Isn't this conspicuously high profile Kevin Bass piece just a 'limited hangout'? - damage control by the nefarious power elite to muddle what is becoming more obvious to the masses? Why else would this be so visible in the totally captured MSM? Remember the Atlantic piece asking for 'amnesty'? (AYFKM?) - this serves the same purpose doesn't it? - a veiled attempt to take the wind out of the sails of justifiable outrage? And these days, it is not far fetched to ask if 'innocent' Kevin Bass is even real - could he be but a credible concoction of ChatGPT - just feed parameters into the Machine and it shall deliver the 'earnest' character to tug at our hearts! Surely that is coming if not already here.
Ultimately I believe you nailed it perfectly in your "two things are simultaneously true" above. Through this lens that you so succinctly present, it is difficult to imagine those of us who have been tracking the deceit from the beginning to see this any other way.
rock on, girl - keep it coming! Live Suddenly!! - peace love
>Why else would this be so visible in the totally captured MSM?
for those inclined toward the most cynical interpretation: it might be an attempt to retcon away the uncomfortable similarities between the Covid response in the U.S., and China's disastrous and authoritarian "zero Covid" policies.
now that We Have Always Been At War With Eastasia, and the majority of the public has stopped caring about Covid through sheer exhaustion, it's time for some uncomfortable-but-necessary ideological distancing. the war against China is more important than any face-saving over Covid. the past three years have amply demonstrated how easily cowed and misdirected the American electorate is, so there's no point in maintaining narrative coherence. "at least we can admit our mistakes, unlike the Yellow Menace! in other news, the first troop transport leaves for Hong Kong at 0500, so start lining up for boarding."
Thank you Tessa! I throughly enjoy and gain more insight from your postings.
All i can say is 'Do Not Comply'. You cant be forced to be injected with elite wishes to be one of the culled. You cant be forced to dine on six legged beasties or agree with wef-ism. Stay strong and fight robots!
Ask the Chinese women who have been forcibly dragged into clinics and their unborn children cut from their wombs.
Ask the Uighurs (spelling?) who have been forcibly moved into prison camps, raped, beaten, and their organs harvested for transplant into others.
Ask the men and women here in the US who in the mid 1900s were forcibly sterilized because they were declared by government to be unfit to reproduce.
Ask the Nigerian women who refused tetanus shots when the health workers showed up at their schools. These young ladies were cornered and held down and injected anyway. One commenter on A Midwestern Doctor Substack is married to one of these women. She has endured a lot of suffering as a result of those shots.
Yes, ask all of those people if it always possible to refuse to comply.
So far we stand luckier. Pray for those not as lucky. It is uncomprehensable to imagine what it would be like if this was happening here. I still feel the outrage and indignity in my being.
But if we are able to 'not comply' than we should not comply. It is not the unfortunate in communist countries, countries bowing down to the wef, elites and the corrupt who are forced physically. Not even to the ppl who could not forfit their jobs to save their families from hunger and homelessness. 'If possible' do not comply. I feel for the ppl who could not, and those forced. Life was not fair, as always. No guarentees. But if no one fights this, then where are we, and where are we going. To go immediatly to worst case scenarios, get us nowhere fast. Sad but true. Talk of here and now before we become communist chimerica.
Kevin (Doc2B): “We have witnessed a massive and ongoing loss of life in America due to distrust of vaccines..." Patently false. It is apparent that the young physician doesn't get it yet.
I certainly hope for the sake of himself, his family, and the patients who place their fates in his hands that he wakes the f#@k up before he contributes more to the on-going genocide.
Yep, that, he said. I even inserted an emoji in the quote for effect.:) One should also factor in the editorial hand of Newsweek. They might have edited his original text to make it more politically correct (but we don't know what his original text was so maybe, maybe not).
I think a part of it is that when someone is deeply embedded in an echo chamber, the echo chamber talking points come natural, as in, he may sincerely think that, or he may be "saying it just to make them listen" without realizing that to those outside of his echo chamber, it sounds ludicrous. In the end, only Kevin knows his real intention here but I think it's good to welcome new thinkers and have open dialogue with them, as opposed to yelling at them for being late to the game.
Agree, Tessa. He is young and time and the trauma of life will either awaken him or he will remain captured by the Matrix. I hope for the former for him...
But it also looks like, and I just found it, he started a Substack very recently around longevity, supplements, exercise, etc. So he might be trying to build his "brand" outside of the medical system, and only he knows whether he plans to do it honestly or in a sensationalist manner. So here, too, time will tell!
I wish him the best and wisdom at an earlier age than I got a bit... I look back on my early years in medicine and just shake my head at the ignorance and arrogance. Thankfully, Universe has tuaght me a thing or two along the ensuing decades, but each of use must complete our own journey in our own way. Appreciate your voice and soul, Tessa.
