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Here’s a round-up of the dystopian headlines I’ve encountered this week.
Universal Forced Vaccinations in Europe
Austria announced last week it will follow up its ongoing lockdown of the unvaccinated with mandatory vaccines starting in February 2022. This is the first nationwide compulsory vaccination in a European country. Over 40,000 Austrians gathered to protest in Vienna on Saturday.
EU commission chief Ursula von Dur Leyen remarked this week that it was "understandable and appropriate" for EU member nations to push for compulsory COVID vaccinations.
Open-Air Prisons for the Dutch
Is this North Korea? Guantanamo Bay? No, it’s the Netherlands, where the government has recently imposed a 5pm lockdown curfew, among other restrictions. (Because vampires viruses sleep during the day, obviously.)
Weekly protests have descended into violence. And in case you thought you could just relax in your home and pretend none of this is happening, the city of Eindhoven has started playing Big Brotherly Covid announcements through loudspeakers on a nauseating, 15-minute loop.
Your vaccine subscription has expired
In countries around the world, vaccine passports are expiring (along with the “freedoms” and “privileges” they convey) for those who have not received a booster shot. Boris Johnson has said that in the United Kingdom, you will not be considered fully vaccinated unless you have had a third jab. Oh, and they’re changing the recommended booster schedule from six months to three.
In Israel, they’re on to jab number 5.
France has announced that elderly residents must have the booster in order to keep their vaccine passports in good standing.
It’s just as your local conspiracy theorist warned you, I’m afraid. The pushy global vaccine drive was never meant to be a one-and-done. It’s basically a government-guaranteed pharmaceutical subscription scheme to enrich Pfizer and Pfriends, robbing you of your rights and freedoms and selling them back to you in the form of subscription perks.
The Brownshirts return to Germany
In Germany, unvaccinated individuals have been “blockaded” into their homes. They are not permitted to frequent most businesses and entertainment venues, with narrow exceptions for “essential activities” such as grocery shopping and medical appointments. People who received their last dose of vaccine more than nine months ago are considered unvaccinated, and the parliament will be voting early in 2022 on a proposal for universal forced vaccinations.
Unsurprisingly, many Germans are not pleased. Protests and demonstrations have become increasingly violent as police now feel they have the authority to beat people into submission for exercising their rights while unvaccinated.
No jab, no food in India
As bad as those other news pieces are, this is the most alarming headline I’ve come across in the past week. In Aurangabad, India, access to food and fuel has been made contingent upon vaccination status. The district administration issued an order in November that only vaccinated persons will be allowed to purchase groceries, gas cylinders, and fuel. The restriction on the purchase of gas cylinders is especially insidious, because Indians are highly reliant on them for cooking fuel. So even if a family of farmers is self-sufficient in terms of food, they will be unable to cook it unless they first bare their shoulders.
The message is clear: the district of Aurangabad doesn’t want you to die of Covid. They would rather you die of starvation.
If you think this is far-fetched, something that would “never happen here” (wherever that is for you), give it about six months.
Humanity is suffering from an acute illness.
It’s been called mass delusion, mass hypochondria, mass psychosis. And it is those things, but it is also a disease of conscience. The fundamental moral principles that were once shared by most people globally and if not honored, then at least paid lip service by most governments, have ceased to be important in this time of concocted emergency.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. Freedom of movement. Truth in journalism. Bodily autonomy. Informed medical consent. Tolerance for different beliefs and opinions. Parental rights. Freedom of speech. Even religious freedom.
All these fine ideals and principles—tenets to which we owe so much of what is good in society—forgotten, abandoned, carried off on the foul wind that blows from the mouths of politicians. Scuttling along the ground like so many discarded masks.
The symptoms are dire. The patient is in critical condition. And though humanity’s immune system is trying valiantly to fight off the disease through good old fashioned dissent and disobedience, the prognosis is uncertain. Will humanity pull through with our sanity and conscience intact? Or will we succumb to the disease, losing in the process our minds, our morality, and everything that once made life worth living?