Prof Martin Cormican, expert in ‘infection control’ and member of NPHET, the national committee which ‘guided’ Ireland’s response to the pandemic, is now talking of the ‘many mistakes he believes Ireland made and what needs to change in the next pandemic’. This is promising talk, apart from the inference that the next pandemic is just around the corner. After all the last one was a century ago, on the tail of the Great War. Since it seems more and more probable that this last one came out of a laboratory, could it be that he knows more about it than we do? Anyway, I have not heard that he repents of his statement last year that:-
‘A legal obligation to accept vaccination should be considered a legitimate public policy option in circumstances where declining to accept vaccination has profound adverse consequences for society as a whole. We should consider if it is possible to develop a social consensus and a legal framework around this not just for the next pandemic but also for other circumstances where the choice of a small proportion of people to decline vaccination imposes great burdens and costs on other citizens.’
It is one thing for NPHET to recommend vaccines, and an altogether different thing to point the finger at those who refuse to take them, and load them up with the blame for all the dreadful things which they are allegedly doing to the populace at large. This happens to be a classic old trick of the worst of totalitarian dictators.
It reminds me of an encounter with a man in his fifties whom I count as an old friend, in 2021. ‘Are you vaccinated?’ says he. ‘Not likely’ says I. ‘Well stay away from us!’ ‘I thought I was the one who was supposed to be at risk’, says I. Imagine; my friend was vaccinated, and therefore supposed to be protected; I was in my mid seventies, had just had a course of radiation therapy for cancer, and therefore supposed to be especially vulnerable. By what contortion of logic was I going to ‘impose great burdens and costs’ on my friend?
It was a sobering reminder that totalitarian instincts are never far away in a climate of fear. Far from being assuaged by the 'great and good', this line of thought was adopted and promoted by them with truly astonishing universality, with the President of France even expressing his intention to ‘emmerder les non-vaccinés’ (drag the unvaccinated through the shit’).
Apparently they all actually believed that their precious vaccines were going to put a stop to both transmission and infection, but they had absolutely no excuse for still clinging to this belief by the time Professor Cormican made the above statement last year. They even largely continue to do so today, when so much more knowledge of the adverse effects as well as the ultimate uselessness of the vaccines is available.
With neither apology nor retraction of their false promises, they eventually fell back on insisting that those who refused vaccination were flooding the hospitals, while meanwhile everywhere those doctors who were successfully treating covid at an early stage, or even raised awkward questions, were being given endless grief and if possible silenced. Nowadays, with many more patients suffering and dying in all kinds of ways related to the covid response than from the disease itself, those who criticise that response still find it difficult to make their voices heard.
The disturbing questions concerning the closing down of open debate and the failures to research properly and discuss the effectiveness and safety of the response, especially of the vaccines, and even the origin of the pandemic, are more urgent than ever. How did the astonishing lies about them come to sweep the globe, sweeping aside many of the principles and protocols previously established for the handling of pandemics?
In due course my wife and I caught covid from a double vaccinated son. He suffered more from the dose than we did; we would put it down to our homoeopathic prophylactic, though we were also taking a vitamin d supplement etc. Whatever the reason, we have always believed that it is better to foster our immune systems holistically than to seek to manipulate and force them. In addition to simple organic principles, this approach is rooted in our religious conviction that our bodies are ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’. Such a conviction is incompatible with opening the doors to convicted criminals, such as the major pharmaceutical companies, let alone to letting them freely break in through the walls, which is what forced vaccination amounts to. Meanwhile of course the invaders refuse to take responsibility for the damage they cause.
To a layman like myself, to try to force vaccination on people also appears to contradict every principle of law from Habeas Corpus (Your Body Is Yours) onwards. I might mention the Nuremberg Code and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Look them up! Whatever one thinks about the vaccinations, it should be obvious that the attempt to force them on people, backed up by digital health passports, is a red line that must not on any account be crossed. I remain in disbelief at the fact that for a while the likes of us could not even travel or go into a pub or cafe for the want of that bit of paper! Apartheid how are you?
Anyway is it not astounding to reflect upon the ease with which we were all deprived of basic liberties, our businesses, pubs, sports and even churches closed down? Where was the democratic process and consent? Professor Cormican has apparently been active in the cause of battery hens. Are people like him even so much as equally concerned about human freedom and dignity? Do they not see that the vast majority of us must now consider ourselves in danger of being encaged, subject to the whims of a tiny minority of would-be ‘keepers’ who happen to be hiding in full sight when the WHO or the WEF come round? We have been warned, the tools are in place. All that’s required are further means to stoke fear!
What about our own pusillanimous concurrence? The good news is that the grace and strength to resist remain readily available. Speaking up still counts, and we remain relatively free to do so. Still, it may well be wise to assume that those tools of digital surveillance and control will have their day, as indeed they already have in many places. We have to build the networks, the community and solidarity, whatever way we can, to resist. This does demand engaging in the perilous business of narrative building, which should not on any account be left to the professional politicians.
Some of them seem to be hanging grimly on the left/right thing, which to my mind is inappropriate. In particular I don’t fancy the tendency to lump the opinions expressed above with Euroscepticism and even climate denialism. I do see where the people who do so are coming from. We have had a stern reminder of the tale of Chicken Licken, and the likely counterproductive effects of fearing the End is Nigh. For a start, it is very difficult to actually see much evidence that the climate is indeed on course for catastrophic change here in Ireland. Frankly I hardly see it at all, and I have lived pretty close to Nature for a long time. I find it implausible anyway that we can do much about it, especially with the ‘command and control’ approach that governments adopt. Still, the evidence of warming seas and collapsing ice-sheets can hardly be ignored. The mechanisms at work are fairly comprehensible. The oil companies were sitting on the warnings of their own scientists for many years.
If it is only to free ourselves from the clutches of those massive corporations, and from the even dodgier people, such as Putin and that Saudi Prince MBS, who profit from fossil fuels, it is obviously desirable to escape our extreme dependence on them. What's more, I hope to be showing in my own little undertakings what fun it may be. Fostering our immune systems, exercising our right to say what we think, producing our own food and fuel, sailing around the Gannetsway in as self-reliant way as possible; these are all skills and abilities that will be lost if we do not use them!
In democratic societies, we expect our institutions to be open, responsive and accountable, not under the sway of shady alien interests. Evidently we are falling short. We might be said to be already under partial occupation by the Enemy. We must build up our resistance every way we can if we want to keep our health, our freedom and our rights!
ps, I just posted a video version!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTcs5CRzwUI
pps, I have received the odd comment that calls for a reply, but I don't see whom it came from. If you wish me to reply, please give an email address with your comment. Mine is gannetsway(at)gmail.com
