Mystery solved: It was Robert De Niro who got Andrew Wakefield's antivaccine propaganda film selected for screening at the Tribeca Film Festival

MI Dawn:
Call me clueless, I don't know who Lord Draconis is.

I just read this on Deadspin in a piece about bonkers wing-nut Curt Schilling:

There’s a truly harmful belief that the right to say something is the same as the right to have it taken seriously. In this line of thinking, all voices are equally valid... Dismissively, it’s called the “gotta hear both sides” fallacy. In practice, it normalizes the crazy and the evil and the stupid by implying that everyone deserves to have even actively harmful beliefs treated respectfully.

Earlier this morning, at the dentist's, I saw the New Yorker review of philosopher Michael Lynch's new book. "The Internet of Us", a contemplation of truth claims and epistemology in the age of Google. The best I can paraphrase the relevance here is that almost nobody 'hears both sides', but everyone gets their belief treated seriously in their own bubble. At NYT.com, Lynch wrote;

People on both the left and the right tell one another that “the information is right there; people just aren’t paying attention to the facts (Google it!).” The very availability of information can make us think that the ideal of the informed citizen is more realized than it is — and that, in turn, can actually undermine the ideal, making us less informed, simply because we think we know all we need to know already...
increasing recognition of the fact that Googling can get you wherever you want to go can make us deeply cynical about the ideal of an informed citizenry — for the simple reason that what counts as an “informed” citizen is a matter of dispute. We no longer disagree just over values. Nor do we disagree just over the facts. We disagree over whose source — whose fountain of facts — is the right one. And once disagreement reaches that far down, the daylight of reason seems very far away indeed.

sadmar: "Call me clueless, I don’t know who Lord Draconis is."

He is our shill paymaster. All would be revealed when searching this site using his name. (oh, and he is also the Bay Area artist who provided the cover art of the schedule for the one "The Amazing Meeting" I got to attend: TAM9 from Outer Space.")

If you want to get in on running jokes learn how to use this Google feature: Lord Draconis site:http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/

Oh my oh my. Vaxxed is being shown in my ... well, not neighborhood; but in several venues near enough that I can go tomorrow morning (maybe) or Saturday AM at the latest. The all-star panel of Wakefield, Tommey, Hooker, and Bigtree will be at showings in Berkeley and San Francisco -- afternoon and evening showings I intend to avoid.

In the meantime, today Professor Reiss went to a just-after-lunch showing in The Big Apple; she and another were the sole souls in the audience. Because the audience was so sparse, the always-polite Reiss felt it was acceptable appropriate to deploy her smartphone (with that annoying lighted screen) and well, not live-tweet, but live-comment the film.

I also was given access to an audio file -- the soundtrack, if you will -- of the film. I am about 1/4 of the way through listening to this and taking notes matched up to Prof. Reiss's.

I am not planning to write a review, but a time-stamped catalog of where and how this not-a-documentary deviates from objective reality and oh, maybe, the truth.

Brian Deer interviewed today on New Zealand radio on L'affaire Wakefield:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201798875…

This is not the first time that the public-funded radio network have called on Brian for commentary. The target demographic is the respectable, liberal middle class who would be gaining their information from the Guardian if it were easily available.

Oh, I Googled, but didn't find anything definitive. I knew 'Lord Draconis' was used here as "our shill paymaster", but I didn't know where the name originated, how it came to be used here, and what connotations it might carry if brought over from some other source – like maybe a character in 'Dr. Who' or some other form of popular fiction I have avoided. After further Googling of RI, the first use of the name I can find here came on 2/13/2010 when someone began posting parody comments signed 'Lord Draconis Zeneca, VC, iH7L' from 'PharmaCOM Orbital HQ, 0010101101001' on/within 'Glaxo PharmaBase 7'.

So I rephrase my question: did that Lord Draconis pull the name out of his butt, or is it taken from some other source, and if so, what?

yrs,
The Duke of Early

Liz:
Opera Plaza? 12M? Louder Than Bombs goes off at 12:05, so I'd guess a person could buy a ticket for that and just go to Vaxxed instead to deny Andy, Bigtree and Diaz the ticket proceeds. IIRC, the Opera Plaza has really small auditoria, two are only about 50 seats, but even if Vaxxed is in one of those, it wouldn't sell out at noon today (Fri) and maybe not tomorrow, either. Saturday evening they're showing it on two screens at 7;10 and 7;40, with Q&A's after both. The 7:10 and an earlier 4;25 w. a Q&A are sold out. 2nd screening today at 2:15. 'April and the Extraordinary World" is at 2:25 for plausible cross-ticketing.

