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I 100% agree. I fought the whole lockdown bullshit almost from day 1. When it hit I was 9 months into a grief journey as I had lost my SO suddenly from an aortic dissection at the age of 49. I knew how fleeting life is and tomorrow is never guaranteed. The idea that we were sacrificing today from a tomorrow that might never happen cut me to the core. The next hour isn’t guaranteed. My hubby was fine and then two hours later died in the emergency room and like so many during the highest idiocy of the lockdowns, I couldn’t be with him.

There are times when I do some serious questioning as to why I didn’t fall for the propaganda like all those around me but I saw thru it early on and went online to seek out others who might be with me and confirm that I wasn’t insane.

The whole thing has been beyond ridiculous.

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author

Bergen, that is an awesome message.

If you haven't left NJ, I'm still down to meet .

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Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

From the very beginning, I couldn't make sense of the logic. Because there was none. And I was amazed that people I really respected, intellectually, seemed to loose their critical thinking and discernment skills. I kept telling my friends and co-workers, let's have a covid party (likening it to a chickenpox party), we'll all get, and get past it, and get on with our lives. It was amazing to me how many were genuinely fearful, of what, I couldn't understand. My 30 y/o daughter, my only child, being among them. Even today, I see and work with people who are double masked, wearing face shields, avoiding others, and quadruple vaxxed. They'll feel like such failures when they finally get Covid. Was it Franklin who said it's easier to fool someone than convince them they've been fooled? How true!

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Jun 24, 2022·edited Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

Great commentary and I could not agree more. As I've written previously, locking down all of society for a virus that, even in April 2020, was known to affect the young and/or healthy as nothing more than a mild cold, if that, never made any sense. I was puzzled by it and tried in vain to talk sense to friends and co-workers (family members, except for one or two in-laws, were always in agreement with me). I said to my pro-lockdown, pro-mask, pro-one-way store aisles, and eventually pro-vax friends in March 2020, "I fear the financial, social, and political consequences of shutting down the entire country" and "We should quarantine the vulnerable and let everyone else keep working" and, in a last-ditch attempt to talk sense to them, "You can't have a healthcare system if you don't have an economy!"

Because my company's line of business was deemed "essential," I was free to continue working in our office during the lockdown as I have for 20+ years...and I made a point of doing so (one of only three who did). When our company said we could come back to work but that masks were required, in August 2020, I elected to work from home and haven't been back since. I was able to outlast a vax mandate (even to work from home, because of government contracts) that was an ongoing threat but never materialized and that, suddenly, isn't being mentioned anymore by our HR staff.

When I retire from this company, where I've worked for 20+ years, I am not wanting a retirement party or a gold watch. I will ask for the only thing I want from them: an apology!

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Jun 24, 2022·edited Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

Yap...100%agree...I call these lockdowns house arrests. They are a punishment, not a health measure, they are not for waiting for a trial or a sentence, they are a real trial, an experiment and the sentence is that we are banned to go back to our normal life and forced to accept the stupid absurd idiotic rules and ethics and the holy upside down new world order.

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Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

Your essay expresses everything I’ve known from Day 5 of this evil charade. I wish we could have lunched together in 2020! Next time you’re near Hilton Head…

I, too, have lost most of my ‘friends’ but something odd is happening recently: some of those folks are sheepishly, timidly reconnecting to me. Nothing so courageous as an APOLOGY, just a quiet sidling back into my orbit and no more talk of The Shot. Interesting. I’m a bit aloof: trust issues, you know.

I also agree with the comment regarding churches. I left my beloved church, disgusted by their closure demonstrating that they serve Caesar, not God. Much to my surprise, reading the Bible alone or with a tiny circle of the like-minded, I have grown so much closer to God. That is my silver lining!

Love your essays, Mark! Thank you.

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Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

it was about ousting trump.

it was about ruining the us economy

too many of the elderly dead were faulty treatment, still a problem, and politics.

every death a headline.

my partner is still a covidiot!

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Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

I will never get over or forgive what has been done to us, & why. In addition to the overall physical/emotional/economic/societal damage, all of the joy of graduations, weddings, parties robbed; the people who had no comfort or love as they convalesced or died alone in hospitals or nursing homes; babies, toddlers, children & teens stunted in their physical, social, emotional & educational development.

