This post is inspired by my lovely friend @ericvancewalton. I was writing back to a comment on his post
in my notepad when it became clear that my response was becoming its own post.
Basically he and his wife just had covid, and I did as well, so we were of course inquiring after one another's progress as friends do:
I'm good! Just a very slight lingering congestion.
He mentioned that he'd noticed unvaccinated people seemed to be spiking higher fevers which in turn seemed to be burning the virus out more quickly.
Your theory on the unvaccinated is interesting... My daughter-22- ended up with it a few days ago, all the same symptoms as me except she spiked a fever of 104.2, then it broke and she sweated it out overnight and was fine the next day. When I say fine, all symptoms were gone. 24 hour covid.. bizarre.
At this point I began to ramble a bit, and realized by the end that perhaps my thoughts could benefit others. Maybe even be a bridge across the ever widening gap in this country. As Eric and I would appear to be on "opposite sides of the fence" by current standards, yet still maintain a good relationship, respecting one another's viewpoints.
So here goes:
I admit to usually feeling a little apprehensive discussing the vaccines since they've been so incredibly controversial and polarizing. You may be one of the few exceptions to this outside my family as I know you won't judge.
So basically: Hubby(51) and I(45), my son(19) and daughter(22), my eldest stepson(32), my mom(73), her twin(73) and husband(81) and one cousin(46) chose not to get the shots. My eldest stepson's wife(32), my other stepson(29)and his husband(30), 6 of my 7 other cousins (36-54) their spouses("") and one aunt(69) have gotten them all. My brother(37) his wife(35) and one cousin(49) got the first round and stopped.
I mention this because I've been monitoring all of us from the beginning... and we honestly haven't seen a big difference in any of our reactions to the virus. We're a very close family which fortunately remained in tact despite some of our political, religious and medical views being radically different, so I've been able to keep track without upsetting anyone. No one feels judged for their decisions. (Well...my one aunt might judge some of us- who ironically is named Karen-but it's a very mild judgment XD)
And as far as I know (other than my sister in law having a digestive issue that I'm reasonably sure is unrelated lol) there also haven't been any new ailments.
I know it's a small test group, but I have several other friends in similar situations with their families who tell me the same thing so far. Which is basically comforting, considering all of the information from both sides of the fence that make either covid or the vaccines seem terrifying.
It bothers me that it has become such a taboo, because the only people who seem to be talking about it are the loud, obnoxious pro vax and anti vax, who appear to want to prove themselves right with confirmation bias, and in many cases even seem happy when someone dies on the other side of the fence as their "proof" of being right.
Meanwhile if we could all just be open with each other, we might be able to dispell a lot of fears. If I have one conspiracy theory it is definitely that the overseers perpetuate all of this toxic division. So much exaggeration coming from all directions at once. And no honest journalism from any sector, just biased sensationalism. Buzz words and phrases like fake news, misinformation, conspiracy theorist- and yes these things exist, but they're across the board, not specific to one party.
So many people are standing behind lines and pointing fingers at the other side, behaving as if the issues are all black and white with no nuance, and their side is "right" with no caveats. Each backing their preferred experts who in most cases also have no grey area.
And just to clarify the reason I didn't get the shots- I do almost everything holistic when it comes to medicine and have done so since the kids were very little, so it just isn't something I would do. Basically as simple as that.
Not to say there isn't a circumstance where I would look to modern western medicine, but only after I exhausted all natural remedies first. Or in the case of something like my son's spiral fracture where a surgeon and a round of antibiotics was needed- but most of the healing process was also natural. He even chose not to take the pain meds(despite hubs and I suggesting the exception) opting for CBD extract and meditation instead.
Then we used collagen and protein shakes along with a topical ancient bone mending ointment called comfrey... the surgeon was so amazed at how fast Ethan healed that at follow up appointments he would parade him and his xrays around to his colleagues.
It was an excellent blend of new and old, common and alternative practices and remedies. (And a gifted surgeon we were lucky to have, he was recruited to a more prestigious hospital less than a year later.)
I would love to hear your feelings about everything. I think conversations between thoughtful, intelligent people with different points of view are vital if we ever want to return to a place of unity. Hopefully I'm able to show that not every person with misgivings toward modern medicine- pharmaceuticals specifically- are ignorant fanatics. We have a whole host of valid, well researched reasons for our cautiousness.
