You’ll Need a Neck Brace To Prevent Narrative Whiplash

Remember when it was a “conspiracy theory” to question the natural origin of Covid-19, to dare to suggest that a lab leak might have started the epidemic that killed millions of people? You could get thrown out of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and your own family for promoting such a totally wacko, fat-redneck-knuckle-dragger theory.

Well, lo and behold! It’s now about to officially become Received Truth, endorsed by government officials, scientists, the Great, the Good, and Reasonable People. The explanation is pretty simple:

When the lab leak idea suggested negligence and/or misconduct by Americans, it was a thoughtcrime.

When the lab leak idea can be pinned on the Chinese enemy, it’s definitely probably almost certainly true.

Here’s Christopher Wray, renowned expert in molecular biology moonlighting as FBI director, assuring us that Now We Know. “You’re talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans, precisely what that capability was designed for.” What conviction, what clarity now that the Wuhan lab is “Chinese-controlled” and no longer swarming with Americans funded by the NIH!

We don’t do propaganda here, do we? That’s the purview of non-democracies run by dictators who hate freedom. Then again, how long will it take for this Chinese-coverup trope to penetrate our discourse and become the new conventional wisdom? I’d say about a week.

Since our attention span is approximately that of a single-celled organism, few will recall that the new theory was recently the subject of a concerted campaign to dismiss it by high-level scientists, led by the inestimable Dr Fauci. His emails with ex-NIH director Francis Collins are revealing in that regard as they demonstrate a fevered scramble to get experts to pooh-pooh the lab leak notion. Back in 2021, our “intelligence” agencies promptly cooperated: they issued a reassuring statement that a lab leak was ever-so-unlikely. But that was then when U.S. scientists were deeply involved in the Wuhan lab performing the same gain-of-function research Fauci flatly denied compared to gambling in Casablanca.

How times have changed now that we have to gin up mass disgust with China and its leaders in preparation for Washington’s next war. Today, not only is lab-leak okay, it’s Essential Thinking. The new line is that evil empires are cooking up a dastardly plot to release deadly bugs onto the world. Who knows what will be next??!! I guess we’ll have to attack them right away. Before it’s too late! (Smoking gun, mushroom cloud, etc.)

Incidentally but perhaps not coincidentally, the Russians are claiming that the West is preparing “large-scale provocations involving toxic chemicals” to then blame Putin. Given the thin evidence for things like the alleged 2018 novichok poisoning on the since-disappeared Skripal family and the unlikely Douma chlorine attack in Syria, one can at least prepare to be skeptical. But so far, the zigzagging Beltway narrative has little competition in the public sphere.

Just for the record, here’s what the Russians said earlier this week:

On 22 February, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan made the statement, ‘Russian troops plan to use chemical weapons in the special military operation area.’ Russia regards this information as the intention of the United States itself and its accomplices to carry out a provocation in Ukraine using toxic chemicals. They expect that amid hostilities, the international community will be unable to organise an effective investigation with the result that the real organisers and executors may escape accountability and the blame is going to be placed on Russia. In our opinion, the preparations are in full swing.

Why would the winning side in a war resort to an action sure to bring worldwide condemnation? Maybe for the same reason the Russians blew up their own multi-billion-dollar pipeline. Choose your parallel reality: there are several on offer.