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Open (More or Less) Post on Covid 36
The pandemic has been scrubbed from the front pages at this point and replaced by a different hysteria du jour, but the semi-open posts I've hosted here on the Covid-19 narrative, the inadequately tested experimental drugs for it, and the whole cascading mess surrounding them have continued to field a steady stream of comments, so I'm opening yet another space for discussion. The rules are the same as before: 1. If you plan on parroting the party line of the medical industry and its paid shills, please go away. This is a place for people to talk openly, honestly, and freely about their concerns that the party line in question is dangerously flawed and that actions being pushed by the medical industry et al. are causing injury and death. It is not a place for you to dismiss those concerns. Anyone who wants to hear the official story and the arguments in favor of it can find those on hundreds of thousands of websites.
2. If you plan on insisting that the current situation is the result of a deliberate plot by some villainous group of people or other, please go away. There are tens of thousands of websites currently rehashing various conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 outbreak and the vaccines. This is not one of them. What we're exploring is the likelihood that what's going on is the product of the same arrogance, incompetence, and corruption that the medical industry and its tame politicians have displayed so abundantly in recent decades. That possibility deserves a space of its own for discussion, and that's what we're doing here.
3. If you plan on using rent-a-troll derailing or disruption tactics, please go away. I'm quite familiar with the standard tactics used by troll farms to disrupt online forums, and am ready, willing, and able -- and in fact quite eager -- to ban people permanently for engaging in them here. Oh, and I also lurk on other Covid-19 vaccine skeptic blogs, so I'm likely to notice when the same posts are showing up on more than one venue.
4. If you don't believe in treating people with common courtesy, please go away. I have, and enforce, a strict courtesy policy on my blogs and online forums, and this is no exception. The sort of schoolyard bullying that takes place on so many other internet forums will get you deleted and banned here. No, I don't care if you disagree with that: my journal, my rules.
With that said, as the vaccinated keep catching Covid (and many of them never quite seem to get over it) while the rest of us are fine, the floor is open for discussion.
Effectively Vaccinated Rate
(Anonymous) 2022-04-15 06:06 pm (UTC)(link)The gov acknowledges that vax effectiveness wanes over time. If they were being honest, there should be an "effectively vaccinated" percentage rate that's tracked over time. If the booster rate doesn't increase, then the overall percentage of people "effectively" vaxxed should slowly decline to 50% or whatever the booster uptake rate is.
I think the gov will never do anything like this, nor admit to the complete public health disaster they helped to create, but acknowledging this for myself is reassuring that the entire pop of BC hasn't gone stark raving mad.
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
Dear ******,
Did you ever imagine when you started your political career that you would eventually become complicit in fascist corporate totalitarianism?
It's very strange to contemplate the places that just doing the best you can with good intentions can lead you. I imagine there was a time when you believed in lifting people up; not grinding them down. And yet here we are, after two years of fear-based propaganda orchestrated by the corporate media, still pretending that the fact that our rights have become privileges somehow doesn't really matter much and that all these comparatively minor achievements somehow do.
Does it feel weird to celebrate fixing a few broken bones while ignoring the gaping chest wound that is pouring out the lifeblood of our personal autonomy, democracy, and basic human rights?
It would to me.
She hasn't replied. Maybe I should have paid more attention to the date.
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
(Anonymous) 2022-04-16 04:16 pm (UTC)(link)I'll bet it will haunt her.
I also bet you'll not hear back or, at best, get some sort of it-actually-says-nothing form letter.
But I could be wrong.
As for me, I wrote a scathing letter to an organization I am a member of that proposed a "fully vaccinated only" annual conference. I said, "this is the kind of thing I would expect in Communist China or Stalinist Russia." I also said that while I really valued the work of this association, if they pulled this Jab Crow civil rights violation, I would resign and never have anything to do with them again.
I never heard a peep back.
But they canceled the conference, rather than exclude the unjabbed. I'll bet mine was not the only letter, but I'll also bet it made a difference.
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
We get a lot of letters like this. It IS grinding down to receive them, in ways that you can try to prepare yourself for, but you can't really.
I wouldn't have responded, in her shoes. Because you did not ask a question, you were submitting your own commentary based on your own presumptions of her motives, actions and opinions. If someone sent you that letter, with those motives, presumptions and opinions applied to yourself - could you answer it? We ask questions when we don't already presume to know the answer.
If it was to my municipal government, the most you would receive would be a "thank you for registering your feedback", and it would have gone on our "letters received for information" agenda section.
If you want to end up on the "correspondence" section - the one that would, in the local context, require staff and council to prepare a response, what question would you ask the human being on the receiving end instead?