I'm wondering if//when I could/might go...

@sadmar - I actually don't know where Lord Draconis got his name from. I'm not sure he ever said. He just appeared one day, as you noted, in the comments and has been intermittently paying us off ever since. (Though for some reason, my checks seem to keep getting lost in the mail...)

I'm pretty sure he is a high-ranking member of David Icke's Reptillians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilians#David_Icke

The name Draconis derives from the constellation Draco from which our great lord originates, his full name being, Draconis Zeneca. He is married to Astra.

He is the over master of the alien reptilian hoards which secretly overran planet earth about 50 years ago and went into the pharmaceutical business in order to render its population submissive and needy, always wanting prescriptions.

Many earthlings have sold their souls to Lord D in order to benefit financially from his vast wealth and get invited to really super parties- you probably interact with quite a few of them here at RI. Actually, many of them.

One day, I was uietly observing the lilies in the garden of the Luther Burbank house on a trip to California and I saw a well dressed man who looked rather normal despite a slightly scaly appearance: he came over to me and asked if I wanted to make oodles of money serving mankind. Of course, I had no idea at the time how he meant 'serving mankind' but I soon found out.

That was years ago and I quickly rose in the ranks of Pharma.COM using all of my wits and talents to help our lord fulfill his plans and spread the word that SB medicine and its drugs are absolutely necessary to human life and that alternative practitioners are basically pure bollux and tripe.

Because my messaging and advance work with populations were so successful, I was rewarded with riches, exotic automobiles and fabulous clothes. I became a personal friend of Karl Lagerfeld, who sends me samples . I have a painting by Turner in my foyer. And I had my pick of new male recruits because I usually preside over Orientation Day. I am frequently used to smooth out rough surfaces that occur when aliens from a warrior planet take over major corporations.

Sadmar, you're in luck if you're interested in a position: Pharma.COM operates from the three earthly Loci of Evil (tm) which are NY, London and SF- in fact Draconis himself makes his earthly residence in Santa Rosa.
You'll notice that many of his shills and minions are stationed near those places.

@Denice

A "The Twilight Zone" and a David Icke reference in the same post? Niiiiice.

@ DW: Thanks for the past history! I wasn't aware of all of that. Can you please talk to the accountant and find out why I don't get my checks?

MI Dawn@517: Think yourself lucky. I went to Orientation Day and all I got was "so nasty even the hatchlings wouldn't lick you" snark.

Lord Draconis has a presence on Facebook, though neither of his accounts has had much recent activity. His personal assistant, Miss Flinders, has wisely avoided a Facebook account under her own name (or has blocked me, it's hard to tell).

OK,I've done as much Google as I can handle, so let me just check that I have this right:
• David Icke claims world leaders are actually shape-shifting reptilians from planets in the orbit of Alpha Draconis, which is an actual star.
• Icke also frequently rants against Big Pharma.
• Icke himself does not assert that the pharmas are run by reptilians.
• Since Icke traces all power webs back to the reptilians, it follows that the pharmas do the bidding of the reptilians, even if Icke himself only refers to the 'pharma overlords' as humans.
• Some of Icke's disturbingly sizable fanbase have thus concluded that the pharmas are run by reptilians masking as human.
• Neither Icke nor his followers have identified a pharma overlord by the name Lord Draconis. That identity was only created to parody Big Pharma CTs in general by associating them with Icke, via the name being drawn from the star he alleges the reptilians hail from.
• The 'Lord Draconis' name is not exclusive to the person who has posted here.

Remaining questions:
• Was RI's 'Lord Draconis' the first 'Lord Draconis' to appear in some public forum?
• Did use of the name chain out from a single originator, or did several folks adopt it w/o knowledge of others?
• What spectrum of perspectives exist among the various 'Lords Draconis'? E.G. do any take the reptilian thing at least half-seriously, or adopt it as a 'performance art' life-identity, like various theatrical 'satanists'?

sadmar,

A great SciFi short story (I can't remember who wrote it) is: How to Serve Man.

"• Did use of the name chain out from a single originator, or did several folks adopt it w/o knowledge of others?"

Just one guy, someone that some of us (including myself) have met.

It's a running joke, don't make too much of it. It is kind of like Eneman and Hitler Zombie were running jokes a while ago.

Interesting comments ! I Appreciate the insight . Does anyone know where I could get a template a form document to fill out ?

