#herd immunity against propaganda

[stormsthatrage]

Hey folks. Real talk time. I've been seeing some discourse on the USAmerican side of tumblr that genuinely scares me, so I felt the need to put together a few reminders to hopefully spread around Tumblr. If you have the spoons, please create your own posts about these things so we can make sure as many people as possible are informed.

Tumblr staff did not just decide for themselves that certain accounts might be Russian trolls. US law enforcement agencies conducted a federal investigation, and found that Russian trolls were conducting Psy-Ops operations across multiple social media sites. The Russian trolls had the express goal of influencing the outcome of the 2016 election. If an account was banned for being a Russian troll, it was due to this federal investigation. It was not a false accusation from a tumblr staff member that didn't like what a liberal activist was saying.

It is highly likely that Russia has not stopped using this tactic.

Many of these trolls twisted the truth to split the Democratic party. I can't find it anymore, but there's an old post where you can literally see this in action. In the post, a Russian troll -- who had been pretending for a long time to be a liberal activist on tumblr, and was thus trusted by the community -- misquoted Hillary Clinton to make it seem like she was against free college and student debt forgiveness. The Russian agent quoted something Clinton said in a debate with Bernie Sanders: "I disagree with free college." Not included by the Russian agent was the vital context, in which Clinton argued for free and debt-free community college and public universities. This is the full quote the Russian agent didn't use, which was made in reference to private schools only: "I disagree with free college... I don't think the American people should pay for Donald Trump's kids to go to college."

The Republican party often struggles to win the popular vote in presidential elections. It is in the Republican party's best interest to split the Democratic vote.

In order to win the presidential election, MAGA needs to get liberals to vote for third-party candidates or to not vote at all. Please do not let them trick you into serving their agenda.

A third-party candidate has not won the presidential election since the 1800s.

If you do not have the spoons to read news articles or watch multiple news channels, it is vital to be aware that you are especially vulnerable to propaganda on social media. You do not get the full story from tumblr posts. You do not get nuance on current events from tumblr posts. You may be being straight-up lied to on tumblr posts. Remember to take things with a grain of salt. Remember that a lot of propaganda relies on inducing outrage and strong emotional reactions.

If you are upset about the Gaza-Israel situation, and it is going to affect your vote, you must read news articles -- not tumblr posts -- about what Biden has done, what Biden has failed to do, and what Biden's opponents' plans and stances are. This is an area where the propaganda is going to be strongest, and if you want to do right by the citizens of Palestine and Israel, you have to research what's happening. Do not act based off of information from social media, because so much of it will be biased if not downright false. If you don't have the spoons to read or watch the news on these things, I urge you not to vote based off of just this issue, because it would be so easy to vote against your own morals if your only info is from tumblr. And if you think the situation is important enough to determine your vote -- well, then it's clearly important enough to research properly.

Again: In order to win the presidential election, MAGA needs to get liberals to vote for third-party candidates or to not vote at all. Please do not let them trick you into serving their agenda.

Anyway, please reblog or create your own posts on these topics. Let's work together and aim for herd immunity against propaganda.

[lettucedloophole]

bell hooks is controversial in radical feminist and sometimes public spaces but i think i will defend her with my life, even if i do not always agree. her take halfway through this interview is really quite radical, in the sense that people would chew her head off for this and also that she's getting to the heart of the issue of free speech vs. censorship.

she explains that censorship as a concept is most weaponized against radical ideas, and the dude straight up asks her if she would outlaw a nazi's rally, then. and you'd expect no as an answer, it is the easy answer, but tactfully she answers that the problem is not a hateful individual (i mean. they are A problem. even one nazi sucks) but that americans aren't smart enough, aren't kind enough to find themselves disagreeing when they listen to that nazi speak. if we had a foundation in critical thinking and, as bell hooks is so known for, love, everyone would probably just go beat the shit out of that nazi and no laws would be necessary to intervene. and therefore, leftist ideas would not be censored as hate speech or extremism.

it's really interesting to consider her position, as i feel in today's america i'm more familiar with free speech as a defense in favour of racist white people or misogynists, in the form of racist propaganda or pornography. but these wouldn't be dots on the map if the masses weren't brainwashed into it, and fascist governments do ban leftist literature and knowledge, communist manifesto and "crt" etc., to aid their cause. it makes me begin to reconsider censorship of the right as a preventative measure rather than a solution to the issue of a brainwashed, individualistic, apathetic society.

i've been reading on cuba after hearing so much good of it from the commies, and it's interesting to see how education always correlates in leftist policies. in the us, college-educated people are more liberal. in portugal, i've heard anecdotally from a friend that they're more leftist than the states, and lo and behold. they had enough covid vaccinations to reach herd immunity- everyone understood well enough to do their part while our president was telling us to drink bleach. likewise, cuba's population rose while guevara was around, and anti-racism/sexism flourished, as well as anti-imperialist ideas and just, generally, the central point of all liberation movements; compassion.

of course, you could be a cynic and say it's because all those goddamn communist elites brainwash the common people with their Evil college education, but it sounds a bit like anti-intellectualism that way, and i don't know how you lie with facts-- i've only seen lies via withholding facts. but who knows, i guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i'll just have to learn All the knowledge, history, politics + spanish and go to cuba for myself

[cloudhedges]

Report: Google To Step Up “Prebunking” Scheme To “Inoculate People” Against ‘Conspiracy Theories’

by Steve Watson “Prebunking could help communities reach a kind of herd immunity when it comes to misinformation” According to a report from the Associated Press, Google is stepping up its so called “prebunking” scheme, a way of stopping ‘misinformation’ before it spreads by indoctrinating people to disbelieve what tech big wigs consider to be ‘propaganda’. The report, which reads like a press…

[robertreich]

Why Strongmen are Losing the Fight Against Covid

A hospital in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, is being charged under the country’s National Security Act for sounding the alarm over a lack of oxygen that resulted in Covid deaths. The hospital’s owner and manager says the police have accused him of “false scare-mongering,” after he stated publicly that four of his patients died on a single day when oxygen ran out.

Since Covid-19 exploded in India, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, seems more intent on controlling the news than the outbreak. On Wednesday, India recorded nearly 363,000 Covid cases and 4,120 deaths, about 30 percent of worldwide Covid deaths that day. But experts say India is vastly understating the true number. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, estimates that at least 25,000 Indians are dying from Covid each day.

The horror has been worsened by shortages of oxygen and hospital beds. Yet Modi and his government don’t want the public to get the true story.

One big lesson from the Covid crisis: lying makes it worse. Vladimir Putin is busily denying the truth about Covid in Russia. Demographer Alexei Raksha, who worked at Russia’s official statistical agency, Rosstat, but says he was forced to leave last summer for telling the truth about Covid, claims that the daily data in Russia has been "smoothed, rounded, lowered" to look better. Like many experts, he uses excess mortality – the number of deaths during the pandemic over the typical number of deaths -- as the best indicator.

"If Russia stops at 500,000 excess deaths, that will be a good scenario," he calculates.

Russia was first out of the gate with a Covid vaccine but has fallen woefully behind on vaccinations. Recent polling puts the share of Russians who don’t want to be vaccinated at 60 to 70 percent. That’s because Putin and other officials have focused less on vaccinating the public than on claiming success in containing Covid.

The U.S. is suffering a similar problem -- the legacy of another strongman, Donald Trump. Although more than half of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, more than 40 percent of Republicans have consistently told pollsters they won’t get vaccinated. Their recalcitrance is threatening efforts to achieve “herd immunity” and prevent the virus’s spread.

Like Modi and Putin, Trump minimized the seriousness of the pandemic and spread misinformation about it. Trump officials ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to downplay its severity. He declined to get vaccinated publicly and was noticeably absent from a public service announcement on vaccination that featured all other living former presidents.

Trump allies in the media have conducted a scare campaign about the vaccines. In December, Laura Ingraham posted a story on Facebook from the Daily Mail purporting to show evidence that Chinese communist party loyalists worked at pharmaceutical companies that developed the coronavirus vaccine.

As recently as mid-April, Fox News host Tucker Carlson opined that if the vaccine were truly effective, there’d be no reason for people who received it to wear masks or avoid physical contact.

"So maybe it doesn't work, and they're simply not telling you that.”

Why then should anyone be surprised at the reluctance of Trump Republicans to get vaccinated? A recent New York Times analysis showed vaccination rates to be lower in counties where a majority voted for Trump in 2020. States that voted more heavily for Trump are also states where lower percentages of the population have been vaccinated.

The Republican pollster Frank Luntz claims  Trump bears responsibility for the hesitancy of GOP voters to be vaccinated.

“He wants to get the credit for developing the vaccine. Then he also gets the blame for so few of his voters taking it.”

Trump’s Republican Party is coming to resemble authoritarian regimes around the world in other respects as well – purging truthtellers and trucking in lies, misinformation, and propaganda harmful to the public.

Last week the GOP stripped Representative Liz Cheney of her leadership position for telling the truth about the 2020 election. At last week’s congressional hearing about the January 6 attack on the Capitol, one Republican congressman, Andrew Clyde, even denied it happened.

“There was no insurrection,” he said. “To call it an insurrection is a bold-faced lie … you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”

Biden says he plans to call a summit of democratic governments to contain the rise of authoritarianism around the world. I hope he talks about its rise in the United States, too -- and the huge toll it’s already taken on Americans.

