The star of films like The Player and Bull Durham opens up about two tough years of pandemic politics, and worries society is purposefully phasing out the common meeting space
Nice to hear some are a bit ashamed of their behavior. Every vax pusher should have their tail between their legs at this point. But the human ego will hang on hard to bullshit to avoid realizing they were had. As an unvaxed RN former Green Party voter I’m ready to vote DeSantis in a couple of years. Happy to admit I e been a fool.
I’m a MD and took the original two shot “vaccine” as directed. I was very happy to be vaccinated and was really shocked and disappointed when I realized it WAS NOT a vaccine. Having been egregiously lied to once I have lost all faith in our institutions. I have taken no more shots and feel I probably made a mistake taking the shot
Me too. I took the first two enthisiastically but number 3 reluctantly, as did my RN wife. I then had a TIA three days after #3 and my wife developed new-oneset Reynaud's. Both were entered into the multiple page VAERS data base.
I've lost faith in the entire institution I was so proud of being part of for 35 years. Cancelled the NEJM and JAMA who purposefully publish Abstracts that do not represent what the data in the article actually demonstrate - and since no one reads past the Abstract there's a lot of Disinformation which gets disseminated.
Every drug study is sponsored by Pharma whose incestuous relationship with the FDA should be well-known.
No apology necessary. My PCP has announced his departure from his current medical group and I suspect he received pushback for his non-authoritative approach to Covid care. He's about as close as I've come to falling in love with a man.
Many things that one can contract from a vaccine are just as likely to be contracted from the natural virus. For example, it's the case that the vaccines induced myocardia, but the native virus did as well. Often, the question comes down to whether more people would get it with vaccines or without.
In the case of a virus that was as infective as this coronavirus, if your wife got Raynaud's from the vaccine, the virus likely causes that as well, and I would say more people would get it from the virus spread than from the vaccines.
That's not always the case. H1N1 vaccines in Scandinavia caused permanent debilitating narcolepsy in 1/400 people. The H1N1 flu also caused it in about the same ratio, BUT there was no way the entire population was going to contract H1N1 that year, it's more like a usual flu with 10% penetration each season. Sadly, half the population got that vaccine before they figured out the problem, so many more narcolepsy cases than there would have been, and fully attributable to the vaccine.
Some people claim that vaccines caused their kids' autism. We also know that populations that get widely vaccinated have lower autism rates. The second point is often used to refute the first, but it does not. The one actual known cause of autism is having had rubella during a pregancy. There is live rubella in the MMR vaccine. It's attenuated but still, who knows, could possibly cause autism in individual cases and yet still reduce overall autism in the community when vaccines are administered by reducing overall rubella transmission.
I am no more going to debate this with you than i would debate Sandy Hook with an Alex Jones fanboy..
Every health ministry of every wealthy democracy in the world has studied these vaccines, you don't have data they have not already looked at (shock alert).
And every one of them recommends vaccines for their people.
When that changes let me know.
Until then, I will point you to the research that is being on why people fall for LIES like the anti VAX or Climate Change denial. Companies like Pfizer love these conspiracy theories because it diverts attention from how much they are ripping off tax payers to buy these vaccines.
Uh, it has never been the case that "every one of them recommends" the MRNA vaccines and unlimited boosters to all age groups. Many countries used vastly different Covid vaccines and even many "wealthy democratic" ones are NOT authorizing these drugs for kids or even recommending them for certain age groups, up to 50 in some places. Only a handful of countries use these products exclusively, and many of them are "re-evaluting" the recommendation for young and healthy people as the risks of the pandemic wane and the risks from the drugs (only authorized during an unprecedented public health emergency) become more widely reported.
This, "everyone needs them, needs to boosted even, regardless of age or covid recovered status" is blanket product pushing unique to the US. Which, unsurprisingly, has uniquely high drug costs and an ultra incestuous relationship between pharma and the entities that regulate and recommend the drugs they approve. And, even in our country, you have regulatory bodies with members literally resigning over the anti-science decision to recommend these drugs to the entire population, on repeat, without long term safety data (or even current useful efficacy data on the newest booster).
You sound a lot like the Sackler army of doctors who later said "but I trusted them when they said their studies showed it wasn't addictive" after watching dozen of patients die by giving them lasting opioid addiction for a minor/temporary pain. Or the tens of thousands who died taking Vioxx for no benefit other than lining pharma's pockets.
It HAS changed already, and the fact that you still think there is in even a consensus among medical professionals, rather than what amounts to a crippling total blow to the legitimacy of the "ministries" you point to, is rather mind blowing.
Yes, and let us not forget that the US FDA's Vaccine Director and Deputy Director resigned in protest because of their anger that the Biden administration was inappropriately pressuring them to approve booster shots. So if one is relying on the experts and can't think for oneself, doesn't that make the natural position to rely on that resignation as a requirement to not trust the approvals that followed?
I agree with most of what you are saying. Every country has a different approach to vaccines and in the US, where the drug companies seem to making a ton of money the approach is more than in other countries. Totally agree.
That said. There are NO wealthy democracies health ministries that are aligned with the anti vaxxers. NONE. And that was my point. I have no problem questing the CDC. But their views on vaccine use are similar, not identical, to most countries. Which is why i can stand by my statment, let me know when one of those nations aligns their views on vaccines with the anti vaxxers.
There is currently research being done on the massive amount of Mis Information that is published and consumed by anti vaxxers. Every piece of misinformation that is produced and consumed by anti vaxxers is making money for someone.
It is the consumers of this content that researchers all over the world are studying. People that allow themselves to be so misinformed have historically proven to be a threat to the stability of a nation. That is what the research shows. So they can't be ignored or justified.
The misinformation published on Trumps claim that he won the election is the perfect example. It is an irrefutable FACT that he lost the election and that voter fraud plaid no role in the outcome. IRREFUTABLE. None the lest 60% of Republicans now don't trust election results, Republican Candidates are claiming they wont trust the election results unless the win and we had the attack on the capitol.
So people consuming misinformation have historically proven to be real threats to democracy.. That was my point and the evidence supports me on that.
You will have to explain that to Professor Dunlap...
<<Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks
Abstract
The conservative movement and especially its think tanks play a critical role in denying the reality and significance of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), especially by manufacturing uncertainty over climate science. Books denying AGW are a crucial means of attacking climate science and scientists, and we examine the links between conservative think tanks (CTTs) and 108 climate change denial books published through 2010. We find a strong link, albeit noticeably weaker for the growing number of self-published denial books. >>
Exactly. I explicitly said I would not more debate an amateur on vaccine effecacy, when their claims are refuted by every health ministry of every wealthy democracy in the world, than I would debate an Alex Jones supporter on Sandy Hook..
I am sure Alex Jones fans have reems of evidence on why Sandy Hook was a hoax. Only a fool would debate them
Every single health ministry of every single wealthy Democracy refutes your narrative about vaccines. Even Authoritarians health ministries like Russia and China refute your narrative. No, big pharma (evil as they are and they are evil) does not control all of these health ministries.
I am sure your illnesses were legitimate. And I would not be surprised of NEJMA and JAMA publish bullshit funded by big Pharma.
You are, however, consuming too much propaganda... Of that i am 100% certain. Vaccines are not perfect nor are they what you make them out to be.
True... and those people like to say "do the research yourself" on things like vaccine efficacy... The CDC is absolutely controlled by big pharma. That is why these companies are printing money. That should be our focus not vaccine efficacy. As long as every health ministry around the world validates the efficacy we should all be focused on how much money these companies are making off of tax payers.
Exactly. I'm happy to believe (almost) any conspiracy theory about the US's health care system, the CDC, big pharma, etc.
Covid and vaccines are Not That.
Anybody who thinks the CDC, Fauci, Pfizer, etc. are perpetuating some kind of hoax is the worst and dumbest kind of American--the kind that's completely unaware that there's a world outside of the US's borders. These people make me embarrassed to be an American.
I don't know the difference. What I do know is that if every single health ministry of every major country says we need to get vaccinated then they are more reliable than some clown listening to Joe Rogan and deciding he knows more than the scientists in each countries ministry.
Similarly, there's a large contingent of people on the left who get upset every time a mask mandate, vaccine mandate, testing mandate, etc. is rescinded.
Never mind that epidemiologists in every other country in the world (other than China) have decided that it's pointless to try to "fight" Covid with these sorts of measures. Even countries that previously decided that a zero-Covid policy was desirable, like Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan. The disease has simply become too contagious and now we just have to live with it. But there are still morons on the left who are sheltering at home and get furious when they see somebody at the grocery store who isn't wearing a mask.
Curiosity killing me here. As an MD what was the psychology around taking a medication for which you knew absolutely nothing about? Also, just months prior to their rollouts, the vaccine was considered experimental to the point the party trying to take the executive branch was clamoring about how they refused to be guinea pigs. Where were you on this? No stones cast. My brother is a CRNA and came to your same conclusion but he won't share why.
Great questions. I did place(unfounded) trust in CDC etc. in addition, I would have been fired for not taking it. I left that job and am working where a booster is not required. Although I read a great deal I should have done more research. I certainly feel “less healthy”(I walk up one flight of stairs and am out of breath) then I was prior to the shot.
After taking the vaccine and two boosters I too became out of breath walking up a single flight stairs despite working out everyday. Despite taking a blood thinner and a total cholesterol reading of 130 I recently was diagnosed with a blood clot in my lung. Vaccine related? Might be time for a CT Scan.
I really don’t think most MDs, RNs give much attention to the political machinations/corruption in government places. It’s like they’re high on their humanity driven work even though by now it’s obvious how corrupt the system is. My guess is some are having a painful wake up now. I’m so grateful for any MD/APN etc to voice their disillusionment in even an anonymous manner. The medical system is deeply pathological. When you sink into that reality and you’re in it, hard on your psyche.
I'm not sure what adjective best fits the situation, but the USA appears to be the only western country interested in pushing the "vaccine for all" mantra while many other countries have tapered this off a bit, especially for those typically healthy segments of the population (25 and under). One state has gone as far as to say a Dr. has no autonomy when providing Covid care. Call me mortified.
I'm familiar with the big pharma money. After all of the hurrah about getting back at them for pushing oxy where's the pushback from practicing medical professionals regarding pushing so called vaccines? They're deafeningly silent.
China, Yes that horrible authoritarian commie country doesn't have mandates! They don't do mRNA and they've just started an oral spray vaccine. We are so brainwashed...
Disagree. The most pathological aspect is that it has ZERO interest, concern etc for wellness. If you treat your body well enough you should rarely need the system. That SHOULD be the goal. But the left loves victims so they pound the “Medicare for all!” With zero regard for the fact that the more you need the system the more fucked you are.
I disagree. The most deeply pathological aspect of our system of illnesscare is that it is driven by the profit motive, i.e. capitalism. That's why they don't have an interest in wellness.
It's simple. Education equals indoctrination more education equals more indoctrination and MDs are high on the "education" list. The entire medical industrial complexes are giant scams believed in by insiders and outsiders alike. Pharmaceuticals are xenobiotic toxins that sometimes have beneficial side effects.
Somewhat agree. Self-education is a thing and typically does not result in indoctrination, but the Universities have been badly compromised unfortunately.
Because I became scared after reviewing the first of over 300 mortalities at my hospital during that horrible 2020-2021 winter. On Christmas Day we reported 10 deaths. Plain and simple: Fear, confirmation bias, trust in the Public Health and organizational authorities I’d relied on in 35 years of ID practice; I simply wanted the claims of efficacy to be true for me and my family. When I contracted Delta in July, I became less sanguine and noted not Delta infections admitted had been previously infected. When no one acknowledged this apparent natural immunity and refused to look into it is when I switched.
But still, STILL...
Even though I knew better last December, my Chief of Service, acknowledging my objections, still encouraged me. We submitted to the 3rd dose.
Now the Chief sees but we practice in a State which has made it illegal to give any opinion other than “safe and effective”.
I didn’t get a MnRA vaccine - but only through dumb luck. But I feel used by our Health Authorities - I wish I’d resisted getting vaccinated at all. I worry about what these MnRA vaccines mean for my families long term health.
What it means is your chances of dying are higher. Pretty straight forward. MIT and other highly respected research institutes are studying how people allow themselves to be so misinformed
Thanks for your honesty. The pressure was rough. I’m so grateful to work in a place that was pretty gracious re religious exemptions. I’m also proud of my chutzpah. Of course they’re making me test weekly which is embarrassingly absurd. Laughable really. Please be kind to yourself but don’t look back. There’s lots about the system that need some light.
I feel your pain. I had a Q-tip shoved up my nose every week for 2 years. Then my employers decided that we could rapid test at home but we needed to ZOOM call a supervisor so they could watch us test. I thought to myself, 'I'm not a child & my supervisor isn't my mamma so I'm not doing it." Luckily my employers are so inept at follow through that no one actually checked to see if I was testing. That was about 6 months ago. I should add that I haven't had so much as a sniffle in over 2 years. Never got Covid although I worked through, I believe, 4 waves of Covid, directly caring for clients who had Covid.
Yes of course. The tests alone are preposterous. Extra so when only unvaccinated are required. The whole system is laughable. Hopefully to the point of a massive wake up.
Here's the definitive, exhaustive list of every thing we test asymptomatic people for: CoVid-19. No one that I'm aware has ever before been tested for anything while having no visible or reported symptoms. Refuse the test and get fired. Fired for not being sick. Ridiculous doesn't begin to describe this madness.
Most diseases aren't [very] contagious until a person is symptomatic. That was the case with e.g. SARS, and why it fizzled out after a while. Symptomatic people isolated = no more SARS.
Covid is relatively unique in that it's contagious 2-3 days before a person even knows they're sick, basically reaching peak viral load right when a person starts developing symptoms.
So... testing asymptomatic people for Covid? Yeah. Duh. That's not ridiculous, it's common sense, for anybody who has the faintest idea how Covid is transmitted.
There is a lot about the system that needs light. Starting and ending with how much money the vaccine makers are earning.
It’s too bad so many Americans have allowed themselves to be misinformed on the efficacy of the vaccines. Not a single health ministry of any wealthy democracy is concerned about the efficacy. They have all done the science and the vaccines work. End of story. It does not matter how much you hate Fauci and the CDC...
Honestly I think the Vaccines makers are funding the misinformation about the efficacy to distract us on now they are ripping us off!
I well remember when COVID first hit and no one really knew how deadly it was (although the media did a good job of making it seem very dangerous and deadly). At that time, I started to read and learn that there has never been a successful vaccine produced for corona viruses + all attempts at mRNA treatment/vaccines (most in veterinary studies) had flopped. When COVID was still a scary thing, I started to repeat what I had learned and told others, we probably won't get an effective vaccine. In early 2021, the frenzy over the vaccines - what I now believe was a "mass formation psychosis” - even got to me. Despite what I had learned, I suddenly started frantically trying to get a vaccine (the J&J because I didn't trust the mRNA) - trying every possible provider I could (the vaccines were not easily available at the beginning). Looking back, I marvel at how I - as someone who should have known better - fell under the spell. I quickly regained my senses, but I too was a victim of the mass psychosis. Quite an education for me.
My experience as well. There was no doubt the strain that escaped from the Wuhan lab was very deadly but for a narrow population of people. I was firmly against lockdowns because I knew the outbreak epidemiology literature clearly advocated for selective protection and normalization of lives and economies.
Nonetheless after the horrible 2020-2021 winter I witnessed first hand, I WANTED to believe that the mRNA product was effective. Then, when I contracted mild Delta 6 months later and began to see that 30% of the hospitalized cases were vaccinated and NO cases had been previously infected I realized it it didn't work.
I also saw that 90% of the deaths that winter were either advanced age, horrifically baseline sick, BMI > 30 and Diabetes/Hypertension.
Fauci never addressed the Coronavirus vaccine conundrum - a vaccine for the common cold has been elusive for decades.
It wasn't till Robert Malone spoke Joe Rogan that I fully snapped out of it.
Too late. My wife and I got side effects after the 3rd dose.
I'm 76 and I was against lockdowns too, because I thought that I would rather get exposed, get a mild case now, and get immunity than to wait until I was even older and possibly weaker and get it then.
But I was saying at the beginning that it was nothing more than an advanced case of flu and nothing to be feared. Of course I was mocked and shamed, so I kept my thoughts to myself after that.
Sure, nobody had made a successful coronavirus vaccine before, because, why bother? The only dangerous coronavirus before Covid was SARS. Luckily we had some people who had been working on SARS research/vaccines for the last ~20 years. Without their work, we probably still wouldn't have Covid vaccines.
mRNA treatments had flopped? Uhh, which ones? The only serious efforts at mRNA therapies were by Moderna and BioNTech, two companies that were small, relatively unknown, and relatively underfunded when compared to other pharmaceutical companies. Once they got the right funding and partnerships, they both knocked it out of the park, which we should be happy about, instead of suspicious of.
We should be overjoyed that 1) some people were still researching SARS since 2004 by the time Covid hit, and 2) we had two companies that had been working on mRNA treatments for 8-10 years by the time Covid hit.
It's amazing that everything aligned exactly right for us to have effective Covid vaccines within 2 years of the initial outbreak. That's a testament to human ingenuity, and also a huge amount of good luck was involved.
Big pharma pays to promote the myth of the mRNA jabs being "vaccines" and that they are continually needed. Big pharma would love if the government owned and operated the health care service industry. They play a PR game claiming opposition while they push the corporatist model.
You're right when you say faith in our institutions has been lost. It's been coming for a while though, driven mostly by one-sided media for the most part. I was really shocked when doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals with decades of experience were suddenly 'canceled' and fired for not taking the (still) emergency use authorized drugs. It's as if everything we've learned about viruses and how to deal with them during the past 200+ years of medical practice and protocols were thrown out the windows for the sake of political expediency, not medical. While I'm not in that field, I have to wonder how many medical professionals were previously fired for not taking newly-produced pharmaceuticals prior to mRNA or other rushed to production drugs with less than a years worth of human testing. The responses to CoVid-19 seem to have little to no science to back them up. Now more than two-years later, with so much evidence these particular mRNA injections neither prevent infection nor spread of the virus, why continue to call these 'vaccines' at all? Is that not part of the continuation of misleading the public, furthering the decline in trust in our institutions?
The technical/scientific/medical definition of a vaccine has always been that it stimulates a person's immune system to recognize an antigen.
Nothing about whether or not it prevents a person from getting infected with something.
The notion of "the vaccine doesn't necessarily prevent you from getting infected so therefore it's not a real vaccine" is something that instinctively makes sense to the Facebook crowd, and has become a talking-point for idiots, but was never a real thing.
