ecosophia | Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 65

As we proceed through 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.

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. Also, please don't drag in current quarrels about sex, race, religious, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Whom did she coerce to get vaccinated, then, or what mandate did she impose? She's employed by Brown University. They have a vaccine mandate and she doubtless approved of it at the time, but she didn't make it happen. That would have been done by the administration (president or board of trustees), who don't solicit the opinions of ordinary professors about such decisions any more than certain manufacturers asked their line workers whether they wanted to be coerced to vaccinate. If one is going to accuse people not just of promoting bad ideas but of specific acts, there needs to be something more than guilt-by-association backing it.

Oster also supported opening schools much earlier than many liberal academics, and got bashed for it. In an alternate universe where the covidian left took power and tore up the Constitution, she might get hauled into a tribunal for having spoken in favor of open schools that she herself had no power to open. Among other things, that shows that people and their beliefs don't just cluster into two tight distant groups that can be conveniently labeled Good Guys and Bad Guys. I am a fan of some of Oster's work and believe/hope that she is rational enough to change her mind on vaccines as scientific evidence emerges. Many people may not be, and that's their misfortune.

-Translucent Jejune Octopus

The shaming of 'anti-vaxxers' in her tweeting history is pure and simple coercion.

No, sorry. Threats of legal repercussions such as fines, threats of job loss or expulsion from school, and physical threats such as armed menacing of targets constitute coercion. Namecalling or insulting the types of people who don't do what you want is not coercion. In our society, there are people on the internet who will vituperatively abuse you for *anything whatsoever*, often including every possible choice one might make in a given situation, so adults who cannot stop themselves from doing whatever any random stranger announces they should do have got to stay off the internet.

-Translucent Jejune Octopus

I myself was reared on the "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" mantra, and I have found it a useful approach to many social situations.

That said, I worked in human resources for a small company and had to research the topic of bullying when complaints were made. I will just point out that "namecalling and insulting" can certainly form a pattern of bullying and this pattern can have serious repercussions on its targets, who (it turns out) are often found to exit the workplace in large numbers for various kinds of ill health, long before the bully behind their exits is even recognised as a possible reason. Very often companies who do not have strong protection practices in place lose a lot of good people this way. Bullying can have repercussions that are both broad and deep.

And THAT said, I do not think punishing or shunning bullies is necessarily a way to go, either. In fact, dealing with bullies probably requires wisdom and patience most of us lack. But bullies can wreak a lot of destruction without breaking any bones with obvious sticks or stones. And if we will not believe this, as even a first step, we will remain helpless to protect those who build, as against those who destroy.

Her behavior is certainly ugly, but saying nasty things about people isn't coercion.

Saying it is cheapens all the stuff that happened over the last two years that really WAS coercion, including but not limited to:

--denying people employment based on vax status.
--firing people for not submitting to unnecessary medical testing.
--preventing people from traveling
--fining or arresting people for being out of their homes for "unauthorized" purposes
--denying people access to education based on vax status
--denying people the right to gather peacefully, hold funerals, and attend religious services.
--Forcing people to wear masks in order to access basic, necessary services.

Coercion
The intimidation of a victim to compel the individual to do some act against his or her will by the use of psychological pressure, physical force, or threats.

Yup. It’s hard to pin the blame on any one specific person when everyone is chanting gooble gobble. But does that mean the people chanting have NO responsibility when the fever breaks?

https://youtu.be/jkfwmaKIph8

Murmuration

Gooble gobble gooble gobble, One of us! One of us!

Also, how is blame apportioned when you recognize many (most?) people are similar to tuning forks, propagating a consistent tone and signal when struck by something like a Nudge Unit? Jane Doe may not amount to much by herself, but she is amplifying a message that is being parroted across a population, like the clips of local news talking heads repeating a message in sync from corporate. Is Jane responsible for the message? No. But is she (and all other people parroting the message) culpable to some degree for mindless behavior that amplifies something like a witch-hunt? Absolutely.

Like the meme says: be honest. You didn’t follow the science. You followed the TV.

Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 65

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