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
Posts