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
(Anonymous) 2022-04-16 07:14 pm (UTC)(link)I sent an email to my rep (also NDP) with a concrete question about how the BC gov decided to do what it did. Hearthspirit, would you say this is a fair message? I sent it over a month ago:
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the purpose of a democratic government is to weigh all competing factors and interests against one another to develop balanced policy and laws. I understand that our government is trying its best to protect the people here in BC, but I wonder at what cost, and if the cost is justified. You are certainly obligated to take into account the guidance of the Public Health Office, but I think this should be weighed against the costs imposed by said guidance. As a hypothetical question, would the government, confronted with an ailing economy, seek only the opinion of economists and capitalist think tanks and pursue those measures even if it meant the further destruction of the environment and social cohesion? We must hear all sides of the debate and come to a measured response to ensure that the costs don't outweigh the benefits.
A concrete question for you: in the past two years, has the legislature formed a committee to take official and public account of what the Public Health Office recommends along with input from economic, social and psychological experts and so on to properly assess the risks and benefits of measures pursued by the government? To my understanding, this is a critical part of how our democracy is supposed to function, especially in cases where individual rights and freedoms are infringed upon. The infringement must be demonstrably justified, and we see today that the New Zealand supreme court has decided the vaccine mandates enforced by the government do not meet that requirement. We cannot throw aside our inalienable rights because of one sided policy with no input from or debate with dissenting voices. An unelected official, such as Dr. Bonny Henry, should not have as much power as she has to dictate public policy.
It is my educated belief that a decade or two from now we will look back at the response of all western democracies to the pandemic with shame and disgrace. Every day more and more information and data are coming out showing just what a boondoggle the vaccination program, lockdowns and masking have been. And this information is not sourced from social media platforms. Rather, numerous scientific, peer reviewed studies are supporting these conclusions. I am hoping that you, my elected official, might start asking some questions in the legislature and be the voice in the wilderness to lead us back to true democracy.
I appreciate the time you've taken to respond to my letters, and I look forward to your response.
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
Now that one is also unlikely to get a response, because it would not be a quick one.
I would:
1) see if you can get that published in the paper -actually as many add you can think if that cover your electoral area- as an open letter
2)cc copies to all the other elected reps in your area.
3) cc any citizen groups in your area - community associatons, taxpayer associations, any groups that do watchdog activities around election time.
4) cc your health authority.
Someone may not respond directly. But someone might sweat.
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
(Anonymous) 2022-04-17 02:12 am (UTC)(link)Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
Unfortunately the human being on the receiving end was probably some poorly paid low-level party functionary. I would have been surprised to get an answer. My last comment was ironic.
To be honest my intention was to be annoying; to try to pick a little hole in their complacency and self-satisfaction. The NDP are supposed to be a democratic socialist party and yet they have been one of the most extreme pro-corporatist; pro-totalitarian; anti-democratic provincial governments in Canada.
I'm not willing to join in the pretence that all is well. Since they dismiss, slander, and disparage anyone who disagrees with them I thought I'd try a different approach.
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
You have the key to hitting any political party where it hurts:
"The NDP are supposed to be a democratic socialist party"
1) Whatever anyone thinks of them, any party still drinks it's own kool-aid, or at least needs to be seen doing so for the party faithful.
Use the sarcasm so you don't puke on yourself - but appear credulous enough to them if they're not very self-aware.
Yes, the NDP does see itself as the one that fights for the little guy. The poor, elderly, women - any Charter- protected group, but with socioeconomic disparity the driving motivation.
So provide evidence their policies are disproportionately harming those groups, and ask what they're gonna do about it. To stop it or repair damage done. School covid masking policies negatively impact child socialization? Lower income women disproportionately out of work? (Widely reported in msm) Old people in nursing homes said they were more afraid to die alone than catch covid (that bc government survey I linked ages ago, I can find it again if you can't - I think it wad done in August 2020). Twist and repeat.
2) In Canada, politicians cannot be bought as directly by Big Money as the US. Campaign donation restrictions (though rich individuals who usually got their money through big business can make disproportionately large donations); they buy them with votes, which is what democracy is. Each party has a particular currency.
The NDP is union votes.
It looks a lot like corporations, because that's where the large unions are (also government employees including teachers, so they can get high on their own supply). That's why Horgan initially fought Site C, then couldn't overturn it once elected; old growth logging, then allowed some projects (in fairness, some like Fairy Creek were at the behest of the First Nations landowners and their 500 year plan); and sued about Transmountain, then rolled for LNG. And why Notley was fighting against Horgan on Transmountain! Different union jobs in Alberta, same evil corporations.
Construction worker union, forestry worker union jobs, oil and gas, fishing (pits fishers against fish farmers, but the latter provide more secondary benefits so tilt to them). Check the voting maps and you can see where government and resource jobs are still concentrated.
If you can make an angle that they're jeopardizing union jobs somehow, work it in. And cc everywhere, of course. Including retirement associations, people who represent nursing home residents or families, etc., for the nursing home scandal angle.
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
Very good.
I'll keep that in mind for next time!
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
(Anonymous) 2022-04-17 07:22 pm (UTC)(link)Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
But it did free Topp up to write some interesting books, and now he's here.
Re: Effectively Vaccinated Rate
(Anonymous) 2022-04-17 09:54 pm (UTC)(link)