Yes, thanks for pointing out that this half-hearted apology isn't just too little, too late, but predetermines what the answer is instead of NOW listening to the people who had it right, and paid heavily for it, but stuck with what they knew.
My predominant feeling toward this lad is kindness. I think we are just learning about history in real time. This is no different than a hundred years ago, or five hundred ago, or two thousand years ago. Same crap. Liars lie, and when people aren't 100% brave, they (the liars) often temporarily win. But then the spell expires, and the truth prevails. But it takes time!!
Kevin needs to grow up, and quickly. 'Mistake' crumbs swept from the table are never enough. We need his controllers dressed in orange overalls, staring out at us from behind bars, weeping. And SOON.
My sister and I sat reading your latest essay and got some really good laughs out of a number of your comments. Walk faster! The more you write the more that creative muscle of your gets firmer.
Thank you, thank you, thank you - grateful for your commitment, dedication & tenacity in being a true TRUTH Warrior. May GOD bless you & forever hold you in His/Her Care ...
Most of the population lives in Phantasy Land. It’s hard to look through the veil for so many—the conditioning is thick and deep. So they go to apologies and whoops, ‘we were hasty’ and stop before they get to the nightmare machine staring at them behind the gleaming veneer of the machine. And the gangsters operating the machine smile and nod, saying ‘we screwed up—we’ll do better next time’, all the while knowingly preparing the next overture of the machine.
The corruption and decay is so deep in fundamental structures of society that most won’t and really can’t go there—there are psychic circuit breakers in place to guard against a complete meltdown.
And I have empathy and compassion for them because it *is* painful and traumatic to really see what is there. But awaken we must.
"Most of the population lives in Phantasy Land." Yep!!!! And if we get even more philosophical, then based merely on how much of what we have been raised to believe in is untrue, to some extent, perhaps, all of us do live in this land a little bit. But with "COVID," some people live in Phantasy Land on steroids!
I think we have no choice but to walk through Phantasy Land. It’s immense, and tied to the structures of daily life. Nearly completely unavoidable.
It’s much like a radio or television, constantly on in the background. Like people who are addicted to it, and turn it on as soon as they enter their home—to fill the silence. Covid enabled turning that Thing up to 11. So loud, it not only filled the silence, but it could be heard through walls, even into the lives of those that typically eschew it. And for those previously addicted, it drowned out every other song and story, making it the only one they heard…or could imagine.
"And for those previously addicted, it drowned out every other song and story, making it the only one they heard…or could imagine." I think you are really onto something with this.
Tessa, well done yet again. And by the way, if you have never read the highly readable and thoroughly fascinating explanation of cognitive dissonance, I highly, highly recommend, "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)" by Carol Tarvis and Elliot Aronson. I've read it 3 times and though I read all the time, that rarely happens.
Thank you Catherine!! I have never read it, and now I want to! I have mostly been figuring things out from the inside, it works better for me..... but it sounds like a fascinating book!
Trust me, it is well worth your time! You will be so glad you read it. It explained confusing human behavior in a way that was utterly eye-opening. It really solved a lot of mysteries for me.
To be fair... He did considerably better than Emily Oster... Just giving credit where credit is due ..🤣😂
On a more serious note, I agree with you, Tessa, 100%. It looks like he's waking up (which is always a good thing)... it looks like he's taking some responsibility (also encouraging)... But, unfortunately, it looks to me that he's holding on to a more subtle form of superiority.
All the talk about classes, and intellectuals.. like he wants to make amends and do better in order to keep a higher moral and intellectual position.
It sounds like" we'll be more inclusive and respectful next time, while staying in power over the masses.". Something like that Just my impression.
I am now thinking that we had an exchange a long time ago where you sent it to me, and I admired it and asked you to share it in comments. Is my memory serving me correctly here?
One upon a time in a kingdom not so faraway, the king called his grand vizier to the royal chambers.
“We are in trouble,” the king announced. “A democracy has sprung up in the adjoining land. People vote for their king now, and they can vote him out. And women can vote too. Imagine! The hubris! If we don’t invade the democracy and take it over, it won’t be long before the people here think they can have democracy too! They’ll want to keep all their corn and soybeans instead of giving them to us. They’ll even want to grow crops other than corn and soybeans. This cannot be!”
“I don’t mean to second-guess Your Highness,” the grand vizier replied, “But we’re a little hamlet of fifty thousand people, and the democracy beyond the border has three hundred and twenty million. If we invade, that’s suicide.”
“We may be tiny, but we’re very rich,” the king replied. “That’s because we’ve worked our population to the bone. And they see what’s going on next door and it won’t be long before we’re toiling for them! So I have devised the perfect way to stay in power, in fact, to take over the democracy next door and then the world! Call the royal herald!”
