Covid-19 and religion.

Speaking of managing a disaster as if it's a PR problem, the Chinese government has been trying to suppress negative reports of its mishandling of the Covid-19 outbreak and attempting to put a happy face on its efforts.From the New York Times: As China Cracks Down on Coronavirus Coverage, Journalists Fight BackThe article describes Chinese journalists' frustrations with the government's control over the media and the steps of some journalists, from both state-run agencies and commercial entities as well as "citizen journalists", to evade censorship to try to hold incompetent officials to account and to get information out to the people. Considering the Trump Administration's attempt to muzzle government health officials and keep the message in the hands of the PR specialists, we're lucky in the US that the government doesn't have such a well-developed censorship apparatus as the People's Republic.

What is the evidence for any health officials being muzzled?I agree that Trump goes way too far trying to make it sound like everything's just hunky dory but the health officials don't seem to be muzzled. We hear from then too.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Reuters | Breaking International News & Views

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Berlin is trying to stop Washington from persuading a German company seeking a coronavirus vaccine to move its research to the United States, prompting German politicians to insist no country should have a monopoly on any future vaccine.

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Welt am Sonntag quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, but only for the United States.

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Gosh, I can hardly wait to find out the other side of this story.Y'know, whatever we contribute to any important worldwide problem we share with the world, it isn't just for us.But again, I wonder what the other side of the story is.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Classifying meetings means that the discussions can’t be repeated. Message 60

So you use a tendentious word like "muzzling" for what obviously has two points of view and a reasonable explanation for the decision, so you can make your own point of view sound like the more reasonable one. I wonder what fallacy applies to that kind of manipulation.

So I read the article and of course it's a more complicated situation than the kneejerk leftist debunkery implies. Sounds like a common sort of transaction that many nations engage in, and many German companies were considered.A spokesman for the US is even quoted saying what I just said, that the US shares its knowledge with the whole world, so you can drop that accusation. The accusation was simply a quote from ONE person too, a typical ploy by the leftist mentality. They may find one person saying something they like although dozens of others disagree and they'll headline the one. We see it all the time in headlines and stories concerning anything to do with Trump.Perhaps this one company was considering the offer, though they deny any move toward acquisition, but the German government felt they had to intervene?What's "evil" about any of this? Just the accusation itself perhaps.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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So you use a tendentious word like "muzzling" for what obviously has two points of view and a reasonable explanation for the decision, so you can make your own point of view sound like the more reasonable one.

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I have yet to see a reasonable explanation for the decision. If you have one please present it.Also, the word muzzling wasn’t my choice - and it does not appear in my post. So why you are trying to blame me for it, I don’t know.

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I wonder what fallacy applies to that kind of manipulation.

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Unless you actually have a reasonable explanation it seems that the attempted manipulation is on your part.

You are right, it was Chiroptera who used the word "muzzling." I apologize.The reason given for classifying the meeting was that China was to be discussed.

And that is not a valid reason. Period!

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The reason given for classifying the meeting was that China was to be discussed.

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So you claim that all discussions that involve China in any way must be classified ? It hardly seems an adequate reason.

Oh well, another weird twisting I have to undo. Sigh. That is the reason THEY gave, I didn't give a reason. But since you ask I would speculate that China is a very vexed subject in connection with this virus. Hm?

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Oh well, another weird twisting I have to undo. Sigh.

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And the usual false accusations continue. A perfectly reasonable question is not twisting

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That is the reason THEY gave, I didn't give a reason.

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You were asked if there was a reasonable explanation. That is the one you chose to cite. Without any comment. If you did not think it was reasonable then you should have said so.

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But since you ask I would speculate that China is a very vexed subject in connection with this virus. Hm?

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I hardly think that a risk of offending China is important enough to keep critical staff out of a meeting. Do you ?

Interestingly it was the medical and logistics people that were excluded while the political and economics folk were given access.Politics and economics take precedence over public health it seems.

It is true that actual information has been getting out, but at the beginning it certainly appeared to be people speaking up because the Administration itself wasn't letting accurate information out.Anyway, I've been looking for the article that I had in mind when I wrote that post, but I can't find it. I suspect it was the incident that PaulK brought up in his response to you and I misremembered the details.At any rate, here is an article from Business Insider that brings up my concerns: Trump barred a top health expert from speaking freely about the coronavirus. It's one of many ways the administration has muzzled scientists.I don't have a feel for how reliable this site is in general, but the article does have a handy list of how the Trump Administration has interfered with the dissemination of scientific information or prevented policy decisions from being informed by accurate science.