Summary: This month’s hot undernews concerns the small epidemic in Ukraine, said to be caused by release of the California Flu from a US research lab. Here we do the usual diagnostic, tracing the story from its origin as propaganda by rebels to its appearance as exciting news on popular websites. How many people have come to believe this story? We have to do better if we’re to regain control of America.
“DPR Defense Ministry: Situation Report” posted by the Donbass International News Agency (DNI News), 22 January 2016 — Press release by Eduard Basurin, Vice-Commander of the Defence Ministry Corps of the Donetsk Peopleโs Republic (rebels in eastern Ukraine). Money paragraph (bold in original)…
“According to the medical personnel of the AFU {Armed Forces units of the Ukraine} there wereย recorded mass diseases among the Ukrainian military personnel in the field. Physicians recorded the unknown virus as a result of which the infected get the high fever which cannot be subdues by any medicines, and in two days there comes the fatal outcome. Thus far from the virus there have died more than twenty servicemen, what is carefully shielded by the commandment of the AFU from the publicity.”
The next I see is “Deadly virus leaked from US laboratory in Donbass – DPR Army and Intelligence“, also posted by DNI News, 22 January 2016. It adds more detail.
“More than 20 Ukrainian soldiers have died and over 200 soldiers are hospitalized in a short period of time because of new and deadly virus, which is immune to all medicines. Donetsk People’s Republic intelligence has reported that Californian Flu is leaked from the same place where research of this virus has been carried out. The laboratory is located near the city of Kharkov and its base for US military experts.ย Information from threatening epidemic is announced by Vice-Commander of Donetsk Army, Eduard Basurin.”
The story was picked up by several dozen websites. It hit the big time rumor-mill with “US Unleashing Deadly Virus in Donbass, Ukraine?” by Stephen Lendman (bio here) at the Center for Research onย Globalization, on January 24. Lendman reports as fact this propaganda from the Russia-backed rebels (the Donetsk People’s Republic has not been recognized by any nation).
Other websites re-broadcast the story, including some overseas — such as “20 Dead, 200 Hospitalized After US Lab ‘Leaks’ Deadly Virus In Ukraine” posted by Macedonian International News Agency on January 25. The story hit the major leagues when Zero Hedge posted “20 Dead, 200 Hospitalized After Reports US Lab ‘Leaks’ Deadly Virus In Ukraine” on Jan 25. With that boost it became a clickbait extravaganza.
What is the Californian Flu?
There is no “California Flu”. The term came from hysterics during the 2009 pandemic caused by the H1N1/09 virus form of swine flu Influenza A virus subtype H1N1, one strain of which was found in California: A/California/07/2009 (H1N1). Learn about it here. The best known mention of it was by President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko…
โUnlike similar epidemics in other countries, three causes of serious viral infections came together simultaneously in Ukraine โ two seasonal flus and the Californian flu. Virologists conclude that this combination of infections may produce an even more aggressive new virus as a result of mutation.โ {Source: Daily Express.}
Today Ukraine’s Healthcare Minister Oleksandr Kvitashvili declared a flu epidemic in the Ukraine, resulting from several influenza viruses — including the “swine flu”. It’s a commonplace event during winter. There are no mentions by reliable sources of US bioengineering the “Californian Flu”, let alone using it in the Ukraine.
Why we know so little, and much of that is wrong
“A good researcher should not be afraid to change his mind; he should not feel desperate because his comforting beliefs leave him as soon as he begins to think critically. ”
— Jacques Vallรฉe in Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers
(1993).
Any regular reader of comments on the internet soon realizes that Americans are often grossly misinformed (but confidently so), although the internet puts the accumulated knowledge of humanity at our fingerprints.ย Exploring this is a favorite subject of public opinion polls. Why do we know so much that is not so?
We can only guess at such things, but there is evidence. Look at the successful websites (massive audiences, generating serious advertising income) that provide junk information. The internet overflows with myth masquerading as fact. Such as Zero Hedge — a model publisher for 21st C America. Perhaps we consume so much misinformation for the same reason we consume so much junk food: because we enjoy it. We won’t pay for news and it is expensive to produce, so these rapidly growing clickbait vendors might become the info titans of the 21st Century.
Doing so makes so if we consume the information not as citizens but as bored consumers looking for titillation. Misinformation has no consequences if we don’t apply it. But the more we consume, the less able we are to govern ourselves.
Learning to sort fact from fable is a necessary skill for the Information Age.
- Learning skepticism, an essential skill for citizenship in 21st century America.
- Remembering is the first step to learning. Living in the now is ignorance.
- Swear allegiance to the truth as a step to reforming America.
For More Information
Please like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and post your comments โ because we value your participation. For more information see all posts information and disinformation, and especially these about baseless rumorsโฆ
- Todayโs hot rumor: Fiskโs story about a conspiracy to wreck the US dollar — Zero Hedge was on the story!
- We are ignorant because we enjoy being lied to. Today we look at lies about the US debt.
- Another example of the โitโs on the Internet so it must be trueโ fail: Zero Hedge.
- My favorite: The North Pole is now a lake! Are you afraid yet?
- Answer to โWhy Has The Government Stopped Reporting Lake Mead Water Levels?โ — Another Zero Hedge special!
- Martin van Creveld looks at the propaganda fog that covers modern war.
Reblogged this on The Grey Enigma.
Reblogged this on Remember The 14 Words..
I have found that most rumors that post the same story come from one source that is endlessly repeated as truth. KNOW your sources! Blow them apart. Most people want to believe in them because they think they’re catching the “elites” in action. It upsets these folks to find out not every thing is a conspiracy.
Thank you for the awesome quote! I’ll use that. The Keynes quote I often cite (as “attributed) is probably fake: “When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?”
Thank you, that’ll be a dollar. Haha! In searching your quote I found this:
Meanwhile, the new book โSafety Netโ by James K. Glassman hangs its introduction on Keynesโ supposed riposte to one of his critics who accused him of being a flip-flopper: โWhen the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?โ Hedge-fund managers Whitney Tilson and Glenn Tongue invoked the same quotation this week to explain why they are no longer shorting Netflix. (A Google search on this purported bit of Keynespeak turns up around 441,000 hits.)
Thereโs just one problem with both these quotations: No one can point to a primary source proving that Keynes ever uttered them.
http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2011/02/11/keynes-he-didnt-say-half-of-what-he-said-or-did-he/
Just source it as anonymous. It’s a great one whoever said it.
Use of misattributed or bogus quotes is commonplace. For example, top-ranked military journals appear seldom to check quotes.
To check them I recommend The Quote Investigator website — see their entry for this Keynes quote — or Wikiquote. I’ve never found either to be in error.
Reblogged this on HIDDEN IN PLAIN SITE and commented:
See my comment below.
Reblogged this on Kerberos616.
Thanks for the link, I will use it often.
Reblogged this on The Fourth Revolutionary War.
You don’t believe this report, do you? The only source is the propaganda arm of Putin’s puppet regime in occupied Ukraine.
John,
“You donโt believe this report, do you?”
Please read the post and you will find your answer. Even if you only read the summary at the top.