“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken We are pleased to reproduce here a brilliant article written by Howard Stupak MD, originally published on Medium
Nov 4, 2023Liked by Jonathan Engler, Martin Neil, Howard Stupak
What puts fear into me the most is the willing compliance of the masses wanting and waiting to be told what to do, no scepticism just willingness. I remember the overwhelming feeling of fear I had when the masses rushed towards all the covid measures without question no matter how bizarre they became. Watching them line up for their injections was a nightmare I will never forget and the feeling of helplessness as they were encouraged to pour venom on others who made a different choice. Excellent high quality article, thank you.
Nov 4, 2023Liked by Jonathan Engler, Martin Neil, Howard Stupak
Insightful. But what stupifies me most about the latest ‘pandemic’ is the fact that the vast majority of the medical profession seem not to have been aware that - as a consequence of fundamental biology and whether engineered or otherwise - an RNA virus like a coronavirus lacks the replication fidelity to drive any sort of deadly global contagion. You can excuse the general public for not knowing this, but for the medical profession this has to be a crushing indictment of educational standards.
Nov 4, 2023Liked by Jonathan Engler, Martin Neil, Howard Stupak
Howard needs to get his own Substack. Not to cast him out but join the party.
There is a huge and hungry audience for this writing as well as a community of like-minded authors right here. Alex Berenson, Robert Malone, Eugypeus, A Mideestern Doctor, El Gato Malo, and many, many more in addition to the kind and generous hosts here. Come on in, the water is fine!
Excellent article. My wife, former pediatric nurse, quite often reminds the family that covid is now just like any other seasonal cold. This is liberating, but your article goes a step further and states that it was always just a seasonal cold.. I would like to make one suggestion for any future politician or vaccine maker, I suggest you use water for the vaccine. This way you will have all the benefits of curing the seasonal pandemic in the spring/ summer and none of the complications of adverse events. Of course , who am I to improve a very very successful pharmaceutical machine with so much practice in these arts.
Nov 4, 2023Liked by Jonathan Engler, Howard Stupak
My liar liar pants on fire radar went off every time I listened to Tony Fauci, at the start of the plandemic. I stopped listening to him and started listening to a number of other scientists, data analysts and medics providing everyone with info on IFR, and early treatment for sarscov2. I am wondering, given the data Dr. John Ioannidis published early on, why the AMA and its members did not question the US gov’ts approach and treatments for covid? Perhaps if they had, just maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. No one knows doctors better than doctors. The more experienced ones not only have their medical education to fall back on, but also their years of experience treating patients.
Here are the name of just a few doctors, scientists, and data analysts I paid attention to in making my decision to remain unvaxxed and source early treatment options. Drs. Zev Zelenko, Ryan Cole, Harvey Risch, Scott Atlas, Joseph Ladapo, Jay Battacharya, Martin Kuldorff, Clare Craig, Sunetra Gupta, Pierre Kory, Luc Montagnier, Peter McCullough, John Ioannidis, Kary Mullins. Also data analyst Joel Smalley, and the Highwire’s Del Bigtree. Dr. Ladapo, Surgeon General for the state of Florida, made the following statement. “Physicians should use their clinical judgment when recommending treatment options for patients’ individualised health care needs. This may include emerging treatment options with appropriate patient informed consent, INCLUDING OFF LABEL.” At last a brave Surgeon General speaks the truth to all doctors and prescribers in the State of Florida. A brave man.
Nov 4, 2023Liked by Jonathan Engler, Martin Neil, Howard Stupak
A very interesting and illuminating essay from start to finish. It would appear that many governments have opted in to the 0/1 model over the past few decades as it serves them well. We've experienced it and suffered because of it - the Coronavirus Act March 2020 unleashed a torrent of 1s. Either people subscribed to their enactment or they were putting their family friends neighbours at grave risk. 'No one is safe etc'.
The same binary model slots neatly in to 'climate crisis'.....preserving Gaia is 1! Acknowledging the centuries historical patterns to climate is -1....bottom of the class for those who do not hang on the utterances of the likes of Attenborough or the Monarch.
