Jul 242021
 


René Magritte Le Mal du Pays (Homesickness) 1940

 

Vast Majority Of Unvaccinated Americans Say They Won’t Be Getting Jabs (RT)
Alabama Governor Declares ‘It’s Time To Blame The Unvaccinated For COVID’ (SN)
Israel Finds Pfizer Jab Only 39% Effective At Stopping Delta Variant (ZH)
Vaxxed Employees Of CA City Must Wear Stickers To Work Without Masks (RT)
EU Watchdog Approves Moderna Jab For Ages 12 And Up (Y!)
French Hospital Goes On Indefinite Strike To Protest Vaccination Mandate (RT)
Big Fail (Jim Kunstler)
CDC Quietly Deletes 6,000 COVID Vaccine Deaths From Its Website
Biden DOJ Drops Investigations Into Nursing Home Covid-19 Deaths (RT)
Greece Invokes Constitution to Impose Compulsory Vaccination (GR)
Science vs. Religion As Greek Priests Lead The Anti-vax Movement (Pol.eu)
Hugely Experienced Nfl Coach Leaves Job After Refusing To Take Jab (RT)
Cleveland Indians Change Name To The “Guardians” (ZH)

 

 

 

 

Verkerk

 

 

Israel severe hospitalized patients yesterday 5, all vaxxed

 

 

Fleming VAERS

 

 

So far it’s about half?!

Vast Majority Of Unvaccinated Americans Say They Won’t Be Getting Jabs (RT)

The Biden administration faces an uphill battle to meet its goals for Covid-19 vaccinations, as a newly released poll shows that 80% of American adults who haven’t yet recived the jab have no intention of doing so. The results of the Associated Press-NORC poll, which was released on Friday, revealed that 45% of unvaccinated respondents said they “definitely” wouldn’t be getting inoculated against the virus, with 35% indicating they “probably” wouldn’t do so. Only 19% of those who hadn’t been vaccinated intended to get the shots, and just 3% consider those plans definite. The responses suggest there is little room for growth in US vaccination rates, because 67% of participants had already received the jab, and only 1% of overall respondents said they would definitely get inoculated.

Just 5% said they would probably get vaccinated. Other unvaccinated Americans don’t plan to get jabbed, meaning around 73% is the apparent upside for the nation’s adult vaccination rate. President Joe Biden had aimed to have 70% of US adults vaccinated with at least their first dose by July 4, but fell short, at 67%. Nearly three weeks beyond his target date, some 69% of adults have received a Covid-19 shot, according to CDC data. Nearly 60% of adults are fully vaccinated, and the rate is 49% for the overall population. Perhaps more troubling for vaccine proponents is the declining rate of new vaccinations. After the rollout hit a one-day record of 4.6 million doses delivered on April 10, the daily pace has slowed to around 500,000 in recent weeks.

In Alabama, which ranks last in the nation, with just 34% of its population fully vaccinated, and only a trickle of residents rolling up their sleeves to get the shots, Governor Kay Ivey became so frustrated on Thursday that she said it’s “time to blame the unvaccinated folks” for rising Covid-19 infections. While 83% of Democrat adults have been vaccinated, according to the Associated Press-NORC poll, just 51% of Republicans have been. And Republicans are more skeptical that the vaccines will be effective against the highly infectious Delta variant of Covid-19, which has driven the country’s recent jump in new cases. The poll found that 58% of Republicans expect the vaccines to work well against new variants, while 81% of Democrats expressed confidence. Among unvaccinated Americans, 64% don’t trust the shots to prevent the spread of Delta.

Read more …

Let’s turn that around.

Alabama Governor Declares ‘It’s Time To Blame The Unvaccinated For COVID’ (SN)

The governor of Alabama stated Thursday that it is “time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for rising cases of COVID in the state, adding that “These folks are choosing a horrible lifestyle of self-inflicted pain.” Governor Kay Ivey made the comments during a press briefing, declaring “Let’s be crystal clear about this issue. The new cases of Covid are because of unvaccinated folks.” “Almost 100% of the new hospitalizations are with unvaccinated folks. And the deaths are certainly occurring with the unvaccinated folks,” Ivey added. She continued, “We got to get folks to take the shot. The vaccine is the greatest weapon we have to fight COVID. There is no question about that the data proves it. I’ve taken the shot back in December, both shots. It’s just the thing to do. The unvaccinated is who we need to focus on.”