Just as I know there are people who believe strongly in modern day advancements who are also well educated on the subject. I personally would like to see more of that blend I mentioned and less demonizing from both sides, which is so counter productive to our growth and evolution as a species.
If it's only Eric and I conversing in the comments, I'm fine with that. But I would absolutely welcome anyone else with an opinion on the matter.
We are on a Blockchain that could potentially last forever, perhaps our grands and greats of the future will stumble on posts like this one and learn more about who we all truly were. As history and the news will surely paint a less defined picture.
This, to me, is the crux of the matter - medical freedom. The freedom to make this lifestyle choice. I am the same. When covid came round, I was unafraid because I was certain I would be among those who would not be terribly harmed by it. Boy was I ever reviled for not being afraid! For being confident in my ability to heal myself! That so many do not have this confidence saddens me.
I believe I had covid three times, although I did no testing, because I decided right off the bat that all the measures went against my beliefs, and would necessitate my disabling some of my core values. The episodes were decreasing in intensity, the first the worst. Was it awful? A tad bit worse than a bad flu, lasting two days longer than the flu, seven days instead of the usual five. I was afraid I would be coughing my brains out afterwards, which usually happens with the flu, but no. It all started with a tiny cough, and I did get very sick for a few days, but I had no lasting problems after seven days of flu-like illness.
I guess I would be in the anti-pharmaceuticals fanatic group. I avoid all western meds if I can, but of course there are some that are necessary in acute cases. In general, I take nothing, and have refused to take several that were prescribed. I take the pain killers though! Screw that.
For covid, I took absolutely nothing. I had hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, but I always thought "Lemme see what happens if I do nothing." The third time was a very brief illness, at most 36 hours, just like your daughter. A high fever (103) for a couple hours that forced me into bed,and that pretty much was that. I drank water, ate nothing, took no pharmaceuticals of any kind, not even tylenol, and slept a lot.
When the shedding fears started going around, I was afraid. But I thought "I will not be afraid of my fellow humans for any reason" and here I am today, alive and healthy, even though I am in a supposedly high risk group.
I lost a lot of friends because of this deliberately contrived divide. I distanced myself whenever someone made a hostile comment to me. Thankfully, I am no longer excluded from places or events, and those folks who shunned me just a year ago are friendly again. Maybe the next time the POTUS refers to me as a "domestic terrorist," those who shunned me that last time will have a good laugh instead.
I hope we get a civil discourse going on here because it is very much needed. For both "sides" to accept and to honor the other side's views. That is freedom.
Thanks for giving us this space to discuss this in.
We're very similar when it comes to this :)
I didn't really deal with anyone in my actual life who gave me a hard time, as many already knew where I stood in terms of pharma. Though of course there were plenty of strangers with opinions everywhere I turned online. I have to say I'm glad that for the most part I avoided social media that first year and a half. I posted some questions on Facebook in the early months, but everyone was so freaked out or angry that I soon realized it wasn't going to be productive to continue.
It surprises me that there's anyone left who trusts government or so-called news at this point. Because I'm politically homeless, the algorithm hasn't quite got me figured out so my "news" feeds are all over the place. And the headlines lately...for example one on CNN yesterday said Study shows that there's an increase in strokes for 65 and older possibly linked to covalent vaccines. If someone bothers to open the article it goes on to say that other studies don't show this. It's just blatant click bait sensationalism on top of downplaying it all. The same as they've been doing with people dying suddenly of heart attacks, particularly athletes. I listened to a podcast of Joe Rogan and Bret Weinstein that shed a bit of light on it. One of the issues is that on top of everything else it seems that depending on who people got the vaccine from, some were given improper injections. They're supposed to deliver it into the muscle, but it seems that people had it injected directly into their bloodstream in some cases. What else can you expect when they have pop up clinics in fastfood restaurants and mall parking lots.
I have a lot more to say, but my mind is a bit fragmented. Last night we got a call that a friend of ours OD'd. He was only 36, a really sweet guy who had a very difficult upbringing. Last time I saw him about six months ago he looked great, so this was a shock.:0( I'll continue this comment tomorrow when I'm more focused.