[semper-legens]

27. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by Suzanne Collins

Owned: No, borrowed from a friend Page count: 517 My summary: The Tenth Annual Hunger Games are about to begin, and schoolboy Coriolanus Snow has been chosen to mentor one of the tributes. Specifically, Lucy Gray Baird, the girl from District Twelve with the worst chance of surviving. But this is an era of experimentation and, desperate for a chance to continue his studies despite his poverty, Coriolanus resorts to extreme measures to ensure her victory. The odds are against them both. But together, they might have a chance... My rating: 4/5

Hunger Games! I...have not read the Hunger Games in a long time. I read them first when the movies were coming out, along with the rest of the world, and liked them well enough at the time. I really want to revisit them, because in hindsight the Hunger Games books were a really interesting example of complex YA dystopia, and kicked off the huge boom of YA dystopia that never really hit the mark that the Hunger Games achieved. So, I don’t have the best memories of the first books, but I recalled enough for this to be truly effective. It’s complex, it’s nuanced, and it hits all the emotional beats it needs to. I’m not sure this book had to exist, but it definitely justified its own existence by the end.

Coriolanus Snow is our protagonist, and he’s terrible. This isn’t really the story of a good man who gets corrupted by society into being a complete monster, this is the story of a privileged man whose biases become worse as his society becomes more and more cutthroat and bloodthirsty. It’s grey morality in the genuine way - we see the effect the war had on these Capitol kids, we see Coriolanus’ poverty and, hell, we see his compassion towards Lucy and the district kids. But at the same time, he’s a bigoted mess parroting propaganda even when he believes himself immune, even when he should be able to see the logical holes in what he’s saying. And by the end, he’s selling people out to the Capitol and ready to murder to protect the status quo. His actions move from bigoted to actively monstrous and irredeemable at the end, and yet the audience can still see where he’s coming from and how he got to this point. And we see how he could have been a better person! He does have a genuine spark of compassion within him, it’s just that he’s been trained to see Lucy Gray as a meal ticket and people from the districts as basically subhuman, and when the going gets tough he falls back on that mentality rather than examining it and becoming a better person.

Speaking of Lucy Gray, one thing I found really interesting about this book was how ambiguous her character was. It’s third person, but it’s tight on Coriolanus’ POV, so we never get a view into Lucy Gray’s head. Is she genuinely in love with Coriolanus, or is she using him to help her own survival just as much as he’s using her? Ultimately I think the truth falls somewhere in the middle, but the book invites you to make your own mind up about it, and refuses to ever answer the question concretely. Or, in fact, anything about Lucy Gray. I’m in two minds about all of the completely unsubtle hints that she’s an ancestor of Katniss, but hey, if that’s the worst thing about it, I’ll take it. And Lucy Gray’s ability to perform and turn the media around to her point of view is really interesting in light of what the Hunger Games becomes.

There’s also some commentary here on exactly how the Hunger Games turn from just herding prisoners into an arena and making them fight to the media spectacle we see at the time of the main books. A lot of the ideas (and the original idea of the Hunger Games, as it turns out) are bandied around as thought experiments by the Capitol kids, not really meant to be serious suggestions but taken as so by the higher ups. There’s an element of ‘one bad apple spoils the bunch’ about it, in the genuine sense that one actually sadistic bastard in a position of power warps the whole of Capitol society from just being your run of the mill upper-class bastards to extravagant sadists. And their society lets it happen, they convince themselves it’s for the greater good. Anyone who shows a sense of actual compassion is killed, and society decides that’s a good thing. There are so many choices along the way that the Capitol could have made into being better people, but they refuse at every turn,

Next up, something completely different - substitutiary locomotion, anyone?

[theexleynatureblog]

Time to talk Vaccines

I will start off with a bias - I am not anti-vax. Why? Because I come from a science background - more ecology and behavior than biochemistry - so I have a lot of exposure to ‘sciency’ stuff.  I am no expert - in fact I barely passed college introductory chemistry with a B - but as sick and tired of I am of listening to anti-vax propaganda everywhere online (and it’s rising importance to modern events) I have to put in my two cents. If y’all won’t listen to over a thousand different scientists with varying degrees and levels of experience, maybe you’ll listen to a cranky college kid who can give you the scoop in plan English.

History of vaccines gives a good, in-depth lessons about where vaccines first came from - if your interested in that aspect. In summary, it covers ancient variants of vaccines, up to Edward Jenner’s 1796 cowpox vaccine, and continued development through the 1930′s. **Penicillin may be the most popular product, but it is used against dangerous bacteria, not virus’. More information here.**

To start off simply: what is a virus? Personally, I like to think about them as tiny robots - lifelike but not living. This question is actually a hot-topic debated by the science community, because we can’t agree on whether or not they are even living. This article from 2008 seems to cover the debate pretty well. Viruses are smaller, and in terms of what they’re made of and how they work, simpler than cells.

This picture gives a good idea of sizes. Note that everything in this picture is microscopic, and cannot be seen with the naked eye. This photo is computer-generated based on information from what we’ve seen in microscopes. Corona-virus is the dark blue circle second from the left. On the far right is what’s probably a typical animal cell. The blue bean thing next to Coronavirus is a bacteria, which are living things and operate differently than viruses, though some bacteria can make people sick. Check out this article for more info on bacteria.

So viruses are smaller than cells, they are also built different. Simply put, viruses are a case of protein with a string of DNA inside. Off the bat, this sounds really similar to bacteria, but there’s one major difference: bacteria can duplicate themselves and viruses cannot. The politically correct term is ‘binary fission’, a kind of asexual reproduction that is basically an organism copying all it’s DNA, splitting the two strains apart, and then stretching everything else into two separate things. I won’t go into all the complex terms and functions (you can read about it more here). All you need to understand is it is a complex possess that requires machinery that virus’ don’t have. So how do virus’ reproduce? They sneak into other cells and hijack their machinery to produce more viruses. 

Because viruses and cells have been living together since life began on this planet billions of years ago, cells have developed forms of protection (from viruses and bacteria). A ‘lock’, basically all across the cell surface. So in order for viruses to continue, they needed to develop a ‘key’. This is why viruses have a host of different shapes. Coronavirus is named after the crown-like spikes, which are proteins that help invade a living cell. Read more about how viruses invade cells here.

Phew! That was a lot, and we haven’t even gotten into vaccine’s yet! That’s because in order to understand vaccines, you have to have some understanding of the thing they are built to fight. The question becomes: If a virus is considered not living, how do you fight it? How do you kill something that’s not alive?

The most obvious answer is just taking it apart. A virus can’t do it’s thing if it’s broken down into single elements. But, as we discussed earlier, viruses are super small. We can barely see them in microscopes (we have to use a super microscope called an Electron microscopes). There’s no physically possible or safe way to crush up/rip apart a virus. Using radiation, water, or fire isn’t practical either. Sure - fire will destroy anything, but you can’t light up a 5-year-old with the flu. Techniques of disassembling viruses are currently being studied, but we still have a lot to learn. 

So, if we can’t break it apart, the only thing we can do is stop it from spreading. This is basically how our immune system works. If a cell is infected, it will send  a piece of the viral protein, to another cell: T-cells. T-cells are cells of the immune system. One type of immune system cell will send a toxin to kill the infected cell, trapping the virus inside and preventing spread. If the toxin doesn’t kill the cell, the rapid replication of the virus will eventually cause it to burst. (Imagine a chicken egg with a thousand chicks falling out). The downside of this is if the virus spreads to fast, and hits important places like the lungs, and a lot of important cells die... whelp, the fight is over. Unlike most parasites that depend on their hosts to be alive and collect nutrients for them, viruses are more reckless - it doesn't’ matter how many cells die as long as the virus keeps spreading.

The other immune defense systems are via interferon and (more commonly known) antibodies. Interferon's work inside a host cell to stop a virus from hijacking a cell’s DNA replication machines while also alerting immune cells to an infection. Antibodies fight against viruses that have not yet entered a cell. Remember back to the ‘lock’ and ‘key’ thing? Here’s where it comes to play! Antibodies stick to the protein of viruses by matching the ‘key’ shapes. If you stick a wad of gum onto you house key, it won’t be able to fit in the lock, and you can’t get into your house. It’s basically the same thing. Antibodies can also make viruses stick together - making them easier to destroy, and also can send a signal to a cell to engulf and destroy a virus.

The reaaaaaaallllllly cool part is that antibodies can ‘remember what viruses look like’. Antibodies hold onto little bits of the virus - proteins - so they can recognize another infection. (Link)  Naturally, whenever we are infected, we produce antibodies for that specific virus/bacteria, however - they only work if A) we survive the initial infection, and B) if we keep getting infected by that specific strain/type of virus. Viruses come in all kinds of shapes and chemical makeups. Even them, groups of viruses within the same ‘species’ can have unique kinds of protein. This is why you need to get a flu shot every year - the shot isn’t for ‘the flue’, it is for the current strain of the flu spreading. (Article from UAB Medicine).

In order to fight viruses, we need to keep our immune system healthy and produce antibodies. In olden days, the way we produced antibodies was by getting infected and working up herd immunity (healthy individuals with antibodies prevent the spread of a disease to those without immunity). The problem with this is: it doesn’t always work. Nature in our world is build on the process of one force creating a wall and an opposing force finding a new way to break it (think Jurassic Park’s life will find a way). As long a pathway exists, a virus will find a way to use it. Herd immunity also works by selecting and removing the weakest links in the group - individuals who cannot fight an infection well die and stop spreading the virus. It works in nature, but in terms of human civilization - it’s not very nice. It is also unbiased, in the natural world. Wild animals have an equal opportunity to be healthy enough to fight an infection - besides those with genetic issues. We should all be painfully aware that human civilization no longer operates on this fair playing field. Only those with a good social and economic standing have the opportunity to be healthy enough. Remember this before you argue ‘herd immunity’.