Bee Ess. the CDC changed its definition of vaccine from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease” to “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.” The public health agency also changed its definition of “vaccination.”
Big pharma called in that demand and the CDC clones complied because it benefited their big pharma stock holdings.
Merriam-Webster had to change their definition too, IIRC.
But it's because whoever does the CDC web site, and whoever wrote the Merriam-Webster definition, were laypeople and didn't get it quite right. Either that, or they tried to simplify the actual definition so it would be easier to understand for laypeople and didn't get it right.
In the end, you're cherry-picking incorrect definitions in order to make a point that's simply wrong.
The definition of vaccine has been consistent since vaccines have existed. Only recently changed to fit the narrative of the Wall Street oligarch woke.
The jabs are not a vaccine. They are the same as like a vitamin C booster to protect against a cold virus. However, the data on the COVID jabs are troubling in that it looks like they increased the infection rate for variants. So they are likely an anti-vaccine with respect to COVID... likely prolonged the pandemic instead of allowing natural herd immunity. That was good for big pharma.
He might be one, but that's typically no indication of exceptional knowledge outside of a particular medical branch, and sometimes not even exceptional in any branch. It's not even worth mentioning tbfh.
Also let me say that during the first Covid shots, no problem, but several people I know became quite ill with the vaccines given this October, and one was hospitalized due to developing Covid and pneumonia. I know it can happen but it is scary.
I agree and was confused by his answer. How Vaccines Work.
"Vaccines can help protect against certain diseases by imitating an infection. This type of imitation infection, helps teach the immune system how to fight off a future infection. Sometimes, after getting a vaccine, the imitation infection can cause minor symptoms, such as fever. Such minor symptoms are normal and should be expected as the body builds immunity.
Once the vaccinated body is left with a supply of T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes that will remember how to fight that disease. However, it typically takes a few weeks for the body to produce T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes after vaccination. Therefore, it is possible that a person infected with a disease just before or just after vaccination could develop symptoms and get that disease, because the vaccine has not had enough time to provide protection. While vaccines are the safest way to protect a person from a disease, no vaccine is perfect. It is possible to get a disease even when vaccinated, but the person is less likely to become seriously ill.
Right. If you're vaccinated for Covid, your body still recognizes and fights the infection, it's just a few hours/days too late to prevent the infection completely.
That's why vaccinated people rarely have to be hospitalized, or die, due to Covid. Their body starts fighting the infection in earnest several days before an unvaccinated person's body would have.
Which makes perfect sense (to me, anyway), since the people at risk of hospitalization/death (elderly, obese, immuno-compromised) are nearly all vaccinated for that very reason.
As Robbins observes in the interview, people believe what they want to believe. If you believe that your COVID was more mild because you had the vax, fine. If you believe the COVID strains have gotten less lethal/virulent, and has little to do with vax, or perhaps because you already had COVID, OK. All are possible, and none are provable.
Maybe we have a lower death rate despite having plenty of COVID out there now because we have fewer high risk people around than 3 years ago and/or because most everyone has already had it?
Every health ministry of every wealthy democracy in the world disagrees with you. Being an MD does not make you an authority on vaccines. But consuming right wing propaganda can and does make, even an MD, misinformed.
China and Russia are also huge proponents of Covid vaccination.
If Covid vaccines are just one big Pfizer scam to profit off a hoax disease, then man, it's worked better than they could have hoped for in their wildest dreams. LOL.
Ibbat you are spot on! It’s a vast global conspiracy! But the same people that figured out “stop the steal” have figured out the science on this one too...
I am wearing my mask while typing alone in my room.. Better be safe..
MIT is doing research on how people get FOOLED into things like Anti Vaxx and Anti Climate change. Media consumption as at the heart of it. Just like the adage "you are what you eat". Well our mind is what it consumers.
If you consume misinformation you will be misinformed
No every single health ministry of every wealthy democracy is NOT controlled by Pfizer. As for the CDC, they may be. I could be convinced of that. But what the CDC is saying about vaccines is in line with what every other health ministry is saying.
So stop eating McDonalds daily to learn about the world.. It is obscenely visable what you are consuming in writing.
Anti vaccine and anti climate change are only clumped together by the McDonalds corporate media machine for mass consumption. And I hate to break it to you but you swallowed some of it. Clumping beliefs to more beliefs is a tactic used to discredit without facts.
I was not giving my "opinion" about people that have fallen for lies about Vaccines and Climate change. I am quoting findings from numerous researchers all over the world. The debate on these issues ended long ago. Universities are studying the media consumption and psychological profiles of people that have fallen for these lies... Not just one university. Dozens of them, including MIT.
"Climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers and anti-GM campaigners: groups of people characterised by sometimes vehement denial of the conclusions of scientific research. This “rejection of science” poses a problem for modern society, the spread of doubt and misinformation from these groups can have negative – and potentially tragic – consequences (Lewandowsky & Oberauer, 2016)"
According to an archived version of the dictionary's website, Merriam-Webster formerly said a "vaccine" was "a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease."
The new definition of "vaccine", published in May, reads: "a preparation that is administered – as by injection – to stimulate the body's immune response against a specific infectious agent or disease."
The editors changed "artificially increase immunity" to "stimulate the body’s immune response" because they believed it would be more helpful to readers, according to Sokolowski.
"it doesn't work like a vaccine" a webpage doesn't work like a magazine either, but we still call them articles and sometimes even magazines. I really don't understand leaning so much on the semantic issue with the mRNA approach to inoculation. Surely the real concern is not that it was labelled a 'vaccine' but some other dangerous attribute and critiques should stay focused there?
But we don't call Web Pages magazines. So SARS COVID II is discovered...by China and it's genetic sequence is done by China which comes up with it's own way to deal with it resulting in much Less sickness and death than the USA or any large western country. So what does the US do? Did they build on established vaccine technology? Hell no. They tasked Pfizer, so CROOKED they had recently been fined $2.3 Billion for actions so egrigous even their captured regulator that they partially finance and Moderna that had NEVER brought a product to market and had to to have its research subsidized by the state to develop a whole New technology for the pandemic. Now; WHO would do such a thing and how did it work out? Well, for Pfizer/Bionteck and Moderna; they made out like the Bandit's they are. How about the American people... the worst in the world. So WHO bears responsibility for the failures... nobody by law. Did anyone get Rich over the pandemic; Oh yeah, lot's including the congress and senate and senior officials and Wall Street, always Wall Street. WHO took advantage of the crisis to garner power...U no WHO.
Merriam-Webster is one source of definitions for words. They aren't the ultimate authority. It's not like their dictionary is written by God.
In this case, they didn't get their definition right. What they had disagreed with the definition in medical textbooks, etc.
The correct response, if any response is warranted at all, is to blame Merriam-Webster for putting an incorrect definition in their dictionary. Not to start drawing invalid conclusions based on incorrect definitions.
The word "protection" has replaced the word "immunity" on the CDC definitions page, as it becomes clear that even fully vaccinated Americans are not "immune" to COVID variants, most recently, omicron.
As CNSNews.com reported on May 4, 2021, the CDC at that time defined vaccination as "The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease."
But that definition has changed over time. The CDC website now defines vaccination as "the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection from a specific disease."
----------
Now tell me how the CDC also isn't the ultimate authority on words and their definitions aren't written by God.
...not only not 'immune', not necessarily 'protected' either...ask any otherwise healthy person why they're in the hospital for CoVid AFTER they're 'vaccinated'.
You think the person writing public-facing web pages for the CDC is the ultimate authority on what medical terms mean? LOL.
Surely you must understand that the CDC is a large organization that employs web designers, etc., just like everywhere else. Or do you think that everybody at the CDC is an über-qualified doctor? Janitorial staff, etc.
Seems like there is plenty of evidence the 'vaccines' do prevent COVID (esp severe, but who knows for sure given the possibility of prevalent asymptomatic infections). Whether any COVID 'vaccine' can prevent a sars-cov2 infection is the real question. And even if they don't prevent infection, they would hardly be the only 'vaccine' in this category. This simply isn't the bombshell many people seem to think it is.
The issue with that is there's no control group to tell us if Covid is less severe with a vaccine. It might be true. But different strains of Covid and differing lifestyle factors play a part, so some vaccinated people die, some unvaccinated people don't, and in the end because of truly bad science from the White House, we don't really know anything about this stupid thing.
We had a large group of vaccinated people in the country, and we had a large group of Covid-naive people in the country. Huge numbers in both groups caught Covid, many comparisons were made, and the vaccinated group clearly did much better.
There's still a very large control group; tens (even hundreds) of millions of people: people who were never jabbed, got covid, and fully recovered. A number of them even had multiple comorbidities like diabetes and high blood pressure but recovered anyway. At the same time, higher death rates in otherwise healthy people are being reported world-wide AFTER being mRNA'd. Not sure how these facts can be ignored much longer.
Even if I grant this is all true -- the 'leaders' 100% acted as if this shot would stop the spread and end the pandemic, after we knew this wasn't true.
I don't care the flu vaccine doesn't stop the flu until you force everybody to take it.
It's too bad really. I'm actually sympathetic to many contrarian/skeptical critiques surrounding COVID response, but deploying the scattershot strategy of attempting countless tiny irrelevant and typically unrelated cuts doesn't build a coherent case.
I don't understand why your saying it wasn't a vaccine? True, people who were vaccinated did in some cases develop Covid, but for the most part had milder symptoms, and for the elderly that is important. If their health was compromised, getting a full blown case of Covid could be a killer. I know two people who were older, and had underlying medical conditions and developed the disease and died. Had they had the vaccine, perhaps that would not have been the case.
It's not a vaccine by definition because it doesn't prevent a person from getting the disease. In fact you might even have an increased risk. As of now there really isn't any good evidence that it is net positive for anyone. You might have a small amount of resistance to the disease that is short lived but then studies have shown that without continued boosters it can drop below the level you were at to begin with. Couple that with the risk of side effects which are real and not nearly as rare like they want you to believe. These risks compound with each shot you have. Also, there are other treatments that work very well. Doctors that were brave enough to implement these treatments had 80-90% success. Much better than the so called vaccine.
Please watch the movie The Real Anthony Fauci based on Robert Kennedy's book of the same title, all is explained. Warning if you had family or friends die of "AIDS" you are going to be very upset.
Never knew they made a movie, or documentary on him. I did have a brother who died of AIDS, very young, and I remember asking to touch the Kaposi sarcoma he had on his arms, mostly. He told me no, and when I asked why he said now they say you can contract it more easily, and I told him, nonsense. I was never afraid of being there for him, but his hospital stays were horrific, as were those of most and recently through a post on Glen Greenwald's site I learned how Fauci made my brother's life in his remaining year a horror, and from then on, I hated the SOB. Thanks for that info.
Yes, it was Frenkle. Trump merely used the fast track process while being assured by Democratic operatives in the medical bureaucracy who lied to him to tout to his constituents (and the rest of the country) they were trying to beat this with a vaccine. It was Fauci, Pharma, and the legacy of Obama's health care plan which ties Democrats to Pharma who used a bioweapon on an unsuspecting world. Follow the money, boy.
My point was that during the Trump years the democrats, yes the democrats, used ever means possible to remove Trump from office and vilified him and his base. We are still feeling the fall out from their despicable behavior. Would you believe I was a registered democrat, and never voted republican, however their total lack of regard for truth, their willingness to lie, was unconstitutional and amoral. They generated a real divide in this country, and not only do I feel the mainstream media participated in this but many on the left as well.
Really? It wasn't the MSM which is the public relations arm of the Democrat party that promoted all of it, of course handsomely rewarded by Big Pharma. I watched Jeopardy recently and Moderna is sponsoring the show now. Moderna!
"Trump, who has accused Biden and his campaign of stoking doubt among Americans about the efficacy of a vaccine, told reporters at the White House later that Biden should stop promoting “anti-vaccine theories.”
"Democratic U.S. vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris said she would not take President Donald Trump’s word alone on any potential coronavirus vaccine."
This one is especially rich. You fuckers accused Trump of running roughshod over the regulatory process which has been reduced to pure comedy at this point.
"a growing number of prominent health leaders say they fear that Trump — who has repeatedly signaled his desire for the swift approval of a vaccine and his displeasure with perceived delays at the FDA — will take matters into his own hands, running roughshod over the usual regulatory process."
"It's not a vaccine by definition because it doesn't prevent a person from getting the disease. In fact you might even have an increased risk. As of now there really isn't any good evidence that it is net positive for anyone."
Is the CDC aware of your findings? What about the rest of the medical community? Are all interested parties privy to your research? Fully aware that the vaccine does not "prevent a person from getting the disease?" Are you in touch with the national media? Even with the caveat that most of them are vicious, slanderous MARXISTS? Intent on transitioning the U.S. into a dystopian nightmare of Blade Runneresque proportions? Are you?
And for that matter are these people aware that the virus is not even a "virus" but a "disease." Good god man hop on the horn and inform these people of your findings! Forthwith!
Although you do soothingly counsel that "...there are other treatments that work very well. Doctors that were brave enough to implement these treatments had 80-90% success." Ya, tell me about it. Unlike those chicken-shit docs fooling around with the vaccines!
I love how when anecdotal evidence was used in contrarian cases it was totally unacceptable but if used to support the vaccines efficacy it's totally fine.
"Vaccines sterilize and immunize" If this translates to blocking any infection by the target microbe, please name more than one proven to be truly capable of this.
Measles and rubella are not vaccines (since that label seems so critical in these conversations). The vaccine I guess you are referring to is commonly referred to as MMR.
MMR after a 2-dose inoculation provides less than 100% protection against infection. Infection in cells can occur even after vaccination and vaccinated immune responses such as protective antibody levels have been able to be studied in vitro as a result. Not so "sterilizing and immunizing" if those terms mean blocking all infection.
How does one quantify 'milder' symptoms after being jabbed but still acquire CoVid? It's statistically probable the same person might have had the very same mild symptoms of CoVid without being jabbed at all unless they had already had multiple comorbidities. Early on, most healthy people had no idea they were infected and reported the same mild flu-like symptoms without ever being tested.
During the earlier days of the EUA rollout, that metric was indeed reported, yes. 18 months later that metric is moot since the same EUA-mRNA, now widely in use, doesn't prevent getting or spreading CoVid-19.
The question is still valid, if you end up sick enough with CoVid that you need to be hospitalized, did that 'vaccine' do what was promised? If so, by what clinical measure of the individual patients there compared to the 'unvaxxed' patients? Higher fever, more or less pain, easier to breathe if you've been 'vaccinated'? What clinical proof is there the unvaxxed is worse off than the vaxxed when they have the same reported symptoms?
The vax was never promoted as 100% effective for everyone. 2nd, clinical measure? it’s just numbers…more people admitted to hospitals with Covid were not vaxxed, compared to vaxxed. Finally, not sure of your point. If they have same symptoms, neither is worse off. Did I suggest otherwise? Is it not safe assuming, if two people have Covid, and one needs hospitalization…that person is worse off than the other? That’s the only metric I mentioned.
Anyway done beating this Covid stuff to death. Life is short. I’m heading back to the Monty python clip on arguments!. I believe you enjoyed it too, Mark.
I'm sure people do contract Covid and display mild symptoms, or none, but if you're older or have other underlying health issues who want's to take the chance of a full blown case of the disease? Listen I support the vaccines, not telling you to get one, but I'm also leary since I know people who got the shots, developed Covid, a couple, not bad, the other was in a hospital with pneumonia, and Covid but now she's fine. I am not thrilled about taking these other shots.
I'm with you, the only difference to me is the clinical evidence doesn't support the narrative that mRNA jabs are better for 'everyone' than not getting them. I happen to believe placebos work for many. They don't usually cure the illness, but they don't make the trial patient sicker either. Too many times to date, mRNA use is worse than the infection (compared to all other vaccines in use combined)in raw reporting in VAERS. Either way its still a personal decision for sure. If interested, here's new study data you may not ever hear about in major media:
Presenting this same data as COVID survival rates in the pre-jab era (i.e. 2020, before the rollout of the COVID shots) instead of fatality rates, you get the following:
Birth to 19 years: 99.9997% survival rate
20 to 29 years: 99.997% survival rate
30 to 39 years: 99.989% survival rate
40 to 49 years: 99.965% survival rate
50 to 59 years: 99.871% survival rate
60 to 69 years: 99.499% survival rate
Now, these numbers were all prior to the COVID jabs. Emerging evidence suggests the shots are causing immune deficiency in some people, thereby actually raising their risk of dying from SARS-CoV-2 infection, even with the now milder strains.
It doesn't work the way traditional vaccines do. Traditional vaccines put a weakened or inactivated germ into our bodies. Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines teach cells how to make a protein that triggers an immune response if someone gets infected. Some people have been saying from the beginning that it isn't actually a vaccine because it doesn't work the same way.
I got the vaccines, but I am not at high risk, and very obviously this vaccine is different then the Polio vaccine given back in the 50's? However I think they help to lower your risk of getting a full blown case of Covid, less symptomatic, but I'm sure some people got the vaccine, contracted Covid, and died. I was going to get the October boosters, but my vet's wife developed Covid, then pneumonia and was hospitalized. She's okay now, and was treated with Remdesivir. . My brother and sister-in-law, younger, got the vaccine boosters and both got Covid. Now I'm debating whether to get them. I really believed the democrats, and Fauci, politicized this issue and made it more difficult for everyone. Thanks for the info.
Basically vaccines don't offer immediate protection and your body has to kick in and help, and in the interim you can get Covid, but in a milder form. Basically it's a waiting game. I posted some information on this site that explained how vaccines worked. What can I say, I'm no expert. My background is in science and although I hold it in high regard there have been plenty of mistakes along the way in every field of science.
Beth I'll read it later. I got the initial shot and boosters, no problem. but I'm somewhat scared off the two upcoming boosters, since I know people who had them and they developed Covid, and our vet's wife developed Covid, then pneumonia , hospitalized, but okay now, but who wants to go through that, and even he was confused about things. I just need to make up mind and I'm not sure about anything.
Your use of the word Perhaps is a tell. Perhaps many of the excess deaths are associated with the not vaccine, but it's hard to determine because autopsies aren't being done.
"After performing an exhaustive search of the Kaiser medical records, Sharff and colleagues found a 1 in 1,862 rate of myocarditis after the second dose in young men ages 18 to 24. For boys ages 12 to 17, the rate was 1 in 2,650. Countries with active surveillance monitoring of medical data (which suffer from far less under-reporting than the passive system in the U.S)—such as Hong Kong—show virtually identical figures. The risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis remains elevated for men up to the age of 40."