The grand vizier called the royal herald. “Yes, Your Majesty?” the royal herald asked.
“Herald! I want you to go throughout the land and announce that a horrible boogieman has been sighted. This boogieman is the most evil boogieman of them all. He kidnaps children, preys on the elderly, steals crops and horses and will burn every shotgun shack to the ground! He has the power to destroy the harvest, to prevent childbearing and turn reasonable adults into babbling idiots!”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the royal herald replied. “But how are we going to prove this boogieman actually exists?”
“Leave that to me,” said the king. “Now get the hell out of here.”
The herald returned in a fortnight. “The people are all terrified of this horrible boogieman,” he told the king. “But what do we tell them next?”
“Summon the sherriff,” the king ordered.
“Yes, Your Highness?” the sherriff inquired.
“Summon all the serfs in the land and construct a series of watchtowers. And then man them with spies from distant towns, not from their own communities. That way the spies won’t have allegiance to the people they’re watching.”
“But what will they be snooping for?” the sherriff asked.
“Anything,” the king replied. “Fornicating. Music-making. Congregating in groups of more than one. The possession of garlic or grapefruit.”
“Pardon me for asking, sire, but what are garlic and grapefruit?” the sherriff asked.
“Never mind. If we don’t act now, the whole population will be reeking of garlic and full of grapefruit juice and ready for battle…against us! In order to prevent such insurrective behavior I want you to deputize a posse and go around at night, when all the peasants are sleeping, and round up all the grandparents and the hermits. Then beat their skulls in.’
The king turned to the herald.
“Next, I want you to go around and spread the news that the boogieman is responsible for all this killing, and that the only way to find him and stop him is to build more watchtowers.”
So the sherriff and his deputies went around slaughtering peasants in their sleep, and the herald went around spreading the news that the boogieman had done it. He also announced that since there were no longer enough peasants to simultaneously attend to the harvest, the gathering of wood and the construction of watchtowers, they would have to build the towers with the timber from their own homes instead of cutting down trees in the forest.
The sherriff met with a good deal of resistance from the peasants, but after another round of killing, blamed on the boogieman, the peasants began dismantling their shacks and constructing even more towers throughout the land.
Next, the king summoned the royal envoy. “Envoy! You are to journey to that accursed democracy across the border and obtain a meeting with their leaders. Explain to them that we have been afflicted with a most frightful boogieman. He has terrible powers and has slaughtered a large percentage of our population. Here – bring this bag of royal gold with you. Whatever it takes, just get them to agree that the only way to catch this boogieman is to build watchtowers all over, just as we have done.”
“And if I run out of gold?” the envoy asked.
“I’ll put the royal counterfeiter…um…alchemist in charge of that. Go now and report back to me in a fortnight!”
Meanwhile, there was trouble all across the land. The king’s idea of putting people from faraway villages in charge of spying on communities they’d never visited before was most successful, and resulted in a steady stream of arrests and executions. But at night, some of the peasants began sneaking out and setting fire to the watchtowers. Several spies were horribly burned to death.
That winter was an especially severe one. With just tents made from muleskins strung together, and no firewood to keep them warm, many peasants froze to death. Again, the king and his herald blamed the deaths on the boogieman.
Meanwhile, the leadership of the democracy next door had become alarmed. This boogieman was truly as terrible and unstoppable as the envoy had described! Half of the country’s population was dead now, or so he’d told them. Something had to be done!
So the prime minister and parliament got together and announced that just like the kingdom next door, all efforts would be henceforth devoted to the construction of even higher watchtowers. The royal envoy also managed to convince the nation’s chief of public works, with a little help from a bagful of gold, that the right way to run a system of watchtowers was to man them with people from faraway counties with no loyalty to those they were spying on.
Meanwhile, all public works were suspended, and citizens were required to hide indoors until the boogieman could be spotted. And the royal herald worked overtime spreading the news that the boogieman had the power to instantly kill anyone who left their homes. Therefore, if someone was spotted on the street, and they were alive, they were the boogieman!
But people will be people, and it wasn’t more than an hour or two before the first citizen snuck out to meet her boyfriend. Overhead, a spy spotted her, aimed his high-powered rifle and blew the woman away. Of course, this was blamed on the boogieman.
But a lot of citizens didn’t buy it. And so it was that the residents of Port Gluteus blamed the sharpshooter from Minor Cerebellum for the killing, and overran Minor Cerebellum and scalped most of their residents.
As the days went on, more and people started to get hungry and snuck from their homes, only to be shot by the snipers in the towers, who then triumphantly posted snuff videos all over social media. It was in this way that the citizens of Ham Flats were pitted against the people of Pareve, and the residents of Stillwater succumbed to the hordes from Tippiecanoe.
