I'm Not Vaccinated & I am Not Your Enemy

“Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.”

– Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minister for Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler

I received this message from someone I know well, is highly educated & a respectable adult:

“Generally I would say antivax is a good thing; there are too many humans, and eliminating as many right-wingers, who generally tend to be selfish, is positive, so I support [Dr. Malone] in his quest to help them die…callous would be actively spreading a false message that is killing thousands - you and your friend [Joe Rogan] have blood on your hands”

First, I first felt defensive. Then I became curious. 

What is happening in our world that elicits such radical perspectives from rational people?

First & foremost, I don’t know. I think that is the humblest & best place to start. 

But I find writing to help me organize my thoughts so I am creating this post January 10, 2022 for myself & maybe it helps other people make sense of the current state of the world.

Here are some of the biggest objectives of this post:

• Clarify what I believe as it relates to Covid &, in particular, anti/pro-vaccine conversations

• Provide emotional support for those with similar views who may feel wronged, shamed, or vilified for their beliefs

• Explore the most compassionate, least judgmental way of relating to differing viewpoints that do not dehumanize or demean others

• Explain why I believe pro/anti-vaccine debates are about far more than they seem to be

Ground Rules

The viewfinder or lens that I’m seeing this entire debate is important to state at the outset so that you’re aware of my biases.

#1. Everyone & everything is interconnected. 

“Mitakuye oyasin” (we are all connected) in Lakota. That means I have zero desire to make another group “wrong” or “bad” for their beliefs. Nobody is the “enemy” & I’m not on war footing to fight, war, or [insert combat-oriented word here].

This also means that comparisons to history, interpersonal/intimate relationships, & other multi-disciplinary approaches are all fair game as metaphors to help clarify my perspective.

#2. The decisions people make around vaccines & masks are emotional & relational NOT logical. 

There are plenty of statistics, facts & figures on both sides & the phrase: “there are lies, damn lies, & statistics” has a lot of truth to it. 

Science is supposed to be a process by which we derive truth. If science becomes hijacked (by censoring inconvenient science/non-mainstream science), then it ceases to be supporting truth. It’s just being wielded as a weapon. 

A corollary example, religion is supposed to be a relationship with a higher power. We all can see that organized religion has hijacked the relationship with higher power perverting the original intent. Science, especially in this debate, is more often than not being perverted as well.

I’ll use science infrequently & craft my argument around other things because science can be manipulated to tell any story (example: the Nazi party used science extensively as part of their eugenics program against Jews & other undesirables).

#3. Making my private views public is symbolic 

The statement I’m making is that I believe in an alternative view to the standard narrative around vaccines. As I will discuss later, the totalitarian state needs only a few loud actors to intimidate the silent majority. Charles Eisenstein, someone for whom I have great respect & I quote from extensively in this post, writes about dynamics that lead to genocide & villifying certain segments of society:

“All it takes is a few loud people to incite [hatred/violence] by declaring someone or something a target. A portion of the crowd goes along enthusiastically. The rest keep silent and conform in outward behavior even as they are troubled within; to each, it looks like he or she is the only one who disagrees. Writ large to the totalitarian state, the support of a majority of the population is unnecessary. The appearance of support will suffice.”

#4. Even though I believe I’m thinking for myself, there is much I don’t see

The quote below from Daniel Schmachtenberger is a good reminder for me (& whomever agrees or disagrees with this article) that we’re being manipulated at some level:

“If you’re receiving a curated view of the world, which you are, because there are no views of the world that aren’t curated by someone’s agenda, then you’re going to be having a sense that you understand the world even when what you’re getting is manipulated & not statistically representative. And you’ll be having an emotional reaction that will both make you more certain than you should be & more outraged than you should be.”

It Starts with Trust

Whether we like it or not, we are in a relationship with many entities on a daily basis if we are saying “yes” to the current interconnected & globalized world. We are in relationship with the U.S. government, social media companies, news media, pharmaceutical, & healthcare companies to varying degrees.

The foundation of any good relationship is trust. Currently, I do not trust the U.S. government, popular media, or large pharmaceutical companies.

I’m not alone. Only 20-40% of Americans trust the government. My generation (born in 1990) is generally less trusting than others for a multitude of reasons.