“Folks are supposed to have common sense. But it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down,” Ivey further proclaimed. She added, “I’ve done all I know how to do. I can encourage you to do something, but I can’t make you take care of yourself.”

Read more …

“..perhaps as low as 30%..”

Israel Finds Pfizer Jab Only 39% Effective At Stopping Delta Variant (ZH)

Over the past month, Israel, the world’s most heavily vaccinated country (with leading mRNA jabs, no less) has seen the number of positive COVID tests has risen by more than 30x as the number of active infections in the country has surpassed 10K. Meanwhile, the Israeli Health Ministry, which has previously estimated the true efficacy of the Pfizer jab against the delta variant at only 64% (while still more than 90% effective at preventing serious illness and death), just released new data purporting to show that while the Pfizer jab is still 88% effective at preventing serious illness, it’s only 39% effective at preventing infection with delta.


Alex Berenson, a former NYT journalist who has often reported on scientific findings that don’t support the official narrative on masks and vaccines, shared the findings in a tweet, and speculated that the true efficacy in offering protection against the Delta variant might be even lower – perhaps as low as 30%. [..] The Israeli numbers are much lower than other recent studies, including one study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which found that two doses offers 88% protection against the Delta variant causing symptomatic disease, while offering 94% protection against the alpha variant.

Read more …

Nice that they didn’t make them yellow. Or star-shaped.

Vaxxed Employees Of CA City Must Wear Stickers To Work Without Masks (RT)

A California city has ordered its employees to wear a sticker identifying their fully vaccinated status if they choose to come to work without a mask, amid a growing global trend of distinguishing the vaxxed from the uninjected. The city of Montclair, located in California’s Pomona Valley, has decreed that starting next week, employees who want to work without a mask will have to wear a sticker showing they’ve had a Covid shot. According to City Manager Edward Starr, the policy is designed to ensure that Montclair is in compliance with a June directive issued by California’s workplace safety board, which instructs all vaccinated workers in the state to submit evidence or sign a pledge they have been vaccinated if they choose to abstain from wearing a face mask.

In response to recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, California issued new guidance in April stating that fully vaccinated individuals could forgo masks in most settings. The city official claimed that California’s Department of Public Health was encouraging the use of stickers on employee ID badges “to demonstrate they have been fully vaccinated.” He dismissed the notion that the labels could be seen as potentially problematic, and stressed that the policy would help the city to fulfill state and federal guidelines. Starr also pointed to the fact that the CDC offers a selection of printable stickers that workplaces can provide to employees who get vaccinated. However, it doesn’t appear that the public health authority has issued guidance recommending stickers be used as forms of identification.

[..] In Switzerland, the head of the country’s centrist Green Liberal Party advocated for people working in hospitals and other healthcare facilities to wear identification showing their vaccination status, purportedly as a way to reduce the possibility of transmission in high-risk settings. The use of Star of David badges or other labels has become popular among protesters who object to global vaccine rollouts and other Covid measures. Such demonstrators have been routinely criticized and shamed by the media for their allegedly extremist views about worldwide vaccination drives, many of them now openly coercive.

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This cannot be based on science. There are no data for mid or long term. This is politics plain and simple.

EU Watchdog Approves Moderna Jab For Ages 12 And Up (Y!)

The European medicines watchdog on Friday approved the use of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine for children aged 12 to 17, making it the second jab for adolescents for use on the continent. “The use of the Spikevax vaccine in children from 12 to 17 years of age will be the same as in people aged 18 and above,” the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said, using the vaccine’s brand name. The vaccine will be given in two injections, each four weeks apart. The decision by the Amsterdam-based agency follows the approval of the first vaccine for European youngsters, by Pfizer/BioNTech in May. The effects of the jab have been studied among 3,732 children aged 12 to 17 years, the EMA said. “The study showed that Spikevax produced a comparable antibody response in 12- to 17-year-olds to that seen in young adults aged 18 to 25 years,” it said.