All this in mind, vaccines are the last reasonable option. According to the CDC, a vaccine consists of a weakened virus or part of a virus introduced to the body so it can produce antibodies. That’s it. Seems like a really cleaver idea, don’t it?

But hang on: you got sick after taking a vaccine? If your symptoms are runny nose/coughing, good news! That’s not the vaccine - it’s you. (CDC article on why vaccine are safer than exposure)  After detecting an infection (even if its not a active virus) the immune system releases histamine, which causes inflamed blood veins and access mucus - sneezing. This can discharge virons, but also used by them to spread to a new host. Some symptoms, like a wet cough, are caused by a viral infection. Fever’s are another example of a immune response, not directly caused by a virus. It’s our brain trying to cook and break apart the proteins of the virus.

The hot topic about vaccines is they are full of scary chemicals that people don’t want to have injected into them. So lets take a closer look at one example, the influenza vaccine.

Formaldehyde - yikes! Scary sounding for sure - formaldehyde is well known for being used in embalming, and linked to cancer. What is less know is it is also an essential building block in lots of items, like building and construction, personal care and consumer products, and automobile manufacturing. The following picture is the chemical molecule.

It is a simply enough molecule made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Formaldehyde naturally occurs in the environment, as most living things produce it as part of the metabolic processes (breaking down and absorbing food). At room temperature, formaldehyde is a gas that can be dangerous to inhale in large amounts. When it comes to vaccines, the purpose of formaldehyde is to deactivate the virus - so it doesn’t actually start infecting cells. In small amounts like this, it is harmless. Personally, I’d be more worried about the gaseous forms.

Aluminum Salts - these include hydroxide and phosphate. The purpose of these chemicals in vaccines is to help the body activate it’s immune response.  hydroxide is basically any molecule with hydrogen and oxygen - example, water, and hydrogen dioxide. (What makes molecules dangerous is not necessarily their elements, it is how they are connected). Once again, these are present in amounts too small to be harmful both short and long term.

Thimerosal - This is the ingredient that has anti-vaxxer’s shouting “Oh no theirs mercury!” but that’s not completely true. Since the 1930′s, it has been used in a wide variety of products. It’s purpose is to prevent contamination of the product (vaccine) by bacteria and fungi. Without it, vaccines run the risk of exposing patients to a serious infection. It’s not even used in every vaccine - only ones that require multiple doses, the ones that are at the highest risk of contamination. Thimerosal comes from an inorganic form of mercury called ethylmercury, which is different than other forms of mercury as it does not remain in the body long enough to cause damage. ALSO: this is not the same compound as methylmercury, a toxic compound found in fish due to pollution. 

Chicken Egg proteins - Egg proteins are used to grow a virus before it is put into a vaccine. The virus and the proteins are separated, but there is risk of chicken proteins still being in the vaccine - bad news for people with allergies. This is why it’s important to discuss any allergies with your doctor. Exposure of this protein to people with allergies has not been documented as fatal, but still must be carefully monitored. Luckily, egg-free versions do exist.

Gelatin - this material acts as a stabilizer, keeping the vaccine effective as it enters the body. It protects the vaccine from effects of heat, and freeze drying. Most vaccines use pork-based gelatin, which means people with severe pork allergies should discuss more options with their doctors. 

Antibiotics - antibiotics in vaccines work with Thimerosal to prevent the growth of dangerous bacteria. The antibiotics involved are not allergy-risks, and used in lots of other lotions and ointments. 

So, there is one example. Dealing with stuff that we don’t know or don’t fully understand can be combated by simple research. If you are concerned about the ingredients in a certain vaccine, do some research! Remember - it’s not always what chemicals, but what form they are in. 

[bigdadskypilot]

Humans are a happy little accident

But ultimately we are doomed to go the way of the dinosaurs...and much faster. How do I know this? Because I have a cold. Let me explain:

My ten year-old son is finishing fourth grade. He has a bad cold. With the quarantine imposed by the global coronavirus pandemic, none of us has been sick for over 15 months. This is both good and bad. Good because no one likes a cold. Bad because a necessary component of immunity is exposure. This is where the covid-19 response comes in.

In March 2020, my son’s school closed and all classes went online. This sucked and education took a big hit. In September 2020, we started back up with a hybrid model with two days in school and three days out. Strict social distancing, mask wearing, hand washing, the works. Coronavirus cases shut the school down occasionally and contact tracing was part of our lives.

In April 2021, our district - like so many others - rushed forward with elimination of the hybrid model and full-time in-school education. Yay, except it was rushed. We all want to get back to normal, but corona isn’t going away that easily. Many of us pointed this out to the district administration, only to get shouted down by parents and administrators alike for being alarmist. “We will wear masks still,” they said. “We will wash hands,” they said. “We will have lots of classes outside,” they said.

“How will you social distance,” we asked. “Oh, kids don’t really get corona...that bad,” they responded. “Besides, the CDC says its ok. Stop being party poopers. Hey everyone, look at the party poopers who don’t want their kids to go back to school and be normal.”

It’s not just my kid who had a cold. Five kids in his class are absent at the same time with very bad colds. That’s 20% of his class. That means someone passed it around school. “Well, thank goodness it’s not Covid,” the school said.

They are out of their fucking minds. Covid and common colds are spread in nearly identical fashion. The reason no one has had a cold in 15 months is because we have all been quarantined. Yes, I am not stupid. I know that colds will proliferate when we start opening society back up. But that means that Covid will proliferate, too...before everyone is vaccinated and before herd immunity is achieved. If kids are getting bad colds in school, then the Covid protocols are either not working or not being followed, or both. If they were working, then there would be far fewer colds. Parents are sending kids to school sick, too, because they are fatigued from a year of trying to work from home and take care of their kids full time. I get it. It sucks. But this is why we are doomed.

You see, humans throughout history have seen slow population growth because we are social animals who spread disease easily. It is only since the industrial revolution that we have been able to curb many diseases that had the effect of culling population numbers. Viruses and bacterial killed many, but now there are over 7 billion of us. We have grown too plentiful and something is going to cause the human population to seriously decline. War? Maybe. We thought that in the 70s and 80s. Climate change? Maybe, but while a warming planet is a certainty, we are unsure of the population impacts. Novel diseases? Now there is a possibility.

We are plagued by short attention spans and easily led by propaganda and bullshit. Covid was and is a real threat, but too many people couldn’t handle a year away from the tavern and a movie. Get my kids out of my hair and back into school where I don’t have to be with them all day. I hate to sound like a nihilist, but it seems fairly obvious and reasonable to me to expect that human population numbers will inevitably decline simply because we cannot go for more than a few months without creatures comforts that are less than 100 years old.

Humans got to the top of the food chain by an evolutionary accident. Whether we will be the cause of our own demise is not entirely clear, but what is clear is that we have become too big, too populated, and too short sighted to make group decisions that protect the health and welfare of the entire group.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not mad. I’m not disappointed. And I’m not a doomsday prepper. I just see that humans on their current evolutionary trajectory will probably cease to exist in such large numbers in the not-too-distant future if we can’t keep our kids out of school for a few more months until they are vaccinated against a disease that is a deadly as it is virulent. When Stephen King wrote The Stand, did anyone think that he simply made all that shit up?

[covid19updater]

COVID19 Updates: 05/23/2021

India:  Black fungus: India reports nearly 9,000 cases of rare infection LINK

Haiti:  PAHO: #Haiti authorizes use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as deaths, infections rise LINK

Op/Ed (UK):  It’s sickening to watch UK’s CDC equivalent (Public Health England) now being an outlet of Boris Johnson administration’s propaganda. Yesterday, Johnson’s office censored PHE from publishing #B16172 outbreak data in schools—and then hails 33-60% 1&2 dose efficacy as a win for AZ.

India:  In this rural Karnataka belt, Covid cases are rising but tests have dipped to just 10 a day LINK

Thailand:  Thailand to tighten border controls after detecting South African COVID-19 variant LINK

Russia:  Russia reports 8,951 new COVID-19 cases, lifting total above 5 miliion LINK

World:  Wuhan's House of Cards: the outbreak of COVID-19, in contextIn order to see the big picture, we need more than a microscope - we need a telescope. LINK

Belgium:  Another very worrying rise in #Belgium and yet still the country's journalists are asleep on the job. It's the job of reporters to hold people to account, ensuring quicker reaction from authorities such as lockdowns. 2,516 new #Covid19 cases today, up 28%

France: NEW: UK tourists may face stricter rules in France due to Indian variant – minister #World @BreakingNewsAI

UK:  PAY ATTENTION to rising #B16172 crisis in UK—crucial because India variant affects us all. It is now ~50% of all cases in England, surging fast, especially in kids. Hospital #COVID19 ward in Bolton filling up. “It’s too late to contain” LINK

Nepal:  COVID-19: Hospitals run out of beds, soldiers take over as undertakers - Nepal battles second wave of pandemic LINK

World:  Some teenagers and young adults who received Covid-19 vaccines have experienced heart inflammation, a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group said, recommending further study of the condition. LINK

Taiwan:  Taiwan is in the grip of its first major COVID-19 surge. Total cases, which had been below 1,300 through the entire pandemic, have surged to more than 3,100 in the span of a week LINK

India:  Covid-19 patient commits suicide in VIMSA 45-year-old Covid-19 positive patient V Sudhakar committed suicide at Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS) here on Saturday. LINK

India:  Indian villagers turn to unlicensed clinics as COVID spreads to the countryside LINK

UK:  Family doctors in UK forced out of jobs after developing long covid, prompting demands for gov’t to compensate NHS staff w/debilitating conditions who can’t work. GPs struggling w/long covid said they felt “shocked & betrayed” when removed them from their posts b/c of long sick leave

UK:  Dominic Cummings claims ministers backed herd immunity against CovidPM’s ex-adviser says if ‘competent’ people had been in charge at least two lockdowns could have been avoided LINK

World:  Reinfections with #B16172 is also approximately ~4x more with B16172 versus #B117 if we compare the rates of reinfections / variant cases found. 4x…. Is a lot.

