As a college senior, I took a Western Civilization course. Twice weekly, the unfashionably conservative L. Pearce Williams, delivered spirited, outstanding lectures to a large, full hall. In addition to those lectures and three exams, we had weekly “discussion sections” comprising a dozen students. My section was led by a teaching assistant named Camille, a smart, soft-spoken, petite strawberry blonde on whom I developed a crush. As she entered and left our small classroom on the stately main quad, she wore a beret. Ithaca, New York winters are cold. So are the springs.
Apr 20, 2023·edited Apr 20, 2023Liked by Mark Oshinskie
“But the aggregate amount of panic-building stories on both broadcast media and The Net drowned out the truthful message of Internet Coronamania debunkers. Thus, most people never saw or heard the thoughtful criticism.”
Yep. I never saw or heard the criticism. I knew things started sounding absurd. It wasn’t until after getting two shots and my friend getting seriously ill from Covid (due to no early treatment and low vitamin D level) did I start looking for the truth.
Now, all my time is spent trying to educate (my state senators) on the dangers of the shots. Will it make a difference? Only God knows. But I refuse to think that just one person like me, who is still pissed off at being duped, can’t.
As always Mark, I love starting my day off with your insightful, thought provoking prose. May God bless you and those you love.
Apr 20, 2023·edited Apr 20, 2023Liked by Mark Oshinskie
Your essays are a balm. Thank you.
My reflection: anything and anyone might have changed the course of it in some way, however two individuals, Trump and Biden, as Presidents of the US, had the leverage to slow and even stop a good part of the crazy train. For example, the former could have refused to impose lockdowns, and refused to plug the experimental vaccines as safe and effective, and the latter could have refused to impose mandates. Just those two moves by those two people would have been game changers. I get it, though, that something deeper is going on in various entrenched bureaucracies and etc., and even if Trump had not been so gullible, and Biden so craven and stupid, we would nonetheless have been living through some kind of shale show.
Outstanding work Mark. I often wonder as well regarding being born at a certain time and/or place. Heartbreaking to think of all the young lives lost (particularly regarding war) just for being a certain age at a certain time and place. I will take exception to one line in your piece. “But protest gatherings were banned.”
….Except in the name of justice and for one George Floyd. Imagine smack dab in the middle of a deadly once-in-a-lifetime pandemic if you will. Hundreds, if not thousands of people all packed close screaming, yelling, many not masked up.
"But medicine is America’s latter-day religion. Americans think they owe their lives to all things medical, including Pharma drugs and vaccines."
This is the killer quote from another great essay. I have the (bad) habit of using Reddit. One has to have something to do in the bathroom. The English Language subs are largely dominated by US people with a particular mindset while not, perhaps, typical of the rest of the US is representative of the very vocal online supporters of 'the current thing'. They tend to be left-of-centre and cynical about big corporations apart from, of course, the pharmaceutical industry, despite the industry's egregious record for dishonesty and outright fraud.
The efficacy and safety of vaccines is an article of faith and even the slightest questioning of this marks the author as a blasphemer and infidel. I read a thread a couple of days ago, something like, "What was the craziest thing that happened in the pandemic", and one of the highly upvoted comments was about (to paraphrase) how the mentally challenged anti-vaxxers had all come out of the woodwork. There was a chorus of approval for this and the one or two brave souls who put their heads over the parapet to demur were furiously downvoted. It is, absolutely, a religion for these people who, ironically, would in the most part describe themselves as rational and atheist.
Was it inevitable? Given that Americans are drug-addled to start with, yes. In fact we were an oil-soaked rag and Fauci's blather was the spark. The covid mess was already underway long before 2020 in one sense: we seem to think life is dependent on taking the right pills. You mentioned Illich and his books on overmedicalization: how apposite. We're obese and unhealthy, take more pills than any other nation, and were just waiting for shut-down orders so we could fold up and coast.
Apr 20, 2023·edited Apr 20, 2023Liked by Mark Oshinskie
yes - we should be smarter and wiser. yet it seems we just keep making the same mistakes over and over again and cant course correct. remember Psych 101. we all studied the Milgram and Asch experiments. they were designed and undertaken to try and understand how a society could become so deranged. yet we saw one play out - right in front of our eyes. its a little disturbing to see people harmed from some of these therapies. its hard for people to wrap around the simple fact that these leadership people are acting in their "own best interest" - not yours.
