today, now. Political gain at what cost to the public?
I was really impressed with Berenson at the beginning of the pandemic. He asked all the right questions like an investigative reporter with a good background in the medical industry should. He was fearless and dogged and his sharp tone broke through a lot of the nonsense. But that stubbornness and ego can also be a hindrance when it comes to team sports and even downright annoying.
But he is right, the George Floyd brouhaha in the US absolutely highlighted the sheer lunacy of the lockdowns. For politicians to openly claim that the protestors would be somehow immune, as compared to the rest of us, was just the right level of preposterousness to encourage more vocal debate. This very day, I’m sitting in an office in NY with a useless mask which is required and they still wipe everything down with alcohol (even though the CDC’s own study showed only a one in 10,000 chance of contracting COVID from a surface). It’s just the weirdest thing to see NYers vacation in FL without a mask, fly back here and become donkeys all over again. There is a rumor, though, that the NY Governor is in jeopardy- the Republican candidate stands a reasonable chance of winning- which is really amazing!
Our governor called genuinely peaceful reopen protestors “grandma killers” only to join BLM protestors 10 days later with his mask under his chin........ Covid ended for our family that day (and in fairness we were actually in Hilton Head because we’d served our 2 weeks plus some and had cabin fever 😂).
I can’t write worth a crap… I am thankful for the writers, whether I agree with them or not. Eugyppius, whether you are a nihilist or not (per Berensen) , keep writing away! A beacon of light in this dark time has been a Godsend. ☮️
So grateful to read you were at first a "Corona hysteric."
I wasn't a hysteric but I was cautious, and being retired, having a beautiful country view from my small-city window, and dreading any possibility of becoming a burden to my adult child, I was quite comfortable indulging all my worst habits of just staying home and having fun with my hobbies.
I'm a regularly-published letters-to-the-editor writer to my regional paper, and was disconcerted to see, in reviewing my files, that I'd written forcefully in favor of masking in August 2020. In January 2022 I wrote even more forcefully (excoriatingly!) against the masking of our children anywhere. Fuck the grownups, but the willful destruction of the lives of children gets me wild-eyed.
But I did feel ashamed to have so easily believed the masking nonsense. (I didn't believe the vax nonsense ever and fortunately am not in a position to be compelled or coerced. But loved ones are and that's a grief to me.) It's a relief to know that someone of your intelligence, perception and analytical strengths believed some of that early crap too.
Pandemia review: Excellent. I've been sorry to see how easily Berenson sabotages himself by a sort of neurotic over-excess in his then-permitted Twitter feed and Substack postings. Makes him too easy to mock by those wishing to decredit him. (And I was really sorry for how he went after you for your Ukraine analysis. I think it's hard for him, having been so early a skeptic on COVID, to have to share the truth-telling universe with others. But he is human after all and has lost all his Before Time social and collegial relationships and that's hard. A need to be the smartest one in the room works against a measured temperament.)
For me, before Alex, or any of the books you mention, (and I agree with your list, except I also would want to add The Great Covid Panic), wthere was the book by Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi and his wife, "Corona False Alarm?"
One of the key differences I think between Europeans and Americans is that a vast number of Americans have is distrust of the national government. We just want them to go away and leave us alone. One of the oldest jokes in politics is:
How can you tell if a politician is lying?
Punch line:
His mouth is moving.
In my best moments I distrust Washington politicians, at my worst I despise them.
I wish Canadians were less gullible. We're far more naive and obedient than Europeans it turns out. And insufferably arrogant about it. I learned to truly despise politicians. public health officials, epidemiologists and infectious disease TV diner experts. I saw a side of Canada I really wish I wasn't witness to. I thought we were more stable and stronger than this. And Quebec - wow. The worst in the West.
It is a blind spot (or weakness, if you want to be cruel) of nice people. As one of my old friends from my investment banking days once said to me: "You know, it is only the middle class that believes in playing by the rules. The poor know that the rules just screw them over and the rich know that they make the rules for their own benefit, but the middle class thinks the rules are fair and should be followed." After what I had seen in finance, I had to concede that my friend had it right.
Yes, I think this is a fair comment. Many, if not most, (central/northern) Europeans still entertained the good-willed belief that at least the bureaucrats, scientists, academics, etc. of our democracies were competent and would temper the worst excesses of our politicians or presstitutes. Sadly, and as Eugyppius has often pointed out, the intellectual rot extends quite deeply and transcends disciplines and myriad sectors. I am reminded of Joseph Tainter's theory of the useful limits of complexity.
I am a former subscriber to Berenson, but I did the 1 year deal so have a few more months to run out
Alex did a really good job to do the ground work digging up all the inconsistencies and uselessness of covid policies and sounded the alarm on the vaccines, probably earlier than anyone else I think. I think he also was on the vanguard of the lab-leak theory but I honestly can't recall
What has happened over the past 6-12 months is that many more names & personalities have come forward and created crowding and competition in the "skeptic space". These include people like Robert Malone, Peter McCollough, and substacks such as Eugyppius, Bad Cattitude, and many many more
Alex has responded somewhat badly to this change - since he is basically just a journalist and doesn't actually have any background, the rise of the "expert skeptic" seems to have rubbed him the wrong way. A good barometer is the various Joe Rogan podcasts - he had Berenson, McCollough and Malone on, and the absolute shitstorm was for the latter 2. Nobody cared about Alex on Rogan, and I think he knows it.
But Covid policies are changing and the tide of battle has shifted. I wish he would accept the win, and the role he played in it, and realize that he can't be at the center of it all the time
Of the books I've read about covid - pandemia didn't really land that solidly for me. I more or less forget about it a few days afterwards. Maybe if he had released it many months earlier it would have been different.
I also find it self serving that he is day-in-and-day-out plugging his book. Makes me wonder.
Books that really impacted me and stuck with me were State of Fear (Laura Dodsworth), and Viral (Alina Chan, Matt Ridley).
I think I want to review State of Fear too, though I excluded it from my miniature catalogue of dissident monographs b/c the focus seemed a little tight – likewise Viral.