World:  European database shows 405,250+ covid vaccine injuries, 10,570+ deaths (so far) LINK

World:  NEW - Dr. Fauci now says he is "not convinced" COVID-19 developed naturally, and called for an open investigation into the origin of the virus. However, he once again "categorically" denied that the NIH or NIAID has funded any gain of function research in Wuhan (Fox News)

US:  Pentagon Tracking 14 Cases of Heart Inflammation in Troops After COVID-19 Shots LINK

California: LOS ANGELES, CA — Six months into the vaccination effort, Los Angeles County has recorded nearly 1,000 "breakthrough" cases in which fully vaccinated people went on to test positive for the coronavirus. Of those breakthrough cases, 71 were hospitalized and 12 died. LINK

China:  Three Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a U.S. intelligence report that could add to calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the lab LINK

[worldofwardcraft]

Rage against the vaccine.

May 17, 2021

When Jonas Salk developed a successful immunizing agent against poliomyelitis in 1955 (with Albert Sabin's oral version following a few years later), so great was the fear of this highly contagious, paralyzing disease that parents flocked to have their children inoculated. Salk was even awarded the Medal of Freedom.

But back then, this country did not have a major political party totally dedicated to rejecting truth and science. It did not have a propaganda apparatus focused solely on spreading lies and disinformation. And it did not have a social media network capable of supporting anti-vax ignoramuses. Today, we are plagued with all of these.

While a majority of Americans are now at least partially vaccinated against COVID-19, an April poll by the Covid States Project finds that a full 18% of adults (almost all of them Republicans) say they definitely will not get the vaccine. Unfortunately, if this number continues to hold, it will prevent us from reaching the necessary herd immunity required to halt the spread of the disease.

Why are so many so vaccine opposed? Sure, there's been an "anti-vax" movement in this country for years. But the resistance to the COVID vaccine in particular was created and hyped through a vicious right-wing media operation. This has been carried on especially, but not exclusively, by Faux News, the most damaging of whose on-air liars is Swanson frozen food heir Tucker Carlson (pictured above promoting the conservative death cult).

Carlson began his campaign last winter by pretending that any efforts to vaccinate the public were some form of "social control." Then in April, when public health experts were recommending that vaccinated people still wear masks, he suggested, "maybe it doesn't work and they're simply not telling you that."

Now, he's moved on from mere skepticism about the vaccine's effectiveness to outright fear mongering. Here he is only last week.

Between late December of 2020 and last month, a total of 3,362 people apparently died after getting the COVID vaccine in the United States. The actual number is almost certainly higher than that, perhaps vastly higher than that.

You get the implication, right? That vaccine all those government officials (evil Dr. Fauci, fake president Biden and others) are urging you to get is dangerously lethal! It'll kill you! Carlson's gimmick has always been to ensnare his viewers by manufacturing reasons for them to be angry. To hear him tell it he's "just asking questions" about whether a malevolent government is purposely executing its citizens. But really he's simply stoking fury.

[realitista]

It may be a cult, but we should know what they want.

Conservatism (big C) has always had one goal and little c general conservatism is a myth. Conservatism has the singular goal of maintaining an aristocracy that inherits political power and pushing others down to create an under class. In support of that is a morality based on a person’s inherent status as good or bad - not actions. Of course the thing that determines if someone is good or bad is whether they inhabit the aristocracy.

Another way, Conservatives - those who wish to maintain a class system - assign moral value to people and not actions. Those not in the aristocracy are immoral and deserve punishment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4CI2vk3ugk

https://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/agre/conservatism.html

Part of this is posted a lot: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288 I like the concept of Conservatism vs. anything else.

*****

A Bush speech writer takes the assertion for granted: It's all about the upper class vs. democracy. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/06/why-do-democracies-fail/530949/ “Democracy fails when the Elites are overly shorn of power.”

Read here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conservatism/ and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism#History and see that all of the major thought leaders in Conservatism have always opposed one specific change (democracy at the expense of aristocratic power). At some point non-Conservative intellectuals and/or lying Conservatives tried to apply the arguments of conservatism to generalized “change.”

The philosophic definition of something shouldn't be created by only adherents, but also critics, - and the Stanford page (despite taking pains to justify small c conservatism) includes criticisms - so we can conclude generalized conservatism (small c) is a myth at best and a Trojan Horse at worst.

*****

Incase you don’t want to read the David Frum piece here is a highlight that democracy only exists at the leisure of the elite represented by Conservatism.

>The most crucial variable predicting the success of a democratic transition is the self-confidence of the incumbent elites. If they feel able to compete under democratic conditions, they will accept democracy. If they do not, they will not.

And the single thing that most accurately predicts elite self-confidence, as Ziblatt marshals powerful statistical and electoral evidence to argue, is the ability to build an effective, competitive conservative political party before the transition to democracy occurs.

Conservatism, manifest as a political party is simply the effort of the Elites to maintain their privileged status. One prior attempt at rebuttal blocked me when we got to: why is it that specifically Conservative parties align with the interests of the Elite?

*****

There is a key difference between conservatives and others that is often overlooked. For liberals, actions are good, bad, moral, etc and people are judged based on their actions. For Conservatives, people are good, bad, moral, etc and the status of the person is what dictates how an action is viewed.

In the world view of the actual Conservative leadership - those with true wealth or political power - , the aristocracy is moral by definition and the working class is immoral by definition and deserving of punishment for that immorality. This is where the laws don't apply trope comes from or all you’ll often see “rules for thee and not for me.” The aristocracy doesn't need laws since they are inherently moral. Consider the divinely ordained king: he can do no wrong because he is king, because he is king at God’s behest. The anti-poor aristocratic elite still feel that way.

This is also why people can be wealthy and looked down on: if Bill Gates tries to help the poor or improve worker rights too much he is working against the aristocracy.

*****

If we extend analysis to the voter base: conservative voters view other conservative voters as moral and good by the state of being labeled conservative because they adhere to status morality and social classes. It's the ultimate virtue signaling. They signal to each other that they are inherently moral. It’s why voter base conservatives think “so what” whenever any of these assholes do nasty anti democratic things. It’s why Christians seem to ignore Christ.

While a liberal would see a fair or moral or immoral action and judge the person undertaking the action, a conservative sees a fair or good person and applies the fair status to the action. To the conservative, a conservative who did something illegal or something that would be bad on the part of someone else - must have been doing good. Simply because they can’t do bad.

To them Donald Trump is inherently a good person as a member of the aristocracy. The conservative isn’t lying or being a hypocrite or even being "unfair" because - and this is key - for conservatives past actions have no bearing on current actions and current actions have no bearing on future actions so long as the aristocracy is being protected. Lindsey Graham is "good" so he says to delay SCOTUS confirmations that is good. When he says to move forward: that is good.

To reiterate: All that matters to conservatives is the intrinsic moral state of the actor (and the intrinsic moral state that matters is being part of the aristocracy). Obama was intrinsically immoral and therefore any action on his part was “bad.” Going further - Trump, or the media rebranding we call Mitt Romney, or Moscow Mitch are all intrinsically moral and therefore they can’t do “bad” things. The one bad thing they can do is betray the class system.

*****

The consequences of the central goal of conservatism and the corresponding actor state morality are the simple political goals to do nothing when problems arise and to dismantle labor & consumer protections. The non-aristocratic are immoral, inherently deserve punishment, and certainly don’t deserve help. They *want* the working class to get fucked by global warming. They *want* people to die from COVID19. Etc.

Montage of McConnell laughing at suffering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTqMGDocbVM&ab_channel=HuffPost

OH LOOK, months after I first wrote this it turns out to be validated by conservatives themselves: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/16/trump-appointee-demanded-herd-immunity-strategy-446408

Why do the conservative voters seem to vote against their own interest? Why does /selfawarewolves and /leopardsatemyface happen? They simply think they are higher on the social ladder than they really are and want to punish those below them for the immorality.

Absolutely everything Conservatives say and do makes sense when applying the above. This is powerful because you can now predict with good specificity what a conservative political actor will do.

*****

We still need to address more familiar definitions of conservatism (small c) which are a weird mash-up including personal responsibility and incremental change. Neither of those makes sense applied to policy issues. The only opposed change that really matters is the destruction of the aristocracy in favor of democracy. For some reason the arguments were white washed into a general “opposition to change.”

* This year a few women can vote, next year a few more, until in 100 years all women can vote?

* This year a few kids can stop working in mines, next year a few more...