I'm so sorry! I'm at a funeral of a friend who succumbed to aggressive cancer. Six weeks from diagnosis to death. I have another friend who is going through the same thing. Injection injury? My brother seems to have beat lung cancer that was diagnosed a little over a year ago. I don't ask injection status but, knowing these folks, I'm pretty sure they all got all the jabs they could.
Yes. Every MSM story that hints at vaccine injuries does this. It draws the skeptics in, rounds them up, and spits them back out believers, or tries to. Lots of us are onto these tactics.
When the whole shebang went down, and it took a mere two weeks for most of us to accept voluntary home imprisonment, I was shocked. I refused to do any of it and found other refuseniks to hang out with. But when nearly everyone, even some of the refuseniks, lined up to get an experimental treatment, that had not been tested at all, was being warp speed developed so it could be rushed to market, was being shipped willy nilly all over the world, and just about anyone was enlisted (our front line soldiers) to get that shit in arms, I was doubly shocked. What could go wrong? A lot could go wrong, and is going wrong. Blind faith!
Many of my real life friends turned on me online. I got off any social media which my real life friends used. They are not as hostile face to face. But boy was ever afraid I'd come out to slashed tires when I was still battling this nonsense online, especially Facebook. So glad I got off! I feel safer having done so.
Well, unfortunately, we cannot have a civil discourse over this because the Rubicon has been crossed.
For these things, people should be hung up in the town square.
And there is no disputing these facts.
There is only "We were afraid of this big scary thing, and were told the VAXXX would save us"
and the irrationality that comes from that.
Mass psychosis is real.
Thus, this debate was never a debate, it was a war between opposing belief systems
Unfortunately this ends very badly.
The biggest thing the VAXXX does is destroy fertility.
We are already seeing the trend lines show this.
And if it we could have honest debate, we would be having graphs of VAXXXed vs not VAXXXed
because this is for the future of humanity.
But we won't have that, because this is a religious war.
And the mother WEFers designed it that way.
I'm all too aware of all the ways in which the lines were unforgivably crossed by the ones running the show. And if you're talking about them, then I can agree- they should be hung.
But if you're lumping in the scared people who were pushed into the mass psychosis, that's where we separate.
I oversimplified my position in this post, because yes I was never going to get it based on how I already felt about pharma- but I also had an even deeper, loudly resounding hell-no throughout my being about these mRNA injections. There was literally no threat they could have made that would have changed my mind. If they had taken it as far as suspending licenses and freezing bank accounts, I'd be living off the land right now.
But I can understand how incredibly scary that would be to a lot of people. Especially those with small children they're trying to take care of. That's what happened to my brother, he would never have done it if not for that.
So I'm on board with being furious with the lying, murdering, manipulating "ruling class", but that's not what I'm talking about when I say be a bridge. I'm talking about the people that make up the rest of us. I'm talking about my family and friends that didn't understand the ramifications or felt like their back was against the wall. And even the ones who early on bought into it so much that they thought the unvaxed were selfish and responsible for more deaths- as long as they now realize the error of their thinking.
And maybe none of this matters.. if you and those who believe as you do are right then who's going to be left to build bridges with? But I remain skeptical of claims like blanket infertility. Yeah, I see it on the screen, I watched Utopia and a Handmaid's Tale, I know about predictive programming. And I've seen some of the videos of maternity doctors and nurses substantiating the claim. But I also know four vaccinated individuals who got pregnant and delivered healthy babies in the past year, and I don't personally know anyone whose had a miscarriage or trouble getting pregnant.
If anything I've seen more evidence of sudden death. I know four people- one of which I was once close to, the others close to someone I know well- between the ages of 40-50 who have died suddenly in the past two years without any real explanation except heart related. Is it a matter of the vaccines exacerbating something that was already wrong? I don't know. If people have stopped taking them and have lived through it still intact to this point are they still ticking time bombs? I don't know.
But I'm certainly hoping that's not the case. I'm hoping that Deagel was not an accurate population prediction site, or in the next few years this world is going to look very different, and none of the anger and hate will have solved anything in the meantime. It's all well and good to say Hell Gates and Falsie need to die- but who's going to do it?
I'm a big believer in practical application. In controlling what I can control and not dwelling too long on things that are out of my hands. I learned that the hard way, I went through my pissed off phase first and slid down a number of rabbit holes. Because of that, I've found that there are even bigger things at play and a lot of this stuff might just be a distraction from it.
