Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 128

[ecosophia]

We are now in the third year of these open posts. As the phrase "died suddenly" repeats in the mass media like a mantra, statistics for work days lost to illness and all-cause mortality mount up in heavily vaccinated nations, and more and more ugly facts about the official response to Covid spill out into public, we are entering what may well turn out to be the most difficult period of the Covid disaster -- the phase in which denial rises in lockstep with the death rate, and a great many people try not to admit what has been done to them by the people and institutions they trusted. It could get ugly, folks.

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.

Comments

Re: When/if

[(Anonymous)]

The pussyhat thing confused me - I had initially assumed that they were a play on pussy(cats), hats made to look like cat ears, and in pink because pink is the "female" color (in the west at this point in time anyway). It was only later that I discovered that they are - or some people think they are - supposed to look like vulva?

I just checked Wikipedia, which says that, "The creators state that the name refers to the resemblance of the top corners of the hats to cat ears while also attempting to reclaim the term "pussy", a play on Trump's widely reported 2005 remarks...."

So the hat WAS supposed to be a play on words and look like cat ears, but somehow it turned into something more sexualized and "anti-trans".

Just more weirdness around TDS, I guess. And, indirectly, coronamania, because the lunacy seemed to start with TDS and bleed forward.

Re: When/if

[(Anonymous)]

This is something I think a lot of people have a problem remembering (which might tie into the state-dependent-memory thing we've discussed here before): there was opposition to Trump right from the start; much of it was overblown and absurd; but it was overblown and absurd in a way which was normal. Democrats and Republicans started going crazy about the other one decades earlier; but at some point, TDS got weird even by the standard of blind partisan hatred.

The pussy hat thing is a good example. It started out with a play on "Grab them by the pussy", playing with pussy being slang for both female genitalia and cats. Then people started making the leap to "those hats are supposed to be female genitalia!" as things got weird.

For what it's worth, it was actually a claim made by some who wore them. I know someone who stopped participating when people wearing the hat started taking the claim it was female genitalia seriously....

Re: When/if

[(Anonymous)]

I know somebody who knitted a 'pink pussy-cat hat' for wearing at marches and this person went on at great length to me about Bill Clinton's sexual charisma. I thought it was just 'officially approved Facebook political opinion-ing' Because as offensive as Trump's crude machismo is I can't imagine anyone finding Bill Clinton savory on any level.