* We should test the waters of COVID relief by sending a 1200 dollar check to 500 families. If that goes well we’ll do 1500 families next month.

* But it’s all in when they want to separate migrant families to punish them. It’s all in when they want to invade the Middle East for literal generations.

The incremental change argument is asinine. It’s propaganda to avoid concessions to labor.

The personal responsibility argument falls apart with the whole "keep government out of my medicare thing." Personal responsibility just means “I deserve free things, but people more poor than me don't."

Look: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yTwpBLzxe4U

*****

And for good measure I found video and sources interesting on an overlapping topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vymeTZkiKD0

*****

Some links incase anyone doubts that the contemporary American voter base was purposefully machined and manipulated into its mangle of abortion, guns, war, and “fiscal responsibility.” What does fiscal responsibility even mean? Who describes themselves as fiscally irresponsible?

Here is Atwater talking behind the scenes. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/news/2013/03/27/58058/the-religious-right-wasnt-created-to-battle-abortion/

a little academic abstract to lend weight to conservatives at the time not caring about abortion. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-policy-history/article/abs/gops-abortion-strategy-why-prochoice-republicans-became-prolife-in-the-1970s/C7EC0E0C0F5FF1F4488AA47C787DEC01

They were casting about for something to rile a voter base up and abortion didn't do it. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/02/05/race-not-abortion-was-founding-issue-religious-right/A5rnmClvuAU7EaThaNLAnK/story.html

The role religion played entwined with institutionalized racism. https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisladd/2017/03/27/pastors-not-politicians-turned-dixie-republican/?sh=31e33816695f

https://www.salon.com/2019/07/01/the-long-southern-strategy-how-southern-white-women-drove-the-gop-to-donald-trum/

Likely the best:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133

I'll leave it at that. Anyone who can read these and come away doubting the architecting of the contemporary American Conservative voter base is a lost cause (like the Confederacy).

Via Gray Idolon on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/kxtuwh/its_no_longer_a_political_party_its_a_cult_former/gjci4ua/?context=5

[go-redgirl]

China Asks: Is Biden Vaccine Giveaway to India Plagued by ‘Overt Racism’?

The Chinese government newspaper Global Times followed up criticism of the United States for not offering India aid in fighting the Chinese coronavirus pandemic — a false claim — by asking Tuesday if the aid offered was the product of “overt racism.”

India, at press time, is experiencing the most rapid rates of Chinese coronavirus infection anywhere in the world since the pandemic began. Its hospitals are struggling to treat all patients that require intensive care and, given the sudden demand for oxygen tanks, is also facing a crime wave as vandals try to steal oxygen shipments meant for coronavirus victims.

India documented 319,509 new cases of coronavirus on Monday and nearly 3,000 deaths. It has documented over 17 million cases nationwide since the pandemic began.

President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he would ease export restrictions to allow for greater shipments of raw materials used to make Chinese coronavirus vaccines to India. Washington would also send “oxygen-related supplies, vaccine materials, and therapeutics” to India to help stop the spread of the virus. The U.S. also announced it would share tens of millions of doses of a Chinese coronavirus vaccine developed by the European firm AstraZeneca with the world; the majority are expected to go to India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a close ally of the United States, thanked the U.S. government for its support.

The Global Times condemned the U.S. for aiding its ally Tuesday, noting the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the United States and that several countries have paused the distribution of the product over concerns that it may cause rare blood clots in some patients.

“Washington is sending out its vaccine stockpiles to other countries bit by bit, like squeezing a toothpaste tube,” the Chinese outlet claimed. “Is it categorizing people into classes? Is there overt racism and discrimination?”

The publication did not elaborate on that question, instead accusing the U.S. of distributing “inferior” vaccines to other nations generally. It appeared to imply, however, that, by offering India AstraZeneca brand products, Washington was making a statement against ethnic Indian people.

More pointedly, the Global Times asked, “why AstraZeneca but not Pfizer?”

The vaccine against Chinese coronavirus developed by Pfizer is in active distribution in the United States, the first of its kind to be approved by the FDA. It is also available around the world and, soon, in China, after the Communist Party admitted Chinese-made vaccines “don’t have very high protection rates.”

The Pfizer product has tested at about 95 percent efficacy in preventing all coronavirus infections, compared to AstraZeneca’s, which has tested at 79 percent effective in preventing only symptomatic infections.

The Global Times answered its own question: the U.S. government “thinks it should realize immunity as soon as possible and then distribute the inferior vaccines to other countries,” it denounced angrily. Unlike China, no experts have expressed concern that the U.S. will lag in herd immunity due to low levels of vaccination, potentially threatening the rest of the world. This outraged the Global Times writers.

The government propaganda outlet went on to describe America’s prioritizing of the vaccination of its own citizens — unlike China, which has sold millions of doses of its dubious products to the world while its own citizens have largely opted against receiving a vaccine — as “depressing to the world.”

“When it comes to vaccines, the US and some developing countries can be compared as this: While rich people have wine and dining, poor people die of cold and hunger by the roadside,” the Global Times railed. “And this is just a microcosm of US hegemony. Such hegemonism is deeply embedded in every aspect of US foreign relations. This includes its abuse of the dollar advantage and its greedy and perverted pursuit of national security.”

Elsewhere on Tuesday, the Global Times condemned the aid to India as “too late” and “selfish and hypocritical.”

The Chinese government newspaper displayed the same attitude against the United States on Sunday when it falsely reported that America would not help India at all.

“The ugly ‘America First’ doctrine on vaccines was fully revealed by the coronavirus outbreak in India,” the newspaper declared. “The world cannot allow the U.S. to abuse the right to define international justice. Washington has refused to share vaccines with developing countries proportionally. The world should jointly condemn it, making Washington bend its head, like a rat scurrying across the street with everybody chasing it.”

The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly offered India aid in public statements, but not actually sent anything for free there at press time. China’s factories are answering the demand for personal protective gear and other medical supplies for a profit, however, struggling to keep up with paid orders from Indian hospitals.

“China has been following closely the epidemic situation in India and expressed sympathies over the worsening situation. We expressed readiness early on to help curb the latest surge,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters Monday. “You asked about Indian companies’ purchase of China’s anti-epidemic medical supplies. As far as I know, that’s normal business interaction.”

READ MORE STORIES ABOUT:

Asia Health National Security China communism corona virus India Joe Biden racism vaccines

[tinyshe]

Story at-a-glance

Mercola.com has been labeled a national security threat by British and American intelligence agencies that are collaborating to eliminate “anti-vaccine propaganda” from public discussion using sophisticated cyberwarfare tools

Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), has made statements implying that people who question the safety and necessity of a COVID-19 vaccine might be prone to violent extremism — a defamatory statement that has no basis in reality

In a December 22, 2020, Twitter post, the CCDH states that “Anti-vaxxers have been meeting secretly to plan how to stop the COVID vaccine.” According to The Washington Post, the CCDH report quotes “leaked audio” from this supposedly “secret” meeting

However, audio was not “leaked,” as it came from presentations given at the Fifth International Public Conference on Vaccination, held online October 16 through 18, 2020 that was in no way "private" or held in secret. It was open to the public just like the previous four conferences on vaccination that NVIC has sponsored beginning in 1997

Censorship is anathema to a democratically run, free and open society. While there may not be a benefit to allowing misinformation to be disseminated, the risks of censoring are simply too grave to be justifiable

As detailed in "Spy Agencies Threaten to 'Take Out' Mercola," this website has been labeled a national security threat by British and American intelligence agencies that are collaborating to eliminate "anti-vaccine propaganda" from public discussion using sophisticated cyberwarfare tools.1,2,3

In a December 22, 2020, article,4 The Hill claims the "anti-vaccination movement sees COVID-19 as an opportunity" to strengthen its position, stating that "As public health officials seek to reassure Americans on the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine, anti-vaccine efforts could prevent the country from reaching herd immunity."

According to a November 9, 2020, report in The Times,5 the British "government regards tackling false information about COVID-19 vaccination as a rising priority," ostensibly for the same reason. But does concern for implementation of public health policy really justify the use of cyberwarfare against those who raise questions about vaccine safety?

Wouldn't vaccine safety be part and parcel of a successful public health campaign? Doesn't public trust play a significant part as well? The fact that they're trying to shut down any and all conversations about vaccines — using warfare tactics no less — suggests that the planned mass vaccination campaign has very little to do with keeping the public healthy and safe. It's about controlling the public, for some undisclosed purpose.

'Anti-Hate' Group Defames Vaccine Safety Advocates

In July 2020, Imran Ahmed, a member of the Steering Committee on Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force under the British government's Commission for Countering Extremism and the chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), told The Independent6 he considers anti-vaxxers "an extremist group that pose a national security risk," because "once someone has been exposed to one type of conspiracy it's easy to lead them down a path where they embrace more radical world views that can lead to violent extremism."

In other words, Ahmed implies that people who question the safety and necessity of a COVID-19 vaccine might be prone to violent extremism — a defamatory statement that has no basis in reality.

In its report, "The Anti-Vaxx Playbook,"7 CCDH identifies six leading online "anti-vaxxers" — Barbara Loe Fisher, Joseph Mercola, Del Bigtree, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Sherri Tenpenny and Andrew Wakefield — and outlined an alleged anti-vaxxer "plan to attack a forthcoming COVID vaccine" based on remarks made by speakers during the Fifth International Public Conference on Vaccination, sponsored by the non-profit, Nacional Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) and held online October 16 through 18, 2020.