Did you have the chance to read The Real Anthony Fauci? If so, I would be curious as to why it may not have impressed. If not, I recommend it.
With respect to your comments on Berenson, they are perceptive. Berenson did a fine job, something for which everyone should be grateful. But he has a lot of company now, including a bunch of very smart cookies (Steve Kirsch, Malone, McCullough, Jessica Rose, Mathew Crawford), so he is not alone on the stage anymore. Which probably hurts.
"Probably nobody important in his lifetime will acknowledge it, but Berenson’s calm, rational, and diligent reporting has been crucial to breaking the spell of Corona in the West."
A lot fairer than his claim yesterday that you are a "nihilist".
Berenson’s strength is his weakness. His core competency is pharma.
He is making a fool of himself on the Ukraine issue. Suddenly, he finds the MSM reporting trustworthy, even though one can see the same covid-hysteria-lie signature all over.
The guy is still embarrassing himself with political analysis? There's less cringe on tiktok.
He's wrong on things, but very perceptive and intelligent. I disagree on Ukraine with him... I think it is a NWO manufactured crisis
I think it's a Washington lobbyist-manufactured crisis. Or else a huge miscalculation by the so-called foreign policy elites.
NWO wants crisis that they can then huge to consolidate power.
WwI, greta, overpopulation will destroy planet, crt...
They don't want profits.
They want world domination.
Covid isn't about obscene greed...
It's about 500 m left, and the rest in death camps
Whoever NWO is, I can't imagine that they're unified enough to achieve any of that.
Agreed. The timing alone is highly suspect.
Amazing how the NWO got their top guy Putin to invade Ukraine. 🙄
It took quite a lot of poking the bear to get it to attack, but ultimately the NWO counted on Putin being a man of his word (unlike his tormentors). Despite Russia being promised that NATO would move "not one inch" closer to their borders, it grew from something like 11 member states at the collapse of the USSR to more than double that now (around 30, IIRC), with most or all of them being former Warsaw Pact nations that are considerably closer to Russia physically than one inch.
Despite that, and despite the anti-Russia rhetoric from the US (such as "blaming" Putin for getting Trump elected, which of course was way beyond Putin's capability in a country like the US), Putin tried repeatedly to address the issue of a hostile alliance (which NATO has proven itself to be) encroaching on Russia, only to be spurned and openly mocked. He let everyone know Ukraine was the line in the sand, so of course the thing to do would be to stage a coup, install a NWO puppet, and have that puppet try to join NATO (among other things).
At that point, Putin has no good options. He can back down and let himself be known as a paper tiger, and in the process let his country be encircled by newly emboldened hostile forces, or he can do something about it as he had promised. Which of these he chose is obvious.
Some people have sneered at this notion, saying things like "I thought Putin was smart, but he walked right into the NATO trap." So what would not walking into the trap look like? Doing nothing despite his enemies flagrantly crossing his line?
Invading Ukraine was not the act of a madman. It was an eminently rational act of one who finds himself the target of western aggression for several reasons. He's not a globalist, for one, so naturally the globalists think he has to go. Soros has named Putin, Xi, and Trump as enemies... all three of them nationalists, not globalists.
For the CIA and NATO, the cold war never really ended. Both were created during the early days of the cold war for the purpose of waging the cold war, and for them, that was their glory days. When they prevailed and their foe was vanquished, they just kept going as if Russia was the same country as the USSR, making it clear to Putin that they still saw him as a KGB officer in service of the Soviet Union. Now they get their wish; Putin has invaded another country and given them grounds to hysterically shriek about how Putin is a threat with bloodlust and desire for conquest, thus justifying their continued existence and cloak-n-dagger games.
Good post. I'll just add that I saw a short news video featuring several Russians including Putin. They were discussing how the United States was pushing the demise of the petrodollar with sanctions that left little else for the sanctioned countries to do but find alternatives to the petrodollar and swift. I remember watching the video thinking that the speakers were not specifically out to sabotage the petrodollar or unipolar world but were incredulous that the USA was doing just that.
Despite his association with the WEF, I've suspected that Putin is not onboard with their agenda. I also see him as a nationalist. Is he? Isn't he? There is not a world leader that can function without knowing about and engaging with the WEF, doesn't mean compliance to WEF.
But with much more depth and better writing skills.
NATO, NWO wanted this
You're a genius. Thanks for agreeing with me!
Many things indicate Putin is anti globalist.
But Putin is former WEF alumni. So I don't know
I think Putin had to stop Ukraine from joining NATO.
US and NATO are way out of line. And Ukraine... their gvt are idiots, cold towards their peopke
And have been.
I don't like Putin, but he's not the aggressor
I agree mostly, but he is the aggressor. You can also choose to *not* invade a country and cause innumerable innocent death. Just call me crazy.
Putin is not WEF alumni. This might be the definitive list:
https://plebeianresistance.substack.com/p/all-the-young-global-leaders-from?s=r
I don't know if he supports WEF or not.
Ah, so I'm not the only one to detect some flaws in him. I bailed out early this year, not long after his on-air attack on Malone that seemed rather irrational. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But I decided it was time to leave when he posted about the latest study that trashed Ivermectin. Now I don't take a position one way or the other, but I do fault a man who bills himself as a dedicated journalist, who takes at face value a study that is (likely) funded and staffed by entities with huge conflicts of interest. I'll admit I did not even look at the study, but that is beside the point. I expected Alex would do so, but not a word. Apparently "follow the money" and "Cui bono?" are not taught to journalists? Your comments but validate my decision to part company with Alex.
Fully agree. The IVM reaction reveals Berenson’s scientific illiteracy and naivety, while the pro-Ukraine stance shows a failure to understand Western paranoia, expansionism and scapegoating of Russians.
I even wondered and asked him if he was paid by someone, or if he considered going back to big media. I stay because I paid. Sometimes he has a good article, but I found other outlets lately and will support them.
It is easy to detect the left who have been forced to think logically about the WuFlu.....they normally start out blaming Trump.
