Wuhan Lab Leak Hoax and the Coming Conflict with China
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How did an Energy Department report about COVID coming from a lab leak, an assertion made with “low confidence,” take the whole media by storm? Why is this allegation being dredged up again?
While viral outbreaks can take decades to uncover and sometimes don’t ever become clear, the political framing is already obvious.
Brian is joined by K.J. Noh, a peace activist, organizer with Pivot to Peace, scholar on the geopolitics of Asia, and a frequent contributor to Counterpunch and Dissident Voice.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The U.S. Energy Department released the report last week, concluding that COVID was caused by a lab leak in Wuhan inside of China. |
| 0:13.6 | This is part of a larger allegation by the United States government by U.S., that COVID is caused by China or by China's |
| 0:23.6 | failures. At the same time, the U.S. Cold War, if that's what it is, against China heats up. |
| 0:31.6 | Today we're going to talk about that. |
| 0:33.6 | We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. Welcome to the Socialist Program. I'm your host, Brian Becker. If you enjoy or rely on this show, become a subscriber, become a patron. Go to patreon.com forward slash the socialist program. Today we're talking with KJ Know. KJ is a peace activist. He's an organizer with Pivot to Peace. He's also a scholar |
| 1:30.6 | on geopolitics of Asia and a frequent contributor to counterpunch and dissident voice. KJ. No, |
| 1:38.3 | welcome back. Thank you. Pleasure to be with you. Thank you so much. KJ, the media, as I said, in the beginning of this show |
| 1:46.9 | at the introduction, the media made a big story out of the Energy Department report that concluded |
| 1:53.9 | that China or a lab, a Chinese scientific medical lab was responsible for a leak, which they say was the cause for COVID, |
| 2:05.4 | the global pandemic. That was the report. In many ways, this wasn't really KJ about science or |
| 2:12.6 | scientific inquiry. It was largely about the media, about media presentation, and about perceptions. |
| 2:21.1 | Because after these big headlines, dramatic headlines, sensational headlines, when you |
| 2:26.8 | actually read the report, the report by the energy department says that they have, quote, |
| 2:33.5 | low confidence, close quote, in their own report. |
| 2:38.0 | First of all, let's talk about the story, the media, |
| 2:41.5 | the way the media handled it, and what exactly is low confidence? |
| 2:46.9 | You know, I think the first thing to point out here |
| 2:50.2 | is that this forms yet another element of a global propaganda effort to paint China as an existential threat. |
| 3:02.0 | That is, a WMD level threat, a biological WMD level threat. |
| 3:08.3 | And all of this is in order to create consent for war. |
| 3:12.3 | It's manufacturing consent for war. |
| 3:14.3 | I believe that we are very, very close to war. |
... |
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