History of Deceit

Pharmaceutical Companies

Author & doctor John Abramson joined Joe Rogan for a podcast about the corruption & manipulation involved in pharmaceutical companies. Abramson is a Harvard Medical School lecturer & a drug litigation expert that participated in many landmark lawsuits.

He compares pharmaceutical companies to a basketball team, which is only paid if they win. And they’re the referee of the game. 

The companies do this by manipulating data, by “massaging” data, & by hiding risks & side effects. For example, in the case of Vioxx, pharmaceutical companies hid data suggesting that this arthritis medication had a significant risk of stroke & heart attacks. Between 40-60,000 people died as a result of manipulating that data. They paid a fine & nobody went to jail or prison.

For reference, the number who died from Vioxx is many times the number who died in the Bosnian genocide of the 1990s & half the tragic genocide in Darfur. Clearly, intentional targeting of ethnic groups for “cleansing” seems more vile & callus than criminal negligence in the name of profit, but it is worth the comparison for scale.

There are plenty of other examples including manipulated statistics about 1% of opiate users becoming addicted (even though 10 million people per year misuse prescription opiates & nearly 70,000 deaths per year are from opiates alone).

Let’s compare this behavior with a romantic relationship to gain another perspective on trust. Imagine you’re in a relationship with a member of the opposite sex (representative of pharmaceutical companies). 

Over the course of the years you have been together, they have consistently lied, manipulated, & had sexual & emotional relationships with other people behind your back.

Would you trust them?

They could be telling the truth! They might be reformed! But the point is — the trust has been broken so many times, it is impossible at this juncture to trust them.

News Media

The term “fake news” is a meme, a self-replicating & spreading concept that, whether left, right, pro-vax or anti-vax, represents the lack of trust we collectively have in standard news coverage. Trump brought the term into the public lexicon & surely abused the phrase when any negative press covered him, but the fact that myself, friends & family use the term is a sign of something:

We don’t trust the mainstream media.

In fact, if you rolled your eyes at me citing Joe Rogan podcasts in this article, please take a gander at this chart clearly showing that the Joe Rogan podcast is listened to 3-10 times more than Tucker Carlson Tonight, the Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC or CNN. 

Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean Joe is accurate, but what myself & most other Joe Rogan fans appreciate is this: 2-3 hour long conversations deep-diving with specific experts provides a more holistic picture than 2-3 minute soundbites. In traditional media “if it bleeds, it leads” & these companies are incentivized to instill fear to capture eyeballs. Joe gets a fat paycheck either way. He doesn’t need to have an agenda beyond his own curiosity.

Government

Winston Churchill quipped “never let a good crisis go to waste”. Our government has taken full advantage. After 9/11 terrorist attacks, the government passed vast surveillance powers under the Patriot Act. Plenty of other emergency powers have come into being.

The corruption is astounding despite having a reputation for “rule of law”. In September 2021, a total of 131 Federal judges were found to have financial conflicts of interest in cases that they were ruling on. The decisions they made on lawsuits benefited them financially. We’ve got allegations of insider trading against both party leaders (Nancy Pelosi & John Boehner). Are the people in government there to serve or serve themselves? Lately, it’s seemed self-serving.

If all of that isn’t enough, it’s clear our government does not know how to manage finances. The $29 trillion the government owes is now impossible to pay off without debasement & killing purchasing power of its citizens.

I have little faith in the current incarnation of the U.S. government.

But lest I be accused of picking on certain institutions, it’s not only the government, pharma, & media. Universities are profit centers with state-backed debt perverting education (& the debt incurred to acquire it). I learned more from 6 months in prison than at the University of Texas at Austin. 

The food system is morally bankrupt. Animal factory farming is abhorrent & our government subsidizes sugars, grains with special interests guiding dietary policy. Healthcare (aka: sick care system) is perverse. 

But trust is only one of the strikes compelling me to avoid the vaccine (at least for now). 

Hubris of Speed

Every time I sit in some type of medicine ceremony with my friend Chris, one of the inevitable messages he is reminded of is: slow down.

When I took him & a group on a Sacred Hunting trip to hunt for elk in Colorado, his first shot felt rushed, he was scared he’d miss the opportunity, & he injured the elk rather than killing it (the worst-case scenario). 