Wow. I have the EXACT same story. I kept asking him for an explanation trying to give him a chance and he never responded. 👋
totally agree. One should stick to what one does best, and war reporting is not his
You may be correct about Iraq, I don't recall that. I believe Alex Berenson's focus at the New York Times was on the corruption of Big Pharma and the financial Industry.
Thanks for the update ! I did not know Berenson before I got onto his blog about covid. It is just that the Ukrainian president makes me think of Trump, I guess ! a clown, or a joker at least, totally unprepared to guide a country it seems. And a WEF member just like Ivanka. Lizards everywhere. I don't like Putin who is a former WEF also, but I think the fact that he wants the threat of American bio labs away from his border, and the 2 Russia - oriented provinces at least autonomous, makes sense to me. Of course I know nothing about politics and might be totally wrong!
If Trump was a clown and a failure, then what on earth is Biden? Also, Ivanka Trump having been a WEF young leader doesn’t mean she’s therefore their faithful zombie agent controlling her father or pushing WEF policy. Maybe she did it because her friends did. Putin too; he is now WEF public hate figure number one, in no known way their servant, despite also being a young leader in the past. Lastly, if father Trump were a lizard or puppet, the deep state doing everything to remove him, to block and reverse his policies, to risk all defrauding his reelection, would never have been necessary.
Biden is a marionet. It is very clear that he is not in charge. I do not like either of them. Whoever is in charge is pushing yet more boosters even though it is now clear to many this is not a health question. I wonder how they are going to pressure more people to subject to these dangerous shots
I'm going to guess Putin et al have plenty of their own biolabs in their own country and are developing who knows what to unleash on the world if they feel it suits their purposes. Just a WAG.
I think you can imagine that to be true. There is a map online where all the labs are worldwide. Plenty of them in very crowded arias in Europe. Belgium, Germany, etc. I did not look explicitly at Russia.
Wasn't Putin's mention of biolabs a more recent development; I thought his first rationale had to do with Ukraine joining NATO and neo-Nazis.
The words, today for sure, are as much weapons as his army. Lenin said it first. He also said, long ago and not for propaganda purposes, that Stalin was a great leader and that the dissolution of the USSR was 'illegal.' (for all that illegality might mean to him, but it does assert his priorities.)
Don't you love it when the same people who yelled at media lies for 2 or maybe 5 years are now just believing whatever is coming out of MSM completely? Ghost of Kiev anyone? gell-mann amnesia is right as many are saying
People are so gullible and unable to think it's unbelievable to me.
Isn't it weird that people who fought tooth and nail with the government about the "scamdemic", then turn around and believe in everything espoused by the government with other issues? This dude is a soy boy at best.
Psychosis
Thats why I
dumped him. He's an anomole,very confused and massively headstrong
Gell-Mann is a far more serious "pandemic" than COVID ever had a chance of being.
I was just thinking the same.
Alex Berenson is a plant. He maintains all of the official narratives except vaccine efficacy. He does not even talk about adverse effects. He has attacked and tried to discredit people, including Robert Malone and Joe Rogan. He ridiculed ivermectin using the fraudulent Malaysian study, which is rigged to exclude zinc, and whose real results are the opposite of what is stated. His book is to explain away a globally coordinated genocide with malicious aforethought as if it's just a bunch of mediocre government officials grappling with complex problems.
He is a former New York Times reporter, which means basically an intelligence propagandist. He is a damage mitigator, not a friend.
I was thinking about vaccine efficacy last night, esp Berenson "happy valley".
Bullshit. DO NOT TAKE DEATHVAX.
And now, I am antivaxxer. Totally
Did you see that doctor who propagated the vaxx red pill? He is on youtube all the time but I forgot his name, I only saw that one piece where he wakes up to the Pfizer documents... very interesting. After reading Suzanne Humphries, I am now into Eustace Mullins, Death by injection, which not only covers vaxx but also the medical complot of America, and a lot of stories I have to read in little bits, it is that bad. Not the book. What has been going on in America for over 100 years.
Dr. John Campbell is whom you are referring to, I believe.
Yes, I think it was Dr. Campbell. He almost woke up when he reviewed vitamin D's benefits and questioned why it wasn't being promoted but not quite!
I'm sorry, I'm glad to see this highly educated medical professional getting g a clue, but it's pathetic watching him floundering around while he's doing it. It's just another example as yo how American higher education does everything but teach people how to actually think.
thank you ! That was him indeed
Two substack writers that you should investigate are Jessica Rose and Mathew (that's right: one 't') Crawford. They publish detailed statistical studies related to vaccine damage.
thanks for the tip ! I will check them out
Yup. Ever since the AMA took over.
Not sure, specifically.... I gorge on these videos, so I'm thinking good chance.
Peace
Yes, the "happy valley" is an early stage of a roller coaster ride. This ride will likely have unhappy ends for those who ride it.
God bless you. I so hate this shot.
And it was tested. IT FAILED
Unfortunately it's "succeeding" in its real purpose. The reason the propaganda campaign is now gearing up for jabs #4 and #5 is not because it doesn't work.
It works. Just not for the purpose we are told.
I don't disagree with some aspects of your point, but you are flat out wrong about COVID. If you had read Pandemia, or had just read eugyppius' review that you are now commenting on, you would know that Berenson fought just about every establishment narrative on COVID, including masks and lockdowns. He fought them well before just about anyone else with a voice stood up to fight.
You are also wrong about the vaccines. Berenson has been very vocal about side effects and vaccine injuries and, again, was there ahead of almost any other public figure.
Yes, the man is immature. Yes his hot takes on some political topics are embarrassing. Yes, he has a nasty habit of attacking people who ought to be his allies in a sanctimonious and arrogant way.
IMO he deserves credit for what he has done, credit eugyppius gave generously despite being subjected to petty Berensonian sniping the other day. Even if you can't give credit, though, you ought to have your facts straight on the COVID stuff.
> If you had read Pandemia
I literally have 7 copies, less than 6 feet away. I bought them to give them out, and then I did not. Pandemia is a whitewash, made to distract from RFK Jr's "The Real Anthony Fauci".
> or had just read eugyppius' review
I read it.
