Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 191

[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. 

6. Please don't just post bare links without explanation. A sentence or two telling readers what's on the other side of the link is a reasonable courtesy, and if you don't include it, your attempted post will be deleted.

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)]

JMG and others,

What do you expect will be our (people emotionally bruised by the psyops of the last few years) relationship with the mainstream society? Are we going to act like nothing happened and move on to the next propaganda campaign, be it AI or "boycott USA" in case of the Canadians or whatever comes? Or are we going to have a deep scar that will affect our relation with the society going forward?

For example, my unvaxxed kid will be going to College soon, and I know that he will be surrounded by the mainstream students and professors, who have a different recollection of the pandemic than us. Also, he will probably attend biology/medicine-related classes, where the teacher and co-students "know" that the virus came from bats and the vaccine "worked" to stop the pandemic. He will probably have to write those "known" facts in papers and articles. I wonder how the life will be for this entire group of kids in the future.

[transcriberb]

Hello Anonymous, great question. I am some decades past university myself but I can tell you, I struggle with this question every day.

A good one-liner

[(Anonymous)]

Before this week's Covid post even went up,

"When someone shows you who the are, believe them..."

came to me as the answer to the OP's question.

*Ochre Harebrained Curmudgeon*

[(Anonymous)]

I have been working on this question for a while now. For me it's not only mainstream society, but the ethnic and religious subculture I was born into, which nurtured me and gave me friends and community and many positive opportunities growing up. As I grew up I watched this community, my people, gradually shed more and more of the religious identity and immigrant identity (now three generations old) that had given us a sense of being separate from mainstream society and capable of questioning it, of going our own way.

Covid was the last death-knell for that identity. My people mostly went along with the craze, and now nothing substantial separates them from the mainstream. (Except ethnic food, ever the last fiercely-held bastion of identity). Grieving the loss of almost everyone I've ever known, as I've allowed myself to frame it, has been a process. I had to cry a lot, and admit to myself that this actually is a really big deal, and it's okay not to get over it right away. What made forgiveness harder for me, in relation to my church/ethnic community, is that I know them deeply, and unlike the random mainstream mask-wearing stranger I might pass on the street, I know that they really should have known better.

What has emerged for me is an attitude of letting go. Like a ship which used to be anchored by ropes to other ships in the harbour, I now slip quietly past these people I used to belong to, among them but not claiming any hold on them, setting sail for my own journey. To hold onto anger and a claim for justice would be to postpone my own freedom. To wait around hoping for reconciliation will only delay my discovery of my new community and tribe. And that has already begun and is well under way, I'm happy to say.

I do believe that our true companions in life are connected to us by invisible bonds of spirit, and that the bonds of blood and soil that shape us in our youth are important and worthy of whatever gratitude we can find for them. Shaking loose from those blood relationships is the first step into adolescence; forgiving whatever wrongs they may have done to us is the first step into real adulthood.

My two cents.

Dylan

[(Anonymous)]

Oh my brother, I hear you! Very well said!

I am going through a similar journey as I have to come to (finally) accept that I cannot change things - neither people nor politics. I no longer care about reconciliation or forgiveness. It is what it is. Like you, I have my "anchors" that express my deeply held religious beliefs and my ethnic identity. They are my "rock" - no matter what happens in the outside world.

I will continue to build that home within myself. If I find likeminded others - great! - I remain open to that possibility. But I am also prepared to journey on alone. Life and fate!

Liam in Toronto

Community

[tgreveries]

I can absolutely relate to this experience. I've found that process of letting go to be helpful for allowing me to maintain some of my closer friendships with people who got caught up in the covid craze. There's still some tension around the topic when it comes up, but it's been a useful social practice, learning how to communicate across that gap and how to find common ground and dwell there when interacting.

A big part of my motivation is to see how viable it is to prioritize relationship over political (and even value) alignment, in the hopes I can learn to be part of the change I want to see. The elites want us divided, feeling isolated, and fighting against each other, so this is one small way to work against their agenda. It's been challenging, and doesn't always work, but the successes make it feel like a worthwhile experiment so far.