The Moderna jab employs the same mRNA technology as Pfizer/BioNTech, using genetic material to deliver instructions to human cells to create coronavirus spike proteins. It thereby trains an immune response without exposing the host to a real infection. The EMA said there were common side effects in children similar to those in adults. This included pain and swelling at the injection site, tiredness, headache, muscle and joint pain, enlarged lymph nodes, chills, nausea, vomiting and fever. “These effects are usually mild or moderate and improve within a few days from the vaccination,” the EMA said. But it noted that due to the “limited number of children and adolescents included in the study, the trial could not have detected new uncommon side effects”.

Nor could it estimate the risk of known side effects such as myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane around the heart). “However, the overall safety profile of Spikevax determined in adults was confirmed in the adolescent study,” it said. “The benefits of Spikevax in children aged 12 to 17 outweigh the risks, in particular in those with conditions that increase the risk of severe Covid-19.”

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Macron will remember today’s protests.

French Hospital Goes On Indefinite Strike To Protest Vaccination Mandate (RT)

The staff of the hospital in Montelimar, in the French department of Drome, have gone on indefinite strike to protest the new rules demanding they take a vaccine against Covid-19 by mid-September or face losing their jobs. The strike against “forced vaccination” was announced on Thursday by the CGT-GHPP trade union, and affects some 200 doctors and 1,500 nurses in the southeastern French city. Hundreds of them gathered outside the hospital on Friday, denouncing lockdowns and vaccine mandates and chanting “liberté!” (freedom). The French legislature is finalizing the proposal that would require all medical professionals in contact with the vulnerable to be fully vaccinated by September 15, or else lose their salaries and even their jobs.


“We are against mandatory vaccination and vaccine coercion,” Elsa Ruillere, local union representative, told Sputnik France. “There is no choice between tests or vaccination: vaccination is compulsory. No, we don’t agree. We want to have the choice like the rest of the world and we do not want compulsory vaccination.” Ruillere says her union supports “free and informed consent” and is not against vaccination on principle but is against coercion. Some of the medical workers said they are waiting for the French-made Sanofi-GSK vaccine, promised for December.

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“..they will deny that such deaths are related to the ‘vax’ given the time distance from the injection.”

Big Fail (Jim Kunstler)

Poor Mr. Trump was hustled into the “Warp Speed” cover story for these shenanigans — which perhaps explains why he never looked entirely comfortable onstage with Dr. Fauci and the rest of the White House “team.” Meanwhile news about the efficacy of the vaccines, and especially any adverse reactions to the vaccines, has been very carefully managed by the government, the captive news media, and the — let’s just say it — the evil social media including Facebook, Twitter, and Google’s YouTube. How much are they squelching the actual numbers of deaths directly related to the vaccines? A savvy correspondent with a medical license writes:

“…the rate of reporting [adverse reactions] to the VAERS system in the US and Europe is very poor: somewhere between 1 and ten percent of actual events being reported. This obviously means that the actual death rate is likely much higher. So, I would not be surprised if the real number of ‘vax’ induced deaths in the US is in the range of 100,000 or more, much more. This is very reasonable when you take into account the shockingly frequent effects involving myocardial inflammation and blood clotting. Both of these pathologic processes logically stem from inflammation stimulated by massive production of the S1 spike protein by the injected mRNA.

The S1 spike protein, as you know, is the inflammation-inducing toxin in Covid infections. There was a major fuck-up by focusing on stimulating the production of S1; they, the PTB researchers, thought that the S1 protein was just a marker for SARs-COV, not the pathogenic toxin. In my opinion, most of the deaths from the mRNA ‘vax’ are going to take much longer via long-term inflammatory damage to the vascular system (including heart tissue, brain blood vessels, etc.). Of course, they will deny that such deaths are related to the ‘vax’ given the time distance from the injection. Too many people, making too much money from the mRNA shot….”

This is where things stand at the apogee of summer. Every day we are learning more about the spike protein time-bombs the vaxed population is walking around with in their veins. And now its coming clear why science has been made such a fetish of lately: because science has failed spectacularly, which is an even greater tragedy because when this stupendous calamity is over, what’s left of the civilized world will, by default, turn to superstition as its logical replacement.

