One additional value of speaking out against the Elders ... it serves as a testimony in the future. We may not win the day today, but truth has an interesting way of overwhelming false narratives in the long term. Heretics in previous ages are now held as visionary scientists. While it didn’t end well for them, it has helped us live better lives.
Thanks gato! Reminds me of plato’s allegory of the cave. This part really spoke to me:
“ how many people would have thought they were alone and presumed that the silence of others meant agreement with narrative?” found myself feeling very alone at times early on in this. Social media for better or worse does help like minded attract.
Science IS skepticism. Science is NEVER censorship.
Many thanks, gato, for your wise and grounded posts over the last several months. We are now seeing the media shift their narrative so that they can be there to cheerlead the great reopening and decide who the scapegoats and fall guys (persons just in case there any woke trolls) will be. Kind of ironic, eh? Just a few weeks back they were cheerleading for big increases in case counts, hospitalization and deaths in Texas and Florida! Of course they will give little or no credit to DeSantis and Abbott for their courage and foresight to trust the real data driven by hero’s like Kuldorff and Batachaya. When all is said and done, we better haul everyone of these grifters in front of a global commission and demand answers. Not over by a long shot as we are now dealing with ridiculous levels of coercion to force healthy children and young adults to get an experimental treatment for a disease that has a 99.99% survival rate in this cohort. I am old enough to remember all the hand ringing over the coming avalanches of myocarditis in healthy NCAA athletes that never materialized. Same media is now describing the high levels of myocarditis in healthy young jab victims as “minor” or a “handful of cases”. Will we ever find out the motivations for this horrific destruction of our rights and freedoms? The big pharma follow the money explanation just seems too obvious to me and the WEF great reset, while plausible, is just too ghoulish for me to ponder for more than a minute or two. For the sake of preserving democracy and whatever freedoms we have left, we need a fulsome investigation that hopefully ends with some of these grifters behind bars.
It was the fear lasting more than a couple of weeks last spring that was the giveaway for me—it didn’t pass the smell test, and caused to question the entire narrative.
I remember a phone conversation with my sister I had a little over a year ago, she and brother-in-law sharing how "bad" it was going to get, ("worse before it gets better!") how I needed to not travel back to see mom, and I certainly couldn't stay at her house (!), and how "this was never going to go away". She spoke 12 feet away from mom through a bull horn, wearing a mask. Through my mom sis knew that I didn't believe in masks, never wiped down my groceries, never used hand sanitizer, and still went places, like restaurants, stores, state parks, to swim in the lake because my pool was foolishly closed. Does she somehow "know" now I was "right" because I questioned everything from the get-go and because of those such as yourself and others, became educated about the virus, the politics behind it, and allowed me to gather useful information that I passed on to others- she really doesn't speak to me much anymore, so I guess she does.
I agree with the fear being how this ball got rolling. However, I think that an inability to admit being wrong was one of the things that kept the farce in motion for so long. Even in our western culture, most people will not be able to change their stance without being able to save face in some way. Whether that is pretending that The Science has changed or that they were never in favor of the pseudoscience all along, people are going to need a way out that spares their fragile egos.
An urgent reminder to all you who are living large: Make sure to wear your sunglasses this weekend, to protect others from the sun. (Courtesy of @zepzep.)
I agree that so many ordinary people responded with great fear. The outbreaks in Wuhan, Milan, and NYC were dramatic and scary. The media was throwing gasoline on the fear, and the endless bickering amongst our elected "leaders" and orange man bad further amplified the intensity of emotion.
But who was behind the "carefully (and willfully) inculcated fear" and for what purpose?
And what really happened in Wuhan, Milan, and NYC?
In the end, despite the insanity, perhaps this will be a blessing. For too long, Americans have taken our freedoms and rights for granted. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people cannot function if we are checked out bingewatching garbage shows on Netflix. If we can keep it...
The weaponization of shame and fear of social ostracism are very, very powerful tools in their tools box. Ibsen honed in on it in "Enemy of the People."
The reason why this scam worked is because we are "soft". The modern era has produced a bunch of wussies who have no spine. This bs would never have worked on the generation that fought the Nazis.
Thank you gato for your clarity and sage analysis. The only way to win this battle is to fight the good fight on a daily basis. Don't give in and conform. Stand your ground. Never give up. Ever.
Thank you as always. I stood up for my students twenty years by believing in their ability to rise to the challenge. I paid a price.
Four times I have seen people stand up to the powers that “be”. My parents fought Consolidated gas and made them move their pipeline. (Well a mythic river shifted its banks enough to cause a mudslide that would have broke the pipe had they put it there.)
We were part of a neighborhood group that fought city hall and won.
A community group convinced our county board to write ordinances that made Big Wind respectful of local communities. Now the state wants to give private companies eminent domain and ignore county ordinances. They don’t stop.
But I’ll admit I’m shut down. I post pictures on FB because arguing does no good. Time to read Rod Dreher’s Live Not By Lies and Lord of the Rings.
Inspirational, as usual. The "lizard brain" in control is well described by "amygdala hijack" (google it). Has anybody else noticed that acute sufferers of this condition have a lateral darting to and fro of the eyeballs? I have grilled about 10 of them and they've all agreed that that they are in constant fear, and are incapable of intellectual thought. The lizard is looking around for danger.
Dude, this is so good. The Red pill, post fear mongering, is hard to swallow, but its all so sweet to see the masses and the lemmings wake from slumber
One additional value of speaking out against the Elders ... it serves as a testimony in the future. We may not win the day today, but truth has an interesting way of overwhelming false narratives in the long term. Heretics in previous ages are now held as visionary scientists. While it didn’t end well for them, it has helped us live better lives.