> Berenson fought just about every narrative on COVID, including masks and lockdowns
Masks are obviously ineffective. They are obviously about psychological submission. Lockdowns are obviously for the economic destruction of society. They impoverish the middle class, enrich and empower the largest corporations, and make everyone dependent on the state.
Here too, Berenson argues the "ineffectiveness" of these measures. This is defending the people behind them, because he makes it out as if the reason is stupidity. He does not expose how these measures have been very effective in their REAL intent, and discredits those who point it out.
> Berenson has been very vocal about side effects and vaccine injuries
Point me to these mystery articles. I've been a paid subscriber almost as long as he's been on Substack, and somehow missed all this. Somehow, all Alex can muster is "vaccine happy valley".
Meanwhile, Steve Kirsch generates entire volumes of compelling evidence on vaccine harm:
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/
> Even if you can't give credit, though, you ought to have your facts straight
How about this, then: you are a propagandist, too. No reasonable person defends a pillar of propaganda with such rhetoric and gusto, unless they're damage mitigators, also.
Please rethink your entire life. What you're working for is anti-human. It's to annihilate life.
I'm not going to reply to most of this; by and large, it speaks for itself.
However, I thought it would be fun to accept your challenge. I said Berenson has been very vocal about side effects and vaccine injuries to which you replied "Point me to these mystery articles".
Challenge accepted. Now, I am lazy, so I'm not going to look very hard. But here are the ones I found just going back less than a month, to Feb 23, referencing vaccine injury or side effects, including the side effect of possibly making people more vulnerable to COVID infection and/or death:
1. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/area-man-who-suffers-life-damaging
2. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-covid-infections-in-britain
3. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/suffer-the-children
4. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/resending-urgent-mrna-shots-raise
5. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/hey-remember-how-they-told-you-the
6. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/vaccine-damage-caseworkers-a-growth
7. https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-a-german-insurance-database
Like I said, I wasn't willing to put in much effort so that was just from browsing back to Feb. 23. If you are willing to put in more effort, say by going back further or just reading the new articles as they come out, you might find a few of your own.
I also highly recommend Berenson's Kindle booklet on the vaccines. It is superior to what he wrote in Pandemia and covers vaccine injury more thoroughly. I was, frankly, disappointed with the Pandemia chapter on the vaccines, as I understand eugyppius to have been. In Pandemia he just refers to the booklet and quotes some tiny part of it, no original material, and not even the best parts from the booklet.
I stand by what I said previously. You should get your facts straight, and I recommend you do this before you try to slap the label of "propagandist" on anyone else. It's a bad look to combine name calling with being badly uninformed.
Yes, full points for fighting on all those fronts but you have to admit that the ego is trying.
I do admit that!
I hope you're right.
I can't account for Alex's blind spots but all seem to have them. I enjoyed the exposition in Pandemia and agree it's a solid well researched book and quite readable.
I feel quite comfortable disagreeing with my true friends and this pandemic has enlightened me about some former friends. Alex is not a personal friend but a reliable voice over many matters.
It is very hard to cover everything at once. I think even Berenson's view points will change over time. Every day new grub comes up, that he did not know yet. I do not like his war stories, but the blog about covid kind of saved me. I thought I was the only one to see what was going on and darn afraid LOL
I have had similar thoughts. While I'm too lazy to take his Pandemia off the shelf, as I recall, it is basically a reformatted Twitter feed (His) account of the pandemic, with the occasional helping of a news article and a slice of his very important personal life (like the off-limits playground.) Yep, this is "Metro' section stuff, not investigative journalism. Unless I missed it, there is very little about the international cooperation from the beginning, the known US involvement in the Wuhan lab, the likely origin of the virus, conflicts of interest in FDA and other government, Gates et al. deep state (intelligence agencies), the international links. A lot of this stuff is not even secret, and was knowable even in 2020. I knew some of it. Much of it (a lot!) appears in RFK Jr. Fauci book.
I agree with your analysis. While I like "Pandemia", it is nowhere near the equal of RFK Jr.'s "Fauci." Berenson is at best a washed up NYT hack trading on some past successes, at worst a paid scribe to hidden agencies, likely the above named entities.
I'm an atheist, but Jesus was very insightful when he said that you could tell a tree by its fruit.
I did the Kindle and agree with the rework of his pamphlets and twitter. RFK's book is stellar and should be a wake-up call that will be studiously ignored because it attacks too many sacred cows.
The mess that our government has become as all this stuff gets revealed is troublesome. Not sure a string of Trump types have a chance at a rebuild. But usually things that can't continue forever will end. That so many have allowed themselves to be so corrupted is tragic. Truth arrives whatever it may mean.
I lost most of my affection for Berenson when he bizarrely went after Malone, but even so you may be a little harsh in your assessment here. I think of him more as narcissistic than malicious, but maybe I am wrong.
In any event you are right in the middle of the bullseye with TRAF. That is the one book to read about this Covid craziness (indeed, it is the one book to read if you want to find out what happened to Western health care). If required reading was enforceable by law (who knows? maybe that is coming) then TRAF should be the first thing on that list.
Quite possible. They know that we are not all stupid and they need to throw the more aware among us some juicy to placate us. However, even people with blinders can get a glimpse. Hard to know which it is.
Fascinating post you made
It is easy to detect the left who have been forced to think logically about the WuFlu.....they normally start out blaming Trump.
Trump has much to explain on invoking military to deliver DEATHVAX
Typical…Fauci, Soros, Gates, our military, etc,etc,etc are building facilities, funding and financing the production of deadly viruses, under the pseudo name of gain of function, well before Trump even enters office and it is Trumps fault.
Alex Jones talks about general in Louisiana that he alleged was very heavy handed and could be taken off the shelf.
Do you support Trump in invoking military?
Btw, I generally more conservative than most Republicans....
