The Conveyer Belt
I’m sure I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I was on bp meds and statins for a few years until about 12 or 13 years ago when I needed more tablets to control the water retention presumably cause by these medications. I stopped everything around then and the water retention went .. I still had high bp when last tested about three years ago but I will be 69 this year and am still here.
I practice tai chi and qigong irregularly and jog a mile or two from time to time ignoring the advice that it’s bad for people my age. The only pills I take are vitamins. I don’t get myself tested for anything if I can help it. I know that good health is a matter of luck as much as good judgement so my attitude is one of gratitude rather than arrogant self belief. I refuse to be scared because death is inevitable not because I am invulnerable and I understand both death and vulnerability as essential parts of my humanity.
I’ve never taken flu shots and have not sent my poo to be analysed as over 60s are advised to. I deeply resent being instructed how to manage my own body and refuse to take vaccines that I don’t trust, even under the threat of societal exclusion. I will live and die as a free human and as part of a natural world that I do not believe is out to kill me.
I’m not against vaccines or any other medical intervention. I know for sure that many people have been saved by and had their lives made livable by medical science but I see no reason for me to get onto what I see as a medical conveyer belt when every instinct screams at me that I shouldn’t. If other people’s insights and instinct and intellect (I love my alliteration) lead them to different choices that’s well and good – and I wish them well but don’t fucking try to force your choices on me.
That’s all I can say.Actually I can say more and probably will .. but not right now.
Addendum:
Although I would not take or advise taking the covid vaccines I have, I think, a nuanced view of their efficacy and utility. I have never denied that they do reduce the severity of symptoms and the likelihood of death from covid for the vaccinated by about three times (see chart). Nor has this been denied by scientists I have cited, notably, Doctors Peter McCullough, Robert Malone.
This Christmas several unvaccinated members of my family had a bad time with covid and two, with significant other health problems, were hospitalised. Other family members who have been vaccinated have not had the disease. One triple vaccinated member currently has the covid – after each injection he was ill for a couple of weeks now he says the covid is making him feel just as he did after have taken the vaccines.
Everyone has a different personal experience but from both experience and from following the debate it’s difficult to deny that the vaccines have been effective in ameliorating syptomatic disease and therefore reducing deaths. However it’s also difficult to deny that there have been adverse reactions in some people, that conversation about these has been suppressed and that the overall effects of the vaccines (based on a new technology) on the immune system has not been assessed.
Even doctors, like John Campbell, who have been very pro-vaccination, have questioned things like the administration of injections intended to be intra muscular without aspiration, the lack of treatment protocols/advice before presentation at hospital and the failure to promote vitamin D and other vitimins that might reduce succeptibility to harm from covid.
It is also becoming increasing clear that the relative benefits of the vaccines diminish and become harms as the recipients become younger – so that we know that children are more likely to be seriously harmed by the vaccines than by the virus.
There is clearly a continuum of harm .. The majority of people will suffer no or little (immediate) harm but some suffer significant harm and there may be cumulative and long term harms. We are told that significant harms are rare but really have no idea.
Beyond this however there are certain principles that should be held sacrosanct such as the inviolability of our bodies. That states are, to different degrees, effectively coercing their citizens to be vaccinated should concern us all because we can be sure that this will not end with the covid vaccinations. I think that the nations of the world are sliding towards totalitarianism and that this is reflected not just in covid measures but also, in the UK, measures such as those in the Nationality Bill and the Police Bill.
Mass Formation
This is an important, contextualising, discussion. I don’t know how to best describe it but there is the suggestion that acceptance of dominant narrative is a consequence of a sense of anomie or emptiness of meaning and then of induced focus on a singular object or threat that unites and gives purpose. I’m not going to use the v or the c words but this is an important part of understanding what is happening in relation to these.
Mattias Desmet’s recommendations at the end of the discussion are spot on.
- Continue to speak out
- Connect in the real world with people who have the feeling that something is wrong
- Don’t try to get people to go back to the the old normal but think about an alternative to the transhumanist technocratic new normal
- Non violent resistance in our actions and how we speak.
A FB friend, Scott Mann wrote:
Following malones reference to mass psychosis, here is my psychological two pennies worth.. Everyone knows or fears that the vaccines could harm them. They know the vaccines are increasingly irrelevant in protecting from covid as their efficacy wanes and new strains appear. They are rightly angry that they have been forced to be vaccinated. But too many are directing this anger against the unvaccinated.This is an example of a sadly pervasive primitive and fundamental unconscious psychological defence mechanism called identification with the aggressor. Young children and other vulnerable people subjected to violent abuse, finding themselves physically and morally helpless against attacks by those upon whom they are completely dependent for love and care, surrender their will completely to the aggressor, and identify totally with the aggressor.They cannot acknowledge their complete helplessness. They cannot acknowledge that the person that is supposed to love them actually hates and abuses them. By identifying with this person they become magically safe and strong.It is simply insane to attack someone who has had covid and therefore has at least as much protection as any vaccinated person for not getting vaccinated. They are less likely to infect others and less likely to take up scarce hospital space than a vaccinated person. Thats not taking into account possible long term harm from the vaccine which could take up a lot of hospital space.When people behave in a completely irrational fashion, unconscious psychic defence mechanisms are typically involved.