It is amazing just how stupid and ill informed these people are. There are competent outlets for information, such as This Week in Virology (at microbe.tv/twiv):
that discuss the reality behind the vaccines, including the known side effects that are totally ignored by these low information, conspiracists. It's really sad that they make up so much of the population.
The Anti Vaxx thing is more like a CULT. A cult of people that feel rejected by the real world. So they get in the cyber world and tell themselves they have some sort of wisdom that the rest of us don't have. The reinforce themselves and it keeps them clicking on stories that are making Grifters like Dr Malone richer and richer.
It is just another Qanon for people that are disappointed in their real lives, like Frank Lee... In the online world Frank is a hero...
If the government was giving away free Ferraris to anybody who wanted one, I assume your response would be, "go shove your free Ferrari, I'm not a compliant little clone!"
The "Godless left" is fighting big pharma far more than the anti vaxxers. The "Godless left" is trying to reduce the unreal amount of profits these vaccine makers are earning and at the same time force them in the US to negotiate with one buyer not 200.
That fight is a far bigger threat to Pfizer and Moderna and J&J than anti Vaxxer fantasy's that every single health ministry REFUTES...
Infact, my guess and it is only a guess, is that big Pharma is funding the Anti Vax propaganda as a massive distraction away from the bigger threat to their profits that the left poses.
Umm, folks? After reading down a way in the comments, I'm wondering if everyone read the same piece as me. Here is Matt's (and Tim's) point--we need to have community, and not hate those who feel differently than we do. Gabrielle did note Robbins's mea culpa here, but too many commenters have simply used the occasion to jump back into their tribal positions on vaccines. THAT'S NOT THE POINT. The point is what do we do to stop the divisiveness. (Hint: immediately returning to being divisive typically does not help stop divisiveness.)
Hey Jeffrey. So many thoughts but I get lost in comment sections and can’t follow threads. :). I just happened to see this. I can go pretty kumbaya (I happen to think humanity is magic and largely beauty) but I’m happy to go “divisive” when the alternative is going along with massive propaganda disguised at “public health”. Taking an untested medical product created by criminal corporations who lobbied to have their data secret for 3/4 of a century is...wow, hard to justify. That there were ppl saying shit like ppl should be denied healthcare etc...damn. There should be mountains of apologies but I’d rather focus on my own capacity to forgive. People showed their dark souls that’s for sure. They have a right to their darkness, fear and inability to recognize massive corruption and the creep of tyranny. I don’t even mean this snarkily, bless their hearts. Seriously. Bless us all. We need some recognition of our divinity.
You're obviously new to the comment section here. What you characterize as "tribal positions" is the entire point of the "exercise" of commenting. Taibbi bakes the cake, and the commenters slather on the frosting.
Being divisive and being a doormat are two distinguishable things. Are we supposed to applaud Tim and then roll over to those yet to convert to his recent enlightenment for the sake of having a "community"? I can't speak for everyone but I think the census in the Covid comments you alluded to was more "leave me the F*** alone" rather than "you're not welcome here". The point I took from Tim wasn't to address the folks who feel the former but the latter.
Hey, maybe that's the Robitussin talking to me? Be well to yourself and others.
You are so right-we should all listen to the elites and just do as they say: “TIME TO GET ALONG NOW AMERICA, SORRY WE FORCED YOU OUT OF BUSINESS AND YOUR KID HAD TO DO E-LEARNING FOR HIS FIRST HEAR OF KINDERGARTEN & SORRY YOU COULD NOT SEE YOUR LOVED ONES WHEN THEY DIED”
I think there is a good chance that if Trump had been re-elected, the Democrats would have been the vax skeptical party and Republicans would have been the true believers.
I agree completely. The proof is in the fact that if you ask almost any partisan Democrat, they will assure you that Trump is a vaccine skeptic. Heck, I bet most Republicans think Trump is a vaccine skeptic. At this point, Covid is an entirely partisan phenomenon with no basis in anything other than tribalism.
Robbins has nothing to be ashamed of. He took the time to see both sides. Your view see's one side and it is the wrong side. DeSantis fights $15 min wage, even though voters voted it in, he himself got vaccinated while he pays lip service to people like you. Maybe it is time for you to be more like Robbins and see BOTH sides of this not just yours.
Oh Michael...if you don’t think calling for ppl to be refused healthcare for not participating in a toxic sham isn’t something shame is good for, yikes. People lost their jobs, lost their health. And a bunch a self imagined do gooders threw shame like crazy. I’ve worked many years for less than 15 bucks an hour, I’d rather work for minimum wage then be forced to be a lab rat for a criminal organization. I don’t imagine ANY politician is an answer and I get closer and closer to believing voting is a total sham all the time but I’ll happily throw some shade on the dems for their blatant pathology. I understand people were manipulated into irrational fear but just because some have no capacity for critical thinking and are too weak to stand up to bullying doesn’t mean I have to be a part of their cowardice. I feel bad for them. I take care of them every shift. All the evidence of what a giant lie this was that is emerging now was known by many who followed this. Pam Popper, Malone, McCullough, Bad Cattitude...many many knew this was bullshit. I mean come ON. We knew they wanted the data secret for decades months ago. And still sad ppl believed. Just because the masses are easy dupes doesn’t mean we all have to be. And...who gives a fuck what some celebrity thinks anyway. Shame is healthy when it acts as a check. There is not enough checking going on.
I find this post fascinating. You express anger and disappointment at people who persecuted and shamed you and then immediately proceed to indiscriminately label everyone who disagrees with you about the vaccines, whether or not they were actually the ones who persecuted you, as being either perpetrators or ignorant dupes of a “criminal” scam.
Honestly, you don’t strike me as inherently any more tolerant than any of the folks you’re justifiably angry at.
I believe in the efficacy and safety of the vaccines based on having a 3000-patient panel with no side effects and no significant Covid illness in those who were vaccinated (including myself, I might add).
Almost invariably, however, whenever I express this opinion, no matter how civilly, on a conservative forum, I’m told not only that I’m wrong but that I’m a “murderer” - yes, that’s the term generally used - for “pushing” the vaccine onto my patients.
Needless to say I don’t find this to be a particularly tolerant position. I never believed in the vaccine mandates and actually made efforts on behalf of some patients to exempt them from employer mandates. I don’t “push” the vaccines, I merely express my opinion about them when patients ask me.
At this juncture I think both sides are deeply intolerant. Matt obviously cares a lot about free speech but I don’t sense that he cares much about the content of that speech. He seems to assume that meaningful dialogue will result and the truth inevitably emerge from people being left unchecked to say literally anything to each other.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s no alternative other than to leave speech completely uncensored, but I don’t share this view that doing so will inevitably result in a brighter future. I think that sometimes, when societies have truly degenerated beyond repair, free speech of the kind that seems to be preferred by BOTH the right and the left nowadays simply accelerates the downward spiral.
If you think that society has degenerated beyond repair (I agree), then it would be a more useful expenditure of your energy to devote yourself to building up a new society to replace the old one than to deplore passively the lack of civil discourse.
In the meantime, the way I try to combat this sad trend is by making sure that my own expressions are civil.
But if we agree society is beyond repair, then isn’t anything we do futile by definition? And where is this “new society” supposed to be built?
I’m a fan of Morris Berman and suspect sometimes emigration might be a better and less frustrating option. Maybe the “new society” is best built somewhere else.
It sounds like you are on to the GRIFT of virtually all right wingers in the US. They scream "free speech" when main stream media wont push the lies they want to hear. Yet the right wing media they consumer daily is as far from free speech as it gets. That media ignores any and all truth that does not align with their narrative.
The people and media they consume hate Free Speech if it is not exactly what they want to hear... Especially about vaccines.
"All the right-wingers" - poppycock! You yourself are falling for the left/right divide-scam that marks the discussion these days. How do you explain the embrace of censorship of the shitlibs?
I've been far left all my life and I certainly don't agree with everything that "right-wingers" espouse, but they are no different from the faux "left" in screaming about "free speech" until it's something they don't want to hear. (Might break them out of their echo chamber and give them cognitive dissonance!)
I define "right wingers" by the words and ideas people push. There is a massive difference between "conservative" thinking and right wing propaganda.
For example anyone that complains about the propaganda pushed by say the NYT editorial board, but then refuses to admit that the WSJ editorial board or talking heads like Ben Shapiro or Tucker Carlson are also propaganda tools.
The FACT that the NYT pushes propaganda (Russia Gate, Ukraine etc...) does not means that the WSJ or Ben Shapiro or Tucker Carlson are not also pushing propaganda..
It is easy to figure out who is and is not fooled by either propaganda machine.
And you still might be a fool, if you believe that voting gets you anything. It's a comfortable myth that Americans hold onto, and it has no more power than that.
LOL! It's the anti-vax people who are the problem. The vaccines work. They are proven safe and effective. Anyone who knows what vaccines do never claimed anything but that they help prevent severe illness and death. Anyone who made other claims simply is not competent and anti-vaxxers are stupid people; It's one thing to understand what vaccines do and choose to not get it and another to reject the reality of vaccination's effect on the immune system.
You're blinding yourself to the evidence that is already available and is increasing daily. And, you're completely buffaloed by the establishment propaganda. None of their, and your, claims are true.
Watch Dr John Campbell on YouTube, or Jimmy Dore, or Russell Brand, or Lee Camp, or Rand Paul (I never thought that I'd be on the same side as Sen. Paul, but politics makes strange bedfellows.)
The "vaccines" you're talking about are the old vaccines like the polio vaccine. Since they have now changed the definition of "vaccine," the ones they are touting now don't have to do any of those things and they can still be considered "vaccines." That's just playing with semantics (and people's lives).
LOL! You don't know what you're talking about and Cambell is not competent to discuss vaccines. I suggest that you watch This Week in Virology (at microbe.tv/twiv) for real information from real experts. Vincent Racaniello also provides his virology class lectures and Brianne Barker provides her immunology class lectures on youtube, look them up.
As for this vaccine, it is a vaccine as it provides the mRNA that encodes the spike protein that is presented to the immune system. It does what the other vaccines do, inform the immune system of an antigen.
Stop watching videos from people who are not competent to discuss the subject.
I will probably watch the lectures in microbiology and immunology, but considering that nowadays even (formerly) serious scientists are suspect, since their employers' funding source is compromised, I'm not sure that I can believe even them.
Dr Campbell gives every one of his sources. It's not as though he's making this stuff up, or that it's his personal opinion. If that were the case, I would agree with you that he's not competent. How is it that your sources, if they come from mainstream media, are considered to be competent to report other people's findings but Dr Campbell is not?
And all of your argument is a smokescreen to avoid addressing the issue: people are getting harmed by your so-called vaccine.
"And all of your argument is a smokescreen to avoid addressing the issue: people are getting harmed by your so-called vaccine."
Very few people had mild reactions to it, such as myocarditis, were treated and fine. The vaccine harmed no one but it did reduce the risk of severe illness and death! That is an absolute, objective fact. Covid-19 killed millions, the vaccine killed no one.
"but considering that nowadays even (formerly) serious scientists are suspect,"
Oh, come on already. Scientists are suspect only because a) most people are not competent and do not understand what they're saying and (b) some experts speak outside their competency, such as an MD giving his impression of vaccines. Dr. Campbell is unfortunately one of those. Vincent, a virologist who's studied the polio virus for his professional life, has discussed him, how he misstates things.
Do yourself a favor and start watching This Week in Virology (at microbe.tv/twiv) for the views of real experts in the field. Campbell has no competency in the field and that makes all the difference and leads to him making stuff up and you, not being a virologist, has no ability to determine that, so you're left believing him.
You're right, most people don't understand scientists. However, I graduated summa cum laude with a pre-med major, so I have a solid background in both physical and social sciences.
You're wrong: after the Covid panic, most people are not trusting scientists because they have learned that their funding comes from compromised sources.
Watch Jimmy Dore or Russell Brand for the exposure of the information. They report on the loss of faith in "science" as well.
I don't know who's in your bubble, but there are other people who are reporting information that contradicts what you're saying.
This is good to read. When I was a lunatic Hillary supporter I used to screech at Matt here and Tim too. We learn, we evolve, hopefully we work to repair the damage we've done. Now, I'm starting to wonder how we on the left thought it was healthy to only aim art at our side, an increasingly insular group. Everyone needs art. Everyone needs culture. Our country, our world is a better place if everyone can be brought in. Imagine an airplane and the only good art, food and comfort was only being given to the First Class passengers. I'd much prefer to be in Coach - hanging out with people who struggle every day to survive. That is what drives the best art. When you eliminate the struggle what are you - just a Royal Court with a magic mirror telling yourselves how great you are.
Belated apologies to Tim if I was ever unkind. Which I'm sure I was.
The only way to fly first class is if the airline bumps you up. It's like winning a lottery you never entered. Otherwise its just another seat on a 3 hour can of farts.
Jumping on a coach flight to Chicago and having Sasha plop down next to me. What a fun conversation that would be. Just take me through the year (or however long it took) of your conversion.
"Now, I'm starting to wonder how we on the left thought it was healthy to only aim art at our side, an increasingly insular group...Our country, our world is a better place if everyone can be brought in."
Yes, we now know that the Left's call for "inclusion" is really a device for creating new categories of exclusion. And we need to make this point every time the term "inclusion" is used.
I wish that you would would qualify what you mean by "the left." The people I think that you mean have nothing to do with The Left, and in fact, has been forcing us out of their enclave. Chris Hedges has a very insightful video about them, and in it he said that they are doing the Real Left a great deal of harm, because they make those who disagree with them think that they disagree with the principles of The Left. I wish I had the link for you. He calls them the Faux Left, or "the liberal class." Jimmy Dore (who is on the Real Left) calls them "shitlibs."
They aren't "the Left"; they don't represent us; and I dislike them even more than you do.
The left is about nothing BUT inclusion. Beds in barracks in gulags. Subjects for gain-of-function viruses. Don't worry, says the left---they'll be no vaccines to make you sick.
Bari Weiss is a horrible hypocrite. Spent a huge amoutn of time in college trying to get people canceled, then whined that people were trying to cancel her before canceling herself.
Also slandered Tulsi Gabbard as an "Assad Toadie" without even knowing what the word means.
I have always been a fan of his professional output, but rarely agree with Tim Robbins personal views. I am, however, impressed with his capacity for introspection. These statements show me that he is a thinker, not an ideologue.
Excellent interview. I never thought much of Tim Robbins, but I clearly misjudged him. I'm glad there are still people on the left (an artist no less) who still want to bring us all together. Thanks for publishing this.
As a libertarian and former leftist, his quote about being "absolute about freedom" struck me hard. He arrived at that point of view in a similar way as myself. While so many were concerned about police violence and BLM regarding an issue that is a cultural problem (Police brutality), these same people were blind and tone deaf to the two-tiered society that public health officials and our government was creathng. It really shocked me and changed my personal opinion on what is important
I'm Gen-X, right of center, from the San Francisco area, and have been shocked that some of my friends who were far more liberal than me, who really believed in questioning authority in the 70s and 80s, are now pushing totalitarian ideology and calling it democracy. Between censorship and pushing medical treatments on people and shouting "racist!" at the top of their lungs when there's a disagreement about policy, it's really disconcerting. I have friends of all political and religious (I'm Catholic and my best friend of 25+ years is an atheist) and ethnic stripes ... and it's only my white leftist friends who unfriended me during the last 2+ years as I advocated to keep schools open and not shut down business.
Im with you - same demo mostly, But sadly for most who were in favor of "questioning Authority" it turns out it was more about who was in authority than what the question was. Now that the ideas they support are ascendant, there is no longer a need for questions.
Though I've always been right of center, I've also always been of the mindset of my rights end where yours begin. If you're an adult, you can make your own decisions -- just don't force me to do what you think I should do. "You do you, I'll do me. And don't mess with my kids." Now? it's crazy. My daughter is studying elementary education. She said, "Now I know why you sent me to private school -- these classes are ridiculous." They are spending more time on social justice, special ed, and diversity than on teaching teachers how to teach kids to read, write, and add.
yeah thats about my philosophy. But doing campus tours in the midwest and east for my youngest and they look more and more like indoctrination camps. Cant imagine what they would do to a person wearing a "Question Authority" button. Would probably see the QA initials and go nuts. lol
This is a good summation. One needs to only look at what happened under Donald Trump as President.
I'm no Trump fan, but he was right to say that schools should be opened during the pandemic and that Germany shouldn't over-rely on Russia for its energy needs. But because Trump was in power and said both, lots of people wanted to do the opposite (and still are even after Trump is not President).
It makes me believe that, if Trump said during a rally that flat Earthers didn't know what they were talking about, people who oppose him would start declaring that only a Nazi would own a globe of the Earth.
Do you remember in the summer of 2020 when everyone was totally on board for opening schools and then Trump said, "The schools need to be open everywhere" and suddenly the media and unions were all, "No! We can't open the schools, it's too dangerous for teachers and grandma!" It was a lightbulb moment for me.
The fact that we still have to declare our distaste for Trump in order for someone to listen to us speaks volumes. Its almost ritualistic. But it does say 2 things. There are people who can assess and analyze concepts on their merits irrespective of their source and there are those incapable or, and worse, unwilling to do so. I am starting to come around to the thought that it was necessary to have an annoying jerk like Trump to win the Presidency for so many of us, including me, to grasp this. they were always like this but Trump tore off the mask.
"I am starting to come aroun to the thought that it was necessary to have an annoying jerk like Trump to win the Presidency for so many of us, including me, to grasp this. they were always like this but Trump tore off the mask."
Excellent piece of introspection, kind of like Tim R.
Liberals are not the same as lefties. i think/hope those on the left are not unfriending, cancelling, de-platforming etc. After all, look what the "liberals" did to Bernie Sanders in the USA and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK! Lefties and righties, and atheists and the religious, should be able to agree to disagree and have fruitful discussions. I think there's some pushback against this travesty of democracy - I certainly hope so.
I agree that liberals and lefties are different. I have many liberal friends. But I think the last couple of years some of them became more moderate (i.e. schools staying open, not shutting down society, etc) and some moved far left. It's just in my small world that I made these observations. I look at my uncle, who has always been very liberal and we used to have great debates and discussions. Now? I can't even talk to him because he thinks I'm so far to the right that I'm crazy (I literally haven't changed my views on most everything -- except foreign policy where I've become far more anti-war than I was in my youth, and I'm far more suspicious of government than I used to be.)
What liberals do a lot these days is brand anyone they disagree with as "far-right" etc. It's their way of de-platforming people and shutting down debate about subjects good faith people on the right and left would like to discuss. And you've probably noticed that liberals seem to be very pro-war these days. It's all very disturbing - I hope you'll be able to resume your discussions with your uncle before long!