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“..a strange thing happened..”

CDC Quietly Deletes 6,000 COVID Vaccine Deaths From Its Website

As reported earlier the CDC-linked VAERS website released its weekly numbers last Friday. The website has now recorded 11,140 reported deaths from the COVID vaccine in the United States. This is up from 9,125 reported deaths from the COVID-19 vaccinations total from last week. The number of deaths linked to vaccines this year has absolutely skyrocketed. According to the CDC’s own data. On Wednesday the CDC posted on its own website that there were 12,313 reported deaths from the COVID Vaccine since December. This number would track with the VAERS website number.

But then a strange thing happened. After the CDC posted this number they went back hours later and switched it to 6,079 reported deaths in the US from the COVID Vaccine. Infowars posted video of screengrabs from the CDC website on Wednesday. The CDC deleted 6,000 vaccine deaths from its website in 6 hours. What gives?

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“..their review of data about the deaths was stopped because it was too “time-consuming.”

Biden DOJ Drops Investigations Into Nursing Home Covid-19 Deaths (RT)

The Biden administration has decided not to investigate the Democrat governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York over claims their Covid-19 policies led to the deaths of thousands of vulnerable people in nursing homes. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Joe Gaeta informed House Republicans on Friday that the Justice Department had decided not to open an investigation into any public nursing facilities in the three states “at this time.”= In August 2020, the Trump administration requested data about nursing home deaths from Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York – states that had policies ordering nursing homes to take in Covid-19 patients.

“We have reviewed the information you provided along with additional information available to the Department. Based on that review, we have decided not to open a [civil rights] investigation of any public nursing facility within Michigan at this time,” said the letter sent to Governor Gretchen Whitmer by Steven Rosenbaum, chief of the litigation section in the DOJ’s civil rights division, on Thursday. The same letter was sent to Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania. Whitmer’s April 2020 executive order required nursing homes to accept Covid-19 patients discharged from hospitals and place them in dedicated isolation units. Melissa Samuel, president of the Health Care Association of Michigan, claims the order was never fully implemented, however.

Wolf’s former health secretary, Rachel Levine – who withdrew her own mother from a nursing home even as overseeing the state policy of mandating homes take in Covid-19 patients – has since been confirmed as the first transgender assistant secretary at President Joe Biden’s Department of Health. The DOJ apparently sent the same letter to New York’s Andrew Cuomo. The only remaining governor who could be under investigation at this point is New Jersey’s Phil Murphy. Michigan’s official figures say that 87% of Covid-19 deaths were among people aged 60 and older, and about a third of the state’s total deaths were “linked to” long-term care facilities, amounting to 5,754 residents and staff. However, investigative journalist Charlie LeDuff claims the numbers might have been undercounted by as much as 100%, and that officials at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services told him their review of data about the deaths was stopped because it was too “time-consuming.”

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Any lawyers left here?

Greece Invokes Constitution to Impose Compulsory Vaccination (GR)

Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis defended compulsory vaccination for some groups in the country by referencing Article 25 of the Greek constitution on Friday. Mitsotakis spoke with the President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou in front of the media about the coronavirus and the rate of vaccination in Greece. Both high-ranking politicians appeared to be in agreement about the need for a majority of the Greek populace to become inoculated. Mitsotakis highlighted that the Delta variant of the virus, which is much more transmissible than the original virus, means that it is more important than ever before for all Greeks who can get vaccinated to do so.

“The state has the right to demand the all citizens to pay their debt of social and national solidarity back,” noted Mitsotakis, referring to Article 25, Paragraph 4 of the Constitution. He then claimed that this part of Greek law is more relevant today than ever. “This is what we demand from our fellow citizens. The debt of social and national solidarity. The battle of our generation is tackling the pandemic. We will beat it. “But we must win it by taking all the responsibility of their citizens towards themselves, their families and society as a whole,” Mitsotakis said, arguing that people have a moral duty to become vaccinated.

