I was somewhere around the first paragraph of a post called “The mask’s insidious symbolism” on the right-wing American Thinker blog when the drugs began to take hold.
Well, not literally. It just felt like someone had slipped some powerful hallucinogen into my drink because the writer, one Alison Nichols, couldn’t really be saying what she seemed to be saying, right?
Here, you try reading it:
Why are those of us who have had our COVID vaccines still wearing masks? We are protected from the virus and cannot carry the virus despite being admonished otherwise. Is it because Maoism is still shaping our world?
Bam. You saw the bit about Maoism too, right? I didn’t just conjure that up in a drug-induced haze. At least I hope not.
L:et’s just keep reading to see where Ms. Nichols takes us.
While the West mistakenly believed that China would become more like us after embracing Capitalism, the West is becoming more like China; Maoism and Chinese communism are spreading like a prairie fire.
Huh. I guess I’d better get out my little red book to keep up with the times. But what exactly do masks have to do with Maoism?
Nichols, evidently an old China hand, tells us about a trip she took to China many decades ago.
For those of us who had the opportunity to travel to China following Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit, besides the overall bleakness resulting from Chairman Mao Zedong’s reign, the uniform that every person in China wore was disconcerting. The Mao jacket was the quintessential Chinese communist apparel. It symbolized Mao’s ideology: he intended to equalize more than a billion people by what they wore.
Ok, but I just looked down and I’m not wearing a Mao suit, though I did manage to remember to put on some decidedly non-Maoist pants.
Nichols gets back to the masks, and her argument, such as it is, gets a little clearer. It’s still pretty stupid, though.
Does this sound familiar? Is the mask a means to “equalize” the West?
I’m going to say no, not any more than the requirement to wear shirts and shoes when you go to the local quickee mart.
Nichols answers her own question with a strange conspiracy theory:
Liberal activists like Fauci, including those ensconced in the White House, appear to be drunk with power and deliberately moving toward the Chinese social control system that Barack Obama set into motion.
The what that the who set into motion? These people are really obsessed with Obama, huh? I wonder why, wink wink nudge nudge. As best as I can recall, he’s been out of office for more than four years.
It was Obama who promised “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” And “the mask” is not the only means of controlling our society.
You haven’t exactly explained how masks are “controlling our society” but do go on.
Consider the Biden administration running roughshod over the First, Second, and Tenth Amendments to our Constitution. (The less famous Tenth Amendment reserves for the states all power not explicitly lodged with the federal government.) Then there’s the hare-brained idea of vaccination passports.
Yes, the idea that one might have to get vaccines before traveling overseas is such a new and heretical notion.
Wait, I’m being told that this is neither new nor heretical.
And there is more, so much more. Have you read Biden’s $2-trillion so-called “infrastructure plan” that more accurately intends to “reshape” capitalism?
Is Biden going to build new bridges out of masks?
Much more money is earmarked for the Green New Deal, a land-grabbing, money-grabbing social control hoax, than for actual infrastructure.
Does any of those in charge know that the climate has been drastically changing since the beginning of time? Of course they do, but never let the truth get in the way of a narrative that works for the cause.
Wait, where do the masks fit in all this?
The above is a drop in the bucket for implementing Barack Obama’s fundamental transformation of America and seeing the federal government gain complete control over our society.
Still no more mentions of masks. But we’re back to Obama, the guy who is not actually president at this time.
Far-left politicians and their media accomplices who assiduously protect them are akin to a “jack-booted” implementation of Marxist ideology in America. And make no mistake: the implementation of Marxist ideology is communism and the road to servitude.
I’m pretty sure that Karl Marx did not have an opinion abut masks.
After the fall of the Roman Republic, the first substantial constitutional republic to appear again in the world was America. When the lights go out here, the dominoes will fall for freedom-loving peoples across the planet.
But if the lights go out, how will we be able to see the dominoes falling?
How many thousands of years will pass before freedom and liberty can emerge from the dark shadow of tyranny?
For us who are on our way out of this world, “fundamentally transforming” America is an eye-roll. For our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, it is a tragedy. They will not live with the freedoms and liberty that have made America the envy of the world.
All this because the government and public health experts want people to wear masks some of the time?
One can’t help wondering if it will be worse to lose your freedoms or never to have known what it means to be free. The only hope is for the silent majority to rise and confront the abomination facing our country.