The 0/1 model does explain a lot about ideology and the ideologues operating within, reaping riches at the expense of the proletariat, but maybe in a much more 'complex' world than the middle of the last century, the operation of the model ( much of it, some of it revealed to the masses) must be undermined, weakened. One would hope this maybe the case. Controlling and coralling the masses, akin to trying to stuff cushions with those tiny white polystyrene balls.
Allowing "the powers that be" to frame the choices that need to be made is a huge mistake. Questioning experts' options and the actual options are vastly different. My job or feeding those who rely on me?? or My health or my career?? Dead or maimed people no longer earn anything!
I haven’t been able to find it again, but I believe there was a Czech (?) study mapping reported Covid cases and humidity.
So spot on! Of course no government that I am aware of gave out humidifiers to save their at risk population.
Secondly, a minor but possibly important, thought.
From " But strongly influenced by Howard Zucker (former assistant director of WHO) Andrew Cuomo, and the New York State government, sought to compete with Donald Trump and the federal government. Trump was then pushed and influenced by Anthony Fauci and others to enact mass testing, and draconian lockdowns and the even more fatal instruments of death in flu management: ventilators.”
This statement propagates what I consider a very dangerous part of the Covid tragedy. Trump was fooled by Fauxi. Trump knew full well that Fauxi was a sleaziod and if Trump was “fooled” by him, that is solely Trump’s fault. Given that Trump is still pushing the “shots were great line”, we can’t let this dangerous myth stand.
I was forced to followed Fauxi in the AIDS days. Because of Fuaxi's actions restricting treatments, a gay friend of mine with AIDs lost hope and killed himself. As a result I have had to learn way too much about that scumbag. In the 1980’s, Mad Anthony intentionally withheld cheap and effective treatments for the symptoms of AIDS so he could push the failed, extremely dangerous, and ridiculously expensive AZT drug. Sound familiar? (Ask Harvey Risch about Fauxi.) Anybody not on the government dole, and which basically excludes the whole Medical Mafia, knew AZT was probably killing more people than it saved. And didn’t really try to stop it, with a few heroic exceptions. Any honest person knew Fauxi was a fraud, then and now.
I believe Trump was fully aware of this. Even if Trump had slept during the entire AIDs crisis, which early on was centered in New York, he had to know Fauxi was a major player in that tragedy. Also, before taking office, Trump met for three hours with Bobby Kennedy to discuss the failures of the FDA and CDC. Anyone that talked to RFK Jr. for three hours (three minutes?) would know Fauxi was not to be trusted with anyone’s health.
After four years of battling the entire lying Deep State, of which Fauxi’s real job (and 2/3rds of his salary) is bioweapons terror Czar, if Trump was “pushed and influenced by Anthony Fauci”, Trump was a fool. Not only did Trump buy in wholeheartedly to the Covid gene therapy lie (and still does), he knew HCQ, Ivermectin, Vitamin D, and other repurposed drugs for early treatment were critical. And he did nothing to actually implement early treatments or stop others from stopping them.
Trump was in charge, knew not to trust Fauxi, and did what said Faux anyway. Trump went full Deep State control all on his own. This does support the author's main theme of dictatorial governments “doing something” to show they are in control when in reality, Covid was just a bad uncontrollable flu, if that. Of all the things Fauci’s guilty of, and the list is long, you can’t blame Trump’s Covid behavior on him.
The Covid gene therapy dead are all Trumps. Using the author's framework, when governments go to phase (1) for total control, initially more bodies (i.e. doing the wrong thing, like withholding early treatments) increases public pandemic fears, and their power. By making the disease appear to be greater than it really is, it makes the “saviors” perceived as greater heroes.
Among all the lies told during Covid, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of "Fauxi fooled Trump" lie. This is all Trump's.
"How does one counter the (0) and (1) modes of plague in their own societies, particularly in light of the expansion of the Federalist Empire? Firstly, by uniting all of the dissenting arms of society, no matter how dissimilar they may be or how they view the falseness of the (0/1) world."
There was quite a lot of this uniting going on until the thing happened in Israel and Gaza. Now the dissenters to the mainstream narratives have shrunk quite a lot in size. I think it's important to be aware that plague is just one of the binary narratives we are fed, and until we see through them ALL we will struggle to become united.
