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Naomi Wolf Calls for Revival
I posted a link in the Link Library to Naomi Wolf’s latest Substack piece, Have the Ancient Gods Returned?
I was interested in the Naomi Wolf piece because it is startling that someone who was, at least in the popular mind, associated with some of the late 20th Century cultural trends, finds herself quite at odds with what is going on today. Wolf, like most of us I imagine, is trying to understand how things have gotten so out of whack. As the saying goes: failure starts slowly, then quickly. Wolf operated in social, political, and professional circles that were very comfortable, until they weren’t. And, from this and other pieces she has written, her perception of a sudden shift has been very devastating to her.
Reading Wolf is less like drinking a cup of water than it is taking a bath, less of a direct ferry trip across a lake and more like a leisurely exploration of every bay and cove. If you don’t like that, let me try and summarize the piece’s main points as I see them:
- It is hard to see events since 2020 as being merely coincidental. The global sweep of totalitarian practices justified by a health “emergency” came too quickly to be an organic evolutionary movement.
- Absent an effective and obvious global organization working in concert with governments, how do you explain it?
- The rights that have been lost since 2020 were a reflection of a robust Western Civilization based on Judeo-Christian principles. Those rights could not be lost without a rejection of Judeo-Christian principles.
- Judeo-Christian principles reflect a covenant, or contract, with a monotheistic G-d. That G-d supplanted the pagan gods that were to be individually propitiated and who seemed to have an unquenchable appetite for sacrifice, violence, abasement, and turmoil. Belief in that monotheistic G-d, and conducting oneself as an individual and a society in accord with the principles He set down, delivered us from the power of the pagan gods and the troubles that they promoted in and amongst mankind.
- As a society, we have violated the contract with G-d. This has been happening for a while, but until recently our institutions retained the forms of a Judeo-Christian system even as the internal framework decayed or was dismantled. But now we can see the consequences of such decay and dismantling as these institutions, one by one, cease to operate within their earlier forms.
- While Judeo-Christian belief is not the exclusive preserve of any religion, it has identifiable elements: respect for individual sovereignty; a rule of law resistant to political favor and preference; a subordination of government to G-d and His creation, the individual; the concomitant empathy and action required by individuals toward one another; the acceptance of personal responsibility and accountability, not assigning those obligations to the state.
- In breaking our covenant with G-d, His ability (?), willingness (?) to protect us from the pagan gods of old is diminished or withdrawn. As a society, we are left to live again in a world dominated by those gods and with all the consequences therefrom.
- If we want to make the pagan gods retreat, we must, as a society, embrace the covenant again.
I do like her description of the Covenant in what are quite understandable contracting terms. In law each contract to be binding and enforceable requires “consideration.” Most of the time, one party’s consideration is money, but the law does not require that it be so. Consideration can be anything that someone does to fulfill their end of the bargain.
Most people see contracts as highly transactional. But my own background in law involved long-term contracts with many subparts but always operating within what is more fairly described as a “relationship.” The contract document itself created many ways the parties could seek remedies without completely breaking off the relationship. And so it is that Wolf’s description of the Covenant resonated with me in ways that might not resonate with someone who more typically engages in single sales transactions.
It is easier to imagine an evil genius behind the problems in our society — national or global — than it simply being the natural consequence of changes that have been coming for some time. Wolf sort of concedes this as she leaves the demons as spirits of various malignities rather than persons. But her tendency toward drama does make her overstate: the success of censorship and control has tended to obscure the real resistance that in fact did occur although uncelebrated and, for the most part, unsuccessful as yet. Thus her argument — “How could this have happened all at once without something resembling a conspiracy?” — is a bit overwrought.
But her broader point is still interesting if you abstract it: Judeo-Christianity is the foundation of what we call Western Civilization. That civilization not only made the societies that follow it economically successful, but had the broadest sharing in safety, security, and peacefulness (notwithstanding horrific wars and despotisms). Even though I am personally agnostic I do believe that the belief in G-d as the Creator, humans as creations endowed with rights, the state as subordinate to G-d and His creation, is extremely important to maintain the power balance between the citizen and the state. And when we depart from this belief, a power hierarchy asserts itself to the detriment of mankind; the individual is respected only to the extent he/she can subordinate another; the application of law is only supportive of the power hierarchy. And that is where we are today in too much of our society. Not completely — here and there the forms remain, and some jurisdictions are more respectful of Judeo-Christian values than others.