Democrats are baby killers
Gop are cowards, generally
So this and this alone is what I am talking about
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M5O4bZ842qU
Fauci et al should face NUREMBERG trials
All that I see in your YouTube video is a President that is relying on the so called top health experts in our government and reacting to what they are telling him needs to be done to fight the deadly virus. They convinced him the mRNA vaccines were safe. They were lying to him about everything, including the safety about the injections. Not just lying about the injections, but they were the people behind making the deadly virus in the first place. Question.....who could he have turn to get second opinion? You are taking using the military to help get the mRNA injections to the public as quickly as possible totally out of context. Sorry you still sound like a typical lefty...with it it all Trumps fault. You sound like an Alex echo.
I wasn't talking about that at all.... 5 min for link
I think it has more to do with him being a Jewish New York City liberal. That's a dangerous level of hubris with all three.
Irish Catholic New Yorkers are the best... of course, there are almost zero Catholics left after Vatican II.
NYC Jews are freaken hilarious.... Great sense of humor. I love em
Those thoughts have crossed my mind too.
Thank you. Oh, that's not for me.
Key word being "yesterday". Impeccable timing don't you think. No such thing as bad publicity. If you know what I mean. And I think you do ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-promotion
I've been working on this review off and on for two weeks and announced it was upcoming in postscript to my Tuesday post, before Berenson posted anything about me.
He linked to your review today, and was pretty magnanimous about it. In a good way, I thought. I wasn't going to buy the book but based on your review I think I will. I'm in the US, where we tend to be pretty insular, and it was fascinating to read the European take on things.
I bought it, read it, and found it helpful in my context in Canada where very few ‘normies’ were, indeed are, prepared to question the narrative
The USA is inside a Thermos? 🤡
You laugh, but actually I looked it up in the dictionary first to make sure it was an appropriate use :)
What other folks do is about who they are and Alex is a stereo-type Upper Manhattan creature w New York Times ink in their veins. They relish their name recognition and flaunt their self importance in countless petty perks as if getting a table at la-di-da de jour validates their own egomaginary status. It doesn't diminish the value of the work but it's nicer when it's not in spite of the character.
Very true - although Alex calling Eugyppius an intellectual heavyweight was alright!
Indeed it was and an accurate, well earned compliment but it was given in the self serving spirit of elevating someone praising Alex's book and stroking his ego, not a magnanimous gesture.
You might be right about Alex's ego, but you might be wrong too.
😀🤙🏻
Ah, the irony.
I like that we can all disagree without all the hysterics. Anytime I read something online I always try to dial down the intensity of what is said by 20-40% due to the nets' obvious communication limitations that seem to push everyone into emotionally laden text and tone.
It was instantly clear to me that this review involved analysis and insight unlikely to have come together overnight (even quicker with time difference?). The summarizing, analysis and orthogonal insights (especially the penultimate paragraph) reminded me of the latter half of the last century when a book review from the New York Review of Books, or perhaps even one by Virginia Woolf, might be the best thing read in one's day.
Your taking (and maintaining) the high road and his coming undone speaks for itself. Sure feels like lots more are going to fall by the wayside. The strong survive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwi8Y0UVJgI
😉 discernment
I trust Eugyppius
I don't trust anybody. This whole pandemic has been a great learning experience in that way.
Wrong.
You make assessments of people. .
You must reassess, but if I see a statement by Fauci or Psaki, False pope francis, I'm going to treat it differently than a statement by Mary Holland, Eugyppius or my Catholic priest.
If one of 2nd group goes to dark side, I'll know it soon enough thru other information.
You can't operate the way you do, starting from ground zero every day
Leaving aside the condescending tone of your reply, I guess I should've said "I don't trust anybody as an absolute authority."
Yes, you should have said that.
Some people in some situations need a condescending reply.
You didn't, and I didn't give you one.
When I'm condescending you'll know it
To John Raymond- So, when you disagree with someone, you simply say they’re ‘wrong’. Then you go on to tell them to think and do the same as you. I can only assume you think you’re right about everything. Kind of obnoxious.
lol then you are a dumb fool
Machival - due to the format here, I can’t determine who your comment is meant for...?
Lol ?.. is this 7th grade?
Yes, I try to trust evidence and not sources or people. This is thinking for oneself. Different sources can be truthful sometimes, but not others.
I'm good at some things, but I cannot discern all subjects.
Most evidence comes from people
Mysterious ways... You will trust again, but it will be next level wisdom.
I trust a handful of people, who IMO have earned that trust. I think they're all on Substack. I pay for the content of some of them (hey, I don't have a money tree). eugyppius is in that pay list.
I trust NO ONE in government nor in the alphabet legacy media. AFAIK, I mean that literally.
I have worked for the government most of my life...I am mid level, because of my education and certifications... I will never go further.
I will never be given any leadership role, even a minor one...
I speak my mind
I told my mgnt day after Biden stated mandate for DEATHVAX:
You'll have to replace me, I'm not taking so called "vaccine"
Not everyone in government is evil.... who do you think they are purging?
I didn't say they're *all* evil. But plenty are.
IMO there are far more UNLIKE you in government than like you in government. Since I can't possibly know everyone in government, and given the government's (or governments', to mean federal AND state) incompetence, dishonesty, and authoritarianism/totalitarianism of the past 2 years, the smart play is to trust no one in government. So I do. Trust no one in government.
You said you trusted no one in government.
You didn't call them evil, correct.
Counting hairs here, Donny?
So, you might need someone in gvt...
A gvt whistleblower might come to project veritas...
Should they slam the door in his face?
I don't trust people. I trust facts.
Ot, I hopeI willbeforgiven, enjoy
https://www.bitchute.com/video/UYzX2nICs0jg/
Thank you so much for this link. So REFRESHING!
CHECK IT OUT
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Q8fdL0GCzPgI/
THANK YOU!
There's another rock anti vax song....
Ahhhhhh. I lost link...
It's on par!
But I don't know you, so I neither trust nor distrust you *personally*.
However, if you were to make some official statement in your capacity in government, I wouldn't trust it. Not because it's from *you*, but because it's coming from a government official. And government officials have discredited the entire lot of you folks.
That's unfortunate, because of course there are some trustworthy people in government. But not enough to give any government official the benefit of the doubt.
So, I will objective truth about myself...
I don't care if you believe it or not.