Responding I wrote:
I’ll take your two pennies worth and add two of my own. Identification with the aggressor and mass formation psychosis are I think pathological expressions of tendencies more neutrally expressed as mass formation phenomena and identification with the powerful. Simply put most people find comfort and security in crowds and kings. Perhaps about ten percent feel out place talking with crowds and walking with Kings. Cognitive ‘normies’ and ‘queers’ both groups and tendencies are necessary in maintaining virtue and the sense of common humanity but right now it’s the queer consciousness that has to hold virtue and see us through.
Consent and Coercion
Dissenting Doctors
The idea that the government is ‘guided by the science’ in it’s response to the pandemic is simply false. The notion that those supporting the use of masks, lockdowns, vaccines and vaccine passports are unquestionably supporting the public good is wrong and unhelpful.
“Despite being aware of alternative medical and scientific viewpoints you have failed to ensure an open and full discussion of the pros and cons of alternative ways of managing the pandemic.”
https://www.covid19assembly.org/doctors-open-letter/
That there is real scientific debate over, and dissent from the ‘official narrative’ is highlighted by this open letter to Boris Johnson et al. by a group of doctors and scientists. Instead of encouraging discussion the government and media and, yes, community activists, have insisted on suppressing, denying and deriding any questioning of the narrative that we should be so afraid of the Covid virus that we show consider it a moral duty to sell our own feedoms and steal the freedoms of others.
Benefits and Costs
All the data I’ve seen makes it clear that if you take a covid vaccine your chances of death or serious harm are very significantly reduced should you become infected with the virus. I accept this – but it is not the whole picture. These are the question that seem reasonable to ask:
1. What is the base probability (not compared with the vaccinated) of an unvaccinated person of my age and health profile becoming infected and seriously harmed by the virus?
This question matters because a reduction of risk from say 1% to 0.1% (for an older person) may feel substantial whereas a reduction of risk from 0.1% to 0.01% (for a younger person – figures only illustrative) feels less substantial.
We might add to this calculation the observation that a 70 year old has an optimistic 20 years of life to protect, while a 20 year old has an equally optimistic 70 years to look forward to.
If the vaccines were an unqualified good then of course no one would hesitate to take them whether they reduced risk from one in a hundred to one in a thousand or from one in a thousand to one in ten thousand. But they are not an unqualified good because these vaccines like any medical treatment carry with them some risk of harm. This leads to the second question:
2. What are the risks of these particular vaccines that should be weighed against their benefits? What efforts are being made to quantify such harms as are becoming evident?
and additionally:
3. What, particularly in the light of alleged toxcicities of vaccine induced spike proteins, can be said about the probabality of longer term harm from vaccines?I think that these questions are not only reasonable they are basic and they need to be address before people are advised, even compelled, to take the vaccine.
For some people there is no doubt whatsoever that everyone should take the covid vaccines. Even if they are personally harmed by ‘rare’ side effects they are still advocates. This is not bad. In a way I applaud this. If I am harmed by covid it will not stop me being sceptical … it will not stop me asking questions even as being harmed by an adverse effect has not stopped this Australian journalist giving answers.
Two Paths.
1. The best way to beat the virus is to improve our general health and our health care systems.
2. The best way to destroy civilisations is to surrender our freedoms to authoritarian oligarchies.
We are on path 2
Not an Operating System
‘On its website, the pharmaceutical company Moderna, which has developed a COVID-19 vaccine, compares the mRNA science in its vaccine to an “operating system” (here). The phrase is used in a metaphorical sense, not a literal one.’
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-operating-system/fact-check-the-covid-19-vaccine-is-not-an-operating-system-designed-to-program-humans-idUSKBN2A913W
Read the article if you have time but just the phrase ‘the mRNA science in its vaccine’ is jarring. ‘Science’, an abstraction, cannot be ‘in’ a vaccine or anything else. Maybe what is meant is that ‘the mRNA science used to create the vaccine is comparable to an operating system in that it can be used in the development and deployment of different nRNA vaccines’.
This is important, not nitpicking, because to suggest that there is a ‘thing’ that acts like an operating system (whether it programs humans or not) in the vaccine is to suggest the co-installation of an enabling technology alongside a specific technology that creates a specific effect.
This fact checking article is incompetently written as it suggests exactly what it intends to deny.
The Moderna statement that it references is more coherent and makes it clear that the metaphor ‘operating system’ refers to the systems used to create mRNA vaccines and not to anything ‘in’ the vaccines.