One day a little boy, disheveled and rail-thin, emerged from the ruins where he’d been hiding. “Why are you all killing each other?” he asked. “Why aren’t you looking for the boogieman?”
“Because the boogieman is you, sucker,” the sniper in the tower above hollered back as he reached for his rifle.
And so it was that a tinpot dictator and his cronies from a tiny, inept little country of fifty thousand were able to invade and take over a nation of three hundred twenty million people – and reduce the population to one hundred sixty. The end.
The propagandists still gonna propagandize. Resorting to their favorite standby's of insults and projection. As the Iron Curtain of censorship is slightly raised they declare there's nothing for anyone to see, just a bunch of crazies seeking validation, to be ignored. Propagandists have no shame. It's all just a day's work.
What the end of COVID health emergencies means for anti-vaxxers: meltdown
Anti-vaxxers built their identities around the pandemic — now they're losing their minds (even more)
I read it last night, and it sent me into a tailspin, wondering if it could after all be correct in its assessments.
For all that I was strong enough not to give in and accept a shot I did not want, I notice I am nonetheless easily led at a certain level. Despite kind of knowing better by now, I assume that anything someone has posted was written in good faith—and if they evidently feel strongly about something, then there must be some truth in their perspective, because it is not possible for a living, breathing human being to become so alienated from the truth that they don't make some good points or have some motivating factor shaping their perspective that is worth a listen.
But after being buffaloed by it originally, I came back to it and realized that that article, it breathes no compassion, but demeans the targets of its commentary throughout. And I suppose that is a sign of something, that it is spleen-venting more than a cri de coeur, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. It's not fully grounded in its own humanity, so I can't let it reach into the depths of mine all unguarded like.
After reading that article on my phone while waiting for a friend to show up, my friend and I went on to discussing that verse from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus tells his disciples that they are the salt of the earth, and they must be salty, because otherwise where is the salt going to come from. Salt is a preservative, or salt enhances a food's own flavor when used judiciously—and I was getting a bracing, buck-stops-here vibe from his words: "Darn it, the world's in dire need of salt, and y'all are going to have to dig deep (lean on me) and bring forth salt, because if not you, then who? If hurt people hurt people and it's turtles all the way down, then we're all just in a world of hurt crawling back into our shells to try to make the pain stop."
If someone has lost friends or lost a job or been told, "Wheezy, you don't deserve health care during the Winter of Death," it stands to reason they might have wounds that still smart when the barometer shifts. But this article's just like: most of us have moved on, ye unhinged whiners, so what are you bellyaching about.
Well, yes, strong people can and must carry on, but I think only people who are in denial of the trauma can move on as though nothing has happened—and things certainly did happen while we were busy flattening the curve these past few years, whether you just said no to the jab or got every booster known to man. So slow your roll: it's healthy to process this shit.
But the mainstream flows ever onward and it won't slow. It's all glib and blithe and kind of bloodless, let alone expecting a breath of something sublime to come billowing over the mountains. Anyone who still remembers shall be sidelined and left behind. Those who were ready to continue life without undue fear and obtrusive restrictions two years ago are now the crybabies who just can't let it go and move on, so let's all agree they're weird and not worth taking seriously.
Somehow, here in my life, the buck has to stop with me, frail as I am. If not stemming the tide, then being an island of something a little more true than the mainstream glibbery. The empire will not apologize or give credit where it's due, to those who spoke up in season and out of season. So be it. It is riddled with falsehood and cruelty.
Then, divine Friend of mankind, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, because those who lose the life they thought they had for the sake of being salt, will in good time awaken to a truer and a greater life in truth. And help me to be strong, simple and guileless and hopeful as a dove, but canny enough to avoid the poison of the brood of vipers you warned us about.
Isn't this conspicuously high profile Kevin Bass piece just a 'limited hangout'? - damage control by the nefarious power elite to muddle what is becoming more obvious to the masses? Why else would this be so visible in the totally captured MSM? Remember the Atlantic piece asking for 'amnesty'? (AYFKM?) - this serves the same purpose doesn't it? - a veiled attempt to take the wind out of the sails of justifiable outrage? And these days, it is not far fetched to ask if 'innocent' Kevin Bass is even real - could he be but a credible concoction of ChatGPT - just feed parameters into the Machine and it shall deliver the 'earnest' character to tug at our hearts! Surely that is coming if not already here.