I have already said elsewhere, you should assess each person, make judgment of their reliability, and continually assess.
That served me well in not taking kill shot... I Basically trust CHD in their desire to give truthful info. I give them benefit of doubt. I do reject vehemently some things they said.
Yday, and today, I begin to believe Berenson might be unethical on vaccine effectiveness... currently being debated in my mind...
So on me... I wouldn't lie to you. Don't care if you believe or not.
My grave faults lie elsewhere
You can trust a medical doctor or religious person more than me, but some of those are hired prostitutes of Pfizer.
You're piviloting...
Only a small percentage of gvt make official statements
No kidding. Obviously that's who I'm talking about. Government officials making official statements for me to trust or not trust.
The payroll clerk for the tri-state New England area at DHHS isn't in a position to do or say something for me to trust or not trust.
I tend to think so too. My kids are pro at getting attention by being antagonistic.
Good for them. You could have fun with that
Yes, that's right. And I immediately took him up on his offer. Until I thought of something more catchy, I had changed my profile here to "I wouldn't piss on Alex Berenson if he were on fire." 😁
Berenson attacked Eugyppius? I'm in the dark on this as I stopped paying attention to Berenson after he threw Joe Rogan under the bus for saying Die Enword.
Best I can describe it is he wrote a mild hit-piece after the Big EuG. said he was about to review Pandemia. Given Berenson's history (e.g. Malone) of throwing his Covid "competitors" under the bus, and his Gell-Mann Amnesia in regards to trusting the same lunatics he hates on Covid on Ukraine, you have a "funny duck".
"Trust but verify" is all I can tell you. That includes myself.
Bizarre. Reminds me of Trump's political advisor Stephen Miller sabotaging any and all allies in the administration so he could be the lone "immigration hawk." Insanely self-defeating, but not if ego-stroking is your sole goal.
Actually, the spell has NOT been broken in the west. Perhaps in the USA somewhat, sadly not in Canada. In Europe, I thought that the British 'government partying while everyone was in lockdown scandal' had a lot to do with it as did omicron's mildness. Canadian truckers went a long way here to knock down mandates, but I as an unvaxxed person am still unable to leave my country: not allowed on planes, trains, ships; US border closed to the unvaxxed.
Dude, you're a damn genius.
Colleges still making best and brightest line up for Russian roulette. Bastards.
Berenson has performed a service by highlighting the insanity that was our institutional response to Covid but he is betrayed by his solipsism. This is unfortunate since he can be a good reporter when he can keep his ego in a cage.
NGL, this is one of the best comments I have ever read on Substack. If I could give you 100 updoots, I would.
Too kind. :)
Put this in context. Are you being dishonest? Comment to baboon
I was going too with his ivermectin piece, but the day after he had a good one and I am a paying subscriber, so I will see where he goes. I am not intended to subscribe a second year though. Lots of other interesting stuff is available, like The Expose and Epoch news
Alex is a capsule lesson in why (perhaps) the monthly subscription is the wiser choice. 🙂
Sometimes we have to take the good with the bad!
Baboon hasn't given the full quote
I don't care either.
I don't like dishonesty... I am asking baboon to give full context to see if he was being dishonest, because I don't remember full quote
As usual ... Eugyppius is fair and methodical (despite Berenson trashing him the other day)
I'd say truly gracious--generous hearts are rare at any time but in this Plague Era...
I also took exception to a recent Eugyppius post. No matter. I can think as I wish and so can he. Looking at an issue through different eyes helps my understanding as I question why I might believe something. Few of us can be completely objective about anything, try as we might.
Agree GT!
Did Berenson ever recant his absolutely baseless attack on Robert Malone? He made it right at a potential tipping point when McCollough and Malone had just been on Rogan, and all skeptical voices should have been united.
When given the opportunity, he doubled down on his attack, making laughably false points, and I unsubscribed from his substack at that point.
As far as I saw before I gave up on him, he tripled down on attacking Malone.
Nah, I cancelled but my subscription doesn’t expire for a while - he doubled down. Then switched to believing war propaganda. Now he flounders between being gullible to any story on Ukraine and calling out lies on Covid. 🤦♀️🤷♀️
That was really mystifying.
I forgave him. I considered it part of the obsessive drive that led Alex to dig so deeply into the official statistics, the history of the mRNA therapy, and the science behind it in order to inform us objectively early in the mass panic. It's possible that Dr. Malone might have exaggerated his credentials, slightly, but I can forgive that, too, since he seemed to have as good a claim as anyone to being the "inventor" of mRNA therapy. But I could see how Alex, deep into his dive into the science, might be worried that someone else may use it to discredit Dr. Malone, and, by association, Alex and the other 'rona dissidents'.
Although my experience with Malone to date are his more famous videos and a few articles, I find it amusing when a critic accuses him of being invovled with secret government projects He is completely open about his past and present contacts, including with some I'd never heard of (DTRA, I think). Might he have worked on things in the past that he can't publicly discuss? Absolutely. That is common in such lines of work. Just because he (say) consulted on some hush-hush study at one time, does not make him an agent. As with anyone, we should not take anything on faith. In my book, he has a lot more credibility than most folks, however. If Dr. Malone ever tells us how grand the mRNA vaccines are, and that we must learn to love Big Brother, it may be time to re-evaluate. 😄
I track most of the COVID authors. Alex is imperfect -- but aren't we all? I have no idea what personal tiff he has with Malone, and neither does any commenter here. Do i wish he did not use his bully pulpit to pursue that distraction? Of course. But that misses the point.
As Eugyppius correctly points out, Alex has a far larger platform than most and has mostly used it for good and right reasons. At a time when speakers-that-can-be-heard on this important topic are few and far between, religious tests on every last point are the last thing we need.
Alex is thoughtful and generally correct -- but surely not always correct. Pandemia is an excellent book and I, too, recommend it (I gave away 20 copies as Christmas presents, together with Unmasked by Ian Miller). He is one of those valuable voices in a struggle that few were willing to take on when he did. That fact matters.
