Covid vsccine

The ruling class have worked out how to divide the peasants for millenia by using their own idealogy against them via a combination of tribal bias confirmation and cognitive dissonance (fueled by media propaganda irrespective of any facts) in order to keep them trapped within their own opposing tribes and fixated on fighting against each other.

For instance throughout 2020 many political pundits staunchly advised against getting vaccinated because they distrusted anything promoted by a certain orange haired individual occupying the White House.

Fast forward to a change of government and several of those same pundits now state that anyone who is vaccine hesitant obviously must either be a pro orange man supporter, on the far right or a white supremacist/terrorist.

Folks who are unvaccinated because they have poor access are not anti-vax, assuming they remain unvaccinated due to that lack of access.  Ditto for folks who have medical reasons. The term is pretty straight-forward, IMO: if you oppose vaccination writ large, you are anti-vaccination.  Race is not a factor in this issue. Since you brought it up, though: it's worth noting that there are four times as many unvax'd (r) people than black people in the US, and the rate of vaccine *hesitancy/refusal* (the more important metric, in terms of the argument i'm making here) is also higher amongst (r) people than it is amongst black people. So the race thing here feels a bit like a strawman, and certainly smacks of a certain amount of willingness to buy into the culture war rhetoric of a particular corner of the ideological spectrum.

Anywho, back to the point.  If a bipoc person is avoiding the vaccine because they've bought into the culture war nonsense, while also taking advantage of and enjoying our (for-now😭) re-opened society, they are every bit the selfish jerk that a white person is for doing the same. If someone wants to avoid vaccination, that is their right, and I have no problem with it whatsoever. Where I take umbrage, however, is when they begin to interact with society in-person, risking the health and safety of others. 

I hope you're right about the FDA approval, but I am not optimistic.  I think most people were using it as a cover, and I fully expect the goalposts to be moved in response to the FDA's decision.  I genuinely hope I am very wrong.

If an employer mandates vaccines (a move which, btw, i fully support and intend to enact in my own business), an at-risk employee can get a good ol' fashioned "doctor's note" where applicable.  It seems fairly simple to me.

Pundits were not opposed to the orange guy's vaccine. The opposition and skepticism came in the wake of reports that the orange guy was pressuring premature approval so a vaccine would drop before election day.

I think you may be a victim of the very situation you are describing above.

My point is if you listen to certain news outlets you'd think there's only one very specific type of person not getting vaccinated and that isn't true.  It hasn't been true at any point of this vaccine campaign but they never let a little truth get in the way of a good story I guess.  I consider that kind of reporting very irresponsible and down right dangerous.  I'm not trying to make it a racial issue, I was just shocked that when I started looking into it, out of all groups to have a low vaccination rate it was a group that votes 90% dem.  That does not support the narrative at all.  

As far as putting people at risk.  If two unvaccinated people go to the grocery store, they both know the risk they are taking, correct?  Or...are you now worried about vaxxed people being infected by unvaccinated people too?  If so, that's a part of a larger discussion.  

I think there is going to be a good bump due to FDA approval(and as a result many mandates).  Time will tell but I'm optimistic.  

Lots of blame to go around but I'd have to say dems fired the first shot in politicizing the pandemic when 45 closed down travel from China(in hindsight a VERY good move) and they called him racist/xenophobic for doing so. They seemed to be more concerned about the upcoming election than the actual safety of US citizens at the time, not a good look. 45 did his fair share during those press conferences(I used to get a kick out of the look on Dr. Birx's face in the background LOL).

Regardless of the reasons for any dem's doubt about the vaccines when 45 was still in office...if we're in the middle of a pandemic is it really the best time to air all that out publicly? I wasn't a fan of it and still wouldn't have been a fan of it if the roles had been reversed.

You're correct that people of all sorts are not getting vaccinated.  There is the whole hippie element of the left which is largely anti western medecine/anti establishment, etc.  I think your info re: ethnicity is a little unclear though...a while back I made the point that they only have ethnicity data on something like 50% of vaccine patients at the point of vaccination, but that polls are finding a much higher rate of vaccination among the Black community.  As was pointed out, there are a number of factors involved which may have nothing to do with being anti-vax.

