Doesn’t matter what the truth is. Decide your narrative then push fake news out there to support it. Most people don’t read below the headline. Most people won’t do the fact check. So just push it out there, and get more on your side.
Case in point, James Woods. He posted a picture of world pandemics, from visual capitalist.com, with circles added (he doesn’t say who by) labelled “originated in China”, but almost all are wrong.
LEFT is what Woods tweeted with all those circles what are alleged to be the China source of historical pandemics. 16 out of 20 allegedly Chinese.
Here is my spreadsheet, screenshot, of each of the pandemics mentioned above. I’m no epidemiologist, no expert, any more than Woods is. I have a penchant for getting it right, is all.... We’re all experts now, so go ahead and fact check my fact check. Happy to update where I’m wrong....
Yersinia Pestis caused the Black Death and all the later Plagues according to the peer-reviewed and widely cited article in PlosPathogens, of October 7, 2010, edited by University of Notre Dame, USA, available here. The initial Black Death plague from the Caspian Sea, brought the plague TO China, not from it.
“Spanish Flu”. This originated in either the UK or the US. We still don’t know. It spread around the end of WW1. But the Brits, French and other allies suppressed news of it so as “not to cause mass panic” (Sound familiar?). Only Spain allowed free news of it to emerge. And so it became known as the “Spanish Flu”. Ironic, right?
But do we really want to go where Woods is going? To argue that because China was (allegedly! and wrongly!) the source of all these pandemics, then they have to be demonised? Is that useful? Doesn’t that invite “whataboutism”? What about all the killing of indigenous people, by white folk, most notoriously in America by the Spaniards and the British (aka “Americans”)? Or of indigenous Australians by the British (aka “Australians”)? Or of the millions of Chinese, killed by British Opium? Bought from its other colony in India? Whatabout?
Case in point, James Woods. He posted a picture of world pandemics, from visual capitalist.com, with circles added (he doesn’t say who by) labelled “originated in China”, but almost all are wrong.
LEFT is what Woods tweeted with all those circles what are alleged to be the China source of historical pandemics. 16 out of 20 allegedly Chinese.
RIGHT is what the reality is, easily verifiable on the internet. 3 out of 20 have a Chinese origin, and perhaps only two.
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| Left: James Woods fantasy version. Right: reality-based version |
The Woods version makes China look bad. So, it fits the current narrative in America (of Left and Right, sadly): China Bad, Rest of World victims.
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| Pandemics sources through the ages. China 3 of 20 |
Yersinia pestis: This is the bacterium responsible for the Black Death and all later Plagues. Looking at the world “Yersinia”, I thought it must have something to do with China (“Sinia” = "Sinic”?), but it turns out it refers to the guy who discovered it, Alexandre Yersin. What are the chances that those who wish ill on China, simply took that name and assumed that it relates to China?
Yersinia Pestis caused the Black Death and all the later Plagues according to the peer-reviewed and widely cited article in PlosPathogens, of October 7, 2010, edited by University of Notre Dame, USA, available here. The initial Black Death plague from the Caspian Sea, brought the plague TO China, not from it.
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| Spread of Black Death, map from Wikipedia (I added the circle). Click to enlarge. |
But do we really want to go where Woods is going? To argue that because China was (allegedly! and wrongly!) the source of all these pandemics, then they have to be demonised? Is that useful? Doesn’t that invite “whataboutism”? What about all the killing of indigenous people, by white folk, most notoriously in America by the Spaniards and the British (aka “Americans”)? Or of indigenous Australians by the British (aka “Australians”)? Or of the millions of Chinese, killed by British Opium? Bought from its other colony in India? Whatabout?
I find this incredibly crappy and incredibly not useful. Yet it’s going into the Twittersphere and becomes yet more gruel for the China haters, yet more reason to split humanity, when now of all times we ought be coming together.