Speaking of community and finding your tribe, I think the idea of a meetup in the Kitchener Waterloo area for Ecosophians was raised some time back. Feel free to send me a PM if this is still of interest. I find that being able to discuss these things with like-minded people in the offline world makes navigating the ongoing crazy of Canadian public life much more tolerable.

TGReveries

[(Anonymous)]

I do not think that my relationship with mainstream society was ever all that solid, and after covid, it is very shaky— and I expect it to remain so. This is frustrating to me sometimes, and often lonely. But it is what it is.

I find solace in knowing that I am not alone, however, even if most of the people I know who realized this was all a con are "Internet friends," not people with a real name and face whom I can call or meet with in person. I hold the hope that in time I will meet more kindred souls. I take a lot of solace also from the earth and the sky, the trees, the insects, the birds, the animals, and most especially my dogs. I also sense the watching and loving spirits of those who are not with us on this plane at this time.

James Tunney talks about the "mystic murmuration." This is a concept I am still getting my mind around, but as I understand it, it's like a murmuration of starlings, those who feel called to do so will move together. It isn't the traditional communication conduits that prompts that to happen; rather, something deeper and ancient.

But to conclude. What I would say at this time is that mainstream society is a big fat reality—and depending on my goals, and the situation, I need to be able to participate in it, navigate around or through it, avoid it, tunnel under it, pole-vault over it, what have you. But I cannot do that if I don't see it, and if I don't know myself.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm the Anonymous who posted this comment that opens "I do not think that my relationship with..."

I would ammend that last line to:

I can do that best when I stay curious and see clearly, and when I know myself.

[(Anonymous)]

Hello Anonymous,

My son is at a small and very liberal university in the Southern United States.

He is completely unvaxxed and very easily received a religious exemption. By his reports the campus is very divided. Most of the athletes (he is one of them) are very conservative and active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. All of his friends are conservative, varied levels of Christian and incredibly angry at the liberal and woke nonsense that is frequently pushed down their throats by the president and various professors and the other group of students.

Interestingly, all of these kids found each other. They stay together and shield themselves from the woke nonsense and scientific lies that surround them. They all mourned as a very beloved football player died from a pulmonary embolism (likely caused by the vaccines that were mandated by the president of the school during Covid).

We did not raise our children to be any religion...this is the group that my son found because it suits his personality and his social and political preferences. He is not overly crazy about the hard core Bible thumpers around him, but he can parse the value of some positive messaging in some of the verses.

I feel confident that I exposed my son to enough information that he is making good decisions and can see through the lies and propaganda. In fact they have some mandatory lectures, most of them are on climate change and LGBTQ stuff. The program is called Cultural Life Program. I have different words for the CLP...not very positive. He usually goes to the choir concerts (they count toward the requirement) and the math lectures.

There is hope. If we teach them and warn them they will find their way.

[(Anonymous)]

I really appreciate how you support your son's autonomy. For many the risk feels too high of not belonging.

[ecosophia]

I've been way out on the fringes all my life; as an autistic kid, that was where I landed promptly enough, and as I got older I simply got used to it and pursued my interests and enthusiasms with zero interest in what other people would think. So my relationship with mainstream society has always been contentious at best.

The Covid experience didn't change that in any way -- to me, it was just one more stupid craze that swept up a lot of people, threw up some difficulties I had to maneuver around, and then ebbed in the usual way. It was nothing new, and the emotional abuse ladled out by the mainstream to dissidents like me was nothing new, either.

Of course I was deeply fortunate to be married to someone who was just as comfortable out on the fringes as I am, so I didn't have to deal -- as so many people did -- with hostility on such issues from the one I loved. (If anything, Sara was more hardcore on the Covid issue than I am.) Nor did we have children to worry about. Thus I'm not sure I can say anything you or most readers here will find helpful, unless they've also walked away from any kind of emotional commitment to the mainstream culture and are comfortable being a freak on the fringes like me.