Let’s break down his experience as it relates to the way covid vaccines were created. 

First, there was a desire to make a vaccine quickly because there was a fear of the death toll involved without a vaccine/herd immunity. The rushed job, the motivation coming from a place of fear — they all point to the exact same scenario Chris faced when he was holding that rifle with an animal at the end of his scope.

For Chris, the outcome was wounding an animal. A sad, uncomfortable, but ultimately temporary & fleeting feeling.

The consequences of the vaccine could be far worse for the individual or the collective humanity. 

I don’t believe we have a good assessment of the long-term effects of an mRNA therapeutic. That scares me.

mRNA researcher Dr. Aditi Bhargava of the University of California San Francisco describes how mRNA therapeutics usually require at least 5 years of study because of the high risk (causing cancer & death) in the trials she has done. Of course, in our hubris to move quickly to save any & all lives, we have neglected this risk altogether. Dr. Robert Malone, vilified & shunned, took the vaccine as part of his “civic duty” before recognizing all of the inconsistencies with the data.

Remember when top FDA officials resigned from their positions because the Biden administration was forcing booster plans without the science adequately backing them up?

To be clear, I understand why speed is an issue. And I’m willing to give the powers that be the benefit of the doubt that they are trying to work quickly doing a public good. But I’m self-aware enough to realize that humanity is full of hubris as it pertains to our manipulation of nature. 

And I’m not interested in paying the piper for that arrogance.

Mal-aligned Incentives

Of all the reasons to mistrust the current pro-vaccine narrative, the one giving me the most distaste is the poor incentives of our current civilization. 

It is an incentive structure that I have long found inconsistent with the world I desire to live in before covid or the vaccine debate started. Covid made it more obvious.

Pfizer & Moderna have made billions of dollars selling vaccines. Forget the exact amounts – any organization that is making billions of dollars from a crisis that they are claiming they have the only solution to should be suspect to anyone who is thinking critically.

Not just for covid vaccines, but also opiates & any other drug that they produce (again, this is a mistrust in the incentives of big pharma broadly, not just the covid vaccine). 

On a recent podcast, Dr. Robert Malone (credited with patents & research that created mRNA technology) recounts how Pfizer board member James Smith is also a board member of Thomson Reuters, which happens to be the organization that “fact checks” Twitter. 

Social media (& big tech more broadly) has increased pressure against anyone who is speaking out against or hesitant of the vaccine. Even CNN’s Sanjay Gupta admitted he found some of the media/social media perspectives to be egregious. 

When the goals of organizations are incompatible with the wellbeing of individuals, it becomes an enormous challenge that even good, virtuous employees cannot overcome.

I don’t believe there is a large, well-crafted conspiracy of organizations & individuals working together maliciously. Maybe there is, but I’m not convinced.

These organizations simply have goals that are not aligned with my wellbeing. 

Coercion is Not Consent: Gaslighting, Shaming, & Vilifying Vaccine Hesitancy 

A cornerstone of abusive relationships is gaslighting: an abuser misleads the victim creating a false narrative & making them question their judgment & reality.

The government, alongside the large corporations like Google, Facebook, Twitter, & pharmaceutical companies are gaslighting the populace.

• Alternative treatment either doesn’t exist or are downplayed (as is the case in ivermectin & many others)

• Side effects are ignored (any other pharmaceutical drug is required by law to discuss side effects whereas the covid vaccine only advertises “do your part” & no mention of the risks of side effects)

• Vaccine hesitancy is either blocked/shunned or in some cases outright banned (by law, which is akin to violence of the state)

Back to our comparison with relationships & intimacy. Imagine a man with lots of power (representing: gov/pharma/media); an asymmetric amount of power when compared to a young woman (representing: general populace). This man takes all of his power at his disposal to try & have sex with the woman (representing: vaccine). 

Any hesitancy around sex is stamped out by the powerful man with deceit, lies, & then he coerces the woman by saying “I’m powerful & rich. Having sex with me is in your best interest. Trust me. You’ll do better with this.”

Now imagine that this rich man is Harvey Weinstein & the poor, young woman is an aspiring actress. We would justifiably consider Weinstein to be abusing his power & behaving inappropriately. 

