ecosophia | Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 75

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 uselessness 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

I've written here a few times about a break with my Quaker meeting over a "separate but equal" worship policy. My condensed translation:
Unvaxxed? Then go sit in the "fellowship" room with the windows open. Nothing personal. All are welcome here, of course. At least the sign says so.

Given the laboriousness of Quaker decision-making, I figured the policy could continue for multiple years. Quaker process can be like that if anyone strongly objects to something. I've just dropped out of sight since the spring, mentioning why I had stopped coming only if someone directly mentioned it. But I made no big show of it. I have tried to regard what happened as a lesson about the place and about how class and political loyalties messily intrude on spiritual life. Compared with the nightmares that others have faced, what I faced was trivial-- some PMC pearl-clutching and the loss of some illusions.

Everybody there is still required to mask, and there is still way too much zooming. (Also much respiratory illness, I hear, but I digress.) I just learned via email that they rescinded the separate-but-equal policy. That's good. [Caught myself on that last sentence-- I almost wrote, "That's progress," but the myth of progress is responsible for this fiasco!")

And a couple of people have already sent friendly little notes to let me know, along with statements to the effect of "hope to see you again at meeting soon." And I've found myself reliving Emily Oster's "amnesiasty" proposal from last October in microcosm, feeling all the same emotions. Surprising how difficult it's proving to feel like I've truly moved on.

As I was writing this, it just struck me-- the waves of emotion I'm feeling (anger, sadness, disappointment, relief) match what I felt for quite a few years after my divorce. Makes sense, suppose, because it's the same process of acknowledging the reality of a breakup.

My heart goes out to you.

All day today and yesterday and day before yesterday and in fact all month I have been procrastinating on answering a friend's email. He used to be my closest friend, for 3 decades. But I just cannot get past the vaxx garbage. He was very aggressive about it. But where I am now, the way I see things, he's just not going to see it. My trying to explain it would be like trying to whisper across an ocean.

I am concluding that a whole of people are like Emily Oster-- they just do not have a clue. It was not OK what they did and acting like nothing happened isn't going to make it OK.

I am optimist though about new endeavors, new friends.

Thank you for posting here. This has been such a lonely and strange time for me, as for so many other people. It really helps to be reminded that I am not alone.

I hear you. I met old friends for coffee and realized we were on very different pathways.
They were generous and warm, and I thought 'Maybe I'm the judgemental one here' but
taking Emily 'Oyster' into consideration and their associations with 'the narrative' my gut
feeling is the differences are vast. If I'd brought up Subject A, B, or C the fault lines would
have been obvious. I didn't.

A new arrangement with the world would be quite nice indeed.

I don't know if this is a normal mid-life experience, or if it is just because of the hysteria of recent years, but I have had several similar experiences. The most recent was an old college buddy that came to visit recently; and I realized that I don't very much like the person that he has become. He's a true believer in the 'rona and everything that goes with it, but I think I might feel the same even without that.

Tough. We need communities. We also need to be true to what we are called to be. I have struggled with this all my life and often lied - 'I do not need others'. Prayer? Waiting upon the Lord?

It is so strange to hear your community is still masking. In the UK Midlands masks are rare and have been for approaching a year. I consider myself so fortunate to live here.

Maybe this is Universe telling you it's time to find a new religion?

I deeply sympathize. I never joined, but was involved in the Denver Friends' Meeting. For my mother, it is her most important community. The last time I was in Denver we held my father's memorial service there, though he was not a member either. My mother and as far as I can tell everybody there is a true COVID believer. I'll be meeting with them in two weeks (by Zoom thank goodness).
I've always had the highest regards for the Friends. They seem to have found a way to prevent the sorts of manipulations that can ruin an initially beneficial religion. Most of the Buddhists seem to be pretty good in that respect as well, but in the US, they are apt to be solidly PMC and true COVID believers too.
My heart goes out to you, and I hope you can find a decent real-world community that shares your values, within which you can find happiness.
A couple years back, before the vaccinations began, my mother told me of a schism she was seeing happen among her own friends. Basically, from her description, it came down to some people no longer agreeing with the Democratic Party's outlook, no longer believing what the latter was saying, and there was no way of bridging the gap. Either you saw the issues or you just didn't. People (in the Friends' Meeting from what I can make out) left friends behind and simply moved on. It's a very sad time, but from what I can tell, those who believe the COVID narrative are simply mystified at the change in their former friends.
(No wonder they keep blaming the Russians!)

(OP here). Thanks. That is a very interesting story, about at least a few Friends no longer being joined at the hip with the Democratic party.

Offensive and tone-deaf as it was, the Covid policy was really just a catalyst. I could no longer pretend to have much in agreement with most of what goes on there nowadays.

A few weeks back, I responded to a request for help from a dear friend from that same meeting. (We see each other fairly regularly.) I was surprised to find it was more of a work party, with maybe 6 or 8 people from meeting dropping in and out over the morning. One of them said, "Well, I certainly haven't seen you for a long while!"

"Yes," I said. "It has been a long while." But I just couldn't begin to say any more.

Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 75

Update

Re: Update

Re: Update

Re: Update

Re: Update

Re: Update

Re: Update

Re: Update