The state has become parens patriae. That’s Latin for “father of the people.” Of course, the state must look out for children, the disabled, and the elderly if others cannot. But under the cover of COVID-19 hysteria, the principle is being extended to cover everybody but those in the Inner Party and selected functionaries. You will lose “privileges” (a euphemism for liberties and rights) if you do not do as you are told. Your “privileges” are contingent upon obeying the father. You may have received this form of punishment as a child. It’s the way convicts are treated. We call it “reform” or “rehabilitation” in the criminal justice system. When it’s applied to the general population it bears another name: fascism.
Fascism comes with numerous markers. But you have to know what to look for. “It’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated!” goes out the slogan. But the hospitals are filling with fully vaccinated people with COVID-19, you point out (because you care to be informed and not appear gullible). So the powers-that-be change the definition of fully vaccinated. You need three shots to be fully vaccinated. Next you will need four shots. And then five shots. And so on. In other words, there are no fully vaccinated people really. There never really were. There are only people who keep getting in line for shots and those who resent being scammed, many of latter whom feel they have no other choice but to go alone. That’s not really a choice, of course. Mandates force people to do what the father tells them.
First, the Ministry of Truth changes the definitions of “immunity” and “vaccine.” Now Minitrue is changing the definition of “fully vaccinated.” Tomorrow Minitrue will tell us the term has always been defined this way. Most of the proles of Airstrip One will take it in stride thanks to doublethink. Empty shelves at the supermarket? The national economy is healthy. And so on. It’s doubleplusgood! “We’re doing our part.” How did Bill Maher put it? “I’m taking one for the team.” (You’re still on the wrong team, Bill.)
Control over information is vital in the establishment of the Ministry of Truth. In a free society, when somebody is saying something that others think is wrong, somebody will usually object and a discussion will ensue and people will learn things. With fact-checking, when somebody is saying something that the powers-that-be think is wrong, somebody in authority will label the post “false” or “partially-false” and there will be no discussion. Those who were likely to discuss matters will instead stand on either side of a claim and watch the powers-that-be determine the fate of whatever the claim may be. Fact-checking dumbs down and limits interaction. It treats social media users like elementary school students who need to be corrected by the teacher. And the teacher only has a bachelors degree and a lesson plan with no depth or detail. And an agenda she learned in professional development camp.
Because the establishment media won’t show you the protests occurring throughout the world in resistance to the fascist vaccine mandates, I will (see above). Letting people know they are not alone is about manifesting what we call in science “mutual knowledge.” Mutual knowledge is essential for building power among those upon whom illegitimate power is being imposed. When people don’t know that others think like they do, when they believe they are all alone in the world, they start to feel as if they are in the wrong. They can even start feeling like they are losing their sanity. That’s the point of marginalization and ridicule when it’s aimed downwards (power is by definition unequal, so you have no ethical responsibility to resist marginalizing and ridiculing the powerful).
For those of you who recognize what’s happening for what it is—it is fascism—know that you are not losing your mind. The power elite, their attack dogs working the institutions and the irregulars working the popular front, are trying to gaslight you by keeping you in the dark and making you feel alone and wrong. This is a standard strategy of power, characteristic of totalitarian governments who control what you see and hear because they know they increase the likelihood of either controlling what you think or cowing you with this method. Unfortunately, the method is very powerful and it has gotten to quite a lot of our comrades.
You hear and see the gaslighting in memes about “conspiracy theory.” I’m sure you have seen the images of people wearing tinfoil hats and so forth. People who share these memes, while they may seem quite intelligent and compassionate otherwise, are shallow sadists who push corporate state propaganda. You can know them by their works. Consider this article from NBC News by Brandy Zadrozny: “‘Carol’s Journey’: What Facebook knew about how it radicalized users.” It sports an image of a rabbit in a hole surrounded by a steel trap and emoticons strewn about.
The story is damned condescending. Here’s the premise: you’re a bunch of proles who can’t think for yourselves—for sure you can’t be trusted to think the right thoughts. I’ve had this trick tried on me—I’ve been “radicalized” because people are just now discovering that I don’t operate according to checked boxes and approved slogans. What are the right thoughts? You can know by what they think the “radicalized” thoughts are. You’ll find there (and them) what Antonio Gramsci conceptualized as “hegemony.” Hegemony comes with both a velvet glove and an iron fist. Just ask yourself, “Who do they platform, promote, stroke, and privilege?” Alternatively, you can ask yourself, “Who do they marginalize, censor, discipline, and punish?”
NBC News is handing readers a template for action. A big part of the reason people will run with this, will become part of the fascist order of things, is because they possess an authoritarian personality. They enjoy lording power over others, and since they have no real power themselves, they stand with the manifestation of power they believe is most efficacious, which in the current period is corporate state power. They are just like those who, in early periods and in other cultures, theocratic ones, stand with the religious clerics in persecuting the disbelievers. They enjoy burning witches. Those who are smeared as “conspiracy theorists” are the disbelievers, the freethinkers. They do not accept the line of the power elite. As it should be in a free world. Be a freethinker. You are not alone.
Freedom is what we are told to run from. “I have the freedom to kill you with my COVID,” former vice-president Joe Biden mockingly told a CNN town hall filled with plants. “Experts say vaccines mandates for COVID-19 infringe on individual freedoms, but may be necessary to protect public health,” writes Zaheena Rasheed for Aljazeera, in an article pushed out by the establishment news aggregators. Zaheena reflects the establishment admission that the mandates indeed infringe on individual liberty, which is where freedom lives. But mandates can’t possibly be necessary if (1) the coronavirus does not present a threat to the general population (it does not); (2) the vaccine does not confer significant immunity (it does not); (3) the risk : benefit ratio is to the detriment of children and young adults (it is). The facts make this obvious: there is no public health reason warranting mandates. COVID-19 mandates and passports are profoundly unethical and their advocacy from a public health standpoint is irrational. There has to be an ulterior motive. And it can only be sinister.
We got a dose of the sinister this morning when The New York Post reported that the former vice-president signed a memo blaming COVID-19 for postponement of the scheduled release of the assassination records of President John Fr. Kennedy, who was gunned down in Dallas, Texas in 1963, likely the result of a conspiracy according to conclusions reached by the United States House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in 1979. In 1992, Congress ruled that “all Government records concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy . . . should be eventually disclosed to enable the public to become fully informed about the history surrounding the assassination.” Does it need to be pointed out that 1992 was a long time ago? Friday’s White House memo tells us that “continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”
COVID-19 hysteria has become a master justification for a vast range of corporate state actions that work at cross-purposes with the fundamental tenets of a democratic society. We are seeing the socialization of totalitarian methods of mass social control. Fear and sadism are essential for its successful implementation.
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The CDC is telling you that a COVID-19 vaccine is a magic talisman that protects you from everything. I refuse to live in the land of the absurd. I’m not kidding. Maggie Fox of CNN reports, People vaccinated against Covid-19 less likely to die from any cause, study finds.
Do you know why the vaccinated have better outcomes? They are healthier than those who do not get vaccinated to begin with.
freedom and reason 