What about what the democrats did during the Trump years? It seems they were the most instrumental in generating a divide in this country on many levels. The media helped them out, even the lefties. Not only did they go after Trump, but they went after his supporters as well, and as a fourth cousin said on Facebook, they are an uneducated lot with no sense of morality, and that meme floated about for a long time on Facebook.
Truth be told, I wonder if we should be referring to them as "liberals" any longer, because it's another word that loses its meaning alongside "right wing," "Nazi" and a host of other terms that are just tossed at people they don't like.
I do think the term "coddled affluent professional" describes these people well (and it allows you to include Bill Kristol, Max Boot and David Frum, the leaders of the neocon movement). If we're looking for a shorter term, CAP stands for "coddled affluent professional," so maybe "cappies"? *shrugs*
Maybe your right since being liberal was a term I understood and identified with, but not now. Although I continue to have what I consider a liberal perspective on things, I no longer can identify with many of those who define themselves with that word, since many of today's liberals leave no room for dissent, no shades of grey.
I took my mom (his sister) to visit him in California this summer (we're now in Arizona.) We had a lovely visit -- we sat outside (because he knew my mom wasn't vaccinated -- she had COVID, it was mild, and when all her friends got the vaccine and complained about being wiped out, sore, sick, etc -- she decided not to get it.) We talked about my kids, living in Arizona, his grandkids, all his health problems, and family. We didn't talk about COVID, government, health care, taxes, education, or anything at all controversial. I miss our debates, but would rather visit than argue.
I've noticed that the MSM uses and abuses the term "far right" to identify anyone not in sync with them.
For some reason, never see the term "far left" used in the MSM, even some of the more crazy folx (PC) down in South American gubmint are described in much gentler fashion.
Only a naïve person wouldn't recognize that the divisiveness we are in is completely the fault of tyrants (the end of the cycle). Trying to crush the rights of people as established in wise law isn't a position that I wish to negotiate with. We are too far now, it's either win or lose freedom.
While it is true that the tyrants are the cause of the divisions in society, I agree with Ann22 that your reply hightlights the very thinking that the article deplores. I don't think that they spring from either lefties or socialists. It makes me wonder where you learned your understanding of socialism: Joe McCarthy?
I think you mean totalitarianism, and that can come from either the right or the left.
They are the same to 50% of the population, but I agree with you. It matters not, however. Just ask Bernie what being a good liberal got him. I don’t agree with Bernie’s policies but he is undoubtedly a man of scruples and probably one of the most consistent politicians alive today. And it matters almost not at all.
Proud Gen Xer also with a punk rock history. Been anti-establishment for most of my life and the last 2 years have clarified my purpose more than any other events in my life have up to this point. I pulled my son out of public school and am homeschooling him. I donate to organizations like the Tenth Amendment Center. This government and the groups, corporations and entities that want to control it for their own insidious purposes must never be allowed to have that power. The only way we can guarantee this is by decentralizing and shrinking this government. So this is where my political action and money go now
I read a great article this morning in AIER about classic liberalism. I've always called myself a libertarian/conservative but truth be told, I'm a classic liberal. John Locke. Natural rights exist. I may not agree with some people's decisions, but if they are adults, it's their decision to make. (Of course, I will debate with people who are making decisions that I think will ultimately impact me and mine, but debate is good!) Right now I think one of the greatest threats (other than censorship) is indoctrinating children in schools. If they are indoctrinated, they can't possibly make informed decisions as adults. (I see it happening -- my daughter is studying elementary education and her classes are not on reading, writing, arithmetic, but on social justice and diversity. She had wanted to teach at an inner city school because she believes education saves people from poverty, but now she says she'll probably have to teach at a private or charter school because she won't integrate CRT into her curriculum.)
Quite jarring to hear from a compassionate and principled progressive in 2022. I used to consider myself one of them but believed my tribe to have gone extinct years ago. Hopefully more of them start to wake up and pull themselves back from the hideous abyss of spite and malice that’s been sucking them all in these past several years.
“The revolution eats its children.” It’s nice to see a lefty (For the record, I do not consider myself a righty) defending liberty and displaying integrity. The interview avoids the profit motive to the COVID project which I view as a driving force, second to control and stripping away civil liberties, but that’s ok. This is a despotic world we find ourselves in and any disent from anyone with a paycheck and a microphone is welcomed by me.
I love theater. I moved from California to Arizona several years ago, but I have many friends and family in Northern California so visit when I can. My favorite theater there -- a small but popular venue -- I went to dozens of times over the years. I'm on their mailing list. I took my kids to their kid productions at least once a year. Then I get an email two months ago that said that you must show proof of vaccine to attend a performance. I unsubscribed and told them why. When I visit family, I won't be going to a show. I had COVID, I'm not getting the so-called vaccine, end of story. If I'm not welcome, I certainly wouldn't recommend their venue to any of my vaccinated friends either.
On a similar note, I planned to attend a specific writers conference in San Diego next year. They informed me that they will be requiring attendees to be vaccinated. I will never go to their conference again. This actually impacts my career to a small degree because as a published author I would have been on a panel, signed books, met readers, etc, but I'm not giving in. I wish more vaccinated people would refuse to "show their papers" in solidarity with those of us who made our own medical decisions.
To Mr. Robbins’ point about people not coming back: I can’t even count the number of organizations (museums, educational institutions, performance venues, summer camps, etc.) that I used to support but no longer do. Sorry, exclude me (or my child), ostracize me, vilify me, and I’m never going to support you again. Ever. That goes for the Democratic Party, too, to which I contributed thousands over the years. Done. I won’t forgive. I won’t forget. And for my former tribe members on the left who thought themselves critical thinkers, unfortunately, I’ve lost respect for them, too. “My body, my choice”? What a joke.
Some churches did this too. Railing for years about how abuse of power happens when church and state-power merge. Only to do that very thing. It outsourced its morality to the state, siding with it against their own minority members. We were told to “listen to the voices of the oppressed”. Yet that church was ignorant of concerns of the nurses and doctors being censored, demonized and fired for expressing their views.
I share your outrage, and I (regrettably) got vaxxed before I understood what was going on. I refuse to patronize any establishment that requires "proof of vaccination" for entry, even though I have a stupid card. I wonder if your favorite theater in Northern California is the one in Berkeley that has been infuriating me with their crazy entrance rules (I keep checking their emails to see if they've regained their sanity—just out of curiosity, not that a rule change would end my boycott). Solidarity!
It's in Sacramento. I'm originally from the bay area, but moved to Sacramento to raise my kids (much cheaper!) I know many people who regret getting the shot. One of my five kids got the shot and the booster and -- surprise (not) -- she came down with COVID less than 3 months after her booster (so did her girlfriend, her roommate, and several in their friend group ...) And still ... she won't listen to me and plans to get the new shot even though I told her it doesn't work and was only tested on 8 mice. She doesn't believe me and actually said, "I can't believe you've become anti-vcxx." I said I'm not -- I'm a huge proponent of vaccines that work. ALL my kids got their childhood vaccines. But apparently, I'm now an extremist. Sigh.
Only one of my kids succumbed to the dark side ... the other 4 are moderate to conservative and none of them agree on everything, but they have terrific conversations.
I have emailed venues that require vaccination and told them why I would not be visiting. I’m glad that there are others willing to affirmatively push back.
One of the things progressives don’t seem to understand is that they are no longer the rebels. If you agree with the President, the Governor, the head of your school board, all MSM, Big Tech, the FBI, Homeland Security, and university presidents on most issues then you are a supporter of the regime. However most these people consider themselves ‘activists.’ I don’t think great art comes from a place of blind obedience to the organs of state.
Good art got made in the Soviet Union despite itself, usually by being topically distant from anything the apparatchiks considered politically important -- e.g. Soyuzmultfilm -- but I think your larger point stands.
And nuance is lost. My daughter is a cop. I have a lot of respect and understanding for law enforcement. But I also recognize there are bad cops out there who shouldn’t have a badge. I support the military, but I don’t support all government sanctioned actions. Etc.
If 'the President, the Governor, the head of your school board, all MSM, Big Tech, the FBI, Homeland Security, and university presidents' are now mostly/all "progressives", then the term has largely lost any nuance and is just another word for 'liberal'.
Robbins comes off as an intelligent normal guy with a healthy habit of self-reflection.
Good on him.
He identifies the central problem here: "What I’ve been seeing over the past few years has been the opposite of [community building]. It’s going into a room and saying, 'You don’t have the right to speak because you don’t agree with our way of thinking.'"
Well, this sort of intolerance goes in one direction. The counterculture defending First Amendment rights is now conservative.
"Once the CDC changes policy and says basically that both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are capable of getting Covid"
... anyone else find that an astonishing statement ? Not getting at Tim here, just the CDC - but that's not a "Policy". That's a "Fact". That's "We've known we've been pushing incorrect information for over a year now, and we reckoned that by now so many people know we're lying that we might as well quietly start telling the truth, but we're framing it as a "policy change" because that doesn't make it sound like we coerced millions of people into taking jabs they didn't want or need".
Want to know how we got here,Tim? Pull up a chair & I’ll tell you.
The path to the polarized craziness of covid policies had been paved for the previous four years. I didn’t even vote for Trump in 2016 but I was appalled at the viciousness leveled at him, his wife & family, people who did vote for him & then, finally, anyone who objected to the extreme reaction to any statement he made. The media played a major role in this relentless demonization to the point where they were perfectly fine with attacking a 15 year old boy (wearing a MAGA hat) waiting for his school bus after a field trip to DC.
When Covid hit the media turned up the temperature, presented Fauci as our savior & guiding light & then silenced, shamed & censored anyone — including Dr. Scott Atlas from Stanford — as little better than traitors & idiots if we were not in complete agreement.
I’m glad you’ve disabused yourself of some of the craziness that we all were forced to live through for two years but it’s far from over. The CDC just added the covid vaccine to compulsory vaccines to attend school knowing full well unknown risks outweigh unknown benefits.
>> What if people were no longer forced into contact with one another?
The opposite happened. People were forced into seclusion from one another. For centuries, the basis of society was people willingly meeting others. Also for centuries, we could identify a woman.
But this was an interview with an unusually intelligent and thoughtful public figure. Thank you for that, Matt. And also for showing us how there are, in fact, a few intelligent and thoughtful people in Hollywood. Oh, I suppose the distribution of intelligent and thoughtful people is similar in Hollywood to any other industry, it's just that more Hollywood people are out there saying brainless stupid shit than, say, dentists or computer salesmen. So it colors your thoughts, establishes prejudices.
I never paid much attention to Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon's politics over the years. I knew they were some variety of ultra-lefty, but I don't recall them ever saying stupid shit. Maybe they have said a lot of stupid shit, but I've never seen it. And I do remember that about them, so I always had a sort of charitable view of them, some respect. We might disagree about how we achieve this or that objective, but that's all it is, a disagreement. It's not stupid shit. So I'm pleased, so far as I can tell from this interview, Robbins really is that intelligent and thoughtful Hollywood guy I suspected he might be. And there is nothing he said in this particular interview that I disagree with. At all. That was nice.
Ralph Nader is an impressive person, I admire him greatly. I am pretty sure I disagree with almost all his political prescriptions, but I recognize a thoughtful, honest and courageous personality. I suspect we would like to see many of the same outcomes, he and I, but we disagree on how to get there. But that's all it is: I disagree with a fine man. It wasn't so long ago it wasn't weird to say that out loud.
Great interview! I worked 70+ hours a week during the pandemic without PPE. Back then us essential workers were called heroes. Then, almost overnight, we were chastised because some of us wouldn’t subject ourselves to being lab-rats. In NYC we couldn’t even get a cup of coffee without showing proof of vaccination. Even children were escorted out of restaurants, museums and other venues for not having their “papers.” To add salt to injury, many of us weren’t allowed to see loved ones in hospitals, nursing homes and even attend funerals (thanks to King Cuomo’s executive orders) yet it was ok for elitists like Obama to have 600 maskless friends at his 60th bday party. I used to be “lefty”, a Bernie/AOC supporter. I will will NEVER vote blue again. I’m proud I didn’t cave to the most expensive psyop in history. But this is not a win because some of my friends and relatives are dealing with serious adverse reactions.
I'm so sorry to hear about your friends and family. So many have been damaged. My hope is that we all can begin to internalize how the globalists have been trying to divide us for decades. You and I are not each other's enemies based on who we've voted for. That's all a charade that has to end.
Nice to hear some are a bit ashamed of their behavior. Every vax pusher should have their tail between their legs at this point. But the human ego will hang on hard to bullshit to avoid realizing they were had. As an unvaxed RN former Green Party voter I’m ready to vote DeSantis in a couple of years. Happy to admit I e been a fool.
I’m a MD and took the original two shot “vaccine” as directed. I was very happy to be vaccinated and was really shocked and disappointed when I realized it WAS NOT a vaccine. Having been egregiously lied to once I have lost all faith in our institutions. I have taken no more shots and feel I probably made a mistake taking the shot
Me too. I took the first two enthisiastically but number 3 reluctantly, as did my RN wife. I then had a TIA three days after #3 and my wife developed new-oneset Reynaud's. Both were entered into the multiple page VAERS data base.
I've lost faith in the entire institution I was so proud of being part of for 35 years. Cancelled the NEJM and JAMA who purposefully publish Abstracts that do not represent what the data in the article actually demonstrate - and since no one reads past the Abstract there's a lot of Disinformation which gets disseminated.
Every drug study is sponsored by Pharma whose incestuous relationship with the FDA should be well-known.
Sorry for the rant.
No apology necessary. My PCP has announced his departure from his current medical group and I suspect he received pushback for his non-authoritative approach to Covid care. He's about as close as I've come to falling in love with a man.
"He's about as close as I've come to falling in love with a man."
Maybe cut back on the prostate exams...
Many things that one can contract from a vaccine are just as likely to be contracted from the natural virus. For example, it's the case that the vaccines induced myocardia, but the native virus did as well. Often, the question comes down to whether more people would get it with vaccines or without.
In the case of a virus that was as infective as this coronavirus, if your wife got Raynaud's from the vaccine, the virus likely causes that as well, and I would say more people would get it from the virus spread than from the vaccines.
That's not always the case. H1N1 vaccines in Scandinavia caused permanent debilitating narcolepsy in 1/400 people. The H1N1 flu also caused it in about the same ratio, BUT there was no way the entire population was going to contract H1N1 that year, it's more like a usual flu with 10% penetration each season. Sadly, half the population got that vaccine before they figured out the problem, so many more narcolepsy cases than there would have been, and fully attributable to the vaccine.
Some people claim that vaccines caused their kids' autism. We also know that populations that get widely vaccinated have lower autism rates. The second point is often used to refute the first, but it does not. The one actual known cause of autism is having had rubella during a pregancy. There is live rubella in the MMR vaccine. It's attenuated but still, who knows, could possibly cause autism in individual cases and yet still reduce overall autism in the community when vaccines are administered by reducing overall rubella transmission.
I am no more going to debate this with you than i would debate Sandy Hook with an Alex Jones fanboy..
Every health ministry of every wealthy democracy in the world has studied these vaccines, you don't have data they have not already looked at (shock alert).
And every one of them recommends vaccines for their people.
When that changes let me know.
Until then, I will point you to the research that is being on why people fall for LIES like the anti VAX or Climate Change denial. Companies like Pfizer love these conspiracy theories because it diverts attention from how much they are ripping off tax payers to buy these vaccines.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1368430221992126
"When that changes let me know"
Uh, it has never been the case that "every one of them recommends" the MRNA vaccines and unlimited boosters to all age groups. Many countries used vastly different Covid vaccines and even many "wealthy democratic" ones are NOT authorizing these drugs for kids or even recommending them for certain age groups, up to 50 in some places. Only a handful of countries use these products exclusively, and many of them are "re-evaluting" the recommendation for young and healthy people as the risks of the pandemic wane and the risks from the drugs (only authorized during an unprecedented public health emergency) become more widely reported.
This, "everyone needs them, needs to boosted even, regardless of age or covid recovered status" is blanket product pushing unique to the US. Which, unsurprisingly, has uniquely high drug costs and an ultra incestuous relationship between pharma and the entities that regulate and recommend the drugs they approve. And, even in our country, you have regulatory bodies with members literally resigning over the anti-science decision to recommend these drugs to the entire population, on repeat, without long term safety data (or even current useful efficacy data on the newest booster).
You sound a lot like the Sackler army of doctors who later said "but I trusted them when they said their studies showed it wasn't addictive" after watching dozen of patients die by giving them lasting opioid addiction for a minor/temporary pain. Or the tens of thousands who died taking Vioxx for no benefit other than lining pharma's pockets.
It HAS changed already, and the fact that you still think there is in even a consensus among medical professionals, rather than what amounts to a crippling total blow to the legitimacy of the "ministries" you point to, is rather mind blowing.
Yes, and let us not forget that the US FDA's Vaccine Director and Deputy Director resigned in protest because of their anger that the Biden administration was inappropriately pressuring them to approve booster shots. So if one is relying on the experts and can't think for oneself, doesn't that make the natural position to rely on that resignation as a requirement to not trust the approvals that followed?
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/31/biden-booster-plan-fda-508149
I agree with most of what you are saying. Every country has a different approach to vaccines and in the US, where the drug companies seem to making a ton of money the approach is more than in other countries. Totally agree.
That said. There are NO wealthy democracies health ministries that are aligned with the anti vaxxers. NONE. And that was my point. I have no problem questing the CDC. But their views on vaccine use are similar, not identical, to most countries. Which is why i can stand by my statment, let me know when one of those nations aligns their views on vaccines with the anti vaxxers.
There is currently research being done on the massive amount of Mis Information that is published and consumed by anti vaxxers. Every piece of misinformation that is produced and consumed by anti vaxxers is making money for someone.
It is the consumers of this content that researchers all over the world are studying. People that allow themselves to be so misinformed have historically proven to be a threat to the stability of a nation. That is what the research shows. So they can't be ignored or justified.
The misinformation published on Trumps claim that he won the election is the perfect example. It is an irrefutable FACT that he lost the election and that voter fraud plaid no role in the outcome. IRREFUTABLE. None the lest 60% of Republicans now don't trust election results, Republican Candidates are claiming they wont trust the election results unless the win and we had the attack on the capitol.
So people consuming misinformation have historically proven to be real threats to democracy.. That was my point and the evidence supports me on that.
Climate Change Denial/Deniers is a term used by flaming assholes.
You will have to explain that to Professor Dunlap...