[..] President Sakellaropoulou also spoke at length on Friday, and encouraged those who have yet to get inoculated to do so. She agreed with Mitsotakis that it was constitutional for the Greek government to coerce people who work in sectors where they endanger others to get inoculated. “The Constitution does not recognize anyone’s right, in the context of his own freedom, to endanger the life and health of his fellow human beings. This is because the rights outlined in the Constitution are granted not only because we are individuals with human value, which of course applies, but also because we are part of society as a whole,” the former Supreme Court justice explained. “And as part of society as a whole, precisely because we have the obligation of solidarity, that is, to take care of public health and the lives of our fellow human beings, we are obliged to accept restrictions on our own rights,” Sakellaropoulou added.

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“God does not force us to follow him, unlike those supporting vaccination.”

Science vs. Religion As Greek Priests Lead The Anti-vax Movement (Pol.eu)

Anti-vaxxers and churchgoers are out in force on a warm July Sunday morning in central Athens — and, for the most part, they are the same people. For the Greek authorities, one of the major sources of opposition to lockdowns, mask-wearing, social distancing and vaccination is influential Greek clerics and the power they wield from the pulpit. “The church authorities refuse to police the churchgoers, respecting the personality of the faithful,” reads a sign at the main entrance of Saint Nicholas’ Church in the capital. Inside the packed church, you could count the number of people wearing a face mask on the fingers of one hand. The priest, Vasileios Voloudakis, used his sermon to lash out against the government, doctors and church leadership.

“They want to treat the churches the same way they do gyms, but we believe that in here we are in heaven,” he told the congregation. “Scientists cannot explain some things, so they prefer to hush it up.” Voloudakis is one of the most prominent critics of coronavirus restrictions and vaccines in the Greek Orthodox Church and has even said that those who “alas” have the vaccine “will bitterly regret it.” He has a lot of supporters. “We stand up to protect human rights, the same rights that have been ratified by Christianity,” said Maria, a middle-aged woman attending the service with her husband who did not want to give her last name. “God does not force us to follow him, unlike those supporting vaccination.” “I fully trust my priest,” said Maria Papadopoulou, shortly after receiving Holy Communion.

“I don’t want to have an experimental vaccine. My parents are fully vaccinated, but I didn’t force them to do so; why should they do this to me? “They want to divide us and we shouldn’t allow that. Everyone should be free to do whatever they think is good for their health.” The church leadership officially supports vaccination. The head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, spent several days in intensive care with coronavirus last November. A month later, he said: “I would be the first to go and get vaccinated if I had not been sick.” The archbishop announced he had received the vaccine on May 12. However, several influential archbishops and clerics repeatedly tell the flock not to get vaccinated, while some refuse to let people into church if they are wearing a mask or have had the jab.

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Some people pay big.

Hugely Experienced Nfl Coach Leaves Job After Refusing To Take Jab (RT)

Minnesota Vikings assistant Rick Dennison has reportedly left the team after refusing to take a vaccine for Covid-19, potenitally representing the first exit of its kind in the sport since jabs were made a requirement for staff.
In a ruling announced this summer, NFL bosses have ordered all staff at the designated ‘Tier 1′ elite coaching level of the sport to provide a valid religious or medical reason for not being vaccinated. 63-year-old Dennison, who won the Super Bowl three times as a coach with the Denver Broncos, where he also spent his entire playing career, has ended his two-season spell as the Vikings’ offensive line coach and run game co-ordinator because he chose not to take the treatment, according to ESPN sources. Coaches who lose top-tier status cannot be on the field, in meeting rooms or have direct interactions with players, leading to assistant offensive line coach Phil Rauscher filling Dennison’s position, the report claimed.

[..] Fans were divided as the report spread that Dennison had become the first NFL coach to lose their job after refusing to be vaccinated, with many rowing about whether the measure would be a breach of rights and others claiming the veteran had been free to make a choice the team may not have agreed with. “They didn’t fire him due to medical status,” argued one, speaking among an apparent majority of critics who showed little sympathy towards Dennison. “They are firing him because he can’t do the job due to a personal choice, which he has every right to make. “If he doesn’t want to get vaxed, based on the NFL guidelines, he could jeopardize the team, so they move on.”

