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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What do Americans mean by vaccine passports? Is it just for overseas travel?
They’re considering ‘vaccine passports’ over here; but that means an app that will allow you access to things like schools, public transport, workplaces, non-essential shops etc.
There is a bit of controversy as they might discriminate against people who can’t have the vaccine for legitimate reasons, like pregnancy. And also young people who haven’t been vaccinated yet.
I’m on a YouGov panel (that’s like a survey thing here) and they’ve been asking a lot of questions as to how we think they should be implemented.
(They had me at “You’ll need one for pubs.”)
To slightly misquote Ivan Stang, “Proof that some forms of political fanaticism have much the same effect as methamphetamine.”
@Alan,
When I got the first of my vaccine microchip shots I got a small piece of paper saying when I got them, and where, to be used pretty much the same way your vaccine passports are. Mostly for things like entering schools and government buildings and other things like that, though. Non-essential shops are open for almost everyone here, depending on the rules said owners decide on for themselves. (Plus be entered in a database somewhere, I’m sure.) That may be the thing the OP is talking about here.
(I get the microchip activated sometime Thursday, if I don’t forget about it between job #1 and #2.)
@ redsilkphoenix
I had no side effects from my jab I’m happy to report. If anything, my 5G reception has improved. My body does keep trying to download Windows 10; but I’m sure that’s unrelated.
I love the way our illustrious Prime Minister calls the scheme “Papers for pints” and “Jabs for jobs!” Nothing instills confidence in a government than having things explained like we’re watching an episode of Hey Duggee!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/joinin/earn-your-stay-at-home-badge-hey-duggee
My mask has my employer’s logo on it. I don’t think that’s very Maoist.
@Nequam, is there another SubGenius in here?
(we need a “Bob” emoji)
@ rikalous
Well, you could work for the Chinese Communist Party?
I’ve heard the whole “masks are training you to accept government-created conformity” thing for months. It’s mostly religious, though – because then you won’t resist when the government puts the mark of the beast on you, that sort of thing.
Fanatic anti-conformists tend to create their own conformity, thereby missing their own point.
I may have posted this previously, but I came across a funny idea (c/w for ableism; obviously I disagree with her word-choice) for dealing with anti-maskers.
Basically, the story as I saw it has a woman in a taxi in a US city; throughout the ride, her cabdriver was going on and on about mask-conspiracy-theory stuff. She decided to, to semi-quote her words, “fight cr*zy with more of same” and came back at him with conspiracy theories about surveillance, hidden microphones everywhere, etc. According to her, it worked; he put his mask on.
I am unabashedly stealing this tactic and pretending I invented it. ?
But, joking aside, this anti-mask stuff has nothing to do with any anti-maskers mental health. It’s entitlement, and a “screw you all, I’m too tough for empathizing” attitude.
@Cheesy: I did pay for eternal salvation back in the day (before X-Day, even!), though I’ve hedged my bets by also being a Discordian Pope.
My parents are convinced that masks are ineffective, and that’s the reason they don’t want to wear them. My dad read something back in the early days of COVID that compared the size of the virus particles with the size of the average cloth mask’s openings, with the obvious conclusion that virus particles will pass right through a cloth mask. When I pointed out that the virus particles are not floating around willy nilly but attached to liquid droplets in one’s breath, he assured me that this was factored into the calculation but couldn’t explain how. No word as to whether he would be OK with a surgeon working on him maskless.
They’ve both bought new masks that say on them, “This mask is as useless as Joe Biden” and they’re very proud of them. I assume that their flimsy one-layer spandex masks are, indeed, pretty useless by design, so I’m glad I’m getting my second jab tomorrow. It’s embarrassing to be seen with them. I may well start to avoid them just because I don’t want to be seen as a conspiracy-theorist-by-association.
But their objection to masks is not that masks are Maoist, but that masks are not effective and just a placebo pushed by the government. They hate the government, of course, just like many other seniors on Social Security. ?
Haven’t you heard of corporate communism? Marjorie Taylor Greene is very concerned about it.