Sorry to break it to you, but the silent majority is neither silent nor a majority. Surely you’ve noticed them running about in their ubiquitous red MAGA hats and …
Wait a minute! How exactly are these hats any better than masks when it comes to the whole “making everyone look alike because that’s what Mao would want” argument.
Nichols doesn’t say. It’s probably Obama’s fault somehow.
Unlike our corporate CEOs, who, if they aren’t craven, are hardcore ideologues
You heard it here first. Our corporate overlords are actually a bunch of Maoists.
it takes courage to stand up for America and her ideals in today’s woke culture.
It takes something — I’m not sure what — to post a conspiracy theory this wack even in today’s conspiracy-mad world. Seriously, this is QAnon-level bullshit. I’ll take woke over wack any day.
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The hats aren’t nearly as bad because they are red. Wait…
Interesting – according to a couple my mates, the person talking about Israel is being a wee bit Pollyanna about it, but eh, they’re cynical old sods.
Useless for me, mind – neither have nor intend to have a smartphone, so I’m screwed. Not that I drink anyway. 😛
Off-topic, but multiple news outlets are reporting Bernie Madoff is dead.
It doesn’t appear that Alison Nichols has a Twitter account, which is too bad because I’m curious if she had anything positive to say about Harry Styles wearing a dress in her desire to non-conformity.
@Kevin
I gather Cody thought a weighted exercise vest was too boring. He is a bit eccentric and all.
Yeah (she says, looking at today’s Amazon delivery), that Jeff Bezos is sure indistinguishable from Mao.
I have a friend who lived in China growing up, reads and speaks Mandarin, practices TCM (kind of invented by Mao), and I’ll have to send this to her so she can injure herself ROTFLOL.
Even the best vaccine is only 95% effective, and only against the current strains, not to mention the future ones. And nobody knows how long either the shot or an infection gives you antibodies against it. I’m planning on hanging with a couple of friends outside my bubble for the first time in over a year, and by then we’ll all be vaccinated — and we’re still going to be outside at one’s house, and masked on the way home and back. Because a 5% chance is still a chance. And yes, you reality-averse person, you can still transmit it to other people.
Besides the MAGA hats and violent insurrection, not wearing a mask kind of shows who they are — and their whining about masks is less than silent. And right-wing women like her all dress alike.
I haven’t seen Mr. Obama in quite a while. There was that PSA he did about getting the vaccine, which also featured the Bushes, and I think I saw that once. I think he’s building his library, and he talked with Bruce Springsteen about being a dad?
Now that this has gone on so long (thanks, Agent Orange), I’m actually seeing a lot of variety and personal expression in masks. People are color-coordinating them with their outfits, getting printed ones with their favorite breed of animal, ones that feature the movies they like, getting wacky designs that replace their mouth with gator teeth, showing which sportsball team they support. I’ve seen ads for ones that say MAGA, are all stars and stripes, or assault rifles. I personally wear masks with my favorite bands’ logos, plus mask adjuster straps with superhero symbols.
And of course our corporate overlords are giving out masks with their logos, which I see all the time. My state’s ACA provider (uh-oh, Obamacare!) sent everyone who was signed up with them 2 free masks (the good kind, with a nose wire and the “beak”) to serve as advertising in the last sign-up period. And all my health care workers wear masks branded with their organization’s logo.
Judging from what she says about her age, I’m gonna say this is “Old Woman Yells At Cloud”. 100 years ago, she would have been all upset at young women getting bob haircuts and rolling down their stockings.
@Alan: I’m hoping my second shot improves my wi-fi. It’s been dodgy lately, even after the first one. I might have gotten the one with just the RNA and not the microchip. Maybe my vaccination certificate wasn’t correct? It was good enough to get me a Krispy Kreme though.
@Elaine: Sadly, that’s only true some places in the US. Too many still allow parents to get away without protecting their kids and others.
@Bookworm: (TW for same) I once heard “people tend to get out the way of cr*zies”, which is also true. The only time I use that word is in reference to the big eyes my cat gets when he’s really wound up and has indeed temporarily lost what passes for his good sense. It’s okay, he doesn’t speak English and the only way he can possibly be insulted is when we’re too slow putting down the food. He is… intellectually impaired. Probably because his bloodline was a little too “pure”, no outcrossing at all.