<<Climate Change Denial Books and Conservative Think Tanks
Abstract
The conservative movement and especially its think tanks play a critical role in denying the reality and significance of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), especially by manufacturing uncertainty over climate science. Books denying AGW are a crucial means of attacking climate science and scientists, and we examine the links between conservative think tanks (CTTs) and 108 climate change denial books published through 2010. We find a strong link, albeit noticeably weaker for the growing number of self-published denial books. >>
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3787818/
Thank you for your contribution, but I don't see anything that you said that speaks to any issue I discussed.
Exactly. I explicitly said I would not more debate an amateur on vaccine effecacy, when their claims are refuted by every health ministry of every wealthy democracy in the world, than I would debate an Alex Jones supporter on Sandy Hook..
I am sure Alex Jones fans have reems of evidence on why Sandy Hook was a hoax. Only a fool would debate them
Every single health ministry of every single wealthy Democracy refutes your narrative about vaccines. Even Authoritarians health ministries like Russia and China refute your narrative. No, big pharma (evil as they are and they are evil) does not control all of these health ministries.
I am sure your illnesses were legitimate. And I would not be surprised of NEJMA and JAMA publish bullshit funded by big Pharma.
You are, however, consuming too much propaganda... Of that i am 100% certain. Vaccines are not perfect nor are they what you make them out to be.
Some people are just gullible and credulous. They'll believe anything.
True... and those people like to say "do the research yourself" on things like vaccine efficacy... The CDC is absolutely controlled by big pharma. That is why these companies are printing money. That should be our focus not vaccine efficacy. As long as every health ministry around the world validates the efficacy we should all be focused on how much money these companies are making off of tax payers.
Exactly. I'm happy to believe (almost) any conspiracy theory about the US's health care system, the CDC, big pharma, etc.
Covid and vaccines are Not That.
Anybody who thinks the CDC, Fauci, Pfizer, etc. are perpetuating some kind of hoax is the worst and dumbest kind of American--the kind that's completely unaware that there's a world outside of the US's borders. These people make me embarrassed to be an American.
There is a lot of propaganda out there about some narratives just being propaganda. It must be nice to know the difference.
I don't know the difference. What I do know is that if every single health ministry of every major country says we need to get vaccinated then they are more reliable than some clown listening to Joe Rogan and deciding he knows more than the scientists in each countries ministry.
Similarly, there's a large contingent of people on the left who get upset every time a mask mandate, vaccine mandate, testing mandate, etc. is rescinded.
Never mind that epidemiologists in every other country in the world (other than China) have decided that it's pointless to try to "fight" Covid with these sorts of measures. Even countries that previously decided that a zero-Covid policy was desirable, like Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan. The disease has simply become too contagious and now we just have to live with it. But there are still morons on the left who are sheltering at home and get furious when they see somebody at the grocery store who isn't wearing a mask.
Curiosity killing me here. As an MD what was the psychology around taking a medication for which you knew absolutely nothing about? Also, just months prior to their rollouts, the vaccine was considered experimental to the point the party trying to take the executive branch was clamoring about how they refused to be guinea pigs. Where were you on this? No stones cast. My brother is a CRNA and came to your same conclusion but he won't share why.
Great questions. I did place(unfounded) trust in CDC etc. in addition, I would have been fired for not taking it. I left that job and am working where a booster is not required. Although I read a great deal I should have done more research. I certainly feel “less healthy”(I walk up one flight of stairs and am out of breath) then I was prior to the shot.
After taking the vaccine and two boosters I too became out of breath walking up a single flight stairs despite working out everyday. Despite taking a blood thinner and a total cholesterol reading of 130 I recently was diagnosed with a blood clot in my lung. Vaccine related? Might be time for a CT Scan.
I really don’t think most MDs, RNs give much attention to the political machinations/corruption in government places. It’s like they’re high on their humanity driven work even though by now it’s obvious how corrupt the system is. My guess is some are having a painful wake up now. I’m so grateful for any MD/APN etc to voice their disillusionment in even an anonymous manner. The medical system is deeply pathological. When you sink into that reality and you’re in it, hard on your psyche.
I'm not sure what adjective best fits the situation, but the USA appears to be the only western country interested in pushing the "vaccine for all" mantra while many other countries have tapered this off a bit, especially for those typically healthy segments of the population (25 and under). One state has gone as far as to say a Dr. has no autonomy when providing Covid care. Call me mortified.
Sponsored by Pfizer is the answer. They paid hundreds of millions to news organizations. Have you seen the montage?
I'm familiar with the big pharma money. After all of the hurrah about getting back at them for pushing oxy where's the pushback from practicing medical professionals regarding pushing so called vaccines? They're deafeningly silent.
Also, I regret getting the jab and don't feel like I used to. I am very healthy and lead a very good lifestyle.
China, Yes that horrible authoritarian commie country doesn't have mandates! They don't do mRNA and they've just started an oral spray vaccine. We are so brainwashed...
I don't have an adjective, but I can give you a noun: capitalism.
The most "deeply pathological" aspect of our medical system is that it's inaccessible and otherwise unaffordable for millions of Americans.
Disagree. The most pathological aspect is that it has ZERO interest, concern etc for wellness. If you treat your body well enough you should rarely need the system. That SHOULD be the goal. But the left loves victims so they pound the “Medicare for all!” With zero regard for the fact that the more you need the system the more fucked you are.
Indeed. Most people's approach to healthcare is avoidance.
I disagree. The most deeply pathological aspect of our system of illnesscare is that it is driven by the profit motive, i.e. capitalism. That's why they don't have an interest in wellness.
It's simple. Education equals indoctrination more education equals more indoctrination and MDs are high on the "education" list. The entire medical industrial complexes are giant scams believed in by insiders and outsiders alike. Pharmaceuticals are xenobiotic toxins that sometimes have beneficial side effects.
Somewhat agree. Self-education is a thing and typically does not result in indoctrination, but the Universities have been badly compromised unfortunately.
Frank Zappa said, sometime in the 1970s, that if you want to get an education, drop out of school, go to the library, and read.
Sadly, that won't work for medicine.
Love this so much thank you. We don’t understand the indoctrination aspect well enough.
Couldn't agree more.
So true.
The average age of a COVID death is 83. Florida is a retirement state and disproportionately elderly.
Try making a more valid comparison.
Don't feed the troll.
Because I became scared after reviewing the first of over 300 mortalities at my hospital during that horrible 2020-2021 winter. On Christmas Day we reported 10 deaths. Plain and simple: Fear, confirmation bias, trust in the Public Health and organizational authorities I’d relied on in 35 years of ID practice; I simply wanted the claims of efficacy to be true for me and my family. When I contracted Delta in July, I became less sanguine and noted not Delta infections admitted had been previously infected. When no one acknowledged this apparent natural immunity and refused to look into it is when I switched.
But still, STILL...
Even though I knew better last December, my Chief of Service, acknowledging my objections, still encouraged me. We submitted to the 3rd dose.
Now the Chief sees but we practice in a State which has made it illegal to give any opinion other than “safe and effective”.
I didn’t get a MnRA vaccine - but only through dumb luck. But I feel used by our Health Authorities - I wish I’d resisted getting vaccinated at all. I worry about what these MnRA vaccines mean for my families long term health.
What it means is your chances of dying are higher. Pretty straight forward. MIT and other highly respected research institutes are studying how people allow themselves to be so misinformed
Thanks for your honesty. The pressure was rough. I’m so grateful to work in a place that was pretty gracious re religious exemptions. I’m also proud of my chutzpah. Of course they’re making me test weekly which is embarrassingly absurd. Laughable really. Please be kind to yourself but don’t look back. There’s lots about the system that need some light.
I feel your pain. I had a Q-tip shoved up my nose every week for 2 years. Then my employers decided that we could rapid test at home but we needed to ZOOM call a supervisor so they could watch us test. I thought to myself, 'I'm not a child & my supervisor isn't my mamma so I'm not doing it." Luckily my employers are so inept at follow through that no one actually checked to see if I was testing. That was about 6 months ago. I should add that I haven't had so much as a sniffle in over 2 years. Never got Covid although I worked through, I believe, 4 waves of Covid, directly caring for clients who had Covid.
Weekly testing for all or just those un"vaccinated"? It is preposterous for either!!
***apologizes profusely to his #trustthescience tattoo***
Yes of course. The tests alone are preposterous. Extra so when only unvaccinated are required. The whole system is laughable. Hopefully to the point of a massive wake up.
Here's the definitive, exhaustive list of every thing we test asymptomatic people for: CoVid-19. No one that I'm aware has ever before been tested for anything while having no visible or reported symptoms. Refuse the test and get fired. Fired for not being sick. Ridiculous doesn't begin to describe this madness.
You're coming off as pretty ignorant here.
Most diseases aren't [very] contagious until a person is symptomatic. That was the case with e.g. SARS, and why it fizzled out after a while. Symptomatic people isolated = no more SARS.
Covid is relatively unique in that it's contagious 2-3 days before a person even knows they're sick, basically reaching peak viral load right when a person starts developing symptoms.
So... testing asymptomatic people for Covid? Yeah. Duh. That's not ridiculous, it's common sense, for anybody who has the faintest idea how Covid is transmitted.
There is a lot about the system that needs light. Starting and ending with how much money the vaccine makers are earning.
It’s too bad so many Americans have allowed themselves to be misinformed on the efficacy of the vaccines. Not a single health ministry of any wealthy democracy is concerned about the efficacy. They have all done the science and the vaccines work. End of story. It does not matter how much you hate Fauci and the CDC...
Honestly I think the Vaccines makers are funding the misinformation about the efficacy to distract us on now they are ripping us off!
I well remember when COVID first hit and no one really knew how deadly it was (although the media did a good job of making it seem very dangerous and deadly). At that time, I started to read and learn that there has never been a successful vaccine produced for corona viruses + all attempts at mRNA treatment/vaccines (most in veterinary studies) had flopped. When COVID was still a scary thing, I started to repeat what I had learned and told others, we probably won't get an effective vaccine. In early 2021, the frenzy over the vaccines - what I now believe was a "mass formation psychosis” - even got to me. Despite what I had learned, I suddenly started frantically trying to get a vaccine (the J&J because I didn't trust the mRNA) - trying every possible provider I could (the vaccines were not easily available at the beginning). Looking back, I marvel at how I - as someone who should have known better - fell under the spell. I quickly regained my senses, but I too was a victim of the mass psychosis. Quite an education for me.
My experience as well. There was no doubt the strain that escaped from the Wuhan lab was very deadly but for a narrow population of people. I was firmly against lockdowns because I knew the outbreak epidemiology literature clearly advocated for selective protection and normalization of lives and economies.
Nonetheless after the horrible 2020-2021 winter I witnessed first hand, I WANTED to believe that the mRNA product was effective. Then, when I contracted mild Delta 6 months later and began to see that 30% of the hospitalized cases were vaccinated and NO cases had been previously infected I realized it it didn't work.
I also saw that 90% of the deaths that winter were either advanced age, horrifically baseline sick, BMI > 30 and Diabetes/Hypertension.
Fauci never addressed the Coronavirus vaccine conundrum - a vaccine for the common cold has been elusive for decades.
It wasn't till Robert Malone spoke Joe Rogan that I fully snapped out of it.
Too late. My wife and I got side effects after the 3rd dose.
I'm 76 and I was against lockdowns too, because I thought that I would rather get exposed, get a mild case now, and get immunity than to wait until I was even older and possibly weaker and get it then.
But I was saying at the beginning that it was nothing more than an advanced case of flu and nothing to be feared. Of course I was mocked and shamed, so I kept my thoughts to myself after that.
And no vaccine ever.
If you don't mind me asking, what side effects do you suffer from?
What "spell"?
Sure, nobody had made a successful coronavirus vaccine before, because, why bother? The only dangerous coronavirus before Covid was SARS. Luckily we had some people who had been working on SARS research/vaccines for the last ~20 years. Without their work, we probably still wouldn't have Covid vaccines.
mRNA treatments had flopped? Uhh, which ones? The only serious efforts at mRNA therapies were by Moderna and BioNTech, two companies that were small, relatively unknown, and relatively underfunded when compared to other pharmaceutical companies. Once they got the right funding and partnerships, they both knocked it out of the park, which we should be happy about, instead of suspicious of.
We should be overjoyed that 1) some people were still researching SARS since 2004 by the time Covid hit, and 2) we had two companies that had been working on mRNA treatments for 8-10 years by the time Covid hit.
It's amazing that everything aligned exactly right for us to have effective Covid vaccines within 2 years of the initial outbreak. That's a testament to human ingenuity, and also a huge amount of good luck was involved.
Hats off to everybody involved.
What have you contributed, again?
Madjack, thanks for your candor re: the vax. It really helps. We need more MDs to speak out so honestly.
“Candor”. Is that like Taylor Green’s “candor” on election fraud in 2020...
If Madjack is a real doctor I am a real economist! You people are so gullible. Don’t you Agree?
You read like a big pharma paid troll.
Big pharma pays trolls to question how much money they are making from the vaccines and to call for Universal Health Care?
Really? ???
Big pharma pays to promote the myth of the mRNA jabs being "vaccines" and that they are continually needed. Big pharma would love if the government owned and operated the health care service industry. They play a PR game claiming opposition while they push the corporatist model.
You're right when you say faith in our institutions has been lost. It's been coming for a while though, driven mostly by one-sided media for the most part. I was really shocked when doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals with decades of experience were suddenly 'canceled' and fired for not taking the (still) emergency use authorized drugs. It's as if everything we've learned about viruses and how to deal with them during the past 200+ years of medical practice and protocols were thrown out the windows for the sake of political expediency, not medical. While I'm not in that field, I have to wonder how many medical professionals were previously fired for not taking newly-produced pharmaceuticals prior to mRNA or other rushed to production drugs with less than a years worth of human testing. The responses to CoVid-19 seem to have little to no science to back them up. Now more than two-years later, with so much evidence these particular mRNA injections neither prevent infection nor spread of the virus, why continue to call these 'vaccines' at all? Is that not part of the continuation of misleading the public, furthering the decline in trust in our institutions?
"While I'm not in that field..." If you had started your post with this sentence it would have saved me valuable time.
Since you don't know what I do, feel free to not comment further and save us both valuable time.
If in California, you could lose your license to practice for saying these things.
If you're an MD then I'm the Hamburglar.
The technical/scientific/medical definition of a vaccine has always been that it stimulates a person's immune system to recognize an antigen.
Nothing about whether or not it prevents a person from getting infected with something.
The notion of "the vaccine doesn't necessarily prevent you from getting infected so therefore it's not a real vaccine" is something that instinctively makes sense to the Facebook crowd, and has become a talking-point for idiots, but was never a real thing.
Bee Ess. the CDC changed its definition of vaccine from “a product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease” to “a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases.” The public health agency also changed its definition of “vaccination.”
Big pharma called in that demand and the CDC clones complied because it benefited their big pharma stock holdings.
The Wuhan bats, not to be outdone by the CDC, have renamed its virus "double chocolate cheesecake."
Merriam-Webster had to change their definition too, IIRC.
But it's because whoever does the CDC web site, and whoever wrote the Merriam-Webster definition, were laypeople and didn't get it quite right. Either that, or they tried to simplify the actual definition so it would be easier to understand for laypeople and didn't get it right.
In the end, you're cherry-picking incorrect definitions in order to make a point that's simply wrong.
The definition of vaccine has been consistent since vaccines have existed. Only recently changed to fit the narrative of the Wall Street oligarch woke.
The jabs are not a vaccine. They are the same as like a vitamin C booster to protect against a cold virus. However, the data on the COVID jabs are troubling in that it looks like they increased the infection rate for variants. So they are likely an anti-vaccine with respect to COVID... likely prolonged the pandemic instead of allowing natural herd immunity. That was good for big pharma.
"The definition of vaccine has been consistent since vaccines have existed."
What do you think that definition is, what's your source, and how are you going to prove to me that it has been the same since vaccines have existed?
"Wall Street oligarch woke." Joseph P. Kennedy immediately comes to mind.
Madjack posing as a "doctor" is one of the many minor charms to be found among the TK News comments. Like "Granny," MD stands for "Mountain Doctor."
He might be one, but that's typically no indication of exceptional knowledge outside of a particular medical branch, and sometimes not even exceptional in any branch. It's not even worth mentioning tbfh.
Also let me say that during the first Covid shots, no problem, but several people I know became quite ill with the vaccines given this October, and one was hospitalized due to developing Covid and pneumonia. I know it can happen but it is scary.
I agree and was confused by his answer. How Vaccines Work.
"Vaccines can help protect against certain diseases by imitating an infection. This type of imitation infection, helps teach the immune system how to fight off a future infection. Sometimes, after getting a vaccine, the imitation infection can cause minor symptoms, such as fever. Such minor symptoms are normal and should be expected as the body builds immunity.
Once the vaccinated body is left with a supply of T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes that will remember how to fight that disease. However, it typically takes a few weeks for the body to produce T-lymphocytes and B-lymphocytes after vaccination. Therefore, it is possible that a person infected with a disease just before or just after vaccination could develop symptoms and get that disease, because the vaccine has not had enough time to provide protection. While vaccines are the safest way to protect a person from a disease, no vaccine is perfect. It is possible to get a disease even when vaccinated, but the person is less likely to become seriously ill.
Right. If you're vaccinated for Covid, your body still recognizes and fights the infection, it's just a few hours/days too late to prevent the infection completely.
That's why vaccinated people rarely have to be hospitalized, or die, due to Covid. Their body starts fighting the infection in earnest several days before an unvaccinated person's body would have.
Except that the reports I have from many people in the medical field is that the majority of people who are hospitalized and dying are the vaccinated.
Which makes perfect sense (to me, anyway), since the people at risk of hospitalization/death (elderly, obese, immuno-compromised) are nearly all vaccinated for that very reason.
As Robbins observes in the interview, people believe what they want to believe. If you believe that your COVID was more mild because you had the vax, fine. If you believe the COVID strains have gotten less lethal/virulent, and has little to do with vax, or perhaps because you already had COVID, OK. All are possible, and none are provable.
Maybe we have a lower death rate despite having plenty of COVID out there now because we have fewer high risk people around than 3 years ago and/or because most everyone has already had it?
The results are in. BillS has received some "reports." "From many people in the medical field." Hospital janitors, perhaps?
Or maybe you ought to avoid saloons where drunk insurance salesman suddenly morph into "people in the medical field" after the 9th scotch and soda.
"https://medicalpartnership.usg.edu/covid-19-staggering-statistic-98-to-99-of-americans-dying-are-unvaccinated/"
I'm glad you said something.