Respiratory viruses and their ecology and transmission are a difficult and complicated topic and little is known and understood. Transmission of influenza-like illness (IFL) is not just a simple matter of person-to-person transmission of the virus.
Edgar Hope Simpson was one of the outstanding general practitioner-researchers of the 20th century who charted the pattern of common diseases. For instance, he discovered the relationship of Chickenpox and Shingles in 1953.
In his now-forgotten book he questioned the theory of person-to-person transmission of IFL being enough to explain the simultaneous appearance of influenza in places far apart. His initial hypothesis proposed that the cause of influenza epidemics during winter may be connected to a seasonal influence.
4. Intranasal administration of various wild viruses to sero-negative volunteers only resulted in constitutional symptoms 60% of the time; inoculation with Fort Dix Swine virus (H1N1) – a virus thought to be similar to the 1918 virus – in six sero-negative volunteers failed to produce any serious illness, with one volunteer suffering moderate illness, three mild, one very mild, and one no illness at all.
There is some other important factor at work here which our recent COVID responses did not take into account.
Nov 11, 2023Liked by Jonathan Engler, Howard Stupak
Wow, this is an excellent piece which explains so much. The explanation of respiratory infections/flu/ILI is fascinating and makes so much sense - how did I not know this? I’m very fit and healthy so was frustrated last year at the number of horrible colds I had and wonder if cycling in chilly Scotland had a part to play. Is wrap up warm not a myth after all?! Oops.
It's worth noting that in the USA, "disease management" pumps about $4 trillion/yr into the economy.
"Disease" has replaced war as the world's primary money spinner, the elites need continuing large-scale health crises to keep their Ponzi racketeering going.
Pandemics are mammoth business opportunities for the Pharma Cartel and the financiers that control the details and direction of policy.
Another very important component of the epidemic/pandemic narrative is in how it is utilized to cover-up the very real health and social problems created BY the very same financial parasites and multinational corporations who are destroying the land and poisoning the people who live on those lands.
This cover-up is intentional.
Pesticide companies are notorious for shipping banned toxic pesticides to Africa. One effect of the chemicals? Excessive bleeding which just happens to be the scary “Ebola effect”
Widespread use of beta-lactam antibiotics is an ongoing problem in Africa. Side effects? Excessive bleeding.
But no, all the bleeding comes from "Ebola." Don’t think about anything else.
Adenovirus vaccines, which have been used in Liberia, Guinea, and Liberia (the epicenter of Ebola), have the following adverse effects of blood in the urine or stool, and diarrhea.
Firestone Rubber Plantation are dumping chemicals throughout the region and poisoning water which among other things creates skin disease. “Rash” is listed as one of the Ebola symptoms.
The Liberia Coca Cola bottling plant pumps foul black liquid into the environment causing all sorts of toxic problems.
And of course chronic malnutrition and starvation—conditions that are endemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.
None of these problems need to be addressed if you have established that it is a "germ" causing this "disease."
I appreciate and agree with everything Howard writes here.
I would love for him to write about his experiences in New York City, spring 2020, assuming he was in a hospital during what city data purport was the biggest mass casualty events hospitals have ever seen.
Nov 4, 2023·edited Nov 4, 2023Liked by Jonathan Engler, Howard Stupak
Dr. Stupak provides an excellent framework for understanding the motivations of some government actors as well as the pandemic profiteers; however, I think that it may not be sufficient to explain certain elements of the covid vaccine design and origins.
One of the most insightful things I learned from Dr. Yeadon was that his alarm over the covid shots was triggered when he learned that all of the various pharma companies were pursuing designs that included the potentially pathologic spike protein. A dubious and contraindicated choice during normal vaccine design.
Now with what we are learning about 'contamination' with potentially gene altering substances and unnecessary inclusion of potential cancer promoting sequences, it becomes even harder to believe that the vaccines were merely part of a profiteering scheme to demonstrate the power of authoritarian government. If they were just for signaling power, why make them so harmful?
What puts fear into me the most is the willing compliance of the masses wanting and waiting to be told what to do, no scepticism just willingness. I remember the overwhelming feeling of fear I had when the masses rushed towards all the covid measures without question no matter how bizarre they became. Watching them line up for their injections was a nightmare I will never forget and the feeling of helplessness as they were encouraged to pour venom on others who made a different choice. Excellent high quality article, thank you.