Have you looked into the AI that is chatGPT? Do you know the potential it has to completely change society? That it appears they let the proverbial Pandora out of its box and might not be able to put it back in? It's still in its infancy, but give it time. The phrase Useless Eaters may take on a whole new significance. And yes, there are things we can do. For now, learn everything there is to know about it and use it as a tool instead of shaking our fists at a tidal wave.
We're living through one hell of a transition, and I've been working on shifting my perspective from a horror movie to an action adventure. If nothing else, it's a whole lot better on my psyche.
I'm very glad you wrote this post, my friend. Throughout the entire pandemic I had been very open-minded about the vaccines. I felt it should be a personal choice, as it is will all other vaccinations, and tried not to judge others for their decisions either way. Prior to Covid my wife and I both were against getting the flu shot because we noticed with, me especially, that I tended to get the flu more frequently and more severely when I got the vaccine. They pushed us to get it at work and gave it to us free but I stopped taking it around 2010 and felt much healthier because of it.
I think seeing what my Dad suffered through when he Covid in 2020 put a lot of fear in me and made me change my mindset. That, and the constant media coverage about how deadly Covid could be. After experiencing Covid myself, albeit a much less potent strain than my Father had, I doubt we will be getting any more vaccinations.
There is something so terribly sinister about this pandemic and I know in my heart that we'll never know the entire story but it just can't be gross incompetence. From what I experienced with my Father it seemed the long term care facilities were purposely inoculating patients with Covid. He was transferred to one of the facilities to help him recover from a knee injury from a car crash. They were placing all of the patients in one common room together for most of the day during the peak of the pandemic. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know that the virus would burn through the entirety of the patients quickly, and it did. Once a patient had Covid it was the facility's procedure to move them to another facility that housed Covid positive patients exclusively. From what my family witnessed they were being sent there to die. My Father was in the second facility for 2 1/2 days before I demanded he be taken to the emergency room by ambulance. He was so bloated he was unrecognizable to us. The hospital told us it appeared he hadn't been given food, water, or meds in almost three days and he was going into kidney failure. We all believe that if he had been given adequate care those first few days that he would still be with us. To add insult to injury the Governor of Ohio issued a blanket immunity to this facilities so they couldn't be sued, not that any amount money could ever replace my Dad.
I had a anarchistic-leaning mentality before this (mainly sparked by the 2008 Housing Crisis where we came close to losing our house but witnessed big banks getting bailed out with tax dollars) but after experiencing what I did during the pandemic with my Dad and experiencing Covid myself it cemented a few things into my psyche. I truly believe that each of us have to look out for each other because those larger entities that we've been lulled into believing that are looking out for our best interest surely are not, in most cases it is just the opposite.
When I say "look out for each other" I'm referring to the trinity of our loved ones' health -- physical, psychological, and spiritual. I've had people close to me completely changed by untruths from fringe and mainstream media outlets. These, once vibrant, curious, loving people are now full of hatred and simply won't tolerate anyone that holds an opinion different from their own. All they do is regurgitate what their media outlets tell them to. This saddens me more than anything. We must realize that most of our media has been weaponized and it's more important than ever to be able to think critically and sort through the falsehoods. It's so important to be able to change your mind when presented with a different set of facts that make sense. When society loses this mental flexibility, those in power will have the only tool they need to keep us divided and within their control and, at that point, we are all doomed.
I really feel that the only way forward is if people can see interactions like this. Maybe they'll realize how rigid they've become in their own belief system and find a way to be more flexible:)
It's interesting you bring up the flu shots. My brother who in addition to being a musician is also an RN, had a similar experience years ago. He got the shot and was the sickest he's ever been, it lasted for weeks, meanwhile to that point he hadn't had the flu since he was a kid. Then a couple months later he received a memo that the shot was not protecting against the new variant, so he'd basically suffered for nothing. Unsurprisingly he also chose not to get it after that.
Here's where it gets crazy. He worked at the hospital, and at that time masks were not a thing unless you were in surgery. But they had implemented a rule that if you refused the shot, than during flu season- which was basically fall through spring- you had to wear a mask. Supposedly to protect others. Why I say supposedly, is that again about two months later he received another memo that the recent shot wasn't working for the current variant. However he was Not permitted to remove the mask, they told him if he wanted to take it off he would have to Get A Shot They Fully Knew Didn't Work! There is no making that make sense.