LMAO
Every health ministry of every wealthy democracy in the world disagrees with you. Being an MD does not make you an authority on vaccines. But consuming right wing propaganda can and does make, even an MD, misinformed.
Why stop at "every wealthy democracy"?
China and Russia are also huge proponents of Covid vaccination.
If Covid vaccines are just one big Pfizer scam to profit off a hoax disease, then man, it's worked better than they could have hoped for in their wildest dreams. LOL.
It's a global conspiracy. How many responses does it take the average Anti Vaxxer to get to "George Soros"
Ibbat you are spot on! It’s a vast global conspiracy! But the same people that figured out “stop the steal” have figured out the science on this one too...
A real national treasure that lot is....
Exhibit A of left wing ideological capture. Probably still wearing a cloth mask while walking alone.
I am wearing my mask while typing alone in my room.. Better be safe..
MIT is doing research on how people get FOOLED into things like Anti Vaxx and Anti Climate change. Media consumption as at the heart of it. Just like the adage "you are what you eat". Well our mind is what it consumers.
If you consume misinformation you will be misinformed
No every single health ministry of every wealthy democracy is NOT controlled by Pfizer. As for the CDC, they may be. I could be convinced of that. But what the CDC is saying about vaccines is in line with what every other health ministry is saying.
So stop eating McDonalds daily to learn about the world.. It is obscenely visable what you are consuming in writing.
Anti vaccine and anti climate change are only clumped together by the McDonalds corporate media machine for mass consumption. And I hate to break it to you but you swallowed some of it. Clumping beliefs to more beliefs is a tactic used to discredit without facts.
Cathy
I was not giving my "opinion" about people that have fallen for lies about Vaccines and Climate change. I am quoting findings from numerous researchers all over the world. The debate on these issues ended long ago. Universities are studying the media consumption and psychological profiles of people that have fallen for these lies... Not just one university. Dozens of them, including MIT.
"Climate change deniers, anti-vaxxers and anti-GM campaigners: groups of people characterised by sometimes vehement denial of the conclusions of scientific research. This “rejection of science” poses a problem for modern society, the spread of doubt and misinformation from these groups can have negative – and potentially tragic – consequences (Lewandowsky & Oberauer, 2016)"
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1368430221992126
for some reason I am not able to like your comment, but I am a registered nurse and completely agree.
I agree. I notice on Substack that I have to whack the heart button 50 times before my 'like' will register.
Um, why do you say it wasn’t a vaccine?
Because they literally had to change the definition of vaccine once people pointed out that this didn't prevent you from getting covid.
Don't worry, though. The fact checkers tell you they did this 'for accuracy'. In doing so, of course, they redefined sunlight as a 'vaccine'.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/11/30/fact-check-merriam-webster-changed-vaccine-definition-accuracy/6354415001/
According to an archived version of the dictionary's website, Merriam-Webster formerly said a "vaccine" was "a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease."
The new definition of "vaccine", published in May, reads: "a preparation that is administered – as by injection – to stimulate the body's immune response against a specific infectious agent or disease."
The editors changed "artificially increase immunity" to "stimulate the body’s immune response" because they believed it would be more helpful to readers, according to Sokolowski.
mRNA isn't a vaccine because it doesn't work like a vaccine.
"it doesn't work like a vaccine" a webpage doesn't work like a magazine either, but we still call them articles and sometimes even magazines. I really don't understand leaning so much on the semantic issue with the mRNA approach to inoculation. Surely the real concern is not that it was labelled a 'vaccine' but some other dangerous attribute and critiques should stay focused there?
But we don't call Web Pages magazines. So SARS COVID II is discovered...by China and it's genetic sequence is done by China which comes up with it's own way to deal with it resulting in much Less sickness and death than the USA or any large western country. So what does the US do? Did they build on established vaccine technology? Hell no. They tasked Pfizer, so CROOKED they had recently been fined $2.3 Billion for actions so egrigous even their captured regulator that they partially finance and Moderna that had NEVER brought a product to market and had to to have its research subsidized by the state to develop a whole New technology for the pandemic. Now; WHO would do such a thing and how did it work out? Well, for Pfizer/Bionteck and Moderna; they made out like the Bandit's they are. How about the American people... the worst in the world. So WHO bears responsibility for the failures... nobody by law. Did anyone get Rich over the pandemic; Oh yeah, lot's including the congress and senate and senior officials and Wall Street, always Wall Street. WHO took advantage of the crisis to garner power...U no WHO.
The technical definition of a vaccine is that it stimulates the immune system to respond to a particular antigen.
How does a Covid mRNA vaccine not stimulate a person's immune system to respond to a Covid spike protein?
Merriam-Webster is one source of definitions for words. They aren't the ultimate authority. It's not like their dictionary is written by God.
In this case, they didn't get their definition right. What they had disagreed with the definition in medical textbooks, etc.
The correct response, if any response is warranted at all, is to blame Merriam-Webster for putting an incorrect definition in their dictionary. Not to start drawing invalid conclusions based on incorrect definitions.
LOL you think MW was the only one to change?
https://www.cnsnews.com/article/national/susan-jones/cdcs-definition-vaccine-has-changed-over-time-protection-vs-immunity
The word "protection" has replaced the word "immunity" on the CDC definitions page, as it becomes clear that even fully vaccinated Americans are not "immune" to COVID variants, most recently, omicron.
As CNSNews.com reported on May 4, 2021, the CDC at that time defined vaccination as "The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease."
But that definition has changed over time. The CDC website now defines vaccination as "the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection from a specific disease."
----------
Now tell me how the CDC also isn't the ultimate authority on words and their definitions aren't written by God.
...not only not 'immune', not necessarily 'protected' either...ask any otherwise healthy person why they're in the hospital for CoVid AFTER they're 'vaccinated'.
You think the person writing public-facing web pages for the CDC is the ultimate authority on what medical terms mean? LOL.
Surely you must understand that the CDC is a large organization that employs web designers, etc., just like everywhere else. Or do you think that everybody at the CDC is an über-qualified doctor? Janitorial staff, etc.
Seems like there is plenty of evidence the 'vaccines' do prevent COVID (esp severe, but who knows for sure given the possibility of prevalent asymptomatic infections). Whether any COVID 'vaccine' can prevent a sars-cov2 infection is the real question. And even if they don't prevent infection, they would hardly be the only 'vaccine' in this category. This simply isn't the bombshell many people seem to think it is.
The issue with that is there's no control group to tell us if Covid is less severe with a vaccine. It might be true. But different strains of Covid and differing lifestyle factors play a part, so some vaccinated people die, some unvaccinated people don't, and in the end because of truly bad science from the White House, we don't really know anything about this stupid thing.
No control group? Huh?
We had a large group of vaccinated people in the country, and we had a large group of Covid-naive people in the country. Huge numbers in both groups caught Covid, many comparisons were made, and the vaccinated group clearly did much better.
This is the very definition of a control group.
There's still a very large control group; tens (even hundreds) of millions of people: people who were never jabbed, got covid, and fully recovered. A number of them even had multiple comorbidities like diabetes and high blood pressure but recovered anyway. At the same time, higher death rates in otherwise healthy people are being reported world-wide AFTER being mRNA'd. Not sure how these facts can be ignored much longer.
I think its hyperbolic to say we don't really know *anything*, but I appreciate/share that sentiment regardless.
Even if I grant this is all true -- the 'leaders' 100% acted as if this shot would stop the spread and end the pandemic, after we knew this wasn't true.
I don't care the flu vaccine doesn't stop the flu until you force everybody to take it.
There was every indication that the vaccines would stop the pandemic. The pre-Delta variants of Covid had an R0 of around 3.
All data indicated that vaccination would cut Rt down to less than ~0.3, i.e., low enough that the virus would fizzle out in a matter of weeks.
Delta changed the situation, but seriously, you're not complaining that people didn't predict Delta, are you?
Indeed.
"Your miracle shot doesn't fit some definition of something that I found in a book" is a completely pointless thing to think or say.
It's too bad really. I'm actually sympathetic to many contrarian/skeptical critiques surrounding COVID response, but deploying the scattershot strategy of attempting countless tiny irrelevant and typically unrelated cuts doesn't build a coherent case.
I don't understand why your saying it wasn't a vaccine? True, people who were vaccinated did in some cases develop Covid, but for the most part had milder symptoms, and for the elderly that is important. If their health was compromised, getting a full blown case of Covid could be a killer. I know two people who were older, and had underlying medical conditions and developed the disease and died. Had they had the vaccine, perhaps that would not have been the case.
It's not a vaccine by definition because it doesn't prevent a person from getting the disease. In fact you might even have an increased risk. As of now there really isn't any good evidence that it is net positive for anyone. You might have a small amount of resistance to the disease that is short lived but then studies have shown that without continued boosters it can drop below the level you were at to begin with. Couple that with the risk of side effects which are real and not nearly as rare like they want you to believe. These risks compound with each shot you have. Also, there are other treatments that work very well. Doctors that were brave enough to implement these treatments had 80-90% success. Much better than the so called vaccine.
It's really too bad the democrats made this a political issue, since reality and truth will always take a back seat. Right now I wish I were a hermit.
Please watch the movie The Real Anthony Fauci based on Robert Kennedy's book of the same title, all is explained. Warning if you had family or friends die of "AIDS" you are going to be very upset.
Never knew they made a movie, or documentary on him. I did have a brother who died of AIDS, very young, and I remember asking to touch the Kaposi sarcoma he had on his arms, mostly. He told me no, and when I asked why he said now they say you can contract it more easily, and I told him, nonsense. I was never afraid of being there for him, but his hospital stays were horrific, as were those of most and recently through a post on Glen Greenwald's site I learned how Fauci made my brother's life in his remaining year a horror, and from then on, I hated the SOB. Thanks for that info.
Yes, it was Frenkle. Trump merely used the fast track process while being assured by Democratic operatives in the medical bureaucracy who lied to him to tout to his constituents (and the rest of the country) they were trying to beat this with a vaccine. It was Fauci, Pharma, and the legacy of Obama's health care plan which ties Democrats to Pharma who used a bioweapon on an unsuspecting world. Follow the money, boy.
My point was that during the Trump years the democrats, yes the democrats, used ever means possible to remove Trump from office and vilified him and his base. We are still feeling the fall out from their despicable behavior. Would you believe I was a registered democrat, and never voted republican, however their total lack of regard for truth, their willingness to lie, was unconstitutional and amoral. They generated a real divide in this country, and not only do I feel the mainstream media participated in this but many on the left as well.
Really? It wasn't the MSM which is the public relations arm of the Democrat party that promoted all of it, of course handsomely rewarded by Big Pharma. I watched Jeopardy recently and Moderna is sponsoring the show now. Moderna!
Ugh, partisan hacks are so tiring.
"Trump, who has accused Biden and his campaign of stoking doubt among Americans about the efficacy of a vaccine, told reporters at the White House later that Biden should stop promoting “anti-vaccine theories.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-biden/democrat-biden-warns-against-rushing-out-coronavirus-vaccine-says-trump-cannot-be-trusted-idUSKBN2671NW
"Democratic U.S. vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris said she would not take President Donald Trump’s word alone on any potential coronavirus vaccine."
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa-politics/kamala-harris-says-trump-not-credible-on-possible-covid-19-vaccine-idUSKBN25X01L
This one is especially rich. You fuckers accused Trump of running roughshod over the regulatory process which has been reduced to pure comedy at this point.
"a growing number of prominent health leaders say they fear that Trump — who has repeatedly signaled his desire for the swift approval of a vaccine and his displeasure with perceived delays at the FDA — will take matters into his own hands, running roughshod over the usual regulatory process."
https://khn.org/news/signs-of-an-october-vaccine-surprise-alarm-career-scientists/
"It's not a vaccine by definition because it doesn't prevent a person from getting the disease. In fact you might even have an increased risk. As of now there really isn't any good evidence that it is net positive for anyone."
Is the CDC aware of your findings? What about the rest of the medical community? Are all interested parties privy to your research? Fully aware that the vaccine does not "prevent a person from getting the disease?" Are you in touch with the national media? Even with the caveat that most of them are vicious, slanderous MARXISTS? Intent on transitioning the U.S. into a dystopian nightmare of Blade Runneresque proportions? Are you?
And for that matter are these people aware that the virus is not even a "virus" but a "disease." Good god man hop on the horn and inform these people of your findings! Forthwith!
Although you do soothingly counsel that "...there are other treatments that work very well. Doctors that were brave enough to implement these treatments had 80-90% success." Ya, tell me about it. Unlike those chicken-shit docs fooling around with the vaccines!
I love how when anecdotal evidence was used in contrarian cases it was totally unacceptable but if used to support the vaccines efficacy it's totally fine.
You might say it is an insider vs outsider paradigm
neither side has a monopoly on leaning on anecdotal evidence tbfh
Vaccines sterilize and immunize. The jab is merely a prophylactic treatment that reduces severity.
"Vaccines sterilize and immunize" If this translates to blocking any infection by the target microbe, please name more than one proven to be truly capable of this.
measles
rubella
Even CDC appears to make no such claim:
"Very few people—about three out of 100—who get two doses of measles vaccine will still get measles if exposed to the virus."
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/faqs.html#:~:text=Could%20I%20still%20get%20measles,if%20exposed%20to%20the%20virus.
Measles and rubella are not vaccines (since that label seems so critical in these conversations). The vaccine I guess you are referring to is commonly referred to as MMR.
MMR after a 2-dose inoculation provides less than 100% protection against infection. Infection in cells can occur even after vaccination and vaccinated immune responses such as protective antibody levels have been able to be studied in vitro as a result. Not so "sterilizing and immunizing" if those terms mean blocking all infection.
How does one quantify 'milder' symptoms after being jabbed but still acquire CoVid? It's statistically probable the same person might have had the very same mild symptoms of CoVid without being jabbed at all unless they had already had multiple comorbidities. Early on, most healthy people had no idea they were infected and reported the same mild flu-like symptoms without ever being tested.
One metric used is that hospitals saw unvaccinated Covid patients far more than vaxxed Covid patients. Quite a striking difference.
During the earlier days of the EUA rollout, that metric was indeed reported, yes. 18 months later that metric is moot since the same EUA-mRNA, now widely in use, doesn't prevent getting or spreading CoVid-19.
The question is still valid, if you end up sick enough with CoVid that you need to be hospitalized, did that 'vaccine' do what was promised? If so, by what clinical measure of the individual patients there compared to the 'unvaxxed' patients? Higher fever, more or less pain, easier to breathe if you've been 'vaccinated'? What clinical proof is there the unvaxxed is worse off than the vaxxed when they have the same reported symptoms?
The vax was never promoted as 100% effective for everyone. 2nd, clinical measure? it’s just numbers…more people admitted to hospitals with Covid were not vaxxed, compared to vaxxed. Finally, not sure of your point. If they have same symptoms, neither is worse off. Did I suggest otherwise? Is it not safe assuming, if two people have Covid, and one needs hospitalization…that person is worse off than the other? That’s the only metric I mentioned.
Anyway done beating this Covid stuff to death. Life is short. I’m heading back to the Monty python clip on arguments!. I believe you enjoyed it too, Mark.
I'm sure people do contract Covid and display mild symptoms, or none, but if you're older or have other underlying health issues who want's to take the chance of a full blown case of the disease? Listen I support the vaccines, not telling you to get one, but I'm also leary since I know people who got the shots, developed Covid, a couple, not bad, the other was in a hospital with pneumonia, and Covid but now she's fine. I am not thrilled about taking these other shots.
I'm with you, the only difference to me is the clinical evidence doesn't support the narrative that mRNA jabs are better for 'everyone' than not getting them. I happen to believe placebos work for many. They don't usually cure the illness, but they don't make the trial patient sicker either. Too many times to date, mRNA use is worse than the infection (compared to all other vaccines in use combined)in raw reporting in VAERS. Either way its still a personal decision for sure. If interested, here's new study data you may not ever hear about in major media:
https://takecontrol.substack.com/p/mortality-risk-covid
Excerpt:
Pre-Jab COVID Survival Rates
Presenting this same data as COVID survival rates in the pre-jab era (i.e. 2020, before the rollout of the COVID shots) instead of fatality rates, you get the following:
Birth to 19 years: 99.9997% survival rate
20 to 29 years: 99.997% survival rate
30 to 39 years: 99.989% survival rate
40 to 49 years: 99.965% survival rate
50 to 59 years: 99.871% survival rate
60 to 69 years: 99.499% survival rate
Now, these numbers were all prior to the COVID jabs. Emerging evidence suggests the shots are causing immune deficiency in some people, thereby actually raising their risk of dying from SARS-CoV-2 infection, even with the now milder strains.
Stay safe!
It doesn't work the way traditional vaccines do. Traditional vaccines put a weakened or inactivated germ into our bodies. Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines teach cells how to make a protein that triggers an immune response if someone gets infected. Some people have been saying from the beginning that it isn't actually a vaccine because it doesn't work the same way.
I got the vaccines, but I am not at high risk, and very obviously this vaccine is different then the Polio vaccine given back in the 50's? However I think they help to lower your risk of getting a full blown case of Covid, less symptomatic, but I'm sure some people got the vaccine, contracted Covid, and died. I was going to get the October boosters, but my vet's wife developed Covid, then pneumonia and was hospitalized. She's okay now, and was treated with Remdesivir. . My brother and sister-in-law, younger, got the vaccine boosters and both got Covid. Now I'm debating whether to get them. I really believed the democrats, and Fauci, politicized this issue and made it more difficult for everyone. Thanks for the info.
I think they help to lower your risk isn't science. Why were the trial studies not allowed to be looked at?
Basically vaccines don't offer immediate protection and your body has to kick in and help, and in the interim you can get Covid, but in a milder form. Basically it's a waiting game. I posted some information on this site that explained how vaccines worked. What can I say, I'm no expert. My background is in science and although I hold it in high regard there have been plenty of mistakes along the way in every field of science.
I would suggest you read this entire article to better inform yourself:
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/sanity-checks?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=548354&post_id=80204743&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email
Do you think I'm going to look at one article, Steve Kirsch's newsletter, and buy what it has to say?
It's not an "article," he links to 42 different sources that show why the "vaccines" aren't safe or effective. But keep your head buried in the sand.
Beth I'll read it later. I got the initial shot and boosters, no problem. but I'm somewhat scared off the two upcoming boosters, since I know people who had them and they developed Covid, and our vet's wife developed Covid, then pneumonia , hospitalized, but okay now, but who wants to go through that, and even he was confused about things. I just need to make up mind and I'm not sure about anything.