Insightful. But what stupifies me most about the latest ‘pandemic’ is the fact that the vast majority of the medical profession seem not to have been aware that - as a consequence of fundamental biology and whether engineered or otherwise - an RNA virus like a coronavirus lacks the replication fidelity to drive any sort of deadly global contagion. You can excuse the general public for not knowing this, but for the medical profession this has to be a crushing indictment of educational standards.
Howard needs to get his own Substack. Not to cast him out but join the party.
There is a huge and hungry audience for this writing as well as a community of like-minded authors right here. Alex Berenson, Robert Malone, Eugypeus, A Mideestern Doctor, El Gato Malo, and many, many more in addition to the kind and generous hosts here. Come on in, the water is fine!
Excellent article. My wife, former pediatric nurse, quite often reminds the family that covid is now just like any other seasonal cold. This is liberating, but your article goes a step further and states that it was always just a seasonal cold.. I would like to make one suggestion for any future politician or vaccine maker, I suggest you use water for the vaccine. This way you will have all the benefits of curing the seasonal pandemic in the spring/ summer and none of the complications of adverse events. Of course , who am I to improve a very very successful pharmaceutical machine with so much practice in these arts.
Thanks for the article
My liar liar pants on fire radar went off every time I listened to Tony Fauci, at the start of the plandemic. I stopped listening to him and started listening to a number of other scientists, data analysts and medics providing everyone with info on IFR, and early treatment for sarscov2. I am wondering, given the data Dr. John Ioannidis published early on, why the AMA and its members did not question the US gov’ts approach and treatments for covid? Perhaps if they had, just maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. No one knows doctors better than doctors. The more experienced ones not only have their medical education to fall back on, but also their years of experience treating patients.
Here are the name of just a few doctors, scientists, and data analysts I paid attention to in making my decision to remain unvaxxed and source early treatment options. Drs. Zev Zelenko, Ryan Cole, Harvey Risch, Scott Atlas, Joseph Ladapo, Jay Battacharya, Martin Kuldorff, Clare Craig, Sunetra Gupta, Pierre Kory, Luc Montagnier, Peter McCullough, John Ioannidis, Kary Mullins. Also data analyst Joel Smalley, and the Highwire’s Del Bigtree. Dr. Ladapo, Surgeon General for the state of Florida, made the following statement. “Physicians should use their clinical judgment when recommending treatment options for patients’ individualised health care needs. This may include emerging treatment options with appropriate patient informed consent, INCLUDING OFF LABEL.” At last a brave Surgeon General speaks the truth to all doctors and prescribers in the State of Florida. A brave man.
A very interesting and illuminating essay from start to finish. It would appear that many governments have opted in to the 0/1 model over the past few decades as it serves them well. We've experienced it and suffered because of it - the Coronavirus Act March 2020 unleashed a torrent of 1s. Either people subscribed to their enactment or they were putting their family friends neighbours at grave risk. 'No one is safe etc'.
The same binary model slots neatly in to 'climate crisis'.....preserving Gaia is 1! Acknowledging the centuries historical patterns to climate is -1....bottom of the class for those who do not hang on the utterances of the likes of Attenborough or the Monarch.
The 0/1 model does explain a lot about ideology and the ideologues operating within, reaping riches at the expense of the proletariat, but maybe in a much more 'complex' world than the middle of the last century, the operation of the model ( much of it, some of it revealed to the masses) must be undermined, weakened. One would hope this maybe the case. Controlling and coralling the masses, akin to trying to stuff cushions with those tiny white polystyrene balls.
Brilliant and fascinating thesis by Dr. Stupak that I had never considered. Thanks for sharing this!
Allowing "the powers that be" to frame the choices that need to be made is a huge mistake. Questioning experts' options and the actual options are vastly different. My job or feeding those who rely on me?? or My health or my career?? Dead or maimed people no longer earn anything!
There are some great points in the article. There is also what I consider an important misrepresentation.