And this happened to him year after year. Because he's so likeable he fortunately didn't have to also deal with Judgy people with his obvious mask stigma, instead they would throw him a party in the spring called the Unmasking of Ed.
Enter Covid and both he and his wife(also an RN) really didn't want to get the vaccine, but of course since we're in NY it was a choice between that and his career. So he got the first one. Then left the hospital to work for a private company specializing in eye surgeries. His employers absolutely love him, so when the booster came along he told them he would not get it, even if it meant he'd lose his job. (At that point he'd seen enough to be angry at the coercion) Because they love him they kept pushing extension after extension and fortunately the mandate was dropped and he got to keep his job.
But how insane is that flu shot situation? And how could we possibly look at it as anything but compliancy training?
I understand your early fear, they really did a masterful job of portraying covid as terrifying. Couple that with losing someone so close to you, during a time where they were keeping loved ones apart...so much trauma to unpack with this whole thing. You know what Cuomo did, right? There's no other way to view it for me then murder, locking the elderly in nursing homes, the putting the well in with the infected, so of course they were all infected, and so many died who didn't need to. So yes, sinister is one of the words I'd use.
While I haven't experienced the intolerance with people in my analogue world, I have definitely seen a ton of it in the digital space. Those who still trust the MSM believing everyone who doesn't is a domestic terrorist, conversely those who believe the fringe are convinced that MSM believers are evil. Watching the way people treat each other, seeing the levels of indoctrination on both sides- for me this has been the most shocking thing about it all.
I totally agree. As long as the dialogue is open and free flowing there is hope.
It's very interesting once you start getting the inside scoop from the front line medical personnel. This pandemic taught me a lot about how governments exert control through fear and I will never see these type of events in quite the same way again.
The thing we keep asking ourselves over and over again is what was the ultimate goal of all of this? If you listen to geopolitical analysts like Peter Zeihan we're on the brink of a population collapse, China and Russia will especially be affected. America, Canada, and Mexico will in a particularly good position if Zeihan is correct. Now he gets a few things glaringly wrong, his stance on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general is absolutely ridiculous. He gets this one thing so wrong it makes me wonder if he's not working for the elite himself.
Could this entire pandemic have been a sort of economic reset for countries to prep for the coming population collapse? A sort of coordinated effort to wipe out large groups of the elderly and those who are dependent upon government financial assistance. Social Security is overdrawn and basically now a Ponzi scheme because our government has been "borrowing" from that fund for decades. My gut tells me this is could be the case, then another part of my brain tells me it's too horrific to be true. What is your take on the "big picture"?
I've been hearing a lot about nattokinase lately. I've noticed heart palpitations since I contracted Covid and this is supposed to wash your blood of spike proteins from both having Covid and taking the vaccines. We're thinking of trying it. One dose is supposed to do the trick.
I don't think it's money as much as power and control. But yes, I also see it as population control, specifically for those who have outlived their "usefulness" according to the ones that run the show. The "Useless Eaters". From everything my husband has researched over many years, it isn't a stretch to say they needed to devise a plan to rid the earth of the obligates without committing outright murder. And there's some evidence that they may have turned to AI to help them solve this problem.
If they put the AI to a task such as- With our giant leaps in technology and the digital world, there will come a time in the nearish future where we will only need X amount of humans (Sounds like the Georgia GuideStones, I know) and surplus humans will only cause more damage to the earth etc., What can we do to reduce the population (within whatever set of parameters they gave it as a metric) A cold "minded" intelligence would certainly look to removing the elderly and infirmed first.
When thinking along those lines, the plot for the John Cusack series Utopia suddenly doesn't sound so fantastical either. If you haven't seen it, basically it followed covid- first virus then vaccine- which led you to believe was meant to kill people then ultimately you find out it was designed to sterilize people without them knowing.
That show was released in the summer of 2020 which was so odd to me. Also odd that no one seemed to make a correlation between it and what was going on. Also the handmaid's tale had the season of masks just before covid. Predictive programming?