HOWEVER … the Moderna statement also points out that:
“Using mRNA to create medicines is a complex undertaking and requires overcoming novel scientific and technical challenges. We need to get the mRNA into the targeted tissue and cells while evading the immune system. If the immune system is triggered, the resultant response may limit protein production and, thus, limit the therapeutic benefit of mRNA medicines. We also need ribosomes to think the mRNA was produced naturally, so they can accurately read the instructions to produce the right protein. And we need to ensure the cells express enough of the protein to have the desired therapeutic effect. “
Moderna statement
This does imply the installation of an enabling technology; a technology that inhibits the triggering of the immune system. Might that be deleterious to the general functioning of the natural immune system?
Uncomfortable Links
The article argues that COVID-19 VACCINES LEAD TO NEW INFECTIONS AND MORTALITY. I’ve not looked at it in detail but am struck by an early paragraph:
“Two months ago, we tried to alert people to the paradoxical results of the covid19 vaccines by publishing the pre- and post-vaccination mortality curves for Israel and Great Britain [1] which already showed that these vaccinations were followed by ‘a considerable increase in contamination and mortality lasting 6 to 8 weeks after the start of vaccination.”
This is consistent with an Israeli article‘s inference that in the about 6 week gap between the first and second does when protection is incomplete the partially vaccinated are more vulnerable than the unvaccinated. It is also consistent with concerns about ADE, antibody dependent enhancement, where a sub-optimal immune response can be hijacked by the coronavirus to support their attack on cells.
There are claims by the British government that people who are fully vaccinated are near invulnerable to infection and that vaccination has been driving the fall in morbidity and mortality. No real evidence can be given for this and it is likely that the current fall repeats that following the first wave and is a seasonal phenomenon. It seems clear that the reduction in morbidity is much the same with the unvaccinated as with the vaccinated and that recent numbers are daily deaths are too small to be of use in assessing the relative efficacy of the vaccines.
It would be comforting if we could conclude that the danger to the vaccinated lies only in the period between partial and full vaccination. This may not be the case. Microbiologist Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi warns that the spike proteins that the vaccine induces our cells to produce remain in the body and that cells that produce these spike proteins may be attacked by the immune system if an immune response is triggered by a future encounter with a Covid-19 variant. Bhakdi argues that the immune system’s attack on cells hosting the spike protein leads to the formations of blood clots.
The issue of the spike protein induced blood disorder which includes clotting was raised in the open letter from Doctors for Covid Ethics. Dr Bhakdi is one of the authors.
The Fear Factor
Scientists on a committee that encouraged the use of fear to control people’s behaviour during the Covid pandemic have admitted its work was “unethical” and “totalitarian”. I hope at least some people appreciate the significance of this admission reported in the Telegraph:
“Scientists on a committee that encouraged the use of fear to control people’s behaviour during the Covid pandemic have admitted its work was “unethical” and “totalitarian”.
Members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) expressed regret about the tactics in a new book about the role of psychology in the Government’s Covid-19 response.
SPI-B warned in March last year that ministers needed to increase “the perceived level of personal threat” from Covid-19 because “a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened”.
Gavin Morgan, a psychologist on the team, said: “Clearly, using fear as a means of control is not ethical. Using fear smacks of totalitarianism. It’s not an ethical stance for any modern government. By nature I am an optimistic person, but all this has given me a more pessimistic view of people.”
Mr Morgan spoke to author Laura Dodsworth, who has spent a year investigating the Government’s tactics for her book A State of Fear, published on Monday.
Ministers have faced repeated accusations that they ramped up the threat from the pandemic to justify lockdowns and coerce the public into abiding by them – a claim that will be examined by the forthcoming public inquiry into the pandemic response.
SPI-B is one of the sub-committees that advises the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), led by Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser.One SPI-B scientist told Ms Dodsworth:
“In March [2020] the Government was very worried about compliance and they thought people wouldn’t want to be locked down. There were discussions about fear being needed to encourage compliance, and decisions were made about how to ramp up the fear. The way we have used fear is dystopian.
“The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable. It’s been like a weird experiment. Ultimately, it backfired because people became too scared.”
Another SPI-B member said: “You could call psychology ‘mind control’. That’s what we do… clearly we try and go about it in a positive way, but it has been used nefariously in the past.”
One warned that
“people use the pandemic to grab power and drive through things that wouldn’t happen otherwise… We have to be very careful about the authoritarianism that is creeping in”.
Another said:
“Without a vaccine, psychology is your main weapon… Psychology has had a really good epidemic, actually.”
As well as overt warnings about the danger of the virus, the Government has been accused of feeding the public a non-stop diet of bad news, such as deaths and hospitalisations, without ever putting the figures in context with news of how many people have recovered, or whether daily death tolls are above or below seasonal averages.
Another member of SPI-B said they were “stunned by the weaponisation of behavioural psychology” during the pandemic, and that “psychologists didn’t seem to notice when it stopped being altruistic and became manipulative. They have too much power and it intoxicates them”.
Steve Baker, the deputy chairman of the Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs, said:
“If it is true that the state took the decision to terrify the public to get compliance with rules, that raises extremely serious questions about the type of society we want to become.
“If we’re being really honest, do I fear that Government policy today is playing into the roots of totalitarianism? Yes, of course it is.”
The Telegraph