Another echoed: “He wasn’t terminated. He chose to quit because he refused to follow mandatory NFL protocols outlined for the safety of players and staff during a global deadly pandemic. We cannot move on from this unless we contain it.” A self-described US Navy veteran retorted: “Society has lost their collective mind over a virus that kills far less than one percent [of people]. “Can’t watch any sport without being bombarded with woke bullsh*t and now this is the step towards corporate totalitarianism that will end my and many others’ NFL fandom.” A media host said: “Imagine throwing away the bag [money] over two shots that take 10 minutes of your time, protect yourself and others and set a good example.”

Read more …

I continue to find it strange that the cancel culture thinks that if they try to erase history, that somehow makes things better. What these teams should do is wear their names with pride, by reaching out to native communities, set up support projects, get involved in business, invest in the future of the children, so that the communities in turn feel pride in being represented by the teams.

Cleveland Indians Change Name To The “Guardians” (ZH)

After years of protests from Native American groups and some fans, Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team has officially changed its name after more than 100 years. According to the Major League Baseball (MLB) website, the team announced Friday morning that Cleveland Indians is no more, and the new name, drum roll… is Cleveland “Guardians.” Cleveland first announced last summer that it would begin having conversations with local community members and Native American groups about the possibility of a name change. The organization announced in December that it was beginning a search for a new nickname.


More than 4,000 fans signed up to be part of the conversation, and over 40,000 fans were surveyed, including 140 hours of interviews with fans, staff and community members. The organization determined that the name should connect to the city of Cleveland, preserve the team’s rich baseball history and unite the community. -MLB This follows the Washington Redskins, who changed their name “Washington Football Team” in the summer of 2020. Both of these teams have ditched Native American terminology because in today’s “woke” culture it’s considered racist.

Read more …

 

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Placebo or vaccine

 

 

 

 

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Jun 112020
 


Cy Twombly Achilles’ Shield 1978

 

Virtue signaling in the US of A has already reached new heights, and there’s little reason to believe it won’t reach even much higher as we happily signal along. In the process, we will find that applying logic to the undertaking will take us to unanticipated, and highly undesirable (for most protesters), places. But by then a lot of damage, whether we think that’s a good thing or not, will have been done.

HBO opened a Pandora’s Box all of its own when it pulled Gone With the Wind, despite that fact that Hattie McDaniel was the first black American Oscar nominee AND winner. Let’s erase that too. Along with ALL other films that depict slavery in the “wrong” light, or, better yet, that depict slavery at all.

Let’s ban all links to slavery, let’s pretend it never existed, because if we don’t we will find it’s impossible to decide between what we do and do not want to last. not all people have the same preferences or opinions, and neither do all black people.

And while we’re talking movies, and Columbus statues are toppled across the nation because Christopher (before there were any “Americans”) treated indigenous Americans poorly, do let’s ban all Hollywood westerns in which “Indians” are depicted as cannon fodder. No more John Wayne for you. Gone even the few non-westerns Wayne appeared in, because his name and face are forever linked to killing “Indians”. No more Duke.

 

And why stop there? Just to name an example, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, arguably a great book and a good movie, depicts a white man “being compassionate” to a black man oppressed by other white men. Can’t have that, the oppression is obviously racist and so is the good(!) white(!) man who’s the protagonist of the story, written by a white woman(!).

Let’s leaf through all American and other world literature of the past half millennium that describes slavery, including that which talks about “good white” men. There are no good white men!

Anything to do with native Americans must go. Because they were badly treated throughout the 500 years of history they share with white people (Europeans). They still are, just like African Americans. Same difference. Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison? Don’t think so. They were all talking about slavery. And we’re toppling statues in order to stop that talk.

Frederick Douglass? You got to be kidding. His autobiography is called “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave“. Isn’t that enough to topple him? James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, they all remind us of a period we don’t want to be reminded of anymore. It’s enough! No more slavery!

Martin Luther King? Get serious, he talks about nothing but oppression. He even claims black people in his lifetime were still slaves. Muhammad Ali is obviously not welcome anymore, he spoke just about exclusively from the viewpoint of an oppressed man.