Couple these things with a Bill Gates Ted Talk I watched years ago that touched on vaccines and population control (which never really made sense to me if you think of vaccines as something that prevents sickness and death) it's a pretty bleak picture that definitely has my eye on birth rates in the next few years. So far though, I haven't personally seen anything to support it in my actual life. So it could just be conspiracy theory based on a set of coincidences and nothing more. Or ideas intentionally put out there to create more confusion in the public.
I don't know. One of the most frustrating things is having the capacity to understand and think things through, but to never have all of the information to base the conceptualizing on. Or even most of it, as I've also come to believe that we are being fed lies and half truths about everything including history.
The "rational" part of my brain fights so hard against these dark theories but as more and more events unfold, the more I realize that they could very well be possible. Even if you take into account all of the deception in our medical system and agriculture, larger theories regarding how the elite willingly deceive the masses begin to come into clearer view. Fad diets that actually harm, the medical establishment promoting deadly foods like hydrogenated oils and artificial sweeteners as "healthy" for decades. Even cigarettes were given the establishment's seal of approval for decades. Many pharmaceutical drugs are an entirely different level of evil. On the surface it appears to just be a money grab but it runs deeper than that.
We've all heard about the imports coming into the country that have been adulterated (olive oil, rice, etc.). The newest scandal to break is US farmers who've been selling their crops as organic to the public for years and they're actually conventionally grown. Two Minnesota farmers were just busted for this.
It seems corruption and ineptitude is running rampant among the agencies who're supposed to be making sure the public is safe and actually getting what they think they are purchasing. This is horrendous because completely strips the consumer of their ability to choose because they're getting pesticide-laden (and GMO) produce even when they think they're making good choices. Buying locally produced produce, meat, and dairy are more important than ever.
I don't know how we recover as a nation. I don't know how trust can be fully restored, it'll take a lot for those of us paying attention. I see communities becoming decentralized for those who are awake...people banding together to buy acreage and setting up their own communities, growing their own food, raising their own livestock. Cities will likely be filled with those who can't leave for financial reasons or those who are still unaware (consciously or by choice) mostly renters and subscribers who own nothing.
I hope and pray that the SEC doesn't clamp down on crypto before this next next bull run peaks. I see it coming, especially for alt coins. With every hack or exchange that collapses they're building their case for further "regulatory oversight" (which translates to taking away the opportunities for Americans to make huge gains). They're planning on making it very difficult for the poor or middle class to amass life-changing wealth.
Oh, and I actually asked chatGPT about nattokinase. It does sound promising! Though of course it included the whole "don't do this instead of what your doctor prescribes", it also said that there is evidence of it breaking apart blood clots and other damage that could be caused by spike proteins. I would certainly try it if I was in your shoes :)
I ordered a bottle of nattokinase from iHerb. I've also learned a lot about pine needle tea. This works a little more gently to help recover from the lingering effects of Covid and the vaccines. I've been drinking a cup of this a day. It tastes good too, that's always a plus.
I really feel that the only way forward is if people can see interactions like this. Maybe they'll realize how rigid they've become in their own belief system and find a way to be more flexible:)
It's interesting you bring up the flu shots. My brother who in addition to being a musician is also an RN, had a similar experience years ago. He got the shot and was the sickest he's ever been, it lasted for weeks, meanwhile to that point he hadn't had the flu since he was a kid. Then a couple months later he received a memo that the shot was not protecting against the new variant, so he'd basically suffered for nothing. Unsurprisingly he also chose not to get it after that.
Here's where it gets crazy. He worked at the hospital, and at that time masks were not a thing unless you were in surgery. But they had implemented a rule that if you refused the shot, than during flu season- which was basically fall through spring- you had to wear a mask. Supposedly to protect others. Why I say supposedly, is that again about two months later he received another memo that the recent shot wasn't working for the current variant. However he was Not permitted to remove the mask, they told him if he wanted to take it off he would have to Get A Shot They Fully Knew Didn't Work! There is no making that make sense.
And this happened to him year after year. Because he's so likeable he fortunately didn't have to also deal with Judgy people with his obvious mask stigma, instead they would throw him a party in the spring called the Unmasking of Ed.
Enter Covid and both he and his wife(also an RN) really didn't want to get the vaccine, but of course since we're in NY it was a choice between that and his career. So he got the first one. Then left the hospital to work for a private company specializing in eye surgeries. His employers absolutely love him, so when the booster came along he told them he would not get it, even if it meant he'd lose his job. (At that point he'd seen enough to be angry at the coercion) Because they love him they kept pushing extension after extension and fortunately the mandate was dropped and he got to keep his job.
