Aha, Caitlin Johnstone has finally brought her covid19 ideas out into the open where I may focus my mighty intellect upon them. She has not been really clear about it, and seemed to be skating on the edge of being a Libertarian ‘anti’ type.
You can find the piece she wrote here.
Pop over to it if you think it is necessary to read it. A lot of what she writes is actually pretty good. She seems to have a pretty big following.
Basically, she is saying that a vaccine mandate could be justified, but not for this vaccine and this pandemic. As for the reactions she has got so far, she claims to be proud that she has gotten both ‘sides’ of the vaccines issue pissed off; the scamdemic crowd and the pro-mandate crowd. I am a pissed off member of the pro-mandate crowd.
Her reasoning is a variation on the old via media fallacy, that the middle position between two extreme ideas must be correct. In support of this she has collected some strange ideas. The vaccines being used against covid are not very effective. The pandemic is not all that serious and does not justify the kind of measures used to deal with it.
We have several very good vaccines for covid. No vaccine is ever totally effective. If a pandemic is able to move life expectancy in reverse and collapse hospital systems, it is a serious problem. Even more so if it causes permanent neurological and other damage in some people, especially young people, as it is becoming clear that covid19 does.
She is okay with vaccine mandates if there is a really bad disease out there, but only if there is a really good vaccine against it. I am not sure if we are supposed to be ‘ not justified’ in using a so-so vaccine against a really bad disease, or a really good vaccine against a so-so disease.
Cait has the attitude of a lot of commentators on this topic; that it is somehow her call as to what is a serious enough problem, and what is an appropriate response. The right reply is; who the hell are you? Where did you get your doctorate in epidemiology?
She claims not to be in the ‘scamdemic’ camp, but has taken up some garbage ideas from the ‘anti’ propaganda machine. The rule about propaganda is that it always works if it is allowed at all. This again is the problem with Cait’s approach to understanding the issue; “via media”, trying to ‘understand’ both sides of an issue and supposedly make up one’s own mind.
There are no sides. There is only the truth. Listening to propaganda of either side corrupts the thought processes and you cannot prevent this. This is why the approach I have taken is to ignore as much as possible the ranters of both sides, except to denounce them for what they are.
I seek out real information, from people who have it. These are; people who are qualified in the subject. I listen to the people who work in the healthcare systems, who run the covid wards, who organize the vaccination programs, who track the statistics; the people who carry out the research, who teach the science in universities, who write the texts.
These are the people of whom there is a serious effort to suppress. They are attacked with the most venom on social media. Their message to the public is not just attacked by both pro and anti media, but watered down by media pretending to be impartial.
It is true that a problem with these people is that they lack good communicative skills. They have also been short of resources. But the need is such that they are building effective networks and starting to have an effect on all the disinformation and incompetence.
In most of the world, the ‘herd immunity’ cretins are failing. There are still places where they have staged some sorts of coups and tried to rip up public health measures. But the virus always has the last word. The sellout politicians are finally forced to do what is necessary to stave off calamity.
The health care professionals in alliance with the intelligent public will have the last word. Among them a consensus is also growing that the fiasco of the past two years must never happen again. The cretins who obstructed antipandemic measures all over the world must never be in a position to do it again.
Thus the ultimate solution for the confusion of people such as Cait is good government. We need a direct democracy, with proper health systems in place, including capacity to deal with any future pandemic. We need honest information systems, so that directions of public health authorities are coherently and clearly communicated.
We need to insure that these measures are directed by qualified people under direct democratic supervision, not by politicians being coerced by private business interests. This is the solution for the civil rights issues that concern people like Cait.
But that will not be enough. Disinformation must be rigorously suppressed. It is not just purveyors of ‘scamdemic’ type nonsense who must be arrested. Anyone encouraging resistance to pandemic measures in any way, including making pronouncements on what is ‘justified’, needs to be dealt with by the justice system. I hope we will see that when the next pandemic comes around.
I say that the people with the right to make such determination about what is justified usually have lots of letters after their names. Such people, and the web sites and newsletters they endorse, are where to get your information about how to protect yourself during a pandemic. Also, news of what is really going on. Government and quasi governmental organizations in these times are usually not reliable information sources.
So, there is the problem with Caitlin’s approach to the issue, and how she goes wrong. The need is to stop listening to internet rant, but that is difficult given her job. An occupational hazard, I guess.
The partial vaccination against this malady is to pay more attention to the kind of information sources I describe. It will only be partially effective of course. The ugly thing about infodemics is that it is almost impossible not to be effected by it, even when you know it is nonsense.
To start to find your way out of the disinformation swamp, just search hashtags/keywords Zero and Covid.
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