You don't have to look very hard to find a conservative politician/pundit/pastor/etc. telling their audience that vaccines are dangerous and that masks are anti-freedom.  This is not media spin.  It's the message that they are putting out and the media is reporting on it.

You're correct that people of all sorts are not getting vaccinated.  There is the whole hippie element of the left which is largely anti western medecine/anti establishment, etc.  I think your info re: ethnicity is a little unclear though...a while back I made the point that they only have ethnicity data on something like 50% of vaccine patients at the point of vaccination, but that polls are finding a much higher rate of vaccination among the Black community.  As was pointed out, there are a number of factors involved which may have nothing to do with being anti-vax.

You don't have to look very hard to find a conservative politician/pundit/pastor/etc. telling their audience that vaccines are dangerous and that masks are anti-freedom.  This is not media spin.  It's the message that they are putting out and the media is reporting on it.

This gets to exactly what I'm talking about.  You mentioned "conservative/pundit/pastor."  You want to know the biggest anti covid vaxxer I've seen? Louis Farrakhan...not a conservative, not a christian and not white.   He calls it the "vial of death."  How many times have you seen his name come up when being told about the groups you mentioned?  That's the problem, people reporting that way are intentionally leaving out parts that don't fit the narrative.  

Louis Farrakhan is an anti-Semite and leader of a SPLC-designated hate group (and who, ironically, praised the orange guy on a few occasions! 😉) and has never held political office. He has virtually no mainstream political sway whatsoever.  He is largely irrelevant; the rightwing media likes to bring him up as some sort of liberal boogeyman but the truth is, he is not a popular figure (not even close) in the left, and he is hardly what most would consider 'progressive', by any stretch of the imagination.  Contrast that to the myriad mainstream (r) elected officials who routinely tweet similar sentiments, and I'd respectfully suggest that your introduction of Farrakhan into this discussion is a bit of a canard (though perhaps not deliberately and/or in bad faith).

I never said he was a good guy haha...just pointing out that if I'm in the media and I'm doing research on where anti-vaccine rhetoric is coming from he is going to come up very quickly.  Not because it's a rightwing talking point, but because it's so blaringly obvious.  So, if he's left out...it's deliberate.  I have a problem with that.  Instead, CNN focuses on someone like Greg Locke who pastors a TINY church in in the middle of nowhere,TN.  All the while ignoring prominent Christian leaders like Franklin Graham and Andy Stanley who have huge influence who have been very pro-vaxx.  I don't like when narratives are that well crafted.  People see through that and it only creates more mistrust/hesitancy.  

As far as elected officials they should do better!  Unfortunately I don't expect much from them which is sad to say. 

Ha, well, neither of us expect much from elected officials, so on that we can certainly agree!

As for Greg Locke, I must admit this is the first I've heard of him, so I can't comment on him.  But to your point about the other two (again, I know little to nothing about them...i sorta can't be bothered with the religiously-minded vis a vis public life so this is an area where I'm poorly-informed), it seems there's just not much of a story there.  What would be the reporting about, exactly?  I've already their names a few times in stories about their various covid-related positions over the past year: pro-shutting down churches, encouraging folks to get vaccinated, etc.  Is there something currently going on with them that you feel is being deliberately under-reported?

I noticed those Twitter follow numbers, too.  But I didn't mention either's follows number, because it's not a great metric in this conversation in and of itself:



A) I find myself wondering if Locke's followers are likely mostly American, whilst Farrakhan's might tend to be more international.  It's a likely scenario, I think, but one that i cannot prove, hence my keeping mum.  But if that's indeed the case, it would make little sense to weigh Farrakhan's opinion about American public policy against his popularity on Twitter, when his followers might not only NOT represent mainstream american thinking, but indeed might not even BE american.



B) A follow on Twitter is not an endorsement for one's ideology.