Kirsch? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck...sounds like a duck...
Your use of the word Perhaps is a tell. Perhaps many of the excess deaths are associated with the not vaccine, but it's hard to determine because autopsies aren't being done.
LOL! You're not an MD, you're an anti-vaxxer. The Covid-19 vaccines have been proven safe and effective.
"After performing an exhaustive search of the Kaiser medical records, Sharff and colleagues found a 1 in 1,862 rate of myocarditis after the second dose in young men ages 18 to 24. For boys ages 12 to 17, the rate was 1 in 2,650. Countries with active surveillance monitoring of medical data (which suffer from far less under-reporting than the passive system in the U.S)—such as Hong Kong—show virtually identical figures. The risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis remains elevated for men up to the age of 40."
Hard to accept when you pray to the Fauci God.
Myocarditis is mild and easily treated. Reality is that the vaccine is safe and effective.
What is not easy to treat is science deniers like yourself.
Do yourself a favor and watch some TWiV episodes like I've been telling you to do. You don't have to be as stupid as you are.
Frank Lee
The problem with your narrative is that every wealthy democracy in the world also supports vaccines for young people. Not just the US and Fauci...
So it has nothing to do with "praying to the Fauci God". It is almost certainly that your data is incomplete. IE: Cherry picked.
I serioiusly doubt you googled better data on myocarditis than the German or Austrialian or Danis health care ministries have access to...
Get a life...
It is amazing just how stupid and ill informed these people are. There are competent outlets for information, such as This Week in Virology (at microbe.tv/twiv):
https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-889/
that discuss the reality behind the vaccines, including the known side effects that are totally ignored by these low information, conspiracists. It's really sad that they make up so much of the population.
JB
The Anti Vaxx thing is more like a CULT. A cult of people that feel rejected by the real world. So they get in the cyber world and tell themselves they have some sort of wisdom that the rest of us don't have. The reinforce themselves and it keeps them clicking on stories that are making Grifters like Dr Malone richer and richer.
It is just another Qanon for people that are disappointed in their real lives, like Frank Lee... In the online world Frank is a hero...
LOL! You are a good little compliant clone. Take your medicine as big pharma says. Ignore that science. COVID is a religion for the Godless left.
If the government was giving away free Ferraris to anybody who wanted one, I assume your response would be, "go shove your free Ferrari, I'm not a compliant little clone!"
Good job carrying the idiocy torch.
Frank Lee,
The "Godless left" is fighting big pharma far more than the anti vaxxers. The "Godless left" is trying to reduce the unreal amount of profits these vaccine makers are earning and at the same time force them in the US to negotiate with one buyer not 200.
That fight is a far bigger threat to Pfizer and Moderna and J&J than anti Vaxxer fantasy's that every single health ministry REFUTES...
Infact, my guess and it is only a guess, is that big Pharma is funding the Anti Vax propaganda as a massive distraction away from the bigger threat to their profits that the left poses.
On who really benifits from the Anti Vax Grift...
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/big-pharma/
LOL! You're an idiot. The vaccines have been proven safe and effective. It's that simple.
Umm, folks? After reading down a way in the comments, I'm wondering if everyone read the same piece as me. Here is Matt's (and Tim's) point--we need to have community, and not hate those who feel differently than we do. Gabrielle did note Robbins's mea culpa here, but too many commenters have simply used the occasion to jump back into their tribal positions on vaccines. THAT'S NOT THE POINT. The point is what do we do to stop the divisiveness. (Hint: immediately returning to being divisive typically does not help stop divisiveness.)
Hey Jeffrey. So many thoughts but I get lost in comment sections and can’t follow threads. :). I just happened to see this. I can go pretty kumbaya (I happen to think humanity is magic and largely beauty) but I’m happy to go “divisive” when the alternative is going along with massive propaganda disguised at “public health”. Taking an untested medical product created by criminal corporations who lobbied to have their data secret for 3/4 of a century is...wow, hard to justify. That there were ppl saying shit like ppl should be denied healthcare etc...damn. There should be mountains of apologies but I’d rather focus on my own capacity to forgive. People showed their dark souls that’s for sure. They have a right to their darkness, fear and inability to recognize massive corruption and the creep of tyranny. I don’t even mean this snarkily, bless their hearts. Seriously. Bless us all. We need some recognition of our divinity.
The commentariat of this Substack are highly versed in the Monty Python school of arguing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpAvcGcEc0k
Ahead of their time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bZyUGrxfmM
So funny!! And I am for trans rights…but this is funny. Hey I’m a blonde and grew up suffering blonde jokes…
Thanks, I was reticent to wade in but this coming up so quickly made it worth my time.
LOL!
People are still dying from the vaccine. Lot of emotions & will take time. I know... :(
Those still tied to Fauci narrative, I can only pray they find their way out.
I just came here to say maybe Team America was too harsh on Tim Robbins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGn55BRyDSk
You're obviously new to the comment section here. What you characterize as "tribal positions" is the entire point of the "exercise" of commenting. Taibbi bakes the cake, and the commenters slather on the frosting.
Well done and to the point Mr. Becker - I had the same thought.
Being divisive and being a doormat are two distinguishable things. Are we supposed to applaud Tim and then roll over to those yet to convert to his recent enlightenment for the sake of having a "community"? I can't speak for everyone but I think the census in the Covid comments you alluded to was more "leave me the F*** alone" rather than "you're not welcome here". The point I took from Tim wasn't to address the folks who feel the former but the latter.
Hey, maybe that's the Robitussin talking to me? Be well to yourself and others.
Joining the eight people who went to the middle is oddly unrewarding
You are so right-we should all listen to the elites and just do as they say: “TIME TO GET ALONG NOW AMERICA, SORRY WE FORCED YOU OUT OF BUSINESS AND YOUR KID HAD TO DO E-LEARNING FOR HIS FIRST HEAR OF KINDERGARTEN & SORRY YOU COULD NOT SEE YOUR LOVED ONES WHEN THEY DIED”
Great great comment. Agree 100%.
Thank you.
I think there is a good chance that if Trump had been re-elected, the Democrats would have been the vax skeptical party and Republicans would have been the true believers.
I agree completely. The proof is in the fact that if you ask almost any partisan Democrat, they will assure you that Trump is a vaccine skeptic. Heck, I bet most Republicans think Trump is a vaccine skeptic. At this point, Covid is an entirely partisan phenomenon with no basis in anything other than tribalism.
Robbins has nothing to be ashamed of. He took the time to see both sides. Your view see's one side and it is the wrong side. DeSantis fights $15 min wage, even though voters voted it in, he himself got vaccinated while he pays lip service to people like you. Maybe it is time for you to be more like Robbins and see BOTH sides of this not just yours.
Oh Michael...if you don’t think calling for ppl to be refused healthcare for not participating in a toxic sham isn’t something shame is good for, yikes. People lost their jobs, lost their health. And a bunch a self imagined do gooders threw shame like crazy. I’ve worked many years for less than 15 bucks an hour, I’d rather work for minimum wage then be forced to be a lab rat for a criminal organization. I don’t imagine ANY politician is an answer and I get closer and closer to believing voting is a total sham all the time but I’ll happily throw some shade on the dems for their blatant pathology. I understand people were manipulated into irrational fear but just because some have no capacity for critical thinking and are too weak to stand up to bullying doesn’t mean I have to be a part of their cowardice. I feel bad for them. I take care of them every shift. All the evidence of what a giant lie this was that is emerging now was known by many who followed this. Pam Popper, Malone, McCullough, Bad Cattitude...many many knew this was bullshit. I mean come ON. We knew they wanted the data secret for decades months ago. And still sad ppl believed. Just because the masses are easy dupes doesn’t mean we all have to be. And...who gives a fuck what some celebrity thinks anyway. Shame is healthy when it acts as a check. There is not enough checking going on.
I find this post fascinating. You express anger and disappointment at people who persecuted and shamed you and then immediately proceed to indiscriminately label everyone who disagrees with you about the vaccines, whether or not they were actually the ones who persecuted you, as being either perpetrators or ignorant dupes of a “criminal” scam.
Honestly, you don’t strike me as inherently any more tolerant than any of the folks you’re justifiably angry at.
Here’s a good take from an amazing writer https://open.substack.com/pub/chrisbray/p/we-need-an-amnesty-for-when-i-destroyed?r=7tuwr&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Missing from the story is Dr. Rake's reason for refusing the mRNA vaccine.
I’m guessing you imagine you have the answer to it ALL!!! :)
And another. https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/emily-osters-no-good-really-bad-terrible?r=7tuwr&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Another. https://open.substack.com/pub/amidwesterndoctor/p/dissecting-the-deceptive-plea-for?r=7tuwr&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I believe in the efficacy and safety of the vaccines based on having a 3000-patient panel with no side effects and no significant Covid illness in those who were vaccinated (including myself, I might add).
Almost invariably, however, whenever I express this opinion, no matter how civilly, on a conservative forum, I’m told not only that I’m wrong but that I’m a “murderer” - yes, that’s the term generally used - for “pushing” the vaccine onto my patients.
Needless to say I don’t find this to be a particularly tolerant position. I never believed in the vaccine mandates and actually made efforts on behalf of some patients to exempt them from employer mandates. I don’t “push” the vaccines, I merely express my opinion about them when patients ask me.
At this juncture I think both sides are deeply intolerant. Matt obviously cares a lot about free speech but I don’t sense that he cares much about the content of that speech. He seems to assume that meaningful dialogue will result and the truth inevitably emerge from people being left unchecked to say literally anything to each other.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s no alternative other than to leave speech completely uncensored, but I don’t share this view that doing so will inevitably result in a brighter future. I think that sometimes, when societies have truly degenerated beyond repair, free speech of the kind that seems to be preferred by BOTH the right and the left nowadays simply accelerates the downward spiral.
If you think that society has degenerated beyond repair (I agree), then it would be a more useful expenditure of your energy to devote yourself to building up a new society to replace the old one than to deplore passively the lack of civil discourse.
In the meantime, the way I try to combat this sad trend is by making sure that my own expressions are civil.
But if we agree society is beyond repair, then isn’t anything we do futile by definition? And where is this “new society” supposed to be built?
I’m a fan of Morris Berman and suspect sometimes emigration might be a better and less frustrating option. Maybe the “new society” is best built somewhere else.
Mike
It sounds like you are on to the GRIFT of virtually all right wingers in the US. They scream "free speech" when main stream media wont push the lies they want to hear. Yet the right wing media they consumer daily is as far from free speech as it gets. That media ignores any and all truth that does not align with their narrative.
The people and media they consume hate Free Speech if it is not exactly what they want to hear... Especially about vaccines.
"All the right-wingers" - poppycock! You yourself are falling for the left/right divide-scam that marks the discussion these days. How do you explain the embrace of censorship of the shitlibs?
I've been far left all my life and I certainly don't agree with everything that "right-wingers" espouse, but they are no different from the faux "left" in screaming about "free speech" until it's something they don't want to hear. (Might break them out of their echo chamber and give them cognitive dissonance!)
Susan
Yes, all right wingers...
I define "right wingers" by the words and ideas people push. There is a massive difference between "conservative" thinking and right wing propaganda.
For example anyone that complains about the propaganda pushed by say the NYT editorial board, but then refuses to admit that the WSJ editorial board or talking heads like Ben Shapiro or Tucker Carlson are also propaganda tools.
The FACT that the NYT pushes propaganda (Russia Gate, Ukraine etc...) does not means that the WSJ or Ben Shapiro or Tucker Carlson are not also pushing propaganda..
It is easy to figure out who is and is not fooled by either propaganda machine.
At least it is easy for me to figure out that you have been fooled by one of the propaganda machines...
Susan
Which propaganda machine have i been fooled by. I don't bu the NYT and CNN stories on the Ukraine war, leaning more toward Mearscheimer and Greenwald.
I don't buy the WSJ / Larry Summers / Jason Furman grift on the economy and debt.
Please tell me what propaganda machine it is "easy" for you to say I am influence by.
If you can't name it then we both know you don't know what you are talking about, right?
Agree, but that’s not exactly a justification.
And you still might be a fool, if you believe that voting gets you anything. It's a comfortable myth that Americans hold onto, and it has no more power than that.
Gabriel
The vaccines work. Not a single health ministry in the world agrees with you. You are just living in a fantasy. You know that, right?
LOL! It's the anti-vax people who are the problem. The vaccines work. They are proven safe and effective. Anyone who knows what vaccines do never claimed anything but that they help prevent severe illness and death. Anyone who made other claims simply is not competent and anti-vaxxers are stupid people; It's one thing to understand what vaccines do and choose to not get it and another to reject the reality of vaccination's effect on the immune system.
You're blinding yourself to the evidence that is already available and is increasing daily. And, you're completely buffaloed by the establishment propaganda. None of their, and your, claims are true.
Watch Dr John Campbell on YouTube, or Jimmy Dore, or Russell Brand, or Lee Camp, or Rand Paul (I never thought that I'd be on the same side as Sen. Paul, but politics makes strange bedfellows.)
The "vaccines" you're talking about are the old vaccines like the polio vaccine. Since they have now changed the definition of "vaccine," the ones they are touting now don't have to do any of those things and they can still be considered "vaccines." That's just playing with semantics (and people's lives).
LOL! You don't know what you're talking about and Cambell is not competent to discuss vaccines. I suggest that you watch This Week in Virology (at microbe.tv/twiv) for real information from real experts. Vincent Racaniello also provides his virology class lectures and Brianne Barker provides her immunology class lectures on youtube, look them up.
As for this vaccine, it is a vaccine as it provides the mRNA that encodes the spike protein that is presented to the immune system. It does what the other vaccines do, inform the immune system of an antigen.
Stop watching videos from people who are not competent to discuss the subject.
I will probably watch the lectures in microbiology and immunology, but considering that nowadays even (formerly) serious scientists are suspect, since their employers' funding source is compromised, I'm not sure that I can believe even them.
Dr Campbell gives every one of his sources. It's not as though he's making this stuff up, or that it's his personal opinion. If that were the case, I would agree with you that he's not competent. How is it that your sources, if they come from mainstream media, are considered to be competent to report other people's findings but Dr Campbell is not?
And all of your argument is a smokescreen to avoid addressing the issue: people are getting harmed by your so-called vaccine.
"And all of your argument is a smokescreen to avoid addressing the issue: people are getting harmed by your so-called vaccine."
Very few people had mild reactions to it, such as myocarditis, were treated and fine. The vaccine harmed no one but it did reduce the risk of severe illness and death! That is an absolute, objective fact. Covid-19 killed millions, the vaccine killed no one.
"but considering that nowadays even (formerly) serious scientists are suspect,"
Oh, come on already. Scientists are suspect only because a) most people are not competent and do not understand what they're saying and (b) some experts speak outside their competency, such as an MD giving his impression of vaccines. Dr. Campbell is unfortunately one of those. Vincent, a virologist who's studied the polio virus for his professional life, has discussed him, how he misstates things.
Do yourself a favor and start watching This Week in Virology (at microbe.tv/twiv) for the views of real experts in the field. Campbell has no competency in the field and that makes all the difference and leads to him making stuff up and you, not being a virologist, has no ability to determine that, so you're left believing him.
You're right, most people don't understand scientists. However, I graduated summa cum laude with a pre-med major, so I have a solid background in both physical and social sciences.
You're wrong: after the Covid panic, most people are not trusting scientists because they have learned that their funding comes from compromised sources.
Watch Jimmy Dore or Russell Brand for the exposure of the information. They report on the loss of faith in "science" as well.
I don't know who's in your bubble, but there are other people who are reporting information that contradicts what you're saying.
This is good to read. When I was a lunatic Hillary supporter I used to screech at Matt here and Tim too. We learn, we evolve, hopefully we work to repair the damage we've done. Now, I'm starting to wonder how we on the left thought it was healthy to only aim art at our side, an increasingly insular group. Everyone needs art. Everyone needs culture. Our country, our world is a better place if everyone can be brought in. Imagine an airplane and the only good art, food and comfort was only being given to the First Class passengers. I'd much prefer to be in Coach - hanging out with people who struggle every day to survive. That is what drives the best art. When you eliminate the struggle what are you - just a Royal Court with a magic mirror telling yourselves how great you are.
Belated apologies to Tim if I was ever unkind. Which I'm sure I was.
“When I was a lunatic Hillary supporter...” lmao
That’s redundant. Could have just said “Hillary supporter”.
LOL
It would be nice if they'd give a bit of comedy back. Just imagine if Lorne decided to make SNL funny again.
What a lovely, useful comment.
The only way to fly first class is if the airline bumps you up. It's like winning a lottery you never entered. Otherwise its just another seat on a 3 hour can of farts.
Thanks for the advice.
Ok, I have a new fantasy.
Jumping on a coach flight to Chicago and having Sasha plop down next to me. What a fun conversation that would be. Just take me through the year (or however long it took) of your conversion.
"Now, I'm starting to wonder how we on the left thought it was healthy to only aim art at our side, an increasingly insular group...Our country, our world is a better place if everyone can be brought in."
Yes, we now know that the Left's call for "inclusion" is really a device for creating new categories of exclusion. And we need to make this point every time the term "inclusion" is used.
I wish that you would would qualify what you mean by "the left." The people I think that you mean have nothing to do with The Left, and in fact, has been forcing us out of their enclave. Chris Hedges has a very insightful video about them, and in it he said that they are doing the Real Left a great deal of harm, because they make those who disagree with them think that they disagree with the principles of The Left. I wish I had the link for you. He calls them the Faux Left, or "the liberal class." Jimmy Dore (who is on the Real Left) calls them "shitlibs."
They aren't "the Left"; they don't represent us; and I dislike them even more than you do.
The left is about nothing BUT inclusion. Beds in barracks in gulags. Subjects for gain-of-function viruses. Don't worry, says the left---they'll be no vaccines to make you sick.
See my reply to Pacificus
Mine was a satirical response, albeit poorly telegraphed for the audience.
Well put! Thank you.
Everyone needs art. No one needs these vaccines, which are both ineffective and very unsafe (see Steve Kirsch's substack, among many others).
A very excellent post!
You're in for a treat! I just stumbled across Sasha 3-4 months ago and she's quickly joined Bari, Glenn and Matt at the top of my list.
Bari Weiss?
Yes
Bari Weiss is a horrible hypocrite. Spent a huge amoutn of time in college trying to get people canceled, then whined that people were trying to cancel her before canceling herself.
Also slandered Tulsi Gabbard as an "Assad Toadie" without even knowing what the word means.
Yes to all of these. I also like Trish Wood, Canadian journalist.
I’m going to go over there when I’m done here. Thanks for the recommendation.