@Kat: Well-spotted! “Tse-tung” was the way it was spelled in the US while Mao was alive. Why is she using the Commie spelling?
Does David know how to get hold of Naglfar?
GSS ex-noob, agreed, Naglfar is usually here all the time. Hope she’s ok. When did anyone last hear from her?
@GSS ex-noob : Where did you take the 95% figure ? I have seen it, but for something *much* more benign than effectiveness. That being said, maybe I missed something. Generally speaking, the main long term consequence seem to be the need to vaccinate eveyr year or 6 months, but apart from that there won’t be much health risk AFAIK.
(note that the Chinese vaccin who is deeply challenged about its efficiency is still worth taking just to lower virus circulation. If we suppose they didn’t also hide heavy handed side effect, I mean)
For what it’s worth, one time where zealots accosted me to try to talk me about Jesus, I took a RPG book from my bag and loudly claimed my allegiance to Toruk, the God Dragon that will make people reborn in undeath, in the middle of a station. It was effective in making them definitely stop bothering me, but nowaday I sort of fear that it could have reinforced stereotypes about mentally different people.
@Ohlmann
95% is the “effectiveness” in the clinical studies for Moderna and Pfizer/Biontech. In those studies “effectiveness” was defined as symptomatic infection (confirmed by PCR). They were both 100% effective at preventing hospitalization and death, but that was before the newer strains were widely circulating.
I once knew a guy who, when proselytizers came to his house, would assert he was an Orthodox Frisbeetarian, and when you died your soul got stuck on the roof. If you were good, you got off the roof and had another life. He had a lot of it, more than enough to get them to go away.
And I know a woman who answered the door to either the JW’s or Mormons wearing nothing but a swimsuit and a very large snake. They didn’t get a word out, just fled out of sight leaving a cartoon cloud of dust behind them. Word got around and no door to door God salesmen of any denomination came by after that.
Ohlmann wrote:
I only rarely encounter street preachers, and they’re usually easy enough to ignore and bypass. Some of them come off as relatively normal (I once voluntarily stopped to chat with a nice JW lady), while others only speak in canned phrases and have a creepy dead-eyed stare (these are called “godbots” in atheist parlance). If one were acting really intrusive and creepy at me, I can’t even imagine trying to scare them away by acting even more creepy. Then again, I’m a socially awkward and non-confrontational person to the core.
One time, a middle-aged man godbot did accost me quite aggressively on the subway. I was a captive audience there, and I was also young, sheltered and totally clueless on how to deal with harassers. I bring this up here, because the guy gave me a very strong intuitive impression of “mentally ill person”, based on whatever subconscious stereotypes I had about mental illness. In retrospect, what he exhibited was a combination of awkward body language and wild disregard of personal/social boundaries. I keep occasionally reflecting on this incident when I see discussions on mental illness and ableism.
I was a little scared in that situation, not because I thought mentally ill people are dangerous (I also normally don’t worry about creepy guys on the subway, thank to male privilege) but because the man’s behavior set off some intuitive alarm that I could only conceptualize as “mental illness”. By a strike of luck, a schoolmate called me right then about a group project, and I felt able to turn away from the harasser to answer my phone, and the man then wandered off.
@ Lumipuna
On a subway that must have been terrifying.
The worst one I ever met just came at me out in the open, so it was easy for me to beat a retreat when she started telling me all about how the Christians saved all the heathens (in India? Africa? all over the place?) because those good-for-nothing people had been smearing feces on their wounds to heal them. How that piece of information was to make me want to subscribe to their newsletter was unclear.
The JW’s are very polite, and the Mormon boys on bikes are very earnest (I gave a couple of them bottled water one hot summer day).
The most dead-eyed godbots I’ve ever seen belong to an organization that begins with S and ends with ologist. They smile a lot but it never reaches their eyes.
That might have something to do with the fact that their proselytizers are basically slave labor.
GSS ex-noob,
I don’t usually have the patience for it, but when prosletyzers of any type come to our door my husband likes to invite them in and talk religion with them. He is very well-informed, so the results are fun to watch. He’s earnestly (well, sort of) seeking common ground and pluralism; they are trying to be polite but also usually seem to just want to wrench the topic back to their sales pitch.
The main thing I don’t like in any of these conversations, with prosletyzers from any religion (and yes I include my own), is when it feels to me like they’re following a script from which they must not deviate at all costs. It kills genuine discussion.