 

Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States of America. George Washington was a slaveholder, he’s obviously out. D.C. stands for District of Columbia, named after Columbus, so that needs a new name. The country gets its name from a Columbus contemporary and fellow explorer who was a slave holder and treated indigenous populations of the countries he “visited” no better than Columbus did. Wikipedia:

Amerigo Vespucci wrote his will in April 1511. He left most of his modest estate, including five household slaves, to his wife.


[..] After Hispaniola they made a brief slave raid in the Bahamas, capturing 232 natives and then returned to Spain.

There once was a time when Washington, D.C. was the capital of the United States of America. But those days must soon be gone. How can you hold on to a name for your capital city that belongs to a man who was a brazen slave holder? Or the district the capital is in? And how can you breathe in a country named after a despicable Italian slaveholder and slave trader?

The US constitution was largely written by slave holders. We’re going to need a new one.

 

 

There are 1747 “symbols of the Confederacy” in the US. I’m guessing Pelosi, once those 11 statues at the Capitol have been toppled, will start work on getting rid of the other 1736 too. And mind you, this doesn’t yet include Columbus, Vespucci, or anyone else who’s “mistreated”, enslaved, murdered, native Americans. We will easily have twice the 1747 number once we include those.

For that matter, if you’re Nancy Pelosi, how and why do you dress up in the “kente cloth” fabrics that originate with the Asanthi people that ruled in present-day Ghana from mid-1600s to mid-1900s, and were themselves … slaveholders and slave traders? Who sold god knows how many African slaves to European slave traders? How can you dress up in the garb of slave traders to protest the mistreatment of the grandchildren of slaves? Short circuit? Temporary?

 

 

For all the protesters other than Pelosi, who herself obviously joined in only for political reasons, here’s a question: Do you oppose slavery, or only slavery on US soil? Because, you know, the Romans had slaves, many African tribes had slaves, present day Chinese people did. Australia? Slave country if I ever saw one. The deeper you dig into history, the more you will find. I don’t want to bore you with an extensive list, because it would be too extensive.

 

 

Or maybe a second question, though it has mostly already been answered: Is this protest only about slavery, or about the oppression of people(s) in general? It’s already been answered in toppling the Columbus statues, since Christopher was not a slavetrader as far as we know, so, see above, we’re talking about both “indians” and “negroes”.

I use both derogatory terms on purpose, precisely because they paint the picture of what things used to be like. That they are no longer tolerated tells a story all by itself. And yes, much more is needed, but can that be achieved by toppling statues and banning books and movies? Is that how those two terms were banned?

We cannot escape our past and probably that’s the reason we shouldn’t try. What we need to do, what our role in the story is, is to not follow in the “footsteps of wrong”, and to do better. Do we have a better chance at doing better and escaping “wrong” if and when we ban all symbols of it, so we can no longer see it?

Or is our best chance to let all these things last so we can point at them to say: that is wrong!? If all the statues and books and movies are gone, how will our children know?

And I haven’t even mentioned the music yet, the unique melting pot of European melodies and African beats that gave the world blues and jazz and rock, all born from the plantation life that so many stories depict, and the music itself, growing under the statuesque eyes of the likes of Jefferson Davis or George Washington.

Maybe if you like your blues and jazz and rock and rap, you should call for the statues and books to remain standing, because without the narratives they bear witness to, there would be no blues, or anything that came after. Maybe you should celebrate your ancestors’ genius that gave America (or whatever you wind up calling it soon) its music, which, accidentally, has conquered all the countries of all the slavetraders of the past.

Maybe the music, the books, represent your ancestors’ victory over their oppressors, and maybe you risk tainting that hard-fought victory by trying to erase the memories of those they fought against to attain it.

And no, you can’t just pick the books and statues and music you would like and dump everything else. It doesn’t work that way. Your neighbor might have slightly different criteria and pick other favorites, and so on.

You can’t say we’ll hold on to Toni Morrison and throw out Harper Lee, you can’t dump Gone With the Wind but keep Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, because each of these are part of the exact same story.

It’s a package deal, called history. And you’re not going to get the best end of that deal by pretending history doesn’t exist.

 

 

 

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