You'll enjoy it for sure!
A favorite! So look forward to anything she writes.
I have always been a fan of his professional output, but rarely agree with Tim Robbins personal views. I am, however, impressed with his capacity for introspection. These statements show me that he is a thinker, not an ideologue.
Excellent interview. I never thought much of Tim Robbins, but I clearly misjudged him. I'm glad there are still people on the left (an artist no less) who still want to bring us all together. Thanks for publishing this.
Yeah, maybe Matt Stone and Trey Parker were a bit too hard on him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kswx1WqsTk4
As a libertarian and former leftist, his quote about being "absolute about freedom" struck me hard. He arrived at that point of view in a similar way as myself. While so many were concerned about police violence and BLM regarding an issue that is a cultural problem (Police brutality), these same people were blind and tone deaf to the two-tiered society that public health officials and our government was creathng. It really shocked me and changed my personal opinion on what is important
I'm Gen-X, right of center, from the San Francisco area, and have been shocked that some of my friends who were far more liberal than me, who really believed in questioning authority in the 70s and 80s, are now pushing totalitarian ideology and calling it democracy. Between censorship and pushing medical treatments on people and shouting "racist!" at the top of their lungs when there's a disagreement about policy, it's really disconcerting. I have friends of all political and religious (I'm Catholic and my best friend of 25+ years is an atheist) and ethnic stripes ... and it's only my white leftist friends who unfriended me during the last 2+ years as I advocated to keep schools open and not shut down business.
Im with you - same demo mostly, But sadly for most who were in favor of "questioning Authority" it turns out it was more about who was in authority than what the question was. Now that the ideas they support are ascendant, there is no longer a need for questions.
Though I've always been right of center, I've also always been of the mindset of my rights end where yours begin. If you're an adult, you can make your own decisions -- just don't force me to do what you think I should do. "You do you, I'll do me. And don't mess with my kids." Now? it's crazy. My daughter is studying elementary education. She said, "Now I know why you sent me to private school -- these classes are ridiculous." They are spending more time on social justice, special ed, and diversity than on teaching teachers how to teach kids to read, write, and add.
yeah thats about my philosophy. But doing campus tours in the midwest and east for my youngest and they look more and more like indoctrination camps. Cant imagine what they would do to a person wearing a "Question Authority" button. Would probably see the QA initials and go nuts. lol
This is a good summation. One needs to only look at what happened under Donald Trump as President.
I'm no Trump fan, but he was right to say that schools should be opened during the pandemic and that Germany shouldn't over-rely on Russia for its energy needs. But because Trump was in power and said both, lots of people wanted to do the opposite (and still are even after Trump is not President).
It makes me believe that, if Trump said during a rally that flat Earthers didn't know what they were talking about, people who oppose him would start declaring that only a Nazi would own a globe of the Earth.
Do you remember in the summer of 2020 when everyone was totally on board for opening schools and then Trump said, "The schools need to be open everywhere" and suddenly the media and unions were all, "No! We can't open the schools, it's too dangerous for teachers and grandma!" It was a lightbulb moment for me.
The fact that we still have to declare our distaste for Trump in order for someone to listen to us speaks volumes. Its almost ritualistic. But it does say 2 things. There are people who can assess and analyze concepts on their merits irrespective of their source and there are those incapable or, and worse, unwilling to do so. I am starting to come around to the thought that it was necessary to have an annoying jerk like Trump to win the Presidency for so many of us, including me, to grasp this. they were always like this but Trump tore off the mask.
"I am starting to come aroun to the thought that it was necessary to have an annoying jerk like Trump to win the Presidency for so many of us, including me, to grasp this. they were always like this but Trump tore off the mask."
Excellent piece of introspection, kind of like Tim R.
Excellent to recall that fact, Allison B.
Well said.
Liberals are not the same as lefties. i think/hope those on the left are not unfriending, cancelling, de-platforming etc. After all, look what the "liberals" did to Bernie Sanders in the USA and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK! Lefties and righties, and atheists and the religious, should be able to agree to disagree and have fruitful discussions. I think there's some pushback against this travesty of democracy - I certainly hope so.
I agree that liberals and lefties are different. I have many liberal friends. But I think the last couple of years some of them became more moderate (i.e. schools staying open, not shutting down society, etc) and some moved far left. It's just in my small world that I made these observations. I look at my uncle, who has always been very liberal and we used to have great debates and discussions. Now? I can't even talk to him because he thinks I'm so far to the right that I'm crazy (I literally haven't changed my views on most everything -- except foreign policy where I've become far more anti-war than I was in my youth, and I'm far more suspicious of government than I used to be.)
What liberals do a lot these days is brand anyone they disagree with as "far-right" etc. It's their way of de-platforming people and shutting down debate about subjects good faith people on the right and left would like to discuss. And you've probably noticed that liberals seem to be very pro-war these days. It's all very disturbing - I hope you'll be able to resume your discussions with your uncle before long!
What about what the democrats did during the Trump years? It seems they were the most instrumental in generating a divide in this country on many levels. The media helped them out, even the lefties. Not only did they go after Trump, but they went after his supporters as well, and as a fourth cousin said on Facebook, they are an uneducated lot with no sense of morality, and that meme floated about for a long time on Facebook.
Truth be told, I wonder if we should be referring to them as "liberals" any longer, because it's another word that loses its meaning alongside "right wing," "Nazi" and a host of other terms that are just tossed at people they don't like.
I do think the term "coddled affluent professional" describes these people well (and it allows you to include Bill Kristol, Max Boot and David Frum, the leaders of the neocon movement). If we're looking for a shorter term, CAP stands for "coddled affluent professional," so maybe "cappies"? *shrugs*
Maybe your right since being liberal was a term I understood and identified with, but not now. Although I continue to have what I consider a liberal perspective on things, I no longer can identify with many of those who define themselves with that word, since many of today's liberals leave no room for dissent, no shades of grey.
Cappies are exactly the same class as the yuppies of the 60s.
You could call them "Comrade" which is the left wing equivalent to Nazi but they would ignorantly wear it as a badge of honor.
I took my mom (his sister) to visit him in California this summer (we're now in Arizona.) We had a lovely visit -- we sat outside (because he knew my mom wasn't vaccinated -- she had COVID, it was mild, and when all her friends got the vaccine and complained about being wiped out, sore, sick, etc -- she decided not to get it.) We talked about my kids, living in Arizona, his grandkids, all his health problems, and family. We didn't talk about COVID, government, health care, taxes, education, or anything at all controversial. I miss our debates, but would rather visit than argue.
I've noticed that the MSM uses and abuses the term "far right" to identify anyone not in sync with them.
For some reason, never see the term "far left" used in the MSM, even some of the more crazy folx (PC) down in South American gubmint are described in much gentler fashion.
Your uncle didn't move "far left" - that's where I am - he moved to the center.
Centrists are who you think occupy the Far Left and they have a viewpoint of their own. They are neither right nor left, but irritate us both.
Good for you!
Lefties / progressives / socialists / tyrants. That is the progression.
A comment like that, following an article on the PROBLEM of decisiveness in the US.
Only a naïve person wouldn't recognize that the divisiveness we are in is completely the fault of tyrants (the end of the cycle). Trying to crush the rights of people as established in wise law isn't a position that I wish to negotiate with. We are too far now, it's either win or lose freedom.
While it is true that the tyrants are the cause of the divisions in society, I agree with Ann22 that your reply hightlights the very thinking that the article deplores. I don't think that they spring from either lefties or socialists. It makes me wonder where you learned your understanding of socialism: Joe McCarthy?
I think you mean totalitarianism, and that can come from either the right or the left.
They are the same to 50% of the population, but I agree with you. It matters not, however. Just ask Bernie what being a good liberal got him. I don’t agree with Bernie’s policies but he is undoubtedly a man of scruples and probably one of the most consistent politicians alive today. And it matters almost not at all.
Proud Gen Xer also with a punk rock history. Been anti-establishment for most of my life and the last 2 years have clarified my purpose more than any other events in my life have up to this point. I pulled my son out of public school and am homeschooling him. I donate to organizations like the Tenth Amendment Center. This government and the groups, corporations and entities that want to control it for their own insidious purposes must never be allowed to have that power. The only way we can guarantee this is by decentralizing and shrinking this government. So this is where my political action and money go now
I read a great article this morning in AIER about classic liberalism. I've always called myself a libertarian/conservative but truth be told, I'm a classic liberal. John Locke. Natural rights exist. I may not agree with some people's decisions, but if they are adults, it's their decision to make. (Of course, I will debate with people who are making decisions that I think will ultimately impact me and mine, but debate is good!) Right now I think one of the greatest threats (other than censorship) is indoctrinating children in schools. If they are indoctrinated, they can't possibly make informed decisions as adults. (I see it happening -- my daughter is studying elementary education and her classes are not on reading, writing, arithmetic, but on social justice and diversity. She had wanted to teach at an inner city school because she believes education saves people from poverty, but now she says she'll probably have to teach at a private or charter school because she won't integrate CRT into her curriculum.)
We private schools will be happy to have her, but it’s a shame CRT is damaging so many in our colleges.
Quite jarring to hear from a compassionate and principled progressive in 2022. I used to consider myself one of them but believed my tribe to have gone extinct years ago. Hopefully more of them start to wake up and pull themselves back from the hideous abyss of spite and malice that’s been sucking them all in these past several years.
“The revolution eats its children.” It’s nice to see a lefty (For the record, I do not consider myself a righty) defending liberty and displaying integrity. The interview avoids the profit motive to the COVID project which I view as a driving force, second to control and stripping away civil liberties, but that’s ok. This is a despotic world we find ourselves in and any disent from anyone with a paycheck and a microphone is welcomed by me.
I love theater. I moved from California to Arizona several years ago, but I have many friends and family in Northern California so visit when I can. My favorite theater there -- a small but popular venue -- I went to dozens of times over the years. I'm on their mailing list. I took my kids to their kid productions at least once a year. Then I get an email two months ago that said that you must show proof of vaccine to attend a performance. I unsubscribed and told them why. When I visit family, I won't be going to a show. I had COVID, I'm not getting the so-called vaccine, end of story. If I'm not welcome, I certainly wouldn't recommend their venue to any of my vaccinated friends either.
On a similar note, I planned to attend a specific writers conference in San Diego next year. They informed me that they will be requiring attendees to be vaccinated. I will never go to their conference again. This actually impacts my career to a small degree because as a published author I would have been on a panel, signed books, met readers, etc, but I'm not giving in. I wish more vaccinated people would refuse to "show their papers" in solidarity with those of us who made our own medical decisions.
To Mr. Robbins’ point about people not coming back: I can’t even count the number of organizations (museums, educational institutions, performance venues, summer camps, etc.) that I used to support but no longer do. Sorry, exclude me (or my child), ostracize me, vilify me, and I’m never going to support you again. Ever. That goes for the Democratic Party, too, to which I contributed thousands over the years. Done. I won’t forgive. I won’t forget. And for my former tribe members on the left who thought themselves critical thinkers, unfortunately, I’ve lost respect for them, too. “My body, my choice”? What a joke.
Some churches did this too. Railing for years about how abuse of power happens when church and state-power merge. Only to do that very thing. It outsourced its morality to the state, siding with it against their own minority members. We were told to “listen to the voices of the oppressed”. Yet that church was ignorant of concerns of the nurses and doctors being censored, demonized and fired for expressing their views.
I wish I could like your comment a million times because it’s exactly how I feel.
Thanks.
I share your outrage, and I (regrettably) got vaxxed before I understood what was going on. I refuse to patronize any establishment that requires "proof of vaccination" for entry, even though I have a stupid card. I wonder if your favorite theater in Northern California is the one in Berkeley that has been infuriating me with their crazy entrance rules (I keep checking their emails to see if they've regained their sanity—just out of curiosity, not that a rule change would end my boycott). Solidarity!
It's in Sacramento. I'm originally from the bay area, but moved to Sacramento to raise my kids (much cheaper!) I know many people who regret getting the shot. One of my five kids got the shot and the booster and -- surprise (not) -- she came down with COVID less than 3 months after her booster (so did her girlfriend, her roommate, and several in their friend group ...) And still ... she won't listen to me and plans to get the new shot even though I told her it doesn't work and was only tested on 8 mice. She doesn't believe me and actually said, "I can't believe you've become anti-vcxx." I said I'm not -- I'm a huge proponent of vaccines that work. ALL my kids got their childhood vaccines. But apparently, I'm now an extremist. Sigh.
The Left wants, above all, to get control of the kids. Regrettably, it seems to have happened in your family.
Only one of my kids succumbed to the dark side ... the other 4 are moderate to conservative and none of them agree on everything, but they have terrific conversations.
Sad.
I have emailed venues that require vaccination and told them why I would not be visiting. I’m glad that there are others willing to affirmatively push back.
Thank you for your efforts.
One of the things progressives don’t seem to understand is that they are no longer the rebels. If you agree with the President, the Governor, the head of your school board, all MSM, Big Tech, the FBI, Homeland Security, and university presidents on most issues then you are a supporter of the regime. However most these people consider themselves ‘activists.’ I don’t think great art comes from a place of blind obedience to the organs of state.
Appararchiks can't make art. Go look at some of the art produced in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.
Good art got made in the Soviet Union despite itself, usually by being topically distant from anything the apparatchiks considered politically important -- e.g. Soyuzmultfilm -- but I think your larger point stands.
This article by Brandon Smith discusses this exact point, excellent article on why art sucks so bad now: https://alt-market.us/why-is-leftist-entertainment-so-divisive-and-devoid-of-imagination/
And nuance is lost. My daughter is a cop. I have a lot of respect and understanding for law enforcement. But I also recognize there are bad cops out there who shouldn’t have a badge. I support the military, but I don’t support all government sanctioned actions. Etc.
If 'the President, the Governor, the head of your school board, all MSM, Big Tech, the FBI, Homeland Security, and university presidents' are now mostly/all "progressives", then the term has largely lost any nuance and is just another word for 'liberal'.
And now the war!
Yes!! 👏👏👏
Robbins comes off as an intelligent normal guy with a healthy habit of self-reflection.
Good on him.
He identifies the central problem here: "What I’ve been seeing over the past few years has been the opposite of [community building]. It’s going into a room and saying, 'You don’t have the right to speak because you don’t agree with our way of thinking.'"
Well, this sort of intolerance goes in one direction. The counterculture defending First Amendment rights is now conservative.
"Once the CDC changes policy and says basically that both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are capable of getting Covid"
... anyone else find that an astonishing statement ? Not getting at Tim here, just the CDC - but that's not a "Policy". That's a "Fact". That's "We've known we've been pushing incorrect information for over a year now, and we reckoned that by now so many people know we're lying that we might as well quietly start telling the truth, but we're framing it as a "policy change" because that doesn't make it sound like we coerced millions of people into taking jabs they didn't want or need".
Flickers of sanity in a sea of mass formation psychosis.
Want to know how we got here,Tim? Pull up a chair & I’ll tell you.
The path to the polarized craziness of covid policies had been paved for the previous four years. I didn’t even vote for Trump in 2016 but I was appalled at the viciousness leveled at him, his wife & family, people who did vote for him & then, finally, anyone who objected to the extreme reaction to any statement he made. The media played a major role in this relentless demonization to the point where they were perfectly fine with attacking a 15 year old boy (wearing a MAGA hat) waiting for his school bus after a field trip to DC.
When Covid hit the media turned up the temperature, presented Fauci as our savior & guiding light & then silenced, shamed & censored anyone — including Dr. Scott Atlas from Stanford — as little better than traitors & idiots if we were not in complete agreement.
I’m glad you’ve disabused yourself of some of the craziness that we all were forced to live through for two years but it’s far from over. The CDC just added the covid vaccine to compulsory vaccines to attend school knowing full well unknown risks outweigh unknown benefits.
You're right... far from over. Just wait until we get to Scientism's inquisition stage.
Amen
More than four years ago. I think the turning point was 9/11.
>> What if people were no longer forced into contact with one another?
The opposite happened. People were forced into seclusion from one another. For centuries, the basis of society was people willingly meeting others. Also for centuries, we could identify a woman.
"we could identify a woman"
Now you can identify AS a woman.
OMG, now Matt is interviewing movie stars . . .
But this was an interview with an unusually intelligent and thoughtful public figure. Thank you for that, Matt. And also for showing us how there are, in fact, a few intelligent and thoughtful people in Hollywood. Oh, I suppose the distribution of intelligent and thoughtful people is similar in Hollywood to any other industry, it's just that more Hollywood people are out there saying brainless stupid shit than, say, dentists or computer salesmen. So it colors your thoughts, establishes prejudices.
I never paid much attention to Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon's politics over the years. I knew they were some variety of ultra-lefty, but I don't recall them ever saying stupid shit. Maybe they have said a lot of stupid shit, but I've never seen it. And I do remember that about them, so I always had a sort of charitable view of them, some respect. We might disagree about how we achieve this or that objective, but that's all it is, a disagreement. It's not stupid shit. So I'm pleased, so far as I can tell from this interview, Robbins really is that intelligent and thoughtful Hollywood guy I suspected he might be. And there is nothing he said in this particular interview that I disagree with. At all. That was nice.
Ralph Nader is an impressive person, I admire him greatly. I am pretty sure I disagree with almost all his political prescriptions, but I recognize a thoughtful, honest and courageous personality. I suspect we would like to see many of the same outcomes, he and I, but we disagree on how to get there. But that's all it is: I disagree with a fine man. It wasn't so long ago it wasn't weird to say that out loud.
Great interview! I worked 70+ hours a week during the pandemic without PPE. Back then us essential workers were called heroes. Then, almost overnight, we were chastised because some of us wouldn’t subject ourselves to being lab-rats. In NYC we couldn’t even get a cup of coffee without showing proof of vaccination. Even children were escorted out of restaurants, museums and other venues for not having their “papers.” To add salt to injury, many of us weren’t allowed to see loved ones in hospitals, nursing homes and even attend funerals (thanks to King Cuomo’s executive orders) yet it was ok for elitists like Obama to have 600 maskless friends at his 60th bday party. I used to be “lefty”, a Bernie/AOC supporter. I will will NEVER vote blue again. I’m proud I didn’t cave to the most expensive psyop in history. But this is not a win because some of my friends and relatives are dealing with serious adverse reactions.
I'm so sorry to hear about your friends and family. So many have been damaged. My hope is that we all can begin to internalize how the globalists have been trying to divide us for decades. You and I are not each other's enemies based on who we've voted for. That's all a charade that has to end.
You are still a hero, as is everyone who worked with Covid patients. Thank you for your work.