Ultimately I believe you nailed it perfectly in your "two things are simultaneously true" above. Through this lens that you so succinctly present, it is difficult to imagine those of us who have been tracking the deceit from the beginning to see this any other way.
rock on, girl - keep it coming! Live Suddenly!! - peace love
>Why else would this be so visible in the totally captured MSM?
for those inclined toward the most cynical interpretation: it might be an attempt to retcon away the uncomfortable similarities between the Covid response in the U.S., and China's disastrous and authoritarian "zero Covid" policies.
now that We Have Always Been At War With Eastasia, and the majority of the public has stopped caring about Covid through sheer exhaustion, it's time for some uncomfortable-but-necessary ideological distancing. the war against China is more important than any face-saving over Covid. the past three years have amply demonstrated how easily cowed and misdirected the American electorate is, so there's no point in maintaining narrative coherence. "at least we can admit our mistakes, unlike the Yellow Menace! in other news, the first troop transport leaves for Hong Kong at 0500, so start lining up for boarding."
Excellent point!
Thank you Tessa! I throughly enjoy and gain more insight from your postings.
All i can say is 'Do Not Comply'. You cant be forced to be injected with elite wishes to be one of the culled. You cant be forced to dine on six legged beasties or agree with wef-ism. Stay strong and fight robots!
I agree but sadly you can be forced
Guess so. But it does depend on what the payment for non compiance is. Some cant say no. And that is the crime perpetrated on those ppl. Sad.
Ask the Chinese women who have been forcibly dragged into clinics and their unborn children cut from their wombs.
Ask the Uighurs (spelling?) who have been forcibly moved into prison camps, raped, beaten, and their organs harvested for transplant into others.
Ask the men and women here in the US who in the mid 1900s were forcibly sterilized because they were declared by government to be unfit to reproduce.
Ask the Nigerian women who refused tetanus shots when the health workers showed up at their schools. These young ladies were cornered and held down and injected anyway. One commenter on A Midwestern Doctor Substack is married to one of these women. She has endured a lot of suffering as a result of those shots.
Yes, ask all of those people if it always possible to refuse to comply.
So far we stand luckier. Pray for those not as lucky. It is uncomprehensable to imagine what it would be like if this was happening here. I still feel the outrage and indignity in my being.
Yes some can’t say no but for example here in Aus, the authorities have forcibly taken people to quarantine camps and injected them
I am so sorry! have been reading in horror about Australian quarantine camps. In what world?!!
Of course they have also tried to institute them in New York but so far failed.
So sorry. I guess it wont be long before we are chimerica.
But if we are able to 'not comply' than we should not comply. It is not the unfortunate in communist countries, countries bowing down to the wef, elites and the corrupt who are forced physically. Not even to the ppl who could not forfit their jobs to save their families from hunger and homelessness. 'If possible' do not comply. I feel for the ppl who could not, and those forced. Life was not fair, as always. No guarentees. But if no one fights this, then where are we, and where are we going. To go immediatly to worst case scenarios, get us nowhere fast. Sad but true. Talk of here and now before we become communist chimerica.
That is horrid!
This medical student didn’t stick anything out. The whole thing was media hype. Re read it please
Kevin (Doc2B): “We have witnessed a massive and ongoing loss of life in America due to distrust of vaccines..." Patently false. It is apparent that the young physician doesn't get it yet.
I certainly hope for the sake of himself, his family, and the patients who place their fates in his hands that he wakes the f#@k up before he contributes more to the on-going genocide.
We shall see.
Yep, that, he said. I even inserted an emoji in the quote for effect.:) One should also factor in the editorial hand of Newsweek. They might have edited his original text to make it more politically correct (but we don't know what his original text was so maybe, maybe not).
I think a part of it is that when someone is deeply embedded in an echo chamber, the echo chamber talking points come natural, as in, he may sincerely think that, or he may be "saying it just to make them listen" without realizing that to those outside of his echo chamber, it sounds ludicrous. In the end, only Kevin knows his real intention here but I think it's good to welcome new thinkers and have open dialogue with them, as opposed to yelling at them for being late to the game.
Agree, Tessa. He is young and time and the trauma of life will either awaken him or he will remain captured by the Matrix. I hope for the former for him...
I hope so, too! Time will tell!
But it also looks like, and I just found it, he started a Substack very recently around longevity, supplements, exercise, etc. So he might be trying to build his "brand" outside of the medical system, and only he knows whether he plans to do it honestly or in a sensationalist manner. So here, too, time will tell!
I wish him the best and wisdom at an earlier age than I got a bit... I look back on my early years in medicine and just shake my head at the ignorance and arrogance. Thankfully, Universe has tuaght me a thing or two along the ensuing decades, but each of use must complete our own journey in our own way. Appreciate your voice and soul, Tessa.
One of the best takes I've read on the Newsweek "child doctor." Nuanced, human and individualized, as always.
Thank you, Howard!!
Yes, thanks for pointing out that this half-hearted apology isn't just too little, too late, but predetermines what the answer is instead of NOW listening to the people who had it right, and paid heavily for it, but stuck with what they knew.
Thank you Tereza!!!