Rich:
'To Serve Man' is an iconic episode of The Twilight Zone based on a short story by Damon Knight. I know that one.

Chris:
I'm not making anything of it. I'm just curious about the larger pop culture phenomenon outside of RI. I have always understood the reference here as a joke on the pharma shill gambit, some 'supreme leader' co-ordinating the shill conspiracy and doling out extravagant payments to his minions.

And I have an EneMan, purchased at a thrift store a few years before I discovered RI. Better yet, I have a blue plush Staph microbe: http://tinyurl.com/jgg49hc

Thanks sadmar for the reminder of who wrote that short story. I can remember most of the scifi I've read but authors not so much.

1. So I watched Vaxxed yesterday at noon. Me and about 7 other people in the 150-seat theater. No gasps from the audience. The film is a very slick piece of propaganda spreading fear and loathing of autistic people and of vaccines. A Periscope of the Q&A at the evening showings is available; I am not going to watch.... Review of the film forthcoming.

2. Sadmar I will ask Lord Draconis to make an appearance here.

@Liz Ditz: 1. Look forward to reading your review; putting away all the breakables now. 2. Also ask His Lordship for your own private tropical island as you definitely deserve it.

MESSAGE BEGINS------------------------

Shills and Minions,

Let it never be said that I am "too busy" or "too terrifying" to summon for an important moment in our planetary assault. Minion Ditz, or, as we call her back home, Ma'ach Chvek D*mohnkhay Preek (Pleasant-Seeming-Yet-Highly-Efficient Eviscerator of Monkeys) always has my complete attention when she pulses my subcutaneous transponder. It seems that someone has a question as to the veracity of my existence. Well let me assure you, that I am quite fictional. I mean, really, shape shifting reptiloids running the world? What kind of Pharma have you been ingesting of late? Such a thing couldn't possibly be . . . OR COULD IT? (cue dramatic music and thunderclap effect)

Oh, now, no long faces, I'm just farting with you, as the hatchlings say. Of course we're real. Our planetary leader, Great Egg Mother L'izz (may she have mercy on her minions) prepares for her next hundred years here on this dreary little backwater, and aside from the occasional hiccup (the dreadful Shkrelli incident comes readily to mind) our plan for total planetary domination continues apace.

Honestly, I'd be hamming out with you more if this ghastly site was compatible with our iPad, but it stumbles, crashes and there is a maddening delay when I type. And lets' face it, typing is hard enough with four inch claws.

Stay merciless and evil my minions and shills.

Yrs Vry Trly,
Lord Draconis Zeneca
VX7ihL
Grand Mavoon of the Imperial Fleet, Hight Chancellor of HIH's Primate Kennels, Order of the Flensing Knife

PS
Thou shalt have no other Evil Pharma Overlords than Me. I am the one, the only, the original, Lord Draconis Zeneca™.

010011110011111
----------------MESSAGE ENDS

:-)

Seriously, Draconis, you're richer than god,
Get a compatible device.

Love and kisses,
DW

Liz Ditz: "Review of the film forthcoming."

I wait eagerly for that review. In the meantime I have downloaded this podcast: TWiV 387: Quaxxed.

Righto, merciless and evil it is, boss. And many happy conquerings to you too!

His Scaly Lordship does not get "compatible devices". He "influences" standards bodies to make web sites compatible with him.

His Scaly Lordship does not get “compatible devices”. He “influences” standards bodies to make web sites compatible with him.

He's Microsoft? Explains a lot.....

@ Sadmar

I have a blue plush Staph microbe

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. I love the microbes plushies. I offered a few to my former boss.

Your link to Giant Microbes (if it was for this shop) is being redirected to some general list of toys retailers.
Here is another link for the curious connoisseurs.

@ Denice

Seriously, Draconis, you’re richer than god,
Get a compatible device.

Compatible to this site or compatible to his claws?

I was about to suggest he enlists a few monkeys - I mean humans - to type his messages for him.
But, nah. Give a monkey access to the trans-space ansible rooms, and soon the Milky Way sophonts will be engaged in a shooting war with the Andromeda galaxy. Again.

I am delirious with pleasure that Our Scaly Overlord's return to these halls of wisdom has again elevated the dialog.

“Review of the film forthcoming.”

I keep having to stop writing to go break things and stomp around. I was too busy taking notes while watching to really process how vile one pervasive subtext of the film is:

Autistic children are subhuman screaming monsters who ruin their parents' lives and blight the whole family.