@Policy of Madness
I like when anti-maskers wear masks that just say “Useless” on them.
https://god.dailydot.com/madison-cawthorn-mask/
“American Thinker”….rarely has a blog’s title sounded more ironic, because I can assure you there is little if any thinking going on there. Two minutes of trying to read it and Norman Bates would be like “What the hell is wrong with these people?!!”
Conformity? My 87 year old dad makes his own masks in a range of colours and prints, you don’t even have to go medical here, sometimes I use a gasmask outside.
@Kevin
Gasmask? You also wear copper mail armor when you go to Walmart?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_iwxyzXcP7k
(Disclaimer: I don’t actually follow Cody’s Lab, nor have I watched even that entire video. No idea if there should be any CW here. Probably not.)
And yet you’re using the Chinese Communist pinyin transliteration of Mao’s name, not the good, solid, imperialist Western Wade-Giles transliteration (Mao Tse-tung). Mammotheers, I have discovered a Chinese Communist mole writing for the conservative American Thinker blog.
https://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/difference.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin#Wade%E2%80%93Giles
If I had balls — or even pearls — I’d clutch them.
And yeah, I’m so sure she traveled to China.
I think Poe’s Law is somewhat applicable here.
On which side, I’m not absolutely certain…
There were a ton of maoist in France in like 1960-1980. Now some of them are the biggest capitalists in France, and some others are influents neoliberal journalists.
So, in some way, there is a link between maoists and corporate overlord. But no communism, more like “we’re fine about any economic system as long as we’re on top”.
Anyone got a side channel to Naglfar, to check how she is?
It’s been a month, and that’s unusual.
Aside from all her other ‘alternative facts’ here, this author is absolutely wrong about the US being the first ‘constitutional Republic’ since the fall of Rome. For one, Rome’s ‘constitution’ was never codified- it was always more a matter of tradition. For another, both Venice and the Dutch formed Republics in the interm- and while I’m not sure if the Venetians ever had a constitution, the Dutch wrote one in 1579- just over two hundred years before the US Constitutional Convention. Heck, I’ve even seen it argued that the US notion of religious freedom comes from the Dutch by way of the Governor of New Amsterdam insisting on preserving their ‘right of conscience’ when he surrendered to the Duke of York.
Granted, neither of those Republics made any pretense at being democratic at the time, and right wingers often use ‘constitutional’ to mean ‘democratic’ (so that they can chant ‘we’re not a democracy, we’re a republic’ every time someone brings up the electoral college, gerrymandering, or the Supreme Court)- but words have meaning. The US is not unique in being a Constitutional Republic- but american exceptionalists gonna american exceptionalism, I guess.
@.45 My look is a lot less Roland Emmet than Cody’s. No batteries needed either. Any idea what the copper armour was about? I don’t think there’s direct Wal-Mart presence on this side of the Pond, but they bought the ASDA supermarket chain a while back, may have sold it on though. And some people’s choice of outdoor look here has even gone full-on ‘plague doctor.’
Should anyone need a
translation into adult speakanalysis of our PM’s plans on the passport thing, there’s one here.https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/apr/14/will-we-need-a-covid-pass-to-get-into-the-pub
In America if you don’t get your child vaccinated for all of their things like pollo, small pox, measles, whooping cough, all the diseases that first World country’s don’t see that much anymore, then your child can’t attend any schools with other children. Doesn’t matter if it’s private or public. Those vaccinations are still required for traveling overseas as well to get just a regular passport already. The new traveling passport is just a slip of paper to show that you have been vaccinated fully that their going to require now if you want to travel outside the country and return into it. Just like they did a long time ago with the polio vaccine during that pandemic that no one members cause it was to long ago. These people are just lucky enough to be born in a country where these diseases have been wiped out because of vaccines and herd immunity. Now that there is a new one they have to be protected from their all freaked out because they think the guide lines are a front to their freedom cause they are so privilege they have never lived in a world where they have to think about other people safety.
@therp
No and I’m worried