CORONA---The Cult Grows

 

          In George Orwell’s “1984,” there is an incident where Winston Smith is attending a speech by a member of the Inner Party.  It is Hate Week, and the speaker is haranguing the assembled thousands with tales of the atrocities committed by the 2000 Eurasian war criminals about to be executed.   Oceania was at war with Eurasia.  It had always been at war with Eurasia.  Eastasia, on the other hand, was an ally.

 

          “The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried onto the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker’s hand.  He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech.  Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different….  Oceania was at war with Eastasia!

          The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in mid-sentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax.”

 

          I was reminded of these passages when our public health bureaucracy changed its tune on the wearing of masks.  The WHO, the CDC, Anthony Fauci and Surgeon General Jerome Adams all advised us against wearing masks.  Remember?  Adams even cited some research that had been done on the subject.  It was not effective, they told us, and could even increase the risk of viral infections.  Then on April 3, 2020, Fauci, Adams and the CDC all decided not only that wearing masks was a good idea, but that we should all be forced to wear them.  The WHO finally joined the party in June, after mask mandates in the US and Europe had been in place for many weeks.

 

          Various explanations were offered for the news that masks were now recommended, even necessary (e.g., there was a shortage of masks for health care workers, or we hadn’t known about asymptomatic transmission), but none of these excuses had anything to do with the actual effectiveness of masks, which was, and is, pretty much a zero.  Regardless of that, masks are now essential.  They have always been essential.  We have always been at war with Eurasia.

 

          When all the authorities changed their minds, what did you do?

 

          When I saw the public health world changing their song about masks, I didn’t know what to think.  Was I to believe the first official story, that masks were useless, or the second official story, that everybody should be required to wear them?  I didn’t know, so I went online and read every peer-reviewed piece about masks in the medical journals that had been published in the last twenty-five years.  They confirmed everything Fauci and Adams and the CDC and the WHO had said in March---masks have their purposes, but as a barrier to respiratory viruses?  Forgetaboutit.  And yes, mask-wearing can even make you more susceptible to respiratory infections.

 

          And then I read all the articles about masks (and there were a lot of them), that started coming out in April and May.  These were not peer-reviewed, and they were usually published by an “Association” for something or other that you never heard of, and they pretty clearly had an ax to grind, and some of them were merely unconvincing and some of them were outright silly.

 

          And such is the nature of the “science” of masks.  I urge you to read the stuff—it won’t take long, and you will be surprised, as I was, by how accessible it is.  There are very few pay-walls.  If you do read it, you will learn there is no point in wearing a cloth or paper mask in public, and there is no other reasonable conclusion that can be drawn.

 

          Now, I realize that not everyone is likely to undertake this exercise.  I am aware I am something of a crank.  Still, if you have been simply hiding in your house for the last nine months, why didn’t you spend a little of that time educating yourself?  What really is the point of listening, over and over again, to what Anderson Cooper and Dr. Fauci and Snoop Dog and Whoopie Goldberg and Dr. Oz and Rachel Maddow want you to think?  I mean, it has been nine frickin’ months!  Read something.  It’s not like you have to go to the “Dark Web” or some den of libertarians or a barn in Idaho.  Start with the CDC.  Follow links.  The truth is out there.  You will feel liberated when you possess it.

 

          And there are other topics, of course---lockdowns, the scandal of PCR tests, vaccine strategies, etc.  There are dozens of interviews and podcasts of working epidemiologists and immunologists and other working scientists (as opposed to the people who merely play scientists on TV).  Personally, I find it comforting to learn what we actually know, what we don’t know, and what the important issues are.  There is a “party line” that you hear all the time from bureaucrats and authoritarians and progressive politicians and their bespoke journalists, and it has almost no relation to the truth.  I am annoyed by the lies, of course, and it is genuinely frightening what COVID is being used for politically, but I feel safer knowing what is real.      

 

          The primary fruit of my research, however, is that I know I can no longer believe anything from the bastards who lied to me.  Fauci?  Sorry.  Jerome Adams?  Nope.  The CDC has very useful data, which is apparently collected by grunts with no agenda.  Just don’t believe their recommendations, which are made by the political people.  The WHO?  Well, there doesn’t seem to be anybody there except political people.  I also know to ignore the journalists and broadcasters who incessantly tell me to respect “the science,” meaning the party line of mask-wearing and lockdowns and school closings and economic destruction.  They seem to know, literally, nothing.  They merely repeat what they are told to say.

 

          And finally, there are those who would scold me for my beliefs, or for not wearing a mask unless I am required by law to do so.  These are people I know---friends, neighbors, relatives.  I don’t confront them, and I don’t often see them because they have locked themselves in their houses.  But I confess that when they do challenge me, I am somewhat less polite than I used to be.  I don’t understand why they seem so comfortable locking themselves away, believing everything they are told, and taking so little responsibility for their lives, their behavior, and their society.     

 

          As the hygiene fascism increases even as the pandemic fades into the past, watch out for yourselves.  That is my message here.  In this dangerous environment, where everyone seems to have an agenda, believe only what you can verify for yourself.  Then make your own decisions about what is best for you and yours.  It’s the only safe path until the madness ends.

 

Copyright2020MichaelKubacki