But how insane is that flu shot situation? And how could we possibly look at it as anything but compliancy training?
I understand your early fear, they really did a masterful job of portraying covid as terrifying. Couple that with losing someone so close to you, during a time where they were keeping loved ones apart...so much trauma to unpack with this whole thing. You know what Cuomo did, right? There's no other way to view it for me then murder, locking the elderly in nursing homes, the putting the well in with the infected, so of course they were all infected, and so many died who didn't need to. So yes, sinister is one of the words I'd use.
While I haven't experienced the intolerance with people in my analogue world, I have definitely seen a ton of it in the digital space. Those who still trust the MSM believing everyone who doesn't is a domestic terrorist, conversely those who believe the fringe are convinced that MSM believers are evil. Watching the way people treat each other, seeing the levels of indoctrination on both sides- for me this has been the most shocking thing about it all.
I love how you've opened this up without judgement on either end. I personally just don't get into the discussion - it's now been put in the box with religion and politics as there are just too many opportunities for it to get way out of hand as a subject.
Personally I know people who have and have not had the vaccine and I'm perfectly happy for each to their own - I reserve my judgement as I feel everyone should have their personal choice and to be able to take ownership of that decision. The sensationalism is way out of hand and I'm quite sick of it all to be honest. We've already had to deal with the communal trauma of the onslaught of the pandemic, it's about time that we all had the opportunity to just calm down and live a little.
I really want us to get to the place where people do calm down and live a little. And I think that most reasonable people feel the same. Unfortunately there are very loud, angry factions on either side being egged on by the obnoxious, sensationalized media-both mainstream and fringe-that are hampering that progress.
I'm with you, totally sick of it.
And generally I agree, it belongs in the box with politics and religion. The problem is all of these things are no longer in a box.
Growing up my conservative family never spoke about politics when my liberal relatives were spending the day with them because they knew it would only lead to fighting, no one was likely to change their mind. I sincerely want it to go back to that, where everyone just quietly, respectfully accepts that they have different views on things. Instead they've been brainwashed into this idea that someone who disagrees is their enemy. It was already slightly out of control during the Trump presidency, the pandemic blew it sky high, and now it's one big, horrible mess. And I have to think it's intentional..For example why on freaking earth would they address Roe VS Wade right in the middle of a tidal wave of other chaos? Unless chaos is the goal.
I'm hoping that maybe if more and more people like myself and Eric can show that it's really easy to reach across the divide and clasp hands- that the majority of people are not evil monsters, just doing their best with the information they have- it could get better. Any progress is better than the backsliding down mountains we've been doing :)
I feel you. I’m becoming more of a moderate with age although I’m not sure I’m changing as much as society. When I was young it felt like there was one overwhelming majority but now I feel a polarity of people who are deeply controlled by different kinds of fears.
I don’t really think it's possible to pursued people most of the time, they need to come to their own conclusions , but I feel confident that if I can succeed in having positive interactions and loosening up some of the fear, and trying to lead by example and not force my dogma onto others, slowly things will improve. sometimes i change the topic and sometimes I just answer questions honestly without the intention of changing someone’s mind. Eventually I think we can get back to talking to each other with a little more respect and patience, but with more variety of perspective and without that one overly dominant majority of mainstream opinion. Everyone has their own path towards understanding their unique reality though so I have to audit who I spend my energy on, some people are easier to build bridges with so I focus on them.
I’m glad you family doesn’t make anyone feel judged for their decision. My family has been the same, also half and half, and I can say the same about most people I am close with.
I feel a polarity of people who are deeply controlled by different kinds of fears.
This is what I've noticed as well, particularly in the digital realm.
I resonate with everything you've said here. When people are angry and closed off there's little anyone can do. Life and time is too short for wasted effort. But we can create bridges with those who are open, and perhaps if there are enough then others will be interested in checking them out. Once they've spent a little time with those on the other side who are willing to hear other perspectives, more bridges can be built and so on.
At least, that is my hope. I really don't want to be in a position where I'm forced onto a side. I'm not ready to give up just yet.
Couldn't have said it better!