Even the Washington Post (the official CIA propaganda rag) ran an article on humidity and Covid in December 2020. Of course by then the Covid gene therapy death train had left the station, so it didn’t really matter. (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/op-ed-humidity-can-aid-in-the-fight-against-covid-19/)
I haven’t been able to find it again, but I believe there was a Czech (?) study mapping reported Covid cases and humidity.
So spot on! Of course no government that I am aware of gave out humidifiers to save their at risk population.
Secondly, a minor but possibly important, thought.
From " But strongly influenced by Howard Zucker (former assistant director of WHO) Andrew Cuomo, and the New York State government, sought to compete with Donald Trump and the federal government. Trump was then pushed and influenced by Anthony Fauci and others to enact mass testing, and draconian lockdowns and the even more fatal instruments of death in flu management: ventilators.”
This statement propagates what I consider a very dangerous part of the Covid tragedy. Trump was fooled by Fauxi. Trump knew full well that Fauxi was a sleaziod and if Trump was “fooled” by him, that is solely Trump’s fault. Given that Trump is still pushing the “shots were great line”, we can’t let this dangerous myth stand.
I was forced to followed Fauxi in the AIDS days. Because of Fuaxi's actions restricting treatments, a gay friend of mine with AIDs lost hope and killed himself. As a result I have had to learn way too much about that scumbag. In the 1980’s, Mad Anthony intentionally withheld cheap and effective treatments for the symptoms of AIDS so he could push the failed, extremely dangerous, and ridiculously expensive AZT drug. Sound familiar? (Ask Harvey Risch about Fauxi.) Anybody not on the government dole, and which basically excludes the whole Medical Mafia, knew AZT was probably killing more people than it saved. And didn’t really try to stop it, with a few heroic exceptions. Any honest person knew Fauxi was a fraud, then and now.
I believe Trump was fully aware of this. Even if Trump had slept during the entire AIDs crisis, which early on was centered in New York, he had to know Fauxi was a major player in that tragedy. Also, before taking office, Trump met for three hours with Bobby Kennedy to discuss the failures of the FDA and CDC. Anyone that talked to RFK Jr. for three hours (three minutes?) would know Fauxi was not to be trusted with anyone’s health.
After four years of battling the entire lying Deep State, of which Fauxi’s real job (and 2/3rds of his salary) is bioweapons terror Czar, if Trump was “pushed and influenced by Anthony Fauci”, Trump was a fool. Not only did Trump buy in wholeheartedly to the Covid gene therapy lie (and still does), he knew HCQ, Ivermectin, Vitamin D, and other repurposed drugs for early treatment were critical. And he did nothing to actually implement early treatments or stop others from stopping them.
Trump was in charge, knew not to trust Fauxi, and did what said Faux anyway. Trump went full Deep State control all on his own. This does support the author's main theme of dictatorial governments “doing something” to show they are in control when in reality, Covid was just a bad uncontrollable flu, if that. Of all the things Fauci’s guilty of, and the list is long, you can’t blame Trump’s Covid behavior on him.
The Covid gene therapy dead are all Trumps. Using the author's framework, when governments go to phase (1) for total control, initially more bodies (i.e. doing the wrong thing, like withholding early treatments) increases public pandemic fears, and their power. By making the disease appear to be greater than it really is, it makes the “saviors” perceived as greater heroes.
Among all the lies told during Covid, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of "Fauxi fooled Trump" lie. This is all Trump's.
"How does one counter the (0) and (1) modes of plague in their own societies, particularly in light of the expansion of the Federalist Empire? Firstly, by uniting all of the dissenting arms of society, no matter how dissimilar they may be or how they view the falseness of the (0/1) world."
There was quite a lot of this uniting going on until the thing happened in Israel and Gaza. Now the dissenters to the mainstream narratives have shrunk quite a lot in size. I think it's important to be aware that plague is just one of the binary narratives we are fed, and until we see through them ALL we will struggle to become united.
