Saturday, March 19, 2022

An Interesting But Not Surprising Correlation

 



With apologies to Eleanor Rigby: All the stupid people, where do they all come from?

Pollster Frank Graves may have found a partial answer.

Unvaccinated Canadians are about 12 times more likely than those who received three doses to believe Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was justified, according to a new survey by national polling firm EKOS.

The poll found 26 per cent of those who identified as unvaccinated agreed the Russian invasion is justified, with another 35 per cent not offering an opinion. This compared to only two per cent of surveyed Canadians who said they had three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and who supported the attack, and four per cent who offered no view.

Of those Canadians who received three doses of COVID-19 vaccine, the study found 82 per cent agreed with imposing tougher sanctions on Russia even if it meant higher fuel and food prices at home. Only 18 per cent of unvaccinated people concurred.

Eighty-five per cent of vaccinated people agree the country should take in Ukrainian refugees versus 30 per cent of unvaccinated Canadians.

 While 88 per cent of vaccinated Canadians agree Russia is committing war crimes during the widely condemned invasion, 32 per cent of unvaccinated people do.

Why the great disparity? The unvaccinated are apparently drinking from the same disinformation wells. Susan Delacourt writes that 

the same forces that were feeding people rubbish about vaccine mandates during the Ottawa occupation in February are now feeding them nonsense in March about Russia and Ukraine.

Graves is still working on tracking the sources of disinformation, but he cites YouTube as one of the big culprits so far.

A Phd in political science, Kate Graham, was doing some door-to-door canvassing in London, Ontario around the same time the poll was being conducted. Here is what she found.

Knocked on a door today. Person asked my thoughts on Ukraine. I expressed my horror at what is happening. Response? “Oh, you don’t know then. It’s all fake.” Went on to talk about lots of other issues: convoys, Trudeau, media. “CBC is the biggest terrorist going.”

  I asked where this person gets their information.

“The internet. TikTok. Joe Rogan.” What struck me about the discussion was how genuinely fearful the person seemed. They have kids. Had tears in eyes when talking about future of our country. Overwhelmed and afraid.

What is to be learned from all of this? In my view, as I was telling my wife last night at supper when talking about how continued masking may lead to confrontations with some, it is that our species is still in its infancy. When even the most common and least intrusive disease-prevention measures become a source of baffling tantrums, one knows one is not dealing with an evolved, mature life form.

Susan Delacourt puts it another way:

... conspiracy theories don’t just go away anymore; nor do they continue to exist on the fringe. Like the COVID virus, they’ve developed a remarkable ability to mutate — or “pivot,” in Graves’ words. While many of us see the pandemic and the war in Ukraine as separate, albeit world-shaking crises, the disinformation machine has managed to connect them.


 

 

8 comments:

  1. We take a lot of security and satisfaction in the belief that it is us who know the truth in the face of all the stupidity found around us.
    It seems fewer and fewer of us move (at around 40) from "The illusion of certainty to the certainty of illusion"
    "there are three types of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics" is often attributed to Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)
    the boxer
    I am just a poor boy
    Though my story's seldom told
    I have squandered my resistance
    For a pocketful of mumbles such are promises
    All lies and jest
    Still a man hears what he wants to hear
    And disregards the rest, mhmm
    so it is a single point of view, zero sum game
    THEY INVADE ... we invade as much
    THEY SPY ... we spy as well
    THEY ARE GENOCIDAL ... we are often genocidal
    THEY USE FALSE FLAGS ... we invented false flags
    they lie ...WE LIE
    THEIR MEDIA IS A PROPAGANDA MACHINE ...our media is a propaganda machine
    THEY HAVE AN ARMY ...we have an army
    BUT THE OLIGARCS .. oh the billionares
    so
    as a tidy conclusion (with estimated statistics lmao )
    in my opinion information
    20 % is non government approved disinformation
    20 % is government approved disinformation
    59 % is supressed or missing information
    1 % is knowable from your own personal experience
    the truth is not out there

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pontius Pilate asked Jesus. "What is truth?" Notably, he received no answer.

      Your point is well-taken, lunta.

      Delete
  2. Maybe NATO should stop expanding eastward. Glory to Russia.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nothing justifies the war crimes Putin is engaging in in Ukraine, Anon. There is plenty of blame to go around, but the argument that the West is guilty of imperialistic aggressions does not justify Russia's invasion.

      Delete
  3. There is plenty of blame to go around,..............
    Very true, but!
    Unless we clean 'our' house up it is difficult to point fingers at others.
    Our war criminals remain not only free but profit for their actions; here I think of Blair and Bush.
    Yet we remain silent on their actions, nothing , see no evil speak no evil.
    We in the west are as smug as our Russian adversaries as we comment from the safety of North America.
    We , in the west condemn Russian aggression but too little is said about Russian interference in political issues, designed to subvert, in Canada , the UK and the USA.
    Russia's power is not in it's hyper sonic missiles but in it's disruption of the political cast cast in the west who seek profit above all.

    TB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am of the era that remembers Henry Kissinger and his truly vile role in the Vietnam war, TB, and as you say, we have largely remained mute over the war crimes of the West.

      Fun fact: Kissinger, from what I read in a book about Nixon, convinced North Vietnam not to attend an early version of the Paris Peace summit that could have ended the war far sooner than it did. His reason? He didn't want it to end during the Johnson administration; he wanted to wait until Nixon got into office, and Nixon was fully complicit in this. Of course, it did come back to bite Nixon in the ass. Peace came only have many, many thousands more lives were lost, both American and Vietnamese, years later.

      I do think there is a growing awareness of Russia's subversive efforts in the West. There is a consensus that Russia is the chief source of disinformation in efforts to shake confidence in our democracy and our political leaders (although I think our leaders do enough to undermine our confidence without any outside 'assistance').

      Delete
  4. Whilst there was a lull ; the cold war never ended.

    TB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Absolutely true, TB. And quite to the point, the much-vaunted 'peace dividend' foretold when the Soviet Union collapsed never materialized.

      Delete