My predominant feeling toward this lad is kindness. I think we are just learning about history in real time. This is no different than a hundred years ago, or five hundred ago, or two thousand years ago. Same crap. Liars lie, and when people aren't 100% brave, they (the liars) often temporarily win. But then the spell expires, and the truth prevails. But it takes time!!
Dear Kevin,
Live and let live. Can you do that? I can do that.
Until you adopt that principle, stay the hell away from me.
Sincerely,
An unvaxxed Canadian.
Kevin needs to grow up, and quickly. 'Mistake' crumbs swept from the table are never enough. We need his controllers dressed in orange overalls, staring out at us from behind bars, weeping. And SOON.
Amen to that!
My sister and I sat reading your latest essay and got some really good laughs out of a number of your comments. Walk faster! The more you write the more that creative muscle of your gets firmer.
Thank you, thank you, thank you - grateful for your commitment, dedication & tenacity in being a true TRUTH Warrior. May GOD bless you & forever hold you in His/Her Care ...
Thank you Susan!! Hugs :)
Stimulating essay, once again—thank you!
Most of the population lives in Phantasy Land. It’s hard to look through the veil for so many—the conditioning is thick and deep. So they go to apologies and whoops, ‘we were hasty’ and stop before they get to the nightmare machine staring at them behind the gleaming veneer of the machine. And the gangsters operating the machine smile and nod, saying ‘we screwed up—we’ll do better next time’, all the while knowingly preparing the next overture of the machine.
The corruption and decay is so deep in fundamental structures of society that most won’t and really can’t go there—there are psychic circuit breakers in place to guard against a complete meltdown.
And I have empathy and compassion for them because it *is* painful and traumatic to really see what is there. But awaken we must.
"Most of the population lives in Phantasy Land." Yep!!!! And if we get even more philosophical, then based merely on how much of what we have been raised to believe in is untrue, to some extent, perhaps, all of us do live in this land a little bit. But with "COVID," some people live in Phantasy Land on steroids!
I think we have no choice but to walk through Phantasy Land. It’s immense, and tied to the structures of daily life. Nearly completely unavoidable.
It’s much like a radio or television, constantly on in the background. Like people who are addicted to it, and turn it on as soon as they enter their home—to fill the silence. Covid enabled turning that Thing up to 11. So loud, it not only filled the silence, but it could be heard through walls, even into the lives of those that typically eschew it. And for those previously addicted, it drowned out every other song and story, making it the only one they heard…or could imagine.
"And for those previously addicted, it drowned out every other song and story, making it the only one they heard…or could imagine." I think you are really onto something with this.
It’s what I saw, truly, looking at the world around me.
Damn, you are awesome!!!!! Loving you on Apple Music, as well. Too much talent and intelligence in one person. Not a fanboy, but becoming a fanman.
Thank you, Steshu!!! (And love your "last name" :)
If only I could live up to it.
Tessa, well done yet again. And by the way, if you have never read the highly readable and thoroughly fascinating explanation of cognitive dissonance, I highly, highly recommend, "Mistakes Were Made (but not by me)" by Carol Tarvis and Elliot Aronson. I've read it 3 times and though I read all the time, that rarely happens.
Thank you Catherine!! I have never read it, and now I want to! I have mostly been figuring things out from the inside, it works better for me..... but it sounds like a fascinating book!
Trust me, it is well worth your time! You will be so glad you read it. It explained confusing human behavior in a way that was utterly eye-opening. It really solved a lot of mysteries for me.
To be fair... He did considerably better than Emily Oster... Just giving credit where credit is due ..🤣😂
On a more serious note, I agree with you, Tessa, 100%. It looks like he's waking up (which is always a good thing)... it looks like he's taking some responsibility (also encouraging)... But, unfortunately, it looks to me that he's holding on to a more subtle form of superiority.
All the talk about classes, and intellectuals.. like he wants to make amends and do better in order to keep a higher moral and intellectual position.
It sounds like" we'll be more inclusive and respectful next time, while staying in power over the masses.". Something like that Just my impression.
Tessa, we pretty much wrote the same story. I like yours a lot better
I am now thinking that we had an exchange a long time ago where you sent it to me, and I admired it and asked you to share it in comments. Is my memory serving me correctly here?
yeah remembering something like that. here it is
One upon a time in a kingdom not so faraway, the king called his grand vizier to the royal chambers.
“We are in trouble,” the king announced. “A democracy has sprung up in the adjoining land. People vote for their king now, and they can vote him out. And women can vote too. Imagine! The hubris! If we don’t invade the democracy and take it over, it won’t be long before the people here think they can have democracy too! They’ll want to keep all their corn and soybeans instead of giving them to us. They’ll even want to grow crops other than corn and soybeans. This cannot be!”