Respiratory viruses and their ecology and transmission are a difficult and complicated topic and little is known and understood. Transmission of influenza-like illness (IFL) is not just a simple matter of person-to-person transmission of the virus.
https://www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com/article/S1198-743X(22)00329-9/fulltext?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Edgar Hope Simpson was one of the outstanding general practitioner-researchers of the 20th century who charted the pattern of common diseases. For instance, he discovered the relationship of Chickenpox and Shingles in 1953.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC261759/figure/fig1/
In his now-forgotten book he questioned the theory of person-to-person transmission of IFL being enough to explain the simultaneous appearance of influenza in places far apart. His initial hypothesis proposed that the cause of influenza epidemics during winter may be connected to a seasonal influence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonality
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Edgar_Hope-Simpson#cite_note-3
There have been few experiments in this area but those that have been conducted undermine the "person to person" model:
For instance:
1. The percentage of subjects sickened by iatrogenic aerosol inoculation of influenza virus is less than 50% [3],
2. Only three of eight subjects without pre-existing antibodies developed illness after aerosol inhalation of A2/Bethesda/10/63
3. (https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-5-29#ref-CR4 "Alford RH, Kasel JA, Gerone PJ, Knight V: Human influenza resulting from aerosol inhalation. Proc Soc Exp Biol Med 1966, 122: 800-804.")].
4. Intranasal administration of various wild viruses to sero-negative volunteers only resulted in constitutional symptoms 60% of the time; inoculation with Fort Dix Swine virus (H1N1) – a virus thought to be similar to the 1918 virus – in six sero-negative volunteers failed to produce any serious illness, with one volunteer suffering moderate illness, three mild, one very mild, and one no illness at all.
There is some other important factor at work here which our recent COVID responses did not take into account.
Wow, this is an excellent piece which explains so much. The explanation of respiratory infections/flu/ILI is fascinating and makes so much sense - how did I not know this? I’m very fit and healthy so was frustrated last year at the number of horrible colds I had and wonder if cycling in chilly Scotland had a part to play. Is wrap up warm not a myth after all?! Oops.
Excellent and informative article. Excellent explanation of the political and financial motivations, as well as the underlying science.
It's worth noting that in the USA, "disease management" pumps about $4 trillion/yr into the economy.
"Disease" has replaced war as the world's primary money spinner, the elites need continuing large-scale health crises to keep their Ponzi racketeering going.
Pandemics are mammoth business opportunities for the Pharma Cartel and the financiers that control the details and direction of policy.
Another very important component of the epidemic/pandemic narrative is in how it is utilized to cover-up the very real health and social problems created BY the very same financial parasites and multinational corporations who are destroying the land and poisoning the people who live on those lands.
This cover-up is intentional.
Pesticide companies are notorious for shipping banned toxic pesticides to Africa. One effect of the chemicals? Excessive bleeding which just happens to be the scary “Ebola effect”
Widespread use of beta-lactam antibiotics is an ongoing problem in Africa. Side effects? Excessive bleeding.
But no, all the bleeding comes from "Ebola." Don’t think about anything else.
Adenovirus vaccines, which have been used in Liberia, Guinea, and Liberia (the epicenter of Ebola), have the following adverse effects of blood in the urine or stool, and diarrhea.
Firestone Rubber Plantation are dumping chemicals throughout the region and poisoning water which among other things creates skin disease. “Rash” is listed as one of the Ebola symptoms.
The Liberia Coca Cola bottling plant pumps foul black liquid into the environment causing all sorts of toxic problems.
And of course chronic malnutrition and starvation—conditions that are endemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.
None of these problems need to be addressed if you have established that it is a "germ" causing this "disease."
I appreciate and agree with everything Howard writes here.
I would love for him to write about his experiences in New York City, spring 2020, assuming he was in a hospital during what city data purport was the biggest mass casualty events hospitals have ever seen.
Dr. Stupak provides an excellent framework for understanding the motivations of some government actors as well as the pandemic profiteers; however, I think that it may not be sufficient to explain certain elements of the covid vaccine design and origins.
One of the most insightful things I learned from Dr. Yeadon was that his alarm over the covid shots was triggered when he learned that all of the various pharma companies were pursuing designs that included the potentially pathologic spike protein. A dubious and contraindicated choice during normal vaccine design.
Now with what we are learning about 'contamination' with potentially gene altering substances and unnecessary inclusion of potential cancer promoting sequences, it becomes even harder to believe that the vaccines were merely part of a profiteering scheme to demonstrate the power of authoritarian government. If they were just for signaling power, why make them so harmful?