And another parent-perspective subtext:

I had a beautiful delightful child...I was robbed of that child and left a monster in my child's place

Another subtext is that AJW is the only person who has ever investigated vaccine safety...reliably.

Matt Carey exposed this in April 2013:

Mr. Wakefield repeats his claim that his opinions on the MMR were based on a 200 page report on measles vaccines. He didn’t even mention his 200 page report at the time of the Lancet paper and press release. Ignore the research he did (we should have. It was faulty and unethically performed). Instead, let’s look to his report. A report which only now he will release to the public, according to his YouTube video. Yes, no one has seen his report. We were all supposed to take his opinion for the past decade and a half. He didn’t even tell us about his report. We were just supposed to have such confidence in him that we were supposed to have assumed he had some reason.

I am not going to link to the YouTube Video. You can find it by searching for "Dr. Andrew Wakefield response to the measles outbreak in South Wales" on YouTube. In it he claims to be "seeking to put [the 200 page report] online.

Have any of you ever seen this report?

Carey is referring to a report that is made much of in the Vaxxed film. It's a 1996 report that Wakefield (I think) submitted to the Royal Free. Has that report ever been published or made publicly available? I think

Wakefield's "200 page report" was commissioned from him by the UK's Legal Aid Board to support speculative litigation. It was part of the secret contract at the heart of his grotesque conflict of interest.

I have a draft version of it. It's a ludicrous, superficial analysis by a former surgeon, with no expert competence in almost any matter discussed within it.

You would have to seriously wonder why anyone would commission such a report from him.

You would have to seriously wonder why anyone would commission such a report from him.

Because he tells people what they want to hear, perhaps?

I had a beautiful delightful child…I was robbed of that child and left a monster in my child’s place

A monster? is that a way to describe a child with autism? I hope your child will never be reading this. Only for writing this, I detest you, whoever you are.

My parentes sometimes described me as someone with a user manual, that wasn't included. And I suppose I am.

Parents of course.

Julian Frost -- exactly. His report was commissioned to determine whether there was money to be had in suing vaccine manufacturers. They paid him to come up with a reason to sue, and he delivered. Didn't have to be proven true, just had to be plausible enough. And isn't it *interesting* that he then went and did his twelve-patient study right after that, where amazingly they all fit a conveniently lawsuit-ready profile? Even if he had to alter the records to make it so?

Renate et al: yeah, the language that underlies so much of the Curebie movement, that kids with autism are changelings, monsters, etc . . . it pisses me the hell off. I mean, I know my daughter often wishes her days were easier. But she's a wonderful person. She's plagued with self-doubt, though, and if she ever hears any of this crap, it would infuriate her. She's matured enough that by now I think she'd just call it racist (we're still working on the exact applicability of that term; she uses it for any sort of prejudice), but when she was younger it would've really cut her deep. She worries enough about not being able to make it as an adult; she doesn't need jerks like that adding to her troubles.

Right, Calli, LIz, Chris, all:

I find much of what the TMs** and warrior mothers** of AoA write about their children's daily lives objectionable:
they elaborate details concerning personal hygiene as well as documenting their disabilities- including intellectual ones-
do we really need to read about how some girls have problems independently addressing monthly issues or how a person may need diapers or enjoy entertainment designed for pre-school youngsters when they are chronologically teenagers? Similarly, videotaping and posting their 'heroic' struggles with speech or tying their shoes.
Usually this is balanced with praise for their beauty, innocence or inner goodness. We've heard that centuries ago, haven't we - as *une bonne Chretien*?

It's not about the kids- it's about the mothers' self-aggrandisation and need for attention. They use these websites as platforms for publicity: perhaps a stairway to a new career as a writer or autism advocate lecturer amongst the woo-besotten- already Skyhorse is fulfilling their wild dreams: I hate to count how many of them have penned books.

Much of their recitatives are paraded about as indictments of the evil practitioners/ companies/ governments which 'caused' their woe. A few of the parents act as naïve scientists or super sleuths trying to uncover the web of deception in book form- as far as I'm concerned, most of the deception lies on their side of the fence, starting with Andy.

** especially Stagliano, Jameson and Goes.

@ Liz Ditz

Autistic children are subhuman screaming monsters who ruin their parents’ lives and blight the whole family.

Is this awful sentence really something some parent said and they put it remorselessly in the Vaxxed movie?

OK, I can imagine someone using the term "monster" out of a bad mix of anger, frustration, and self-entitlement.
But "subhuman"? "blight"? Well, the whole frelling sentence?
And now everybody, the child included, will know this person said that?