The powers that be are utilizing many of the same tactics as Harvey Weinstein to coerce as many people to take the vaccine (& the many booster shots).  

And if you don’t respond to the stick of banning, shaming, & manipulation, maybe you’ll respond to free Krispy Kreme donuts & McDonalds even though 92.8% of Covid deaths are people with comorbidities, predominantly diabetes & obesity.

“Blood on Your Hands” & the Human Impulse for Scapegoats

In a fantastically written post, Charles Eisenstein outlines the human impulse for scapegoating that goes back to the origins of our species. He relates the philosophical writings of Rene Girard, who describes the impulse towards human sacrifice, capital punishment, & scapegoats in society.

Examples of this type of behavior are clear in Nazi Germany & in the Jim Crow south. Legal scholar Roberta Harding recounts many instances where a black man is accused of raping a white woman. Even though the judge, jury, & prosecutor knew the black man was innocent, he would be convicted (or lynched after acquittal) in order to maintain the social order preventing intercourse between blacks & whites.

The quote I started this post with accused me of having “blood on my hands”. Eisenstein touches on this:

“Scapegoats needn’t be guilty, but they must be marginal, outcasts, heretics, taboo-breakers, or infidels of one kind or another… All that is necessary is that the dehumanized class arouse the blind indignation and rage necessary to incite a paroxysm of unifying violence. More relevant to current times, this primal mob energy can be harnessed toward fascistic political ends. Totalitarians right and left invoke it directly when they speak of purges, ethnic cleansing, racial purity, and traitors in our midst… This program is well underway toward the Covid-unvaxxed, who are being portrayed as walking cesspools of germs who might contaminate the Sanctified Brethren (the vaccinated).”

I highly recommend reading the article & seeing how this psychological human impulse has played out in scary ways, such as the extermination of the Jews during the holocaust. As Eisenstein points out, researchers (in both USA & Nazi Germany) claimed to have “science” on their side, the raison d'être for eugenics (sterilization & extermination).

And while neither myself nor Eisenstein sees the current campaign against antivaccine adherents to be as egregious as anti-Jewish sentiment in the 1930s & 40s, the parallels should be enough to provide a wake-up call. NOTE: Eisenstein is of Jewish descent & had ancestors killed in the Warsaw Ghetto.

This is not the first time I have experienced pressure through shaming, shunning, or gaslighting to “do the right thing” with regard to the covid vaccine. 

And while I do believe a fair amount of the desire to “do the right thing” is genuine, I do believe a more sinister human impulse is at play & letting itself be seen:

“This hoary tactic of information warfare – cast the other side as evil and suppress anything that humanizes them – is a symptom of a problem for humanity much greater than the one posed by Covid or by the vaccines, even if they prove as harmful as the more alarmist anti-vaxxers fear.”

We All Value Something

Putting aside any malicious behavior, at the crux of the debate over pro/anti-vaccines is a question of which values & virtues we seek to prioritize.

Some people believe that self-sovereignty to decide how their body is treated is of the utmost importance. This values the right for humans to choose with some manner of freedom. “My body, my choice” as the pro-choice argument goes.

Other people believe that the health of the community is the number one priority & protecting the weak is our civic responsibility. We must sacrifice some measure of pain or discomfort so that those who are less capable can survive.

Both are worthy & virtuous priorities. 

To see the good in both perspectives is to approach them “in good faith”, which I believe is fundamental to maintaining an open mind & heart throughout the debate.

At the crux of the pro-vaccine argument is that the main priority is to save human lives & avoid death at all costs.

At the crux of the anti-vaccine argument is that the way we live (& die) matters more than how long we’re on this planet. "I would rather die standing than live on my knees."

This latter argument resonates more strongly with me & is rooted in more ancient perspectives on life & death.

For many indigenous people, dying “a good death” was more valuable than living a long time. Warrior cultures emphasized dying in battle, courageously, as far more worthy & respectable than dying in old age. To many tribes, death was a natural part of the life cycle rather than something to be feared & avoided.

In a culture that is obsessed with control over our natural environment, the ultimate form of control is to control death. In one of the most provocative essays of the early pandemic, Charles Eisenstein reflects on our society’s “war on death”. 

