Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 104
Aug. 1st, 2023 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

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, religions, etc. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.
With that said, the floor is open for discussion.
Re: Unfiltered search engines?
Date: 2023-08-04 08:47 pm (UTC)What's happened to the public libraries is nothing short of tragic. I've moved around quite a bit in the last 40 years, and I can't believe the level to which libraries have been molded into the exact same vanilla content everywhere. Definitely as wicked with the non-digital censorship as compared to what's taken place online....
Re: Unfiltered search engines?
Date: 2023-08-06 03:48 pm (UTC)Same here in The Netherlands. I joined the library last year to take a look. No controversial books whatsoever, not even on demand. None of the books would look amiss with a Coca-Cola advertisement in them. Absolutely nauseating. People know it too-- the readership declines every year.
The librarian said there is a national central committee that decides which books are appropriate. That explains the uniformity in Dutch libraries.
Re: Unfiltered search engines?
Date: 2023-08-06 08:16 pm (UTC)I used to feel very warmly towards public libraries, but have become increasingly turned off. Not just because it's harder and harder to find anything that isn't bland "approved content" , but because I increasingly can't stand librarians. I've had contact several people in my personal life who hold Master of Library Sciences (MLS) degrees and work as librarians or archivists, and every one of them - Every. Single One. - is a woke, activist liberal who complains about having to stock books they don't agree with, and who complains about the ignorant masses who come into their branches looking for wrong-think authors. Every one of them is intellectually snobby and condescending. Librarians are increasingly putting me off libraries.
Re: Unfiltered search engines?
Date: 2023-08-07 12:27 am (UTC)I have such fond memories of roaming the library like it was native turf. My parents volunteered for the ESL program, so we practically lived there-- the librarians all knew us, knew what we liked to read, would set aside new books they thought we'd like, most of them were really cool people, and we were such reliably voracious readers, that the children's librarians would sometimes let my sisters pre-read stuff that wasn't on the shelf yet, and report back to them on whether it belonged in YA or jfic.
It makes me deeply sad that my kids will not ever have that kind of relationship with the local public library. We're still there a lot, but... frankly the librarians creep me out and I don't want them around my kids unsupervised. And most of the good books we find lately are coming from the library shop where they sell discards and donations.
Re: Unfiltered search engines?
Date: 2023-08-07 03:11 pm (UTC)Re: Unfiltered search engines?
Date: 2023-08-07 02:43 am (UTC)