“I don’t mean to second-guess Your Highness,” the grand vizier replied, “But we’re a little hamlet of fifty thousand people, and the democracy beyond the border has three hundred and twenty million. If we invade, that’s suicide.”
“We may be tiny, but we’re very rich,” the king replied. “That’s because we’ve worked our population to the bone. And they see what’s going on next door and it won’t be long before we’re toiling for them! So I have devised the perfect way to stay in power, in fact, to take over the democracy next door and then the world! Call the royal herald!”
The grand vizier called the royal herald. “Yes, Your Majesty?” the royal herald asked.
“Herald! I want you to go throughout the land and announce that a horrible boogieman has been sighted. This boogieman is the most evil boogieman of them all. He kidnaps children, preys on the elderly, steals crops and horses and will burn every shotgun shack to the ground! He has the power to destroy the harvest, to prevent childbearing and turn reasonable adults into babbling idiots!”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the royal herald replied. “But how are we going to prove this boogieman actually exists?”
“Leave that to me,” said the king. “Now get the hell out of here.”
The herald returned in a fortnight. “The people are all terrified of this horrible boogieman,” he told the king. “But what do we tell them next?”
“Summon the sherriff,” the king ordered.
“Yes, Your Highness?” the sherriff inquired.
“Summon all the serfs in the land and construct a series of watchtowers. And then man them with spies from distant towns, not from their own communities. That way the spies won’t have allegiance to the people they’re watching.”
“But what will they be snooping for?” the sherriff asked.
“Anything,” the king replied. “Fornicating. Music-making. Congregating in groups of more than one. The possession of garlic or grapefruit.”
“Pardon me for asking, sire, but what are garlic and grapefruit?” the sherriff asked.
“Never mind. If we don’t act now, the whole population will be reeking of garlic and full of grapefruit juice and ready for battle…against us! In order to prevent such insurrective behavior I want you to deputize a posse and go around at night, when all the peasants are sleeping, and round up all the grandparents and the hermits. Then beat their skulls in.’
The king turned to the herald.
“Next, I want you to go around and spread the news that the boogieman is responsible for all this killing, and that the only way to find him and stop him is to build more watchtowers.”
So the sherriff and his deputies went around slaughtering peasants in their sleep, and the herald went around spreading the news that the boogieman had done it. He also announced that since there were no longer enough peasants to simultaneously attend to the harvest, the gathering of wood and the construction of watchtowers, they would have to build the towers with the timber from their own homes instead of cutting down trees in the forest.
The sherriff met with a good deal of resistance from the peasants, but after another round of killing, blamed on the boogieman, the peasants began dismantling their shacks and constructing even more towers throughout the land.
Next, the king summoned the royal envoy. “Envoy! You are to journey to that accursed democracy across the border and obtain a meeting with their leaders. Explain to them that we have been afflicted with a most frightful boogieman. He has terrible powers and has slaughtered a large percentage of our population. Here – bring this bag of royal gold with you. Whatever it takes, just get them to agree that the only way to catch this boogieman is to build watchtowers all over, just as we have done.”
“And if I run out of gold?” the envoy asked.
“I’ll put the royal counterfeiter…um…alchemist in charge of that. Go now and report back to me in a fortnight!”
Meanwhile, there was trouble all across the land. The king’s idea of putting people from faraway villages in charge of spying on communities they’d never visited before was most successful, and resulted in a steady stream of arrests and executions. But at night, some of the peasants began sneaking out and setting fire to the watchtowers. Several spies were horribly burned to death.
That winter was an especially severe one. With just tents made from muleskins strung together, and no firewood to keep them warm, many peasants froze to death. Again, the king and his herald blamed the deaths on the boogieman.
Meanwhile, the leadership of the democracy next door had become alarmed. This boogieman was truly as terrible and unstoppable as the envoy had described! Half of the country’s population was dead now, or so he’d told them. Something had to be done!
So the prime minister and parliament got together and announced that just like the kingdom next door, all efforts would be henceforth devoted to the construction of even higher watchtowers. The royal envoy also managed to convince the nation’s chief of public works, with a little help from a bagful of gold, that the right way to run a system of watchtowers was to man them with people from faraway counties with no loyalty to those they were spying on.
Meanwhile, all public works were suspended, and citizens were required to hide indoors until the boogieman could be spotted. And the royal herald worked overtime spreading the news that the boogieman had the power to instantly kill anyone who left their homes. Therefore, if someone was spotted on the street, and they were alive, they were the boogieman!
But people will be people, and it wasn’t more than an hour or two before the first citizen snuck out to meet her boyfriend. Overhead, a spy spotted her, aimed his high-powered rifle and blew the woman away. Of course, this was blamed on the boogieman.
