Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 53

[ecosophia]

As we move into the second year of these open posts, it's pretty clear that the official narrative is cracking as the toll of deaths and injuries from the Covid vaccines rises steadily and the vaccines themselves demonstrate their total uselesness at preventing Covid infection or transmission. It's still important to keep watch over the mis-, mal- and nonfeasance of our self-proclaimed health gruppenfuehrers, and the disastrous results of the Covid mania, but I think it's also time to begin thinking about what might be possible as the existing medical industry reels under the impact of its own self-inflicted injuries. 

(Yes, the change in image theme reflects that; the earlier sequence served its purpose. With a nod to El Gato Malo (1, 2, 3), the posts to come will be headed by thoughtful memes relevant to the Covid mess. Yes, I'll take nominations -- you can post links in the thread.)

So it's time for another open post. The rules are the same as before: 

1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry et al. are causing injury and death. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.

2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its tame politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here. 
 
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue. 

4. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules. 

With that said, the floor is open for discussion. 

Comments

Re: More thoughts on reconciliation

[kashtan]

I agree with you that it's a very bad idea to permanently judge people who weren't on our side the whole time. It's similar to the sort of social justice warrior that dredges up people's politically incorrect statements from years back and claims they're thus irredeemably evil. If someone has truly changed their mind then I have no trouble forgiving them. I can say this though because I wasn't affected personally as much as many others. I have felt a certain amount of anxiety especially when the push for mandates was at its peak, but I never ended up in a situation where I was personally facing one and most people close to me in my life have also been at least somewhat skeptical of the narrative, especially by the time the vax mandate push started. The exception is a few relatives that are pretty solid narrative believers. However, they are the type of narrative believers that were truly trying to do the right thing. They believed that the hospitals would overflow and there would be a massive wave of death if we didn't follow the science, and were trying to do the best they could to prevent it. Once the time of lockdowns was passed, they were willing to see me even though I was unvaxxed. I did get a certain amount of proselytizing to me that I really should get it, but it didn't get to the level of nastiness that divided so many families. Some of it was their worries about me due to the media exaggeration of the risks of COVID to the unvaxxed. Once I actually got COVID and nothing horrible happened, the vax proselytizing stopped and our relationship has been mostly back to normal.

So, I'm probably in the distinct minority on this forum in not having dealt with much anger directed at close relations. I've experienced plenty of anger at the power structures that have brought us this mess, but that's a different sort of thing than the ending of friendships over COVID that so many have experienced. I could image that if I'd lost my job and relationships with close family and friends over COVID like many others on this forum have, I might find it harder to forgive anyone who ever went along with it.

There's also an important distinction in my mind between people who used to believe in the narrative and have turned more skeptical over time versus those who still believe in the narrative but just don't care as much about COVID or vax status anymore because the narrative itself has softened. The former group I can embrace as new allies. For those in the latter group, I can somewhat pretend things are back to normal but I still have a wariness around them, a feeling that things might seem fine now but I have to keep them at arms length because they could turn on a dime if the media narrative tells them to.

I should say that well before COVID started, there were certain people that I had this intuitive feeling that it was best not to get too close to, and organizations that it was best not to be involved with. Some of these people/organizations I shared many things in common with and wondered why the vibes seemed off where there should be more potential. A lot of times, these people and organizations were the ones that went COVID crazy. I took myself off of a number of email lists in 2020/2021 that I used to enjoy reading when every single newsletter was about COVID and how we are living in "these trying times" or something similar, and when they started pushing the vax was often when I took myself off those lists, and I have no desire to get back on them now. Somehow I managed to not have my life entangled much with any of those people and for that I'm very grateful.