If we are to reverse the Obama-promised “transformation,” we must whole-heartedly re-embrace Judeo-Christian principles. If enough of us do, and do so persistently, the fallen institutions can be rebuilt and the covenant restored. It may not be a covenant with G-d, but it is a covenant with our fellow man — to live peaceably, to do unto others as they would do unto us, to take accountability for our government and demand that it be accountable to us all, not just to a minority working a power hierarchy against the rest of us.
[L]ove your neighbor as yourself…
Leviticus 19:18
See you in them and respect them as a means of gaining respect for yourself.
Move over Asbury University, we have a bigger revival to perform.
Published in General
@caroljoy — Since I’ve caught you spreading internet hoaxes before, I will have to know a lot more about this “top epidemiologist” before I credit any part of what she — allegedly — says. Starting with her name …
Among the internet “hoaxes” I have promoted since Apr 2020, was the actual factual material proven over the last six months that the whole COV situation was related to control over our society, and to switching middle class business’ income and profits over to the larger firms.
That despite how many times that Gates, Fauci and Rachel Maddow would claim that the vaccines would stop infection from occurring inside the population of vaccine recipients, I opposed that method of viewing the vaccines. I stated that experts like Dr VandenBossche, Dr Fleming, and Dr Montaigne understood exactly why a decent number of the vax recipients would end up with COVID and the cases would be serious enough that many would die of COVID.
My main thesis was this, and it has been proven to be true and valid: the vaccines would, once released, be proven to not be effective, in terms of either infection of the vaccine recipients and in terms of stopping transmission of the infection. Nor would the vaccines be safe.
Yes in this discussion I was relating one story that I can not back up with a name, as the woman was living in England but originally from Finland and had a quite lengthy name. So fine if you do want to dismiss her account.
If your big hero, one Bill Gates, did not have at his disposal all the many funds from his GAVI and Bill and Melinda Gates’ Foundation with which to buy up the non-profit and for profit media sectors, thru investments such as his investing in CNN, or his donations to non-profits like the BBC, among some 49 other influential non-profits, and if Big Pharma’s monies did not hold almost all media news outlets hostage with their many many commercials representing who knows how many billions of dollars, you and the rest of the liberals supporting this crime against humanity would be better informed. (And you are not a conservative if you think that a handful of people and world organizations whose officials are not elected by the US public should be handed control our society for 2 and a half years and use that control to transfer our middle class incomes to the economy’s Biggest Players, all because in its early moments, 5 to 15 people died from this “novel infection.”)
Latest data out of Great Britain shows exactly what a hoax this entire COVID situation has been. (Not that some people did not die from the infection, but then people die of influenza every single year. Without requiring a major shut down of the Western world as we know it.)
You were right on two out of three of those. That’s pretty good.
And you were a little bit right about the third, but not as an overall generalization.
She was mostly wrong on all three points.
In a world in which most issues are shades of gray rather than black-and-white, vaccines work, but not as well as promised; the vaccines are mostly safe, but not entirely; and you probably shouldn’t be giving them to children. (Progressives are disproportionately childless, so they’re usually experimenting on other people’s children.)
I used to listen to London Calling. For a long time, James Delingpole went on and on about how the “death jab” was going to result in millions dead. And then, as month after month the millions refused to keel over, he mentioned this prediction less, and less, and less often.
If your hypothesis needs a vast conspiracy to make it work, it’s probably wrong.
It suddenly occurred to me, while reviewing CarolJoy’s comment, there is one very powerful interest that wishes people to believe that COVID was a hoax.
China.
To be fair, the “hoax” was not the virus. After all it appears that it was a lab-leaked natural virus with gain of function manipulation. As I read @caroljoy, the “hoax” she is referring to is the manipulation of fear for the purposes of implementing controls. The virus is serious for those who contract it and are immunocompromised or susceptible in some fashion. It must be serious due to the claimed injuries that may be occurring due to the way the vaccine utilizes one of the techniques used by the virus to infect.
Two things can be equally true: (1) the virus is real and serious for some portion of the populations, and (2) the governmental response is an overreach, counterproductive and resulting in long term harm that the virus could never have achieved.
Many vax injuries – especially injuries involving reproductive functions – will take a while to show up. For instance, if babies whose moms were COV vaxxed end up sterile, we won’t know for 18 to 20 yrs or more. (Or what if half die of clots or myo some yrs from now?)
The daughter of the king of Thailand is either in a coma or she had died, after getting her COV jab.
Due to that tragedy, in Thailand there are now governmental $$s to allow for examining COV vaccine safety status without any interference from Big Pharma.
Not surprisingly, to me, was findings of Thai researchers that shows how very very unsafe the COV vaccine is for younger males.