I applaud Eugyppius for giving credit where credit is due (nihilism isn't exactly a slur...although probably not the right choice of words) and urge all of us interested in making progress in exposing the idiocy/evil of the established system and reinforcing the truth to not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
My sentiments exactly. Not sure why those who decided Alex has now become a super protagonist in these SubStack dramas feel it necessary to attack him. I didn't agree with him then or now but I remain interested in his viewpoint. We can follow and support those who appeal to us personally. What others do is not my concern.
"Corona is ending, but I very much fear that the crazy is just getting started." That is the golden question that I keep asking myself. How do we prevent this again?
Berenson is great because he is honest. I feel that way too many people nowadays cater to their audience, and he does not.
I don't always agree with him, but what is the point of reading somebody that you always agree with.
My only issue with this book is that it feels like an autobiography of a 23 year old. I fear the covid circus is not over and therefore it feels wrong to read books that are looking back on it.
In Alcoholics Anonymous there's a saying that could equally be applied to partial enlightenment about the Covid-19 p[l]andemic: "The monkey is off my back, but the circus is still in town." 🤡🙊
Wonderful review, so well done and informative.
As an American who never joined Twitter, I had missed Alex and the "team reality" cohort entirely. I only discovered Alex after seeing other substack users reading him, so followed without paying, but by fall 2021 I was reading dozens of people on Substack, plus the NYT, WaPo, FT, etc, etc - so his voice hadn't really stood out to me (and I generally focus on reading from those I disagree with anyway).
When the "Rogan Hysteria" hit in January, I decided to check out his interview with Malone, and as I was scrolling noticed he had Berenson on a few weeks earlier, and decided to give that a quick go just to orient myself with Rogans style and see what Berenson had to say.
I stuck with the whole 3 hour interview (intention to listen for 10 minutes or), never making it to the Malone interview, and promptly paid the $300 "founder fee" to Alex with a quick note letting him know I appreciated the fact that we would say "I don't know" in the course of that interview. That in itself is the rarest quality in our Covid media punditry class.
My only wish is that Berenson can move from cynic to skeptic. I also hope if he gets back his Twitter account he doesn't rejoin. I felt his effort was better spent on Pandemia.
If his lawsuit breaks Twitter and others must fall inline, any compensation he earns is minimal compared to the public benefit. It's a difficult adventure and my hopes go to getting disclosure wrung out of Twitter. If that shows government is using these platforms to control speech in a direct way, the platforms will be required to stop censoring speech as an agent of government. I fear the lawsuit may not get to discovery given the stakes.
Yeah, now I’m the cynic. No way it progresses in any meaningful way. I assume he gets a “too good to be true” settlement and reinstated before anything gets disclosed.
Likely Twitter's way out. But Berenson seems a suitably angry person who may still be honest. There is some emotion there. OTOH, there are some awfully powerful folk behind Door 2.
Hmmm...interesting "conspiracy angle" theory. Pay off the troublemaker. He agrees to update his topics to be more....compatible....with what Current Orthodoxy wishes. (e.g. Ivermectin, now Ukraine). Perhaps get Twitter account back after they settle with "undisclosed" terms. No discovery, no need to mention the elephant in the room -- of course it's back door censorship to aid the Deep State, the evidence fairly screams at one....here's a recent piece on just that topic:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nyt-now-admits-biden-laptop-falsely-called-russian-disinformation-authentic
Nothing to see here folks. This was all explained by Russian agents tricking Hunter Biden into accepting a laptop salted with disinformation, which he left for repair in a computer shop, years before the story broke. The PC went unclaimed, and the owner legally took ownership of it. A total intelligence set-up, yessiree!
Win-win for the Deep State. Twitter gets off lightly. No need for "discovery" which might show inconvenient consultations with government. Deep State keeps its gate keepers fully operational, Alex fattens his bank account. Maybe redecorate the place. Start a nice college fund for his kids. Everybody's happy. The only casualty? The truth, justice, freedom, etc.
It's funny, I too got Covid very early (the end of Feb / start of March), and I too was very sick with it—I have asthma, and at times could not even fill my lungs with air. But I am a statistician who used to specialise in health economics, so despite this awful experience I was never a Covid hysteric, because every piece of actual evidence already suggested from the very beginning what we now know to be true: that it is a nasty virus, just as flu is nasty, but no more than that.
I like your recollection because you admit that you were wrong. What I cannot stand is those who pretend that they were right to panic at the beginning, even after they have realised that it was unnecessary. No, the actual evidence ALWAYS signalled that Covid is no worse than flu. That was clear to me and to many others from the beginning.
Great review, I enjoyed reading Alex's book too... Perhaps it was the symbolic nature of the mask over the mouth, or the visual factor to remind people there's a "pandemic" going on, or possibly the discomfort factor to make people uncomfortable until taking the jab, but (at least here in the US) the masks were a slippery slope to compliance and economic misery.
And a wonderfully visual indicator of your political leanings.
And that is the real shame of our pandemic response. Once Nancy decided that his dismissal of the mask could be turned against him, the die was cast. I always viewed mask wearing as a talisman and a group signal that the pandemic was serious business. Remarks like that managed to get be suspended or removed from certain platforms as a spreader of misinformation. Ian Miller's constant posting of data comparables affirmed my research but the data had to arrive. I still imagine disagreeing about masks is off limits despite all the obvious data.
Making the pandemic part of the political world has not helped our response and delayed critical examination of real data about the effectiveness of HCQ or IVM, still, today, now. Political gain at what cost to the public?
I was really impressed with Berenson at the beginning of the pandemic. He asked all the right questions like an investigative reporter with a good background in the medical industry should. He was fearless and dogged and his sharp tone broke through a lot of the nonsense. But that stubbornness and ego can also be a hindrance when it comes to team sports and even downright annoying.
But he is right, the George Floyd brouhaha in the US absolutely highlighted the sheer lunacy of the lockdowns. For politicians to openly claim that the protestors would be somehow immune, as compared to the rest of us, was just the right level of preposterousness to encourage more vocal debate. This very day, I’m sitting in an office in NY with a useless mask which is required and they still wipe everything down with alcohol (even though the CDC’s own study showed only a one in 10,000 chance of contracting COVID from a surface). It’s just the weirdest thing to see NYers vacation in FL without a mask, fly back here and become donkeys all over again. There is a rumor, though, that the NY Governor is in jeopardy- the Republican candidate stands a reasonable chance of winning- which is really amazing!