I too have some interesting shoe boxes downstairs in the basement. I look at them every once in a while...
Apr 20, 2023·edited Apr 20, 2023Liked by Mark Oshinskie
The coronamania was instigated by those who control the money. The situation in Sept 2019 was in an even worse situation than 2008 and locking down economies and funnelling the money to prop up banks was necessary. All planned well in advance with the unnamed as of Feb 2020 disease of Covid 19 already appearing on World International Trade website in 2017/18 for global procurement of "Covid19 PCR machines." Also, print purchasing UK Gov docs seen for social distancing measures, floor stickers, posters, etc., months ahead of any pandemic announcements. I used to buy print. Preplanning for paper, inks, logistics, current orders, cannot happen overnight. Same with vaccines. No company would be purchasing all liquids, chemicals etc. until goods signed off as "safe and effective" unless they knew in advance that they would be. Due Dilligence and Art S/S has the details of that. Remember, every gov heavily in debt. PM's controlled by banks and serve them, not the people. Those that did serve people like Tanzania, Brunai, Haiti, all ended up dead.
Yep, that's the big issue. But seeing what they're planning, it's going to be harsh on the true believers. The new jabs for other weak diseases will cause more hardship on people who didn't get the message during convid.
Unfortunately, some people are so asleep that they'll only wake up when it hits them directly.
This quote doesn't just apply to intelligent people, but anyone that has blind faith in anything.
"The evolutionary psychologist William von Hippel found that humans use large parts of thinking power to navigate social world rather than perform independent analysis and decision making. For most people it is the mechanism that, in case of doubt, will prevent one from thinking what is right if, in return, it endangers one’s social status. This phenomenon occurs more strongly the higher a person’s social status. Another factor is that the more educated and more theoretically intelligent a person is, the more their brain is adept at selling them the biggest nonsense as a reasonable idea, as long as it elevates their social status. The upper educated class tends to be more inclined than ordinary people to chase some intellectual boondoggle. "
-Sasha Latypova
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wise people so full of doubts.” -Bertrand Russell
"They went along to get along"- (without engaging their brains). Had lunch yesterday with a long time friend who totally bought into the whole mess. She kept bringing up the last few years by inserting "during covid" into her conversation. I didn't respond directly to those remarks, except for one topic when I was explaining by brain tumor removal and the symptoms I had prior, she asked "did you ever think you had covid" and my knee jerk reaction was a loud and emphatic "No". (Maybe a little too loud my husband thought)- but I guess she fell into that category of someone who really doesn't feel valued in her community (retired, not in a relationship, really doesn't do any volunteer work or belong to any kind of group) so she grabbed on and grabbed on hard....and can't let go...at least she's not wearing a mask to walk into a restaurant anymore, because "covid's over"! :-) smh Thanks always for your level head and great ability to put reason and stories on paper! (A+)
Best, most well written and argued refutation of the scamdemic I’ve encountered in the three years of this apocalypse. (Apocalypse in the sense of it being a revelation as well as the more commonly held belief of it meaning destruction) For it has truly been revelatory about many many things humanity is facing and has faced since the ‘dawning of time’.
Thankfully I have discovered your stack and will visit again. 😉
I believe that most of our American history has been orchestrated by a select few- some good, most bad. All of our wars in the last 125 years could have been averted, but the elite who run the show could not gain additional power nor make gobs of money from peace. Just munitions alone has created vast wealth- never mind the tens of millions lost in the so- called battles. Economics always reigns supreme. There are surely exceptions to my last statements, but not many.
Mark, I really liked this latest masterpiece of yours. I immediately reflected on my college years. I had some scholarship offers from a few schools, but couldn't get any peace of mind about where to go. I got a call from the new head coach at MS State and he asked me to try out for his team in fall practice. I spent 4 years there and met the mother of my children as well as lifelong friends! What if I had chosen another school? I hadn't thought about this in a while- my memories are precious and my friendships are priceless! Your writing was the trigger.
Sometimes I feel meaningless. But that doesn't mean I will join any cult to find myself. Coronamania exists for one reason. The masses are psychologically asleep and refuse to wake up. Thus they need something to quell their nightmares and the thought of death from a dreaded virus was enough to make them join forces and become wards of big pharma. Trust of big pharma and the medical mafia is one gigantic cult...right up the the point of death.