These parents are lost souls; Vaxxed film-makers are beyond vile for enabling and abetting this deshumanisation.

@ Denice

I don't know why I'm surprised, that's no news, you and other warned us already about this sort of parents.

I think it's seeing the sentences in all their glorious, naked violence.

Growing up, I accumulated a few bad memories of not measuring up to my parents' expectations. Nothing violent or abusive, just the usual attrition of life, I guess.
But I can only start imagining the intense level of grief and self-deprecation I would fell if me or my sister has been called a "blight" by either of my parents.
And having met a few handicapped children, I have no doubt: however "subhuman" they could be, they are perfectly able to figure out they are at the receiving end of pity and scorn.

Denice:

I find much of what the TMs** and warrior mothers** of AoA write about their children’s daily lives objectionable:
they elaborate details concerning personal hygiene as well as documenting their disabilities- including intellectual ones-

Oh jeez.... Yeah, I was just thinking about the language, but you're right -- they post stuff that is WAY too personal about their children's struggles, and oh sweet lord that has gotta be painful when the kid eventually sees it. I'll admit, raising an autistic kid is challenging. But you don't get a ribbon for it, and autism isn't even the only thing that can make raising a child extremely difficult. I can understand being frustrated, and even with mourning the loss of the sort of future you thought your child might have. It's the painful cognitive dissonance you go through as you accept reality. But being frustrated doesn't change your responsibility.

Kids have so few rights. It's better than it was, but realistically they have few rights, and disabled kids have even less. They can't sue you for putting videos of your deepest, darkest shames onto Facebook or YouTube. Heck, some places parents are starting to get into some difficulties for posting shaming videos, but a video about how your child struggles with proper toileting? Totally fine, nobody's gonna come after you, and you know why? Because they think disabled kids won't ever see it or understand it. They don't think about disabled kids getting bullied, because they think of them only in abstract terms anyway. Disabled kids aren't often thought of as having agency, and in some cases they aren't even considered to be fully sentient.

Goddamn dark ages, it seems like.

Liz is PARAPHRASING the SUBTEXT of Vaxxed. No parent said that stuff about 'subhuman monsters'.. That's Liz's description of how THE FILM portrays the kids. We can't relally know what the parents who appear in vaxxed feel about their children. Andy (or whoever is reallydoing the filmmaking parts of 'directing' Vaxxed) will be cherry-picking images and soundbites from hours and hours of material to create a narrative of 'families blighted by the great autism conspiracy'. The quote is not something a parent said, or even necessarily thinks: It's Liz's analysis of how AJW wants parents (with AD kids, or just prospective parents) to view autism.

@ Calli:

To be fair. no one has posted a video about toiletting yet but they do discuss it more than they have to . The videos I've seen concerns of struggling with speech or schoolwork. One of them ( oh, guess!) perseverates upon her children's choices in entertainment which much lower than their chronological ages.

I sometimes feel as if they are having a competition amongst themselves:
Who is the greatest martyr
Who has the worst life
Whose children are the most incapacitated
Who has sacrificed herself most.

And, never forget those photos and videos of the late Alex S.

Sadmar has it right re: paraphrasing. However, we do know that Wakefield has described autism as a "blight", a term which Grace Hightower did not disagree with strongly enough to bother chastising Wakefield for using it.

Todd:

Liz will speak for herself, of course, but i took her paraphrase to mean that the way the footage/audio of kids and parents is used in Vaxxed presents an image of ASD that is considerably worse that the mere word "blighted" can convey.

That's why I wound up in the mis-communication tiff with Matt Carey on LBRB, about how he couldn't "know the film" w/o seeing it. That is, he could know it was factually bogus and slam that bogusness, but he couldn't know what the image track was saying about ASD kids and their parents. Pictures and words are both open to interpretation, of course, which means they can signify different things to different people – but not anything and all the meanings that anyone other than idiosyncratic viewers will find are rooted in the text, and makers have a responsibility for them, whatever their claimed (or actual) 'intent'.

In short, this aspect of the film is as damning of AJW and his collaborators, if nor more, than anything he has put in words.

And, yes, we can't forget Alex Spourdalakis. In fact, I've been thinking the first question posed to Robert De Niro – or anyone who has bought into and repeated Wakefield's ruse – ought to have been, "Have you seen Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis? Are you aware Dr. Wakefield exploited the Spourdalakis family, helped drive Dorothy Spourdalakis to murder her autistic son, and then made a film apologiznig, if not justifying, her crime?"