Hours of analysis and reams of virtual paper have been wasted on the notion that "vaccine resistance" is a dilemma that will hinder our nation as we attempt to move past the debilitating, man-made disaster brought on by poor decisions made by elected officials faced with the coronavirus pandemic.
The narrative tends to follow the same outline. We're shown a poll that shows that the largest group of people in the country hesitant or downright suspicious of the vaccine is conservative evangelicals who voted for Trump.
The "analysis" will then stray from the raw poll numbers and descend into the typical, smug hectoring from Manhattan or Washington "experts" who've never met (let alone spoken to) a conservative evangelical who voted for Trump explaining how "these people" are putting us all in danger and that it's yet another example of how our country must be purged of these ignorant, uneducated know-nothings.
OK, maybe they don't explicitly talk about the "purge" part out loud, but you can see it in their eyes.
The next round of "analysis" will inevitably turn to television hosts on Fox News, and speculation on these hosts' vaccination status will be the exit question before going to commercial for a pharmaceutical remedy that contains a 90-second disclaimer written by 73 attorneys.
And the cycle continues with further analysis of the "vaccine resistance" rooted in suspicion of the federal government and side-cracks about these crazy gun-clingers who will ultimately be the death of us all. You've seen this programming; I'm sure you have.
But nowhere in this discussion will we ever see a thoughtful and even sympathetic conversation surrounding the most important aspect of the topic. The "why" that looms over the entire story.
Why? Why are people distrustful of the federal government, and why is that distrust heightened with issues pertaining to the Covid-19?
Why?
I suspect the reason the question is never entertained lies in the smug arrogance of the hosts and producers involved with cable news. They don't address the question because, to them, the answer is obvious: People distrust the government because they are ignorant.
There is, in fact, nothing more glaring in the realm of media bias than journalist's self-satisfied knowledge that they are superior to average Americans in every possible way. They are smarter, they are more compassionate, and they are morally superior.
Their programming is designed around this stipulation. They think their job is to educate and instruct the American people so we can be a fraction more enlightened and move a little closer on the evolutionary scale toward their lofty position above us all. Their bias is a reflection of their arrogance.
They know better and are better than the rest of us. Tune in tomorrow!
However, if anyone in these newsrooms actually cared about the American people, cared about what they thought, cared about them enough to discover why they believe what they believe, they might actually learn something. They might learn that the American people have real-world experience that sometimes transcends what is known as obvious fact in the green rooms of mid-town Manhattan cable news studios.
They live in areas where the reality on the ground has not reflected what New York and Washington, DC, have been repeating for over a year about this virus.
When the weather forecaster on television tells you it's going to be sunny all day and you look out the window and see a torrential downpour, do you take an umbrella with you or do you do what the TV told you to do?
Just yesterday, in the pages of The New York Times no less, we had a perfect example of why so many of the American people are distrustful of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on issues pertaining to this virus. It appears that one of the most illogical things the government has been preaching at us from the heights of their superior Fauci platform has been a complete lie.
It made no sense that one could contract or transmit the virus outdoors, in the open air, through casual contact with another person. Just walking at someone who happens to be breathing was considered dangerous, according to the CDC. This made no sense. No logical sense at all.
And now we know it wasn't true.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines last month for mask wearing, it announced that “less than 10 percent” of Covid-19 transmission was occurring outdoors. Media organizations repeated the statistic, and it quickly became a standard description of the frequency of outdoor transmission.
But the number is almost certainly misleading.
...
That benchmark “seems to be a huge exaggeration,” as Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist at the University of St. Andrews, said. In truth, the share of transmission that has occurred outdoors seems to be below 1 percent and may be below 0.1 percent, multiple epidemiologists told me. The rare outdoor transmission that has happened almost all seems to have involved crowded places or close conversation.
Now, it's certainly true that when the risk is around 1/10th of 1 percent, it is "less than 10 percent," but it is also true that the same risk is "less than 50 percent."
There is a reason why the CDC said the risk was "less than 10 percent" rather than the more accurate data point, that the risk was 1/10th of 1 percent. They said it was "less than 10 percent" because they wanted to manipulate the American people to do what they wanted them to do. They wanted them to continue to wear masks outside even though the data did not support the measure. So they manipulated the language to accommodate their goals.
They lied so they could better control us.
The risk of casual, outdoor transmission of the coronavirus remains at a statistically irrelevant 0.1 percent. That means we can get back to a huge number of normal activities immediately. And that's why Biden's CDC lied. We would go back to our lives and stop needing them.
Now, Fauci, the CDC, and Biden are yelling at us to get vaccinated. That we can't have a picnic on July 4 if we aren't vaccinated. That we can't have a summer camp for our children unless they are all wearing masks, outdoors, at all times.
Is it really a mystery why we are suspicious of the government? They have lied. They have paid no price. They haven't even apologized and said they got it wrong.
They've just moved on to the next mandate that is fueled by the latest crisis.
And our superiors in the corporate propaganda media don't see it.
Me? I got vaccinated for personal reasons. It made sense for me. That was my choice.
I don't push that choice on anyone else, and I don't mock, ridicule, or disregard those who are resistant or concerned about the government's full-court press that is starting to look a whole lot like coercion.
I get why people are concerned and even suspicious. They've been lied to, and they've lost their businesses, their jobs, and a year of their children's educational and social development.
I get it. I wonder why more people in the media don't get it.
What's worse, I wonder why so many of them aren't even curious enough to ask the question.
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