I absolutely love your work. Trump was verifiably the 1st to turn to say it was an over reaction. But the media wouldn't have it. You go on to list a host of others highly credentialed who went along as well. I vociferously argued 1st with phone calls and then writing multiple times to the President of the University Bamm Bamm1 attends to no avail. We were played. Trump was played.
“But the aggregate amount of panic-building stories on both broadcast media and The Net drowned out the truthful message of Internet Coronamania debunkers. Thus, most people never saw or heard the thoughtful criticism.”
Yep. I never saw or heard the criticism. I knew things started sounding absurd. It wasn’t until after getting two shots and my friend getting seriously ill from Covid (due to no early treatment and low vitamin D level) did I start looking for the truth.
Now, all my time is spent trying to educate (my state senators) on the dangers of the shots. Will it make a difference? Only God knows. But I refuse to think that just one person like me, who is still pissed off at being duped, can’t.
As always Mark, I love starting my day off with your insightful, thought provoking prose. May God bless you and those you love.
Your essays are a balm. Thank you.
My reflection: anything and anyone might have changed the course of it in some way, however two individuals, Trump and Biden, as Presidents of the US, had the leverage to slow and even stop a good part of the crazy train. For example, the former could have refused to impose lockdowns, and refused to plug the experimental vaccines as safe and effective, and the latter could have refused to impose mandates. Just those two moves by those two people would have been game changers. I get it, though, that something deeper is going on in various entrenched bureaucracies and etc., and even if Trump had not been so gullible, and Biden so craven and stupid, we would nonetheless have been living through some kind of shale show.
Outstanding work Mark. I often wonder as well regarding being born at a certain time and/or place. Heartbreaking to think of all the young lives lost (particularly regarding war) just for being a certain age at a certain time and place. I will take exception to one line in your piece. “But protest gatherings were banned.”
….Except in the name of justice and for one George Floyd. Imagine smack dab in the middle of a deadly once-in-a-lifetime pandemic if you will. Hundreds, if not thousands of people all packed close screaming, yelling, many not masked up.
That couldn’t happen. Right?
"But medicine is America’s latter-day religion. Americans think they owe their lives to all things medical, including Pharma drugs and vaccines."
This is the killer quote from another great essay. I have the (bad) habit of using Reddit. One has to have something to do in the bathroom. The English Language subs are largely dominated by US people with a particular mindset while not, perhaps, typical of the rest of the US is representative of the very vocal online supporters of 'the current thing'. They tend to be left-of-centre and cynical about big corporations apart from, of course, the pharmaceutical industry, despite the industry's egregious record for dishonesty and outright fraud.
The efficacy and safety of vaccines is an article of faith and even the slightest questioning of this marks the author as a blasphemer and infidel. I read a thread a couple of days ago, something like, "What was the craziest thing that happened in the pandemic", and one of the highly upvoted comments was about (to paraphrase) how the mentally challenged anti-vaxxers had all come out of the woodwork. There was a chorus of approval for this and the one or two brave souls who put their heads over the parapet to demur were furiously downvoted. It is, absolutely, a religion for these people who, ironically, would in the most part describe themselves as rational and atheist.
Was it inevitable? Given that Americans are drug-addled to start with, yes. In fact we were an oil-soaked rag and Fauci's blather was the spark. The covid mess was already underway long before 2020 in one sense: we seem to think life is dependent on taking the right pills. You mentioned Illich and his books on overmedicalization: how apposite. We're obese and unhealthy, take more pills than any other nation, and were just waiting for shut-down orders so we could fold up and coast.
One of the best essays I’ve read on this whole covid debacle. You are a gifted writer, Mark! I’ll be sharing this piece to many!
yes - we should be smarter and wiser. yet it seems we just keep making the same mistakes over and over again and cant course correct. remember Psych 101. we all studied the Milgram and Asch experiments. they were designed and undertaken to try and understand how a society could become so deranged. yet we saw one play out - right in front of our eyes. its a little disturbing to see people harmed from some of these therapies. its hard for people to wrap around the simple fact that these leadership people are acting in their "own best interest" - not yours.
I too have some interesting shoe boxes downstairs in the basement. I look at them every once in a while...
