Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 164

[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 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 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

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, much of my old life —job, friends, family— is not ever going to go back to what it was. Thank goodness!

Any grieving that I needed to do for those surprisingly unforseen changes got done while the whole ridiculous societal shut-down thingy was afoot. What I now find challenging is pretending that I still believe any of the norms and tropes that used to keep me reliably tethered to whatever manufactured status quo was passing itself off as "culture" here in the US. We do have rich culture here, as strong as anywhere else, but Christ, it's hard to sort out from all the fabricated detritus that gets continuously hurled at us.

For me, the heavy part is the pretense that, after we shut everything down for a year, we could then ever hope to return to the contrivedly artificial “normalcy” we had previously been suffering under. I do feel deep sympathy for anyone futilely trying to keep that imploded artifice alive — a desperation that reeks of cognitive dissonance or unexamined hypocrisy, just barely being held at bay. Won't we all be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief whenever that overwhelmed dam is finally allowed to collapse, and we can let go of all the posturing of being "good" Americans, just barely keeping up with some imagined Joneses?

The light part for me is being able to finally drop so much of the societal baggage and expectation I was carrying around. There is nothing quite like having one's betters mandate that everyone must temporarily suspend most of the incentives and mythologies that had so effectively been holding us captive. Whether those draconian and self-contradicting mandates got shrieked by colleagues or talking heads or lab coats or loved ones, all of them offered us the perfect antidote to find the way out of the maze we had unwittingly allowed to entrance us. In hindsight, I have to say, it was one rickety mess of a maze!

How on earth did we allow ourselves to get lured in and deluded by such transparently flimsy myths? It certainly ends up looking a lot less enticing or intimidating when viewed from the outside. As a matter of fact, it actually looks as though one well-placed kick could topple the whole tottering edifice into a garbage pile, allowing us to finally start work on building something more stable and enduring. Sadly, I suspect that my family would prefer to go on living in the maze/garbage pile they've grown so accustomed to. There but for the grace of all the gods...

— Christophe