It seems like choosing not to comply is our only way out of this mess.
It started with a few whispered predictions. Conspiracy theories, if you will. They’re bringing mask mandates back. They’re going to lock us down again. We won’t be able to work without the latest booster. You watch. It’s coming.
I’m not going to lie; I didn’t believe the rumors at first. In fact, I might have laughed at the thought of COVID 2.0. Don’t get me wrong; I knew they were working on something miserable to inflict on us — an alien invasion, nuclear war, a new and suddenly overwhelming climate emergency involving tea kettles or mitten warmers, some Directed Energy Weapons attacks on prime American real estate, a global head lice epidemic, a hurricane-earthquake combo in California (oh, wait!). But COVID again? They wouldn’t. They couldn’t! That would be like hiring the shipyard that built the Titanic to design your new yacht or inviting Milli Vanilli to compete on America’s Got Talent.
And then, amid “an uptick in COVID cases” reported by (who else?) the CDC, Lionsgate Studios in L.A. and hospitals including United Health Services in New York and Kaiser Permanente in California declared masks were back and they were nonnegotiable, despite overwhelming evidence that even professional-grade models are wildly ineffective at preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses. “The new policy is in effect immediately for all patients, visitors, employees, medical staff, volunteers, students and vendors,” UHS wrote in a statement.
If it were just masks, we could roll our eyes and laugh at the foolish “maskholes” who were bound to comply. We might point out the recent German study that found just a few minutes of daily mask-wearing can cause anxiety, impaired learning, neuron damage, and diminished fertility, among other unpleasant side effects. (And that’s whether you’re sporting a medical-grade muzzle or that scrap of bedazzled cotton you bought on Amazon, incidentally.) We may even throw up the fact that it’s been revealed that the hallowed N95 masks we were told were the gold standard actually expose users to dangerous levels of toxic compounds linked to headaches, organ damage, and cancer. Whoops! But, you know, it’s still a free country. Whatever makes you feel virtuous safe.
But it’s not just masks. Last week my niece started nursing school after years of studying and praying and busting her ass to get into an uber-competitive program. She had been enrolled for all of a week when the hospital hosting clinical rotations dropped the hammer: Due to a minuscule rise in cases (not deaths, by the way) of what for most will be a mild cold, all nursing students had until Friday to get COVID vaxxed or boosted or be booted from the program.
The hospital, you see, needed to prepare for a surge in critically ill COVID patients — by jabbing their staff and students with a chemical cocktail that unequivocally doesn’t prevent infection or transmission. Even a little bit. So while the injected wouldn’t actually be protecting themselves or anyone else from anything, and they might suffer any number of side effects ranging from a sore arm to death, the hospital wouldn’t be liable… besides, do you have any idea what the medical system payout is for mass vaccine compliance? Cha-ching!
As if on cue, schools in Kentucky and Texas instituted temporary closures due to COVID hysteria, or massive bribes, or both. Biden woke up long enough to announce he had signed off on a proposal asking Congress for additional funding for a new vaccine “that is necessary, that works,” despite the fact that previous COVID shots have proven they aren’t and they don’t. If that weren’t asinine enough — and I certainly hope we can agree that it is — he added that it will likely be recommended that “everybody get [this as yet undeveloped wonder drug which may or may not prove to be deadly, too], no matter whether they’ve gotten it before or not.” You don’t say.
So yeah. It looks like we’re doing this again. And it appears the only path out is the same one we had three years ago, something a depressingly massive swath of the global population failed to grasp during the test run: united, unequivocal, unrelenting noncompliance.
It’s simple supply-and-demand: We aren’t buying what they’re selling. None of us, none of it. They won’t let us into the restaurant without a vax pass? We’ll eat somewhere else. Can’t fly without a mask? Sounds like a great excuse for a road trip to me! “But I’ll lose my job/not be able to meet my new grandbaby/miss out on the concert I paid a week’s salary to attend,” isn’t going to cut it this time around.
Remember when we did it for granny, and she died alone in a hospital because we complied with their tyranny? Remember all those poor, compliant souls who “did the right thing” and were rewarded with a heartbreaking Instagram post boasting a #DiedSuddenly hashtag? Remember the skyrocketing suicide rates, the stunted worldwide childhood development, the sweeping depression, and the overwhelming loss of lives and livelihoods that lockdown left in its wake?
The parade-worthy news is people are already pushing back. The mask-lash was so deafening in California (California!) that Kaiser and Lionsgate both swiftly dropped their face-veil requirements. The Wall Street Journal ran a first-person piece titled ‘No Covid Compliance This Time Around’, in which the author, a Journal staffer, disavows everything from fist bumps to clot shots. Sure, it’s an opinion piece (and an excellent one at that). But they printed it. In the Wall Street Journal.
And then this week, in a decided turnaround by the guy who originally launched Operation Warp Speed, former President Trump released a video addressing the “COVID tyrants [who] want to take away our freedom.” He said the quiet part out loud: “We will not shut down our schools. We will not accept your lockdowns. We will not abide by your mask mandates, and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandates.”
No, we will not.
The resistance that began as a low but powerful growl is growing — and it’s working. In an interview with CBS News, although medical correspondent Dr. Celine Grounder predictably insisted she’d be wearing a mask on an upcoming flight and hyped boosters like a used car salesman trying to dump a ’77 Pinto, when asked about the possibility of another round of lockdowns, Gounder tripped over herself to insist “that ship has sailed.” Maybe, just maybe, if we turn that growl into a thunderous rumble, the czars in charge will know we really mean business.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
I’m here and I’m loud and I hope to God you’re with me because as far as I can see, not complying is the only way out of this mess.