But a lot of citizens didn’t buy it. And so it was that the residents of Port Gluteus blamed the sharpshooter from Minor Cerebellum for the killing, and overran Minor Cerebellum and scalped most of their residents.
As the days went on, more and people started to get hungry and snuck from their homes, only to be shot by the snipers in the towers, who then triumphantly posted snuff videos all over social media. It was in this way that the citizens of Ham Flats were pitted against the people of Pareve, and the residents of Stillwater succumbed to the hordes from Tippiecanoe.
One day a little boy, disheveled and rail-thin, emerged from the ruins where he’d been hiding. “Why are you all killing each other?” he asked. “Why aren’t you looking for the boogieman?”
“Because the boogieman is you, sucker,” the sniper in the tower above hollered back as he reached for his rifle.
And so it was that a tinpot dictator and his cronies from a tiny, inept little country of fifty thousand were able to invade and take over a nation of three hundred twenty million people – and reduce the population to one hundred sixty. The end.
I LOVE your essay. LOVE it.
yours is better - and i hope more accurate!
It is very kind of you to say that but really LOVE yours, too! A masterpiece!
Your essay is BEAUTIFUL!!! And October 1, 2020? Wow. Stunning.
The propagandists still gonna propagandize. Resorting to their favorite standby's of insults and projection. As the Iron Curtain of censorship is slightly raised they declare there's nothing for anyone to see, just a bunch of crazies seeking validation, to be ignored. Propagandists have no shame. It's all just a day's work.
What the end of COVID health emergencies means for anti-vaxxers: meltdown
Anti-vaxxers built their identities around the pandemic — now they're losing their minds (even more)
Salon, February 1, 2023
https://www.salon.com/2023/02/01/what-the-end-of-health-means-for-anti-vaxxers-meltdown/
Yeah I saw that. An exemplary case of intellectual juggling, plus emotional cruelty.
That article is just awful.
I read it last night, and it sent me into a tailspin, wondering if it could after all be correct in its assessments.
For all that I was strong enough not to give in and accept a shot I did not want, I notice I am nonetheless easily led at a certain level. Despite kind of knowing better by now, I assume that anything someone has posted was written in good faith—and if they evidently feel strongly about something, then there must be some truth in their perspective, because it is not possible for a living, breathing human being to become so alienated from the truth that they don't make some good points or have some motivating factor shaping their perspective that is worth a listen.
But after being buffaloed by it originally, I came back to it and realized that that article, it breathes no compassion, but demeans the targets of its commentary throughout. And I suppose that is a sign of something, that it is spleen-venting more than a cri de coeur, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. It's not fully grounded in its own humanity, so I can't let it reach into the depths of mine all unguarded like.
After reading that article on my phone while waiting for a friend to show up, my friend and I went on to discussing that verse from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus tells his disciples that they are the salt of the earth, and they must be salty, because otherwise where is the salt going to come from. Salt is a preservative, or salt enhances a food's own flavor when used judiciously—and I was getting a bracing, buck-stops-here vibe from his words: "Darn it, the world's in dire need of salt, and y'all are going to have to dig deep (lean on me) and bring forth salt, because if not you, then who? If hurt people hurt people and it's turtles all the way down, then we're all just in a world of hurt crawling back into our shells to try to make the pain stop."
If someone has lost friends or lost a job or been told, "Wheezy, you don't deserve health care during the Winter of Death," it stands to reason they might have wounds that still smart when the barometer shifts. But this article's just like: most of us have moved on, ye unhinged whiners, so what are you bellyaching about.
Well, yes, strong people can and must carry on, but I think only people who are in denial of the trauma can move on as though nothing has happened—and things certainly did happen while we were busy flattening the curve these past few years, whether you just said no to the jab or got every booster known to man. So slow your roll: it's healthy to process this shit.
But the mainstream flows ever onward and it won't slow. It's all glib and blithe and kind of bloodless, let alone expecting a breath of something sublime to come billowing over the mountains. Anyone who still remembers shall be sidelined and left behind. Those who were ready to continue life without undue fear and obtrusive restrictions two years ago are now the crybabies who just can't let it go and move on, so let's all agree they're weird and not worth taking seriously.
Somehow, here in my life, the buck has to stop with me, frail as I am. If not stemming the tide, then being an island of something a little more true than the mainstream glibbery. The empire will not apologize or give credit where it's due, to those who spoke up in season and out of season. So be it. It is riddled with falsehood and cruelty.
Then, divine Friend of mankind, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, because those who lose the life they thought they had for the sake of being salt, will in good time awaken to a truer and a greater life in truth. And help me to be strong, simple and guileless and hopeful as a dove, but canny enough to avoid the poison of the brood of vipers you warned us about.
I love your writing. Thank you. x
Thank you!! Makes me smile like a child to hear that :) xoxo