Im not really religious, but one of the most stunning capitulations was the religious institutions of all faiths. If any entities should have rebelled against the tyranny of the State, it should have been those; if ever there was a need for faith, hope, fellowship, community & a belief in God’s good, it was then. I was pretty stunned @ how completely most of them (other than the really evangelical ones where I live) went along - if one is a true believer, why would one be afraid? God knows the number of each of our days & what will be, will be. By defying the State, a church & congregation would demonstrate complete faith in God & commend their lives to His hands (esp w/ a 99.7% survivability for the vast majority). Instead, churches closed completely & when some reopened, demanded masking &/or no singing, & in some places, denied entry to the unvax’d. It was remarkable to me & highlighted some hypocracy where I would not necessarily have expected it

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Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

I should’ve known better, but because we lived in Seattle I too fell for the bullshit - at least for about a month.

There’s a photo of me masked up on Seattle transit that Alexa keeps showing. I don’t delete it because I need the reminder not to be such a dipshit.

We left Seattle in May 2020 to go back home to flyover country. That’s when the spell started dissolving.

The lingering damage is the knowledge of the power of propaganda over so many people. There’s something deeply sinister about the digital lives we are immersed in.

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100%. I have come to the conclusion that many people fear reality. They fear death. They fear hardship and suffering. And I am not sure anything was learned by most of them over the past two years. We may find out as the next plandemic is unleashed.

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Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

Yes. Your article is right on point, Mark. I’ve mentioned this in other comments, but I lost my job because of the virus, or so the prevailing theory went. Much later, we learned that it had nothing whatsoever to do with it and was used as a ruse to close our division.

I spent the rest of 2020 trying to get over my anger, and the whole lockdown thing just angered me even more. So I didn’t stay home. I shopped. I went on walks. I went on drives, all unmasked. My hubby was freaked out about the whole thing and was irritated with me because I didn’t listen to the hysterical exhortations. I didn’t care. I eventually got a stop-gap part-time job and got through the worst of the virus. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that I contracted Omicron and was sick for about a week. At least I gained some immunity out of it, as I am unvaxed and am staying that way.

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Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

the odd thing about the lockdown was there seemed to be little enforcement outside of the already police state like cities , i know of folks who never stayed home , and had no problems , aside from dirty looks from the brainwashed

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Jun 24, 2022·edited Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

I lost a good friend (I thought!) over this. My whole family (I have 11 children and 20 grandchildren.) came over for Easter, lockdowns be damned. A friend happened to drive past and saw all the cars in my driveway and called to lecture me about breaking the law and how I was going to kill his mom, who is elderly and not in the best health. My kids and grandkids were virus factories in his mind, spreading a deadly disease that experts were warning we would all die of. We haven't spoken since.

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Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

Totally agree. The lockdowns made no sense. Ok to go to Walmart, but not a small local business. Wear a mask to enter restaurant, but remove when sitting. It was all absurd. Absolutely no common sense nor any scientific basis when you actually looked at what they were mandating. It was like watching a horror show, but people were going along as if it was all good.

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I specifically remember Friday March 13, 2020. I’m nursing a beer at the kitchen table with my mind racing. I’m thinking, where the hell are we going with this? My confusion didn’t last long. I became first frustrated and then quite angry. I refused to stay home, I drove or biked anytime, anywhere and never wore a mask other than a trip to the grocery store. Don’t get me started on the arrows in the aisles. Anyway, I missed a few weeks of work- my outside job commenced rather quickly - and I never deviated from my normal routine. I did lose a friend. After a 3 plus minute voicemail on how Trump is gonna kill 5-6 million Americans and a clever tutorial on how to game the NJ unemployment system, I cut ties. I had zero interest in sitting home collecting Covid checks, eating crappy food and watching YouTube videos. I knew then that there would be a cost to handing out free money, separating humans for a ubiquitous respiratory virus. The exact cost wasn’t evident yet but I knew damn well that whenever the bill was due, there’d be an extreme amount of interest added to the bottom line. Its clear now that we’re all paying for the sins of our dear leaders and their catastrophic actions. Tragic.

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Jun 24, 2022Liked by Mark Oshinskie

The worst thing about this whole scamdemic for me was the depressing realization of how gullible and compliant people are, and how eager the powerful and evil are to take full advantage. The world has changed for me, despite not knowing anyone who was even particularly ill from covid. I will not forget these important lessons though.

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