According to The Washington Post,8 the report quotes "leaked audio" from the conference. Similarly, in a December 22, 2020, Twitter post,9 the CCDH states that "Anti-vaxxers have been meeting secretly to plan how to stop the COVID vaccine. We were there. Today we're exposing their playbook."

It's rather laughable. Just who is the conspiracy theorist here? There was no audio to be "leaked" since it was a PUBLIC conference, open to absolutely anyone and everyone, just like the previous four conferences on vaccination that NVIC has held beginning in 1997. It was openly promoted by NVIC, this website, as well as many other groups and was about as far from a "secret meeting" as you could possibly get.

Since the CCDH admitted "being there," they must have paid the nominal registration attendance fee of $80, as did more than 3,000 other registered attendees from the U.S, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa. The NVIC conference, which was originally scheduled to be held in a hotel, was produced online for the first time after COVID-19 social distancing and travel restrictions were instituted in March, 2020.

Vaccine Concerns Are Growing Rapidly

The CCDH report also lists several private Facebook groups dedicated to vaccine information, including "Vaccination Re-Education Discussion Forum," "Stop Mandatory Vaccination," "Vaccine Choices" and "Restore Liability for the Vaccine Makers."

CCDH admits tracking and spying on 425 vaccine-related Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter accounts. In all, these accounts have 59.2 million followers, "nearly 877,000 more than they had in June," CCDH notes, adding that:10

"This means that anti-vaxxers grew fast enough to outpace the removal of accounts belonging to influential figures such as Del Bigtree, Larry Cook and David Icke in that period. Those removals led to a loss of 3.2 million followers from the total, while other anti-vaxxers in our sample gained over 4.1 million …

Analysis of this year-long growth also shows the substantial contributions that alternative health entrepreneurs and conspiracy theorists make to the reach of the anti-vaccine movement.

Entrepreneurs now have 22.6 million followers, supplying two-fifths of the anti-vaccine movement's online following. Anti-vaccine conspiracy accounts grew by nearly 50 percent over the year, starting at 15.5 million followers in 2019 and rising to 23.1 million by December 2020."

According to the CCDH, "Anti-vaxxers have developed a sophisticated playbook for spreading uncertainty about a COVID vaccine."11 To counter this information, medical and scientific professionals need to "take action," by which the CCDH means they must push for COVID-19 vaccination.

"To do so, they must convince the public that COVID is dangerous and give them confidence that a vaccine is safe and effective," the CCDH writes,12 adding that anti-vaxxers "win the debate by default if a skeptical public fail to take action and use the vaccine."

'Anti-Vaxx Playbook'

Just what is the "anti-vaxx playbook"? According to the CCDH, the "playbook for spreading uncertainty" about the vaccine involves five key steps:13

Establishing "a 'master narrative' comprising three key messages: COVID is not dangerous, the vaccine is dangerous and vaccine advocates cannot be trusted"

Adapting that master narrative for "online subcultures" such as "Alternative health entrepreneurs, conspiracy theorists, and accounts directed at parents or ethnic communities"

Offering "online answering spaces where people with doubts about COVID or the vaccine can direct their questions"

Converting vaccine-hesitant individuals into anti-vaxxers and then training them to become "more effective activists"

Mitigating attacks on their online infrastructure by migrating followers to "alt-tech" platforms such as Telegram and Parler and developing "techniques for undermining fact-checking"

In the report, the CCDH details many of the specific messages shared by me and others, such as deaths being falsely attributed to COVID-19, thereby artificially inflating mortality statistics, the fact that COVID-19 has a 99+% survival rate unless you're very old and have underlying comorbidities, and the fact that there are now several effective therapeutics for COVID-19, making a vaccine less relevant.

"Anti-vaxxers take advantage of existing media and political narratives around the speed of vaccine development to claim trials have been rushed, and that it is too soon to know if COVID vaccines are safe," the CCDH states. "Variations of this narrative highlight perceived shortcomings in clinical trials, and draw on past examples of vaccines with adverse effects."

Zero Solid Counterarguments Made

Reading through the CCDH's report, I'm struck by the irony that none of the so-called "anti-vaxx arguments" are actually met by solid pro-vaccine counterarguments or data.

CCDH does not negate or even debate the accuracy of any of them. It just brushes them aside as misinformation and lies without providing any proof whatsoever. In fact, the report summarizes our concerns so well that I'd encourage everyone to read it.

At the end of the report, they do list a number of strategies that pro-vaccine advocates should use to counter anti-vaccine messages, but again, nowhere do they recommend leaning on published science.

Instead, it's all about shaming people who question vaccines as "conspiracy theorists," promoting harrowing stories of people who got sick with COVID-19 and "shouting about getting vaccinated."

"Recipients of the vaccine should post about getting it — such a campaign could create authentic social proof and work against the anti-vaxxers' aim of creating doubt around the safety of vaccines. 'I've had the vaccine' Twibbons and Instagram filters could also help achieve this," CCDH writes.14

CCDH Promotes Draconian Censorship

Other recommendations issued by the CCDH include deplatforming anyone who questions vaccines. "Deplatforming works," they say, adding that:15

"The problem lies with a very small number of accounts. The 59 million followers of anti-vaxxer social media accounts identified in this report are following just 425 accounts, pages, groups and channels across Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

The 10 anti-vaxxers we track with the largest cross-platform followings make up the majority of the total audience for anti-vaxxers online. These are the 'superspreaders' of anti-vaxx misinformation.

As this report has demonstrated, anti-vaxxers are concerned by the prospect of losing their privileged position on social media platforms … the evidence is clear that the best way of preventing someone falling for a conspiracy theory is to prevent them from seeing it in the first place."

The CCDH also urges legislators to "hold platforms accountable" through fines and criminal sanctions, legal liability for forum administrators and/or "transparency for the online advertising world" — in other words, warn advertisers that the platform they're supporting with their advertising dollars is promoting "medical misinformation" and "anti-vaccine conspiracy theories."

I am surprised by their recommendation because to the best I can discern, ALL the major media platforms have already censored every major site that questions vaccines many months ago. They cannot censor them any more than they already are. Most of the YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts have been heavily censored or deplatformed.

Greenwald on Big Tech Censoring

In the video at the top of this article, UnHerd interviews Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald, who is one of my favorite articulate journalists. At the end of October 2020, Greenwald resigned from The Intercept — a publication he co-founded in 2014 — after the publication refused to publish an article in which he raised a critique against presidential candidate Joe Biden.16

According to Greenwald, the refusal to publish the piece violated his "contractual right of editorial freedom." In the interview, he stresses the dangers inherent with online censorship by big tech and social media platforms. Who should be in control of "the truth"? Can anyone really be designated as the ultimate source of truth, be it about vaccines or anything else?

What looks like a proven orthodoxy one month becomes a gross error the next, and that's exactly why things have to be debated rather than suppressed. ~ Glenn Greenwald

As noted by Greenwald, social media platforms claim the right to be the arbiters of truth by hiring so-called fact-checkers and relying on experts at the World Health Organization.

However, we have repeatedly seen the WHO issue statements that have turned out to be inaccurate or false — sometimes by their own admission — so just how reliable are they? By strictly sticking with the WHO's guidance and censoring everything else, the censors have in many instances promoted misinformation exclusively.

Greenwald gives the example of masks. In February and March 2020, the WHO did not recommend wearing face masks and actually warned they might be counterproductive. Now all of a sudden, masks are a must, even though the science hasn’t changed one bit.

In fact, the evidence that masks don't protect against viral transmission has only grown stronger. Early on the WHO also questioned whether human-to-human transmission was even possible and cast doubt on the true danger of the virus.

"That's the nature of human fallibility," Greenwald says. "What looks like a proven orthodoxy one month becomes a gross error the next, and that's exactly why these things have to be debated rather than suppressed."

Risks of Censorship Are Too Grave To Be Justifiable

When asked whether he believes nothing should ever be censored on health grounds, he wisely replies that not only do people need to rely on their own common sense when encountering information, but institutions also need to work to build credibility and public trust.

Indeed, refusing to hold a discussion about the scientific evidence does not build trust. Forcibly shutting down anyone who raises sensible questions does not build trust. Destroying the reputations and livelihoods of people who report on questions raised does not build trust.

In short, the medical industry, and the vaccine industry in particular, have severe trust and credibility deficits that they themselves created and continue to grow with the help of big tech and national intelligence agencies who are going to extreme lengths to prevent counter narratives from getting out.

Greenwald also points out that the U.S. has never before allowed government to intervene in the public discourse in this way. It should be undisputable that censorship is anathema to a democratically run, free and open society. While there may not be a benefit to allowing misinformation to be disseminated, the risks of censoring are simply too grave to be justifiable.

Big tech censorship is even more insidious than government censorship, because it's far more opaque. At least if the government says it's going to censor certain kinds of expression, there's some level of transparency in how that's being done.

Private tech companies, on the other hand, move the goal post at will, and they're never entirely clear about who will be censored, for what, exactly, or how. What's more, there's no real process for appeal. Greenwald points out that social media companies never really wanted to be in the position of being censors but were pressured into it by politicians, in some cases, and mainstream media journalists in others.

Journalists initially wanted to maintain control over the public discourse by restricting the competition's reach, and once social media companies relented and started censoring, the whole thing just snowballed and grew.

The problem we face now is that censorship fortifies power and is very difficult to end once it has taken hold. This in turn does not bode well for individual freedom or democracy as a whole. Censorship is a direct threat to both.