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking of stupid crazes... it's mind boggling watching the nationalism sweeping my country of Canada right now. The same people who were a couple months ago rabid post-nationalists who believed Canada was nothing more than a patriarchal, white supremacist, colonized, settler state are just as rabidly shouting "elbows up" and professing how much they love their country...

It's far more interesting and sane out on the fringes.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm watching all the leftists go full on anti-semitic ZOG conspiracy theorists because Trump supports Israel, where a few years ago they were accusing Trump supporters of being anti-semitic ZOG conspiracy theorists.

[weilong]

I was born without whatever it is that makes people cheer for sports teams. I went to the high school football games and that sort of thing, but I could never figure out why I was supposed to care what "our team" was doing.

The political teams never made sense to me, either. The analogy to a professional sporting event seems pretty clear to me: the owners and the players are raking in the money, because we are all paying too much for lousy hot dogs. Apparently a lot of people think it's fun.

[(Anonymous)]

It's not clear how to parse this - do you think it's good for Canadians to be patriotic or not? If it was naughty of the left to be unpatriotic before, you can't sneer at them for being patriotic now. People who love something despite its problems, and so halfheartedly, tend to value it more highly when it's threatened; that's just universal human nature.

For what it's worth, I have two friends in Canada who thought that Poilievre was sure to win the upcoming election -- until the moment when Trump started threatening to destroy Canada as a nation, and immediately the electorate wanted someone who would defend the country firmly rather than toadying to Trump. Quite understandably so, in my opinion. You're in many ways better off than we are in the U.S.; you have little or no motivation to yield your sovereignty and become an American satrapy.

[(Anonymous)]

Does anybody remember the early days of the covid 19 pandemic, before covid came to America, when the Republicans were in favor of locking down the United States of America while the Democrats were saying that covid 19 was a racist conspiracy theory and just a harmless flu? Then March 2020 came along and covid 19 started spreading in America and both parties abruptly switched views and everybody flipped their views along with them.

[(Anonymous)]

I find what is happening in Canada to be crazy, stupid and vile all at the same time.

It never ceases to amaze me how this country, which was once the envy of much of the world, has lost its way. It now appears to be populated by hordes of mindless drones who seem intent on continually beclowning themselves. The WEF candidate from the so-called "Liberal" party is (IMHO) evil and the head of the socialist NDP is nothing more than a grifter in a turban who is more concerned about securing his extravagant pension than actually doing anything for his supporters or the country. I don't much care for the Conservative candidate either. It's a really big mess! I would not be surprised to see the country break up over this - which might be a good thing.

My apologies to our American friends and family. They don't represent all of us. There are still some outposts of sanity here in the north.

Liam in Toronto

[(Anonymous)]

JMG, I love this comment. Most sane thing I've read all week.

Funny but I was recently reading about some of the Crusades and, of all things, the Southern California land boom of the late 19th century. Yep, people really did lose themselves in a craze.

In my own lifetime however, I had never experienced anything so strong as the craze for the covid vaxxes.

[(Anonymous)]

At this point I see a civil war happening. I am still very angry with the people that tried to get me fired from my job for avoiding the vaccine and the other ways the same groups have gas lit me in the past and banished me from their various social clubs; university, sports teams, places of leisure. I know other people that are more angry than I am. It seems to me that many of us have shifted from seeing these people as mistaken to insane and dangerous.

Im not sure what a civil war will look like though. Theres the issue of local organization. It might be difficult for people to organize a insurgency inside america as I hear there are many Undercover FBI already within militias. Any kind of organization would be very suspect and dangerous to join so a coup by militia would be unlikely. Would it be street gangs then? Cartels? Maybe no organization would be needed, just a number of brave indipendents operating under a single manifesto. Or perhaps several groups with separate manifestos across different regions. Or all of these things... It could certainly be interesting.