Thanks gato! Reminds me of plato’s allegory of the cave. This part really spoke to me:
“ how many people would have thought they were alone and presumed that the silence of others meant agreement with narrative?” found myself feeling very alone at times early on in this. Social media for better or worse does help like minded attract.
Science IS skepticism. Science is NEVER censorship.
Many thanks, gato, for your wise and grounded posts over the last several months. We are now seeing the media shift their narrative so that they can be there to cheerlead the great reopening and decide who the scapegoats and fall guys (persons just in case there any woke trolls) will be. Kind of ironic, eh? Just a few weeks back they were cheerleading for big increases in case counts, hospitalization and deaths in Texas and Florida! Of course they will give little or no credit to DeSantis and Abbott for their courage and foresight to trust the real data driven by hero’s like Kuldorff and Batachaya. When all is said and done, we better haul everyone of these grifters in front of a global commission and demand answers. Not over by a long shot as we are now dealing with ridiculous levels of coercion to force healthy children and young adults to get an experimental treatment for a disease that has a 99.99% survival rate in this cohort. I am old enough to remember all the hand ringing over the coming avalanches of myocarditis in healthy NCAA athletes that never materialized. Same media is now describing the high levels of myocarditis in healthy young jab victims as “minor” or a “handful of cases”. Will we ever find out the motivations for this horrific destruction of our rights and freedoms? The big pharma follow the money explanation just seems too obvious to me and the WEF great reset, while plausible, is just too ghoulish for me to ponder for more than a minute or two. For the sake of preserving democracy and whatever freedoms we have left, we need a fulsome investigation that hopefully ends with some of these grifters behind bars.
It was the fear lasting more than a couple of weeks last spring that was the giveaway for me—it didn’t pass the smell test, and caused to question the entire narrative.
why......
the covidians in power cannot keep truth in the dark, conspiracy theory that survive the gaslighting wins in a year or less.
time for euphoria, bc the next conspiracy to become spotlighted has to do with election count fraud and audits
so roll out the ufo's and let the peeps out of their covidian ghettoes for a short while
who else is tired with the cowards?
I remember a phone conversation with my sister I had a little over a year ago, she and brother-in-law sharing how "bad" it was going to get, ("worse before it gets better!") how I needed to not travel back to see mom, and I certainly couldn't stay at her house (!), and how "this was never going to go away". She spoke 12 feet away from mom through a bull horn, wearing a mask. Through my mom sis knew that I didn't believe in masks, never wiped down my groceries, never used hand sanitizer, and still went places, like restaurants, stores, state parks, to swim in the lake because my pool was foolishly closed. Does she somehow "know" now I was "right" because I questioned everything from the get-go and because of those such as yourself and others, became educated about the virus, the politics behind it, and allowed me to gather useful information that I passed on to others- she really doesn't speak to me much anymore, so I guess she does.
I agree with the fear being how this ball got rolling. However, I think that an inability to admit being wrong was one of the things that kept the farce in motion for so long. Even in our western culture, most people will not be able to change their stance without being able to save face in some way. Whether that is pretending that The Science has changed or that they were never in favor of the pseudoscience all along, people are going to need a way out that spares their fragile egos.
An urgent reminder to all you who are living large: Make sure to wear your sunglasses this weekend, to protect others from the sun. (Courtesy of @zepzep.)
I agree that so many ordinary people responded with great fear. The outbreaks in Wuhan, Milan, and NYC were dramatic and scary. The media was throwing gasoline on the fear, and the endless bickering amongst our elected "leaders" and orange man bad further amplified the intensity of emotion.
But who was behind the "carefully (and willfully) inculcated fear" and for what purpose?
And what really happened in Wuhan, Milan, and NYC?
In the end, despite the insanity, perhaps this will be a blessing. For too long, Americans have taken our freedoms and rights for granted. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people cannot function if we are checked out bingewatching garbage shows on Netflix. If we can keep it...
The weaponization of shame and fear of social ostracism are very, very powerful tools in their tools box. Ibsen honed in on it in "Enemy of the People."
The reason why this scam worked is because we are "soft". The modern era has produced a bunch of wussies who have no spine. This bs would never have worked on the generation that fought the Nazis.
Thank you gato for your clarity and sage analysis. The only way to win this battle is to fight the good fight on a daily basis. Don't give in and conform. Stand your ground. Never give up. Ever.
"If a cat meows in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
Yes, 'cause there's always be cats around!
Thank you as always. I stood up for my students twenty years by believing in their ability to rise to the challenge. I paid a price.
Four times I have seen people stand up to the powers that “be”. My parents fought Consolidated gas and made them move their pipeline. (Well a mythic river shifted its banks enough to cause a mudslide that would have broke the pipe had they put it there.)
We were part of a neighborhood group that fought city hall and won.
A community group convinced our county board to write ordinances that made Big Wind respectful of local communities. Now the state wants to give private companies eminent domain and ignore county ordinances. They don’t stop.
But I’ll admit I’m shut down. I post pictures on FB because arguing does no good. Time to read Rod Dreher’s Live Not By Lies and Lord of the Rings.
Inspirational, as usual. The "lizard brain" in control is well described by "amygdala hijack" (google it). Has anybody else noticed that acute sufferers of this condition have a lateral darting to and fro of the eyeballs? I have grilled about 10 of them and they've all agreed that that they are in constant fear, and are incapable of intellectual thought. The lizard is looking around for danger.
Dude, this is so good. The Red pill, post fear mongering, is hard to swallow, but its all so sweet to see the masses and the lemmings wake from slumber
Outstanding. Thanks for all the perspective throughout. A beacon of sanity and reason.