It also has a tendency to spread ever more widely, covering more and more topics as we go along. For example, there was active suppression and censorship of certain political issues leading up to the 2020 presidential election, and now there's censoring of evidence showing election interference. What will be next?

Technocratic Totalitarianism Is at Our Doorstep

The fact, then, that U.S. and U.K. intelligence agencies are getting involved in censoring should tell us something. It tells us it's not really about protecting public health. It's about strengthening government control over the population. The fact that intelligence agencies view vaccine safety advocates as a national security threat also tells us that government is now in the business of protecting private companies, essentially blurring the line between the two.

If you criticize one you criticize the other. In short, if you impede or endanger the profitability of private companies, you are now viewed as a national security threat, and this falls squarely within the parameters of technocracy, in which government is dissolved and replaced with the unelected leaders of private enterprise.

The right and freedom to critique one's government is a hallmark of democracy, so this state-sponsored war against truthful information is clear evidence of a radical turn toward technocratic totalitarianism. While the situation may appear hopeless, it's not yet too late to turn things around. For some encouragement, listen to Kennedy Jr.'s speech below.

Resistance is the only way forward, and one way you can resist censorship is to find ways around it. One such way is to subscribe to this newsletter, and any other newsletters you find interesting, and to share information you find valuable with your family and friends via more old-school means such as email and text message.

At the bottom of each page, you'll find an "Email Article" button that makes my articles easy to share. Also consider eliminating Facebook and all Google-based services to cut down on their data mining of your personal information, as all of it is being used against you in one way or another, whether you're aware of it or not.

source

[thelexlucifer]

How to prepare for Climate Change.

Climate change is a complex phenomenon and can only be modeled. The complexity of such models usually correlate with the complexity of the phenomena to be modeled. In the current debate, the future of the planet is modeled by the amount of a single gas (carbon-dioxide, CO2). The model therefore is likely to fail, predictions based on it are likely to be inadequate. Instead of a well-thought approach, we get propaganda iconed by a girl who suffers from a mental illness. One major ingredient to develop momentum is that pupils can take free from school to run after Greta. Among Greta’s followers you also find folks from the radical left, prepared to use violence, such as the black block. The campaign is funded by her parents, which work in the field of media ... with strong ties to folks that is likely to profit from “green technologies”. Hence, technology reducing the emission of carbon-dioxide - which can include nuclear power plants and other technologies that exploit the planet / population in some way, while simply be low on CO2.

Bogus science and metal illness leveraged by manipulative media are currently dominating the public discourse.

Further winners are left-wing parties, that have the reduction of CO2 on their agendas. Effects become already visible in elections within EU member states. You will notice that they also use synergies to other items on their agendas, especially equality. They already criticize that climate change hits people along the strata in different ways. And they already demand to take from the wealthy ones and redistribute to the poor. New taxes are already on the way - sometimes even demanded by misled people. Please read my blogpost about Satanic capital to learn about the backgrounds for that leftist strategy.

Taken together, climate change is another great example why it is important to ask who is gaining from an initiative (”qui bono?”). If you are not part of the answer, you should be aware and beware.

Self proetction

But now let’s talk about protective action. You need to protect your mind, your wealth, your body and your beloved ones. In that very order, as each component must stay safe in order to be able to protect the following ones. 

To protect your mind you need to seek for proper information. With regard to science, you should rely on papers that provide a comprehensive view on climate change. Hence, models that not solely consider CO2 but also the status of the earth’s magnetic field and activity of the sun. Innovations and solutions should be sustainable. Nuclear energy is not and electrical cars are neither (Please refer to my posting “Electrical cars - the good guy badge for the 21st century” for details). I personally believe that hydrogen will play an important role and just recently German energy providers discussed a network for delivering hydrogen. But there might be other sustainable solutions out there. Quality media should consider report accordingly. From quality media I demand that they are aware of those aspects and not just tune-in into a media campaign. For the latter, Facebook would be enough. By relying on solid information an avoiding to draw attention to poor information, you can preserve your mind, while others run after a girl suffering from a mental-illness. The herd simply serves as Greta’s co-addicts.

You need to protect your wealth. In our modern, specialized society you need money for every good and service that you need. Especially for the following protection shields you will need to make investments and pay for intelligence and travelling. Wealth protection can only be granted by a sophisticated plan, taking into account international tax regimes. In this matter you want to consult proven experts. Wealth-protection also is about securing your income, bearing in mind that you may have to relocate. This can be accomplished in two ways: One way is to do business that you can do from anywhere, typically by working online (”Digital Nomade”). That includes eCommerce, Blogging, Coding etc. The 2nd way is to develop and maintain skills that are demanded everywhere in the world. Data Science is a current field that faces growing demand at least in the develop world and that has chances to keep-up that demand even during climate shifts (as data has to be analyzed in order to get to reliable forecasts).

Your body, or to be more precisely your health, needs protection, too. Depending on where you stay, the growing heat might demand more from your body. Maintaining a health lifestyle is therefore important. You should maintain high hygiene standards, including immunisation. In troical areas (and some areas might become that) you need to protect against mosquitos, as they can transfer diseases that you can not immunize against (for instance Dengue fever). An important pillar in protecting against mosquitos is a room that is dense, so that no mosquitos can intrude. In tropical areas that usually implicates proper a/c, so that you can sleep during night without opening a window. Where to stay (in order to escape negative impact), needs intelligence, which you need to buy from serious sources. Relocating there means additional costs. And starting a life in a new area needs upfront investment. Therefore, it is essential to protect your wealth and your income streams, as outlined in the paragraph above.

Maintaining healthy and sovereign is a prerequsitie for taking care of those whom you love. You need to lead them even through tough times that might be ahead.

All in all I dare say that Satanism is the philosophy of choice, especially today. Understanding the human creature, seeing the 3rd side and indulge life apart from the herd, is a beneficial strategy. Also or not to say especially in times of climate change.

[cosmicmomma]

To The Mom Avoiding Unvaccinated Children,

I saw your meme. I saw your messages. You want the world to know what you think about unvaccinated children. You want them to know that you think of them as disease-ridden carriers and that you want to keep them as far away from your child as possible.

I get it. You’re upset. But you need to realize what you’re also saying when you post things like this. Your posts are communicating fear and uncertainty about a product that you’re trying to endorse.

They’re also telling the world that you really haven’t thought this all the way through. Because let’s be honest, do you really want to know who is and is not vaccinated? Do you really intend on “unfriending” and avoiding every single unvaccinated person? If so, I suggest you brace yourself. Because if you looked just a little bit deeper, this is what you would come to find.

YOU NEED TO KEEP YOUR CHILD AWAY FROM THE MAJORITY OF THE POPULATION–INCLUDING YOURSELF.

The majority of the population is not “up to date.” The CDC recommended vaccine schedule is constantly adding more and more vaccines to the schedule, beginning with just a handful of vaccines in the mid 1900’s to about 14 doses in the 1980’s to the current recommendation of 72 doses from pregnancy to 18 years (1). Unless you’ve had all 72 doses of vaccines like your child is expected to get, you yourself are considered “unvaccinated” or “partially vaccinated” and definitely not “up-to-date.” This also goes for all adults, teens, and even older children.

You also need to know that vaccine immunity, if even attained, wanes over time (2, 3). It is unknown how long this so-called immunity lasts, and unless you pull titers on everyone in your family and contact list, it is impossible to know exactly what everyone is actually “immune” to.

The whole idea of herd immunity is just a myth, and if you look into the history of the concept, you’d find that it was a term coined in the 1930’s to explain the immunity attained by natural infection–not vaccination.

If your goal is to avoid everyone who is unvaccinated by today’s standards, then you’ll have to find out when the last CDC recommendation was made in order to avoid everyone born before that time. You’ll also have to find out what vaccines each person has received and declined from that point forward. Doing this for each person you meet is what it takes to truly keep your child away from the “unvaccinated.”

YOU SHOULD NEVER TRAVEL OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES WITH YOUR CHILD.

I hope you don’t like traveling because you’ll really struggle with this if you are trying to avoid the unvaccinated. You see, the United States vaccinates far more than the rest of the industrialized world (4). In most cases, we give up to twice as many vaccines.

Some countries have banned certain vaccines because of the associated adverse reactions. Japan had postponed vaccination to the age of two in order to lower their incidences of SIDS (5). The UK does not vaccinate for the chicken pox because the vaccine can lead to more severe and higher incidences of shingles and chickenpox in adulthood (6), and many countries just don’t think that the chicken pox is that big of a deal (7).

If you truly want to stay away from all of the unvaccinated people in the world, then also stay away from foreign tourists, immigrants, and other countries. This will be what you need to do to keep your child truly “safe.”

YOU WOULD NEED TO KEEP YOUR CHILD AWAY FROM EVERYONE.

I know this sounds like a bit of a stretch, but the reality is that vaccines only somewhat “protect” us from about 16 diseases. The media does a great job of focusing on these 16 diseases in order to ensure pharmaceutical profits and vaccine compliance. They will cover every single case of the chicken pox or measles in a “doom-and-gloom” type of broadcast even if the nearest incidence is 1000 miles away. Notice that you will rarely hear anything about all of the other diseases in this world.

You may find it overwhelming to find that there are hundreds of bacteria and viruses capable of spreading infection. There’s leprosy, typhoid, scarlet fever, hand foot and mouth disease, tuberculosis, and so many more that you probably don’t even think about because they’re not being drilled into your psyche.