[(Anonymous)]

Many intelligent observers, including Kunstler, switched their stances to civil war. I posted a comment below with links.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't see a civil war rising out of an insurgency. Seems much more likely that government forces like the FBI and military will split up, and the various civilian militias will line up behind those factions. Hard to say what exactly will split up government forces. Probably the judiciary will get all tangled and ambiguous, with one court denying the power of another court to rule on whatever. It becomes so unclear what "law and order" means that enforcement is stuck picking sides. Who will put Humpty Dumpty back together?!

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting that 20 years before 1860, people were talking about "There's going to be a war over this if things don't change". Then about 5 years before it really got going there was "Bleeding Kansas". Then Abraham Lincoln got elected.

My sense is we're at the "There's going to be a war over this if things don't change" point. Start getting ready if you see something that looks like "Bleeding Kansas".

None of this stuff comes out of the blue, you'll get plenty of warning, all you have to do is pay attention.

[revert2mean]

Well, if we follow Kuhn and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, he says people never change their thinking. A new generation take over and dismantle the old paradigm. That's happening a bit forcefully in the US with RFKJ. Surely part of Trump's support came from people infuriated by the lockdowns and mandates.

On a personal level, I accept the first part of Kuhn's theory: people won't change. The friends who abandoned me, the people, including most family, who disapprove of my attitude, they'll never change and agree with me. Fate's given me a mainstream but technical job, so I don't particularly have to believe anything on a professional basis, but the people I work with are not that likely to agree with my views either.

I just assume I'll never hear "you were right all along". But thanks on behalf of all of us, US voters.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, Anonymous. Big question! I am drawn to your definition of “our” – that is, “people emotionally bruised by the psyops of the last few years”. The way, I see it, virtually everybody has been emotionally bruised by the goings-on since the beginning of 2020 (perhaps even a couple of decades earlier, but let’s not go there right now). But there are several categories of the emotionally bruised:

- Those who are not conscious of it and have bought the psyops hook, line and sinker – these are the woke/antifa/far-left loons whom I believe suffer from something akin to Stockholm Syndrome;

- Those who are not conscious of it but may have an intuitive feeling that something is ‘off’; they are still easily manipulated by the pysop du jour but are not out burning Teslas, etc. They just follow the herd of ‘moderates’ who don’t exercise their faculty of reflection, contemplation and analysis;

- Those who are conscious of it and feel that matters are profoundly wrong; they are to a large extent immune from the old psyop and may be able to spot the psyop du jour – they know that ‘something’ needs to be done, but don’t have a clue what and therefore do nothing; and

- Those who are conscious of it, are reflective and critical, and are as mad as hell. They are not waiting to be saved by anyone and no longer trust authorities and “experts” of any stripe or colour. (Quite likely most of the people who hang out in this Covid post space belong to this category) People of this category are taking as much direct control over their lives as possible and are the primary agents of change. At present they are very small in number (perhaps less than 1% of the population). If they grow in number to 3% or more, and they are unified in purpose (which is a big if), they can be instrumental in steering the course of societal change that the time seems to be ripe for.

As for your unfoxed child, I feel for you! My youngest finished high school in 2020 and allowed himself to be coerced into getting foxed (“No pokey-pokey, no post-secondary education for you!”). Fortunately he has chosen a path in the trades where there the culture of self-sufficiency and “frack you, make me” is still alive and well (thank the gods!). Minimal BS courses, to boot! When I graduated from high school I first went into the bio-sciences but quickly got out as I found no humanity there. If I were graduating today, I would seriously consider going to some homeopathic college or some other “alternative healing modality” training where the curriculum acknowledges the unity of body, mind and spirit and is critical of the now crumbling edifice of Rockefeller-medicine. But obviously I am not your child…

As for Canada, right now there is so much unconscious-level anxiety and anger about the utter decay of our nation that the punching bag called “Donald Trump” has come in handy – courtesy of our political parties that would rather have us rage against a manufactured external enemy than allow us to use that emotional energy to lynch them for their treasonous behaviours. This too shall pass – but what damage will be done in the meanwhile is anybody’s guess.

Ron M

[charlieobert]

I think there is at least one more category - those who are reflective and critical but not "mad as hell".

There are other paths to constructive change, and other motivations, besides being angry.