Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 162

[ecosophia]

We are now in the fourth year of these open posts. When I first posted a tentative hypothesis on the course of the Covid phenomenon, I had no idea that discussion on the subject would still be necessary more than three years later, much less that it would turn into so lively, complex, and troubling a conversation. Still, here we are. Crude death rates and other measures of collapsing public health are anomalously high in many countries, but nobody in authority wants to talk about the inadequately tested experimental Covid injections that are the most likely cause; public health authorities government shills for the pharmaceutical industry are still trying to push through laws that will allow them to force vaccinations on anyone they want; public trust in science is collapsing; and the story continues to unfold.

So it's time for another open post. The rules have been slightly modified: 

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 and its government enablers are causing injury and death on a massive scale. 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 wholly owned 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 plan on making off topic comments, please go away. This is an open post for discussion of the Covid epidemic, the vaccines, drugs, policies, and other measures that supposedly treat it, and other topics directly relevant to those things. It is not a place for general discussion of unrelated topics. Nor is it a place to ask for medical advice; giving such advice, unless you're a licensed health care provider, legally counts as practicing medicine without a license and is a crime in the US. Don't even go there.

5. 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. 

Please also note that nothing posted here should be construed as medical advice, which neither I nor the commentariat (excepting those who are licensed medical providers) are qualified to give. Please take your medical questions to the licensed professional provider of your choice.

With that said, the floor is open for discussion.

Comments

Re: Subjective minds

[quoadsacra]

It’s a good question frittermywig. Even after all this time I still find myself an outlier in my views about the events of the last few years, which have been largely accepted and memory-holed by so many other people around me.

There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t ponder what the hell happened in 2020. However, I am starting to accept that I may never work out what it was all about. There are other mysteries to me too, such as the one whose commemoration date was yesterday.

As for your question, it happened that three of my closest friends, independently of me, came to the same conclusion about rejecting the pharmaceutical interventions that our governments so considerately offered to us.

We’re very different people but the one thing I think we all had in common was that when the events of 2020 hit us we were all somewhat already at odds with the society we lived in and still processing various traumas from earlier parts of our lives. None of us felt particularly happy or fulfilled at that point when the global sniffles struck.

Those people I know who did seem happy with their lives were more willing to believe that the government was acting in their interests and some of them even seemed to think that lockdown etc. was a merry jape. I remember one friend telling me enthusiastically how he had gone to an quackcination centre at close of day to ask them if they had any spare shots so he could get his early!

So, in short, myself and my refusenik friends were all a bit unhappy and feeling stuck at the time, had all experienced some kind of unresolved trauma and – we are probably all a wee bit “difficult”, if truth be told.

One final data point that may be more related to your subjective mind hypothesis – I notice that several of the bloggers, podcasters etc who were already on my radar at the time – such as Gordon White in Australia and of course our esteemed host here - also placed themselves in the questioning camp early on.

Even though I had not met them in person, I had unknowingly and fortuitously assembled, some years prior to the event, a small group of thinkers who would help me feel I was not alone and enabled me to solidify my own suspicions that something was far from right with the whole covid business.

Re: Subjective minds

[(Anonymous)]

To comment on your last paragraph—

For me the main "thinkers who would help me feel I was not alone and enabled me to solidify my own suspicions that something was far from right with the whole covid business" were John Michael Greer (our esteemed host) and James Howard Kunstler. I'd been reading them both regularly for some years already when 2020 struck, and thank goodness. They became my life rafts in this sea of covidian chaos and lunacy. So many other writers, they fell away, one after the other after the other (along with my friends and colleagues). I remember in 2021-2021 especially, it seemed that every week there was some writer / blog / podcast / magazine I'd been attending to for years that would emit some fascist kray-kray and, albeit startled, I would just sadly shrug, and say to myself, "Well, huh, another one gone." There were several bloggers and other writers whom I started reading ex-post (Coffee and Covid, A Midwestern Doctor, and others). But for me, JMG and Kunstler, they were and remain the main ones I read regularly.

Cetiosaurus

Re: Subjective minds

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this. I'm delighted to hear that I was able to help.

Re: Subjective minds

[(Anonymous)]

I wish to chime in to say that Cetiosaurus spoke for me too. Thank you, John Michael Greer, for your generously sharing your knowledge and giving me the confidence to stand alone. The website I no longer read is Naked Capitalism (NC) due to their response to Covid 19 "issue." However, I'm grateful for NC for one huge thing: NC introduced me to your wonderful writing.

Re: Subjective minds

[(Anonymous)]

Seconded. I have the incredible advantage of having two very, very anti vaccine relatives who also would have bailed me out of any, and I mean any consequences of refusing the vax if they could. That said, I still felt shaken and emotionally paralyzed for three years straight, like a confused animal gazing up at a storm from within a cage. JMG already had done me two services by convincing me that the world was not matter alone, and by introducing me to astrology, a practice which has changed my perception of reality, become the basis of my prayer life, and might even become a career. This third service was simple but not easy; his firm, utterly logical reactions kept me steady through the great spiritual test of a chronic illness flareup starting in 2017, combined with this terrible, crushing pressure to destroy one's health with the vaccine and succumb to fear over covid beginning in 2020. While I never, ever would have been foolish enough to take an experimental vaccine while suffering from lifelong chronic illness, I might have had a mental breakdown or set myself back further from the sheer pain of isolation and lost time. Thank you, JMG. I hope the enormous help you've given me and others will uplift you and your wife's spirit seven times over. You deserve it.


As a side note Cetiosaurus, I've enjoyed every long comment I've ever seen of yours on the blog, and even been quite moved by some of them. I only pop in sometimes nowadays, but even if I'm only seeing a small fraction, that's a darned good record. Kudos.


-Derpherder

Re: Subjective minds

[frittermywig]

Agree, 100%.

Re: Subjective minds

[deathcap]

Kunstler's content unfortunately has drifted pretty far away from energy issues and seems to be mostly hating on "the blob" and repetitively railing against the security state as an extension of the Democratic party these days. I still read him sometimes, but he's long lost the focus on energy issues that made me want to read him much to begin with. And the comment sections...ugh.

Our esteemed host here is good at recognizing something that lets him maintain a loyal, enthusiastic argument: he is not a broken record. Week after week, it's something new. He doesn't get stuck preaching the same message over and over again. JMG, you probably don't need to be told that that's a big part of your appeal, but I'll happily tell you than it is. And I suspect you know that and do it on purpose :)