The coronamania was instigated by those who control the money. The situation in Sept 2019 was in an even worse situation than 2008 and locking down economies and funnelling the money to prop up banks was necessary. All planned well in advance with the unnamed as of Feb 2020 disease of Covid 19 already appearing on World International Trade website in 2017/18 for global procurement of "Covid19 PCR machines." Also, print purchasing UK Gov docs seen for social distancing measures, floor stickers, posters, etc., months ahead of any pandemic announcements. I used to buy print. Preplanning for paper, inks, logistics, current orders, cannot happen overnight. Same with vaccines. No company would be purchasing all liquids, chemicals etc. until goods signed off as "safe and effective" unless they knew in advance that they would be. Due Dilligence and Art S/S has the details of that. Remember, every gov heavily in debt. PM's controlled by banks and serve them, not the people. Those that did serve people like Tanzania, Brunai, Haiti, all ended up dead.
"But medicine is America’s latter-day religion. "
Yep, that's the big issue. But seeing what they're planning, it's going to be harsh on the true believers. The new jabs for other weak diseases will cause more hardship on people who didn't get the message during convid.
Unfortunately, some people are so asleep that they'll only wake up when it hits them directly.
This quote doesn't just apply to intelligent people, but anyone that has blind faith in anything.
"The evolutionary psychologist William von Hippel found that humans use large parts of thinking power to navigate social world rather than perform independent analysis and decision making. For most people it is the mechanism that, in case of doubt, will prevent one from thinking what is right if, in return, it endangers one’s social status. This phenomenon occurs more strongly the higher a person’s social status. Another factor is that the more educated and more theoretically intelligent a person is, the more their brain is adept at selling them the biggest nonsense as a reasonable idea, as long as it elevates their social status. The upper educated class tends to be more inclined than ordinary people to chase some intellectual boondoggle. "
-Sasha Latypova
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wise people so full of doubts.” -Bertrand Russell
"They went along to get along"- (without engaging their brains). Had lunch yesterday with a long time friend who totally bought into the whole mess. She kept bringing up the last few years by inserting "during covid" into her conversation. I didn't respond directly to those remarks, except for one topic when I was explaining by brain tumor removal and the symptoms I had prior, she asked "did you ever think you had covid" and my knee jerk reaction was a loud and emphatic "No". (Maybe a little too loud my husband thought)- but I guess she fell into that category of someone who really doesn't feel valued in her community (retired, not in a relationship, really doesn't do any volunteer work or belong to any kind of group) so she grabbed on and grabbed on hard....and can't let go...at least she's not wearing a mask to walk into a restaurant anymore, because "covid's over"! :-) smh Thanks always for your level head and great ability to put reason and stories on paper! (A+)
Best, most well written and argued refutation of the scamdemic I’ve encountered in the three years of this apocalypse. (Apocalypse in the sense of it being a revelation as well as the more commonly held belief of it meaning destruction) For it has truly been revelatory about many many things humanity is facing and has faced since the ‘dawning of time’.
Thankfully I have discovered your stack and will visit again. 😉
Chance, circumstances, and agency.
Once they shut down playgrounds and beaches, I knew it was a scam.
How did everyone not see that?
I believe that most of our American history has been orchestrated by a select few- some good, most bad. All of our wars in the last 125 years could have been averted, but the elite who run the show could not gain additional power nor make gobs of money from peace. Just munitions alone has created vast wealth- never mind the tens of millions lost in the so- called battles. Economics always reigns supreme. There are surely exceptions to my last statements, but not many.
Mark, I really liked this latest masterpiece of yours. I immediately reflected on my college years. I had some scholarship offers from a few schools, but couldn't get any peace of mind about where to go. I got a call from the new head coach at MS State and he asked me to try out for his team in fall practice. I spent 4 years there and met the mother of my children as well as lifelong friends! What if I had chosen another school? I hadn't thought about this in a while- my memories are precious and my friendships are priceless! Your writing was the trigger.
Sometimes I feel meaningless. But that doesn't mean I will join any cult to find myself. Coronamania exists for one reason. The masses are psychologically asleep and refuse to wake up. Thus they need something to quell their nightmares and the thought of death from a dreaded virus was enough to make them join forces and become wards of big pharma. Trust of big pharma and the medical mafia is one gigantic cult...right up the the point of death.
I absolutely love your work. Trump was verifiably the 1st to turn to say it was an over reaction. But the media wouldn't have it. You go on to list a host of others highly credentialed who went along as well. I vociferously argued 1st with phone calls and then writing multiple times to the President of the University Bamm Bamm1 attends to no avail. We were played. Trump was played.