Our governor called genuinely peaceful reopen protestors “grandma killers” only to join BLM protestors 10 days later with his mask under his chin........ Covid ended for our family that day (and in fairness we were actually in Hilton Head because we’d served our 2 weeks plus some and had cabin fever 😂).
I can’t write worth a crap… I am thankful for the writers, whether I agree with them or not. Eugyppius, whether you are a nihilist or not (per Berensen) , keep writing away! A beacon of light in this dark time has been a Godsend. ☮️
So grateful to read you were at first a "Corona hysteric."
I wasn't a hysteric but I was cautious, and being retired, having a beautiful country view from my small-city window, and dreading any possibility of becoming a burden to my adult child, I was quite comfortable indulging all my worst habits of just staying home and having fun with my hobbies.
I'm a regularly-published letters-to-the-editor writer to my regional paper, and was disconcerted to see, in reviewing my files, that I'd written forcefully in favor of masking in August 2020. In January 2022 I wrote even more forcefully (excoriatingly!) against the masking of our children anywhere. Fuck the grownups, but the willful destruction of the lives of children gets me wild-eyed.
But I did feel ashamed to have so easily believed the masking nonsense. (I didn't believe the vax nonsense ever and fortunately am not in a position to be compelled or coerced. But loved ones are and that's a grief to me.) It's a relief to know that someone of your intelligence, perception and analytical strengths believed some of that early crap too.
Pandemia review: Excellent. I've been sorry to see how easily Berenson sabotages himself by a sort of neurotic over-excess in his then-permitted Twitter feed and Substack postings. Makes him too easy to mock by those wishing to decredit him. (And I was really sorry for how he went after you for your Ukraine analysis. I think it's hard for him, having been so early a skeptic on COVID, to have to share the truth-telling universe with others. But he is human after all and has lost all his Before Time social and collegial relationships and that's hard. A need to be the smartest one in the room works against a measured temperament.)
For me, before Alex, or any of the books you mention, (and I agree with your list, except I also would want to add The Great Covid Panic), wthere was the book by Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi and his wife, "Corona False Alarm?"
One of the key differences I think between Europeans and Americans is that a vast number of Americans have is distrust of the national government. We just want them to go away and leave us alone. One of the oldest jokes in politics is:
How can you tell if a politician is lying?
Punch line:
His mouth is moving.
In my best moments I distrust Washington politicians, at my worst I despise them.
I wish Canadians were less gullible. We're far more naive and obedient than Europeans it turns out. And insufferably arrogant about it. I learned to truly despise politicians. public health officials, epidemiologists and infectious disease TV diner experts. I saw a side of Canada I really wish I wasn't witness to. I thought we were more stable and stronger than this. And Quebec - wow. The worst in the West.
It is a blind spot (or weakness, if you want to be cruel) of nice people. As one of my old friends from my investment banking days once said to me: "You know, it is only the middle class that believes in playing by the rules. The poor know that the rules just screw them over and the rich know that they make the rules for their own benefit, but the middle class thinks the rules are fair and should be followed." After what I had seen in finance, I had to concede that my friend had it right.
Yes, I think this is a fair comment. Many, if not most, (central/northern) Europeans still entertained the good-willed belief that at least the bureaucrats, scientists, academics, etc. of our democracies were competent and would temper the worst excesses of our politicians or presstitutes. Sadly, and as Eugyppius has often pointed out, the intellectual rot extends quite deeply and transcends disciplines and myriad sectors. I am reminded of Joseph Tainter's theory of the useful limits of complexity.
I am a former subscriber to Berenson, but I did the 1 year deal so have a few more months to run out
Alex did a really good job to do the ground work digging up all the inconsistencies and uselessness of covid policies and sounded the alarm on the vaccines, probably earlier than anyone else I think. I think he also was on the vanguard of the lab-leak theory but I honestly can't recall
What has happened over the past 6-12 months is that many more names & personalities have come forward and created crowding and competition in the "skeptic space". These include people like Robert Malone, Peter McCollough, and substacks such as Eugyppius, Bad Cattitude, and many many more
Alex has responded somewhat badly to this change - since he is basically just a journalist and doesn't actually have any background, the rise of the "expert skeptic" seems to have rubbed him the wrong way. A good barometer is the various Joe Rogan podcasts - he had Berenson, McCollough and Malone on, and the absolute shitstorm was for the latter 2. Nobody cared about Alex on Rogan, and I think he knows it.
But Covid policies are changing and the tide of battle has shifted. I wish he would accept the win, and the role he played in it, and realize that he can't be at the center of it all the time
Of the books I've read about covid - pandemia didn't really land that solidly for me. I more or less forget about it a few days afterwards. Maybe if he had released it many months earlier it would have been different.
I also find it self serving that he is day-in-and-day-out plugging his book. Makes me wonder.
Books that really impacted me and stuck with me were State of Fear (Laura Dodsworth), and Viral (Alina Chan, Matt Ridley).
I think I want to review State of Fear too, though I excluded it from my miniature catalogue of dissident monographs b/c the focus seemed a little tight – likewise Viral.
Did you have the chance to read The Real Anthony Fauci? If so, I would be curious as to why it may not have impressed. If not, I recommend it.
With respect to your comments on Berenson, they are perceptive. Berenson did a fine job, something for which everyone should be grateful. But he has a lot of company now, including a bunch of very smart cookies (Steve Kirsch, Malone, McCullough, Jessica Rose, Mathew Crawford), so he is not alone on the stage anymore. Which probably hurts.
I have the fauci book on my kindle but didn't get around to reading it. I've heard it's a hell of a read
Yes, indeed. For me, it was a revelation. Easily one of the best non-fiction books I have read.
I have a 7h flight in a few days and will make a point to re-start it. Cheers,