Eisenstein recounts a conversation with a doctor who spent time with the Q’ero (indigenous people of Peru). When asked if the people would ask a doctor to intubate them, he replied: “Of course not,” she said. “They would summon the shaman to help him die well.”

Dr. Lissa Rankin wrote wonderful prose on the subject: “Not all of us would want to be in an ICU, isolated from loved ones with a machine breathing for us, at risk of dying alone- even if it means they might increase their chance of survival. Some of us might rather be held in the arms of loved ones at home, even if that means our time has come.... Remember, death is no ending. Death is going home.”

Personally, my time experiencing the “death medicine” of Sacred Hunting has provided me a completely different relationship to & perspective on death. To see the life of an animal die, sometimes violently, but also sometimes peacefully, keeps me present to my own death.

And it’s something that all of our ancestors would have been connected to before civilization made it possible to skip the parts we don’t want to see. A modern omission that is having drastic consequences as our fear of death guides public policy.

Risk & Reward

Personally, given that 92.8% of covid deaths had comorbidities, I do not fear that I will die from covid. Even if I did die or experienced “long covid”, I accept that possibility as a risk I am willing to take.

After I write this, I contracted covid with all the fevers, poor sleep, headaches & coughs. I had & have more faith in myself to fight off the disease (as everyone who I know my age/health level has done) & garner natural immunity versus the vaccine.

Do I believe this assessment of risk & reward is the same for everyone? No.

Those who struggle with obesity or diabetes or other personal health challenges sound like perfect candidates for vaccines. I’m not anti-vaccine. I’m anti-shame-bully-coerce-healthy- people-to-take-vaccines. Those who are at risk: get vaccinated!

Those who feel strongly in your civic duty about taking the vaccine – go for it! I’d invite/encourage you to dig into some of the new literature about side effects (that isn’t being widely distributed), but if it doesn’t feel too risky, say “yes” to your moral inclinations. I support that.

No judgment from me.

My solution (as imperfect as it is), is to rapid test/take a covid test before seeing people who might be at risk. Personally, I don’t love the idea of creating trash/waste with each covid test & I do think there are some incentives around testing (example: Walgreens posting enormous profit due to covid tests), but I’ll pick & choose my battles.

In Good Faith

I want to see the good in all & assume the best of intentions. To see everything that is happening in good faith:

• The lies & deceit may be a function of simplifying things because the gov genuinely believes getting everyone vaccinated ASAP will save lives

• Those who are pressuring, shaming, & vilifying anti-vaccine / vaccine-hesitant people have good intentions that value human life & collective health (even if misguided & emotional in their efforts)

• The organizations profiting from this pandemic are not bad or evil, but a victim of the late-stage capitalist system that pits growth & financial returns over all else

My hope is that those who do NOT agree with my perspective can maintain good faith as well. It’s not that I don’t care about your grandma or civilian lives.

I feel scared about the long-term effects of an under-tested therapeutic, I feel angry that I am being shamed & vilified for my fear, & I do NOT feel trust for most of the organizations (government/pharma/media) that are forcing me to get the vaccine.

The Big Picture: Why it All Matters

The vaccine debate, as odd & unlikely as it may sound, could be the awakening that many people are hoping for in human consciousness. I hope that if I’ve made anything clear in this post, it’s that I am not saying “no” to the vaccine. I’m saying “something isn’t right here.”

But many of us have known something isn’t right for a long time. And finally, the people who are saying “something isn’t right here” actually have a voice. We aren’t treating ourselves, our health, the Earth, in a way that befits our species’ gifts.

The world we live in is not what it once was, not what it could be, & we are fed up with it. And some people seem to be deciding that the covid vaccine is the hill they are willing to die on. I empathize with that. Hopefully, it is the catalyst we need to turn this ship around.

But the only way to turn the ship around is to approach vaccines, coercion, & infringement with the same level of disobedience that Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, or even Jesus Christ did: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

How I choose to relate to other perspectives & how I choose to navigate compassion during tense, volatile times matters. Both sides want to cast the other side as evil. I see it even amongst my friend group & I’ve probably had thoughts about it myself. 

And to be clear, I say/remind myself of this as much as anyone else.

This is my work too.