Should I fear you because you have not been vaccinated for any of those diseases? Think about that one for just a bit. You can’t spread what you don’t have, and just because you haven’t been vaccinated for a disease, doesn’t mean you carry it.

We’re all unvaccinated for the majority of infectious diseases. If you truly believe that vaccines are the only way to protect your child from disease, then they won’t be as safe as you think they should be.

YOU NEED TO RETHINK WHAT YOU’VE BEEN TOLD ABOUT VACCINES

You may strongly believe in vaccines, but you need to understand that not all of them prevent the spread of infection like you think they do. The pertussis vaccine only eliminates or reduces symptoms. It does not prevent the spread of infection, which can make for a dangerous situation because of the possibility of asymptomatic transmission (8).

Live-virus vaccines, such as the Rotavirus vaccine, shed and are capable of transmitting infection as well, especially to those who are immune-compromised (9-section 5.4). Some vaccines only prevent infection against certain strains, leaving your child more vulnerable to mutated or alternative strains that are far more dangerous.

Tetanus is not contagious. Hepatitis B can only be spread via sexual intercourse, shared needles, or by an infected mother at birth. Did you know that if a child at your child’s school has Hepatitis B, they cannot disclose this to you? The same goes for HIV. Or HPV. If those do not concern you, then why should another child’s vaccination status matter?

What should really matter is keeping your child as healthy as possible by feeding them nutrient-dense foods and making sure they gets proper exercise and sleep. Reducing their toxicity load can also help immensely. This can be done by limiting exposures to toxins and heavy metals, including those found in vaccines. You may even find it interesting that unvaccinated children are often healthier overall than vaccinated children for this very reason (10). It really changes the message when you take a closer look, doesn’t it?

I know you’re pretty set on what you believe. You’re afraid. You’ve been led to fear disease in order to vaccinate your child, and then further led to fear those who don’t vaccinate in order to make sure that they vaccinate their children as well. Because let’s be honest–if vaccines really worked the way you’ve been told they do, you really shouldn’t be worried and broadcasting your fears. If you truly believed in vaccines, your memes should exert confidence instead of fear.

The truth is, however, you worry because you’ve been told to worry. It wasn’t always like this though. People weren’t always afraid–even long before we had 72 doses of vaccines and high levels of compliance. You see, all of the infectious diseases we vaccinate for have not been deadly in this country since prior to the introduction of vaccines. Fear has just been used to sell vaccines. It’s all part of the plan to get everyone vaccinated.

I know it’s not what you’ve been told, and I know that rethinking everything can be scary. It may even be scarier for you than the diseases you fear, but you need to step back and do your own research. Use logic and reasoning to think through the propaganda. Learn the actual history behind vaccination (11).

And then, ask yourself, Why would someone choose not to vaccinate their child? You may be surprised at what you discover. You may also be surprised to find that many of us actually did vaccinate, and our children suffered from severe adverse reactions. It’s not just 1 in a million like you’ve been told.

Instead of fearing the majority of the population for being unvaccinated, fear those who are spreading the lies in order to coerce the population into mandatory vaccine compliance. Discover the truth for yourself and then rise up and share it, so that others may do the same. The truth is liberating, and it can truly set you free.

1. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/hcp/imz/child-indications.html

2. http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2018/03/21/mumps-vaccine-protection-wanes

3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26091979

4. http://rescuepost.typepad.com/files/gr-autism_and_vaccines_world_special_report1.pdf

5. http://www.truthlibrary.info/articles/corporate-fraud/japan-and-the-mmr-vaccine-and-the-sids-connection/

6. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/chickenpox-vaccine-questions-answers/#routineschedule

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8CbgaDsoHs

8. https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-015-0382-8

9. https://www.gsksource.com/pharma/content/dam/GlaxoSmithKline/US/en/Prescribing_Information/Rotarix/pdf/ROTARIX-PI-PIL.PDF

10. http://vactruth.com/2014/02/26/unvaccinated-children-healthier/

Find more articles like this one here..

11. Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History

https://anupstreamlife.com/a-letter-to-the-mom-avoiding-unvaccinated-children/

[fidothefinch]

our hands were still

I won’t forget the look on her face, when she realized what she had said. 

“Anne?” my teacher had asked, breaking the silence. 

It was a small club. Six of us, after school, making paper flowers for the upcoming festival. Nobody looked up from their work. Our hands were still.

My teacher repeated her question. “Anne, are you ever hungry?”

And maybe this should have been a private conversation. Anne muttered her response. “Sometimes.”

I glanced at my lunchbox, in my backpack under the desk. I still had a cheese stick leftover. I debated offering it to her, but didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.

More uncomfortable.

“Do you know where your mom is?”

I didn’t look up, but I heard fabric shift. 

My teacher asked her, “How long has she been gone?”

Pause. “A few days now.” She shifted in her seat. “She does that sometimes.”

Anne and her younger brother walked to and from school every day. They lived less than a block away; they joined the herds of students filtering in from the surrounding neighborhoods. I didn’t have any other classes with her; she was a freshman and I was a senior. She was thin and freckly, pale hair and eyes. It was just her body type; plenty of girls were long and lean in high school.

She didn’t have a dad.

This wasn’t a conversation any of us were supposed to hear.

“When she’s home, does she ever hit you?”

She was quiet. She didn’t deny it.

I stared at the stiff shoulders in front of me, hunched over a desk. Anne sat in the desk next to me, fingers white-knuckling her pencil. She had been writing some kind of Naruto fanfiction for a friend. We had been talking about it when she released her secret.

“You’re always so careful with your words. Intentional. And you’re slow to answer. I’ve wondered for a long time, but. . . you know I have to report this. Legally.” 

My teacher was opinionated and blunt. She had a temper. Many students hated her for that, but the six of us learned from her despite--or because?--of it. She liked us for that, and we gained a kind of immunity from her “devil’s advocate” attitude.

For years, I had thought it was that personality trait that made her force that conversation in front of everyone. Now I realize she was just as shocked as the rest of us. It had happened so suddenly. We were the first witnesses to Anne’s life changing.

Somebody else spoke, breaking that tremulous silence that feigned privacy. “You shouldn’t say anything.” 

June, our resident rebel without a cause, who had been vegan for a week, who skipped school because she was 18. She got away with breaking the dress code because she was too short for anyone to notice how short her shorts were.

June turned in her desk to look at Anne. “I had a friend, Danny, whose parents were pieces of shit. They just put him in a loony bin for a week and then let his parents take him back home.”

Danny skipped school to smoke cigarettes in the grocery store parking lot. He once pantsed a classmate in the hallways during class change, but ended up pulling down his underwear, too. He was caught with a gun in his truck on school property.

Most of us didn’t trust him as a reliable source.

But June had found a new cause to rebel against. “They’ll take you away from your family, and you’ll get separated from your brother. And foster families fucking suck, you’ll get abused. Don’t say anything, it’s not worth it.”

“June.” I had seen my teacher angry before, yelling at my class for taking inadequate notes, for blindly believing the political propaganda our parents fed us. (They told her they were Republicans because they were Christian. She didn’t take that well.) But this wasn’t explosive. This was a stern, quiet anger. 

“You need to shut up, right now. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She talked through her teeth.

June was oblivious. “But Danny told me--”

“Shut. Up.”

Anne was still frozen.

My teacher checked her watch. “It’s time for us to go. The janitors wanted to clean today.” Without a word, we all nodded and started cleaning up our supplies.

My teacher stood next to Anne,out in the hall, and quietly told her what would happen. She would stop by the McDonald’s and get her some food for the night. She would call CPS. In the morning, they would talk to the counselors. Together, if Anne wanted.

They left together.

It snowed so heavily the next two weeks that the city ran out of salt. Schools were closed; the festival was cancelled.

The club didn’t meet again that year. I never even knew whether Anne was gone.

[nekojitachan]

As a med student, I am considered at risk for certain diseases you can vaccinate against, like hep B, some kinds of meningitis, the goddamn flu. Especially the flu, because I have a LOT of respiratory allergies and that makes me doubly vulnerable. Also, YOUR KID COULD DIE OF PERFECTLY PREVENTABLE DISEASES. SO. Vaccinate your fucking kids. And yourself, some vaccines need to be renewed every few years. (Like tetanus and hepatitis). VACCINATE

I have various medical* members in my family, even though I went different way, career ways. I grew up watching medical shows/movies and listening to family arguing about how actors did things wrong. I also had various trauma I won’t go into right now. Regardless… yes, you VACCINATE your kids. My anthro degrees delve into WTF happens when you introduce diseases into cultures w/out immunizations (HINT PEOPLE - it’s really, REALLY BAD!!!!). My dual major of history… do I really need to explain this to people??? REALLY?

BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD

Listen, I hate needles/shots. Trauma has been involved. Legitimate trauma. Even so, I understand the need and reason for immunization. I understand, through history, how NOT BEING IMMUNIZED  (look up the whole blanket thing) how this was used as a weapon against some cultures. I understand herd immunity. If I can overcome trauma of having needles come at my face at a very young age because of the poor decisions of my parents, can realize that there’s a lot of negative propaganda about immunity shots out there, and that you should TALK TO YOUR DOCTORS if you have fears… get the eff off Facebook and talk to experts, okay? Because my greatest fear right now is my cat being over-treated, but YOUR fear is your kid.

Talk to your friggen DOCTOR. That’s all I’m asking.