And it is not just Thai scientists who sounding the alarm. Rather it is scientists globally including this report:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/new-study-reveals-adolescents-hong-kong-seven-times-likely-develop-myocarditis-following-second-dose-pfizer-covid-19-vaccine/
A new study in Hong Kong reveals adolescents were 7 times more likely to develop myocarditis after receiving a 2nd dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. Study was published last Feb 25th at the reputable JAMA Pediatrics Magazine of the AMA.
“Cases of myocarditis following a 2nd dose of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine are accruing worldwide, especially in younger male adults/adolescents.1–4
In weighing risks of myocarditis against benefits of preventing severe COVID-19, Norway, the UK, and Taiwan have suspended the 2nd dose of mRNA vaccine for adolescents. Similarly, adolescents (aged 12-17 years) in Hong Kong should receive 1 dose of BNT162b2 instead of 2 doses 21 days apart since Sept 15, 2021.”
SNIP
The Hong Kong investigation concludes to reduce risks of myo among adolescents “would be use of single-dose only, a lower dosage for 2 doses as recommended for children aged 5 to 11 years, or a lengthened interval between doses.”
The Hong Kong research is much more reluctant than other studies to show that in terms of risk vs benefit, the vaxxes are wrong for kids.
Thanks for your comment.
In terms of people under fifty, anyone under 50 aware of how the major principle of “risk vs benefit” must be considered before undergoing a med remedy then must conclude that risking a vaccine to avoid a death from an infection with an extremely low fatal infection rate for those in the lower age ranges can only conclude there is no reason to have the vaccine.
@caroljoy — Here’s the actual quote from Gatewaypundit:
“The crude risk ratio of the second dose vs first dose was 7.11 (95% CI, 3.16-15.97). The cumulative incidence of myocarditis decreased from 43 cases in 202 315 adolescents vaccinated (21.25, 95% CI, 15.38-28.63) per 100 000 persons to 0 cases in 22 245 adolescents vaccinated at implementation of the single-dose policy.”
43 cases of myocarditis divided by 202,315 vaxed teens = 0.02%. Which went to 0.00% after Hong Kong went to the single dose policy.
Assuming there is no way to predict which kids will get myocarditis, plus the relative harmlessness of the disease to them, it sounds like vaxing teenagers should be very selective. On the one hand, kids who tend to land in the hospital whenever they catch a respiratory virus may need to be vaccinated. On the other hand, kids who tend to have bad reactions* to vaccines shouldn’t be.
To some extent, progressives recognize that vaccinating young people across the board is a bad idea. Here in New York, I actually saw a PSA which urged young people to get vaxed: not to protect them, but to protect their grannies!
*One of my nephews, about 28, mentioned offhand that a Covid vaccine (I don’t remember which one) had put him down for three days. The worst reaction I ever got was that my first shot made my shoulder sore for a couple days.
Scientists have a natural tendency to exaggerate the importance of their own field of study. Which tends to lead them — epidemiologists as well as climatologists — to tell politicians that the sky is falling, or “may be” falling. (Of course, their financial interest points in the same direction.)
Now, the politicians can only judge how confident in their judgments the scientists seem to be, based on their presentation and body language. Aside, perhaps, from Ron DeSantis, politicians don’t have the requisite brain power to make judgments about the research and the statistics themselves.
Not hoax, just good ol’ human frailty.
Hmm, well it could still be a hoax, really. The scientists know which side their
breadbudget isbuttered onpaid by.Who gets big government grants by “discovering” that everything is fine? Certainly not Dr Fauci and the people he doles out money to.
One graphic worth 10,000 words:
Some excellent points which covers a lot of the territory. However, there are further issues – like the politicians completely disobeying their own mandates, and scientists and politicians both ignoring basic scientific facts – for instance that young people were found from the very beginning to be almost immune to Covid, that getting infected and surviving gives you immunity as much as a vaccination does, and basically ignoring the blatantly obvious trend of vaccinations becoming less effective as time rolled on and new strains developed. On top of that was the unbelievable hypocrisy of promoting mass gatherings at George Floyd protests while banning much smaller gatherings at churches, gyms, beaches, etc….This would include the complete abdication of testing or blocking immigrants at the Southern Border and letting them enter our country. Fauci himself said that he wasn’t concerned about that, while at the same time telling audiences that “people of color” are more at risk from Covid because of “racism.”
Nearly all of this can be understood as progressives behaving as progressives do. They are ethical utilitarians, so deception for the good cause — e.g., promoting white guilt, defeating Republican candidates, making the U.S. a one-party state — is not only permitted, it is required. They also tend to believe each other’s falsehoods, so they end up living in an imaginary, inverted world.