(courtesy of Ed in sh medieval)

Courtesy of Konstantin Kisin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Kisin

You're struggling to understand why some people are vaccine hesitant.
Let me help you.

Imagine you're a normal middle-of-the-road person. The year is 2016.
Rightly or wrongly, you believe most of what you see in the media. You
believe polls are broadly reflective of public opinion. You believe doctors
and scientists are trustworthy and independent. You're a decent, reasonable
person who follows the rules and trusts authority.

Imagine your shock then, when Brexit-- which you were assured won't happen
because it's a fringe movement led by racists for racists-- happens. The
polls, which widely predicted it wouldn't happen were completely wrong. The
experts and media pundits who told you it wouldn't happen day after day are
also wrong. "Oh well," you say, "these things happen."

Imagine that soon after, Donald Trump is running for president. You are
told by your favourite media publications that he is going to lose. Some
experts say his opponent has a 99% chance of winning. Imagine waking up
on the morning after the election to discover that all the pollsters, media
experts, and politicians you still trusted were massively wrong again.

And now, the racist monster they told you would never get near the White
House is the leader of the free world. "How did this happen?" you ask
yourself. "How could all the people in charge of informing me be so wrong?"

"It was the Russians," they tell you. "The Russians did Brexit and they got
Trump elected too."

Imagine that for the next 3 1/2 years you watch as the media and the
political class run with the Russia collusion narrative. They tell you the
how, when, and where. The dossiers, the whistle-blowers, the peeing
prostitutes...

Imagine your desperation for things to make sense again. The Muller Report
is coming and it will set your world straight. Evidence of foreign meddling
in the 2016 election and Brexit is coming to save your unsettled mind.

Imagine your shock then, when you discover that Brexit and Trump had little
to do with foreign meddling. The screaming about Russians and Brexit dies
down as well.

Imagine that bit by bit, you discover that events which the media and
political class told you would not and could not happen not only happened,
but happened without some sort of evil interference. Instead, millions of
your fellow citizens voted for them.

Again, you ask "How could this happen?" and again the media has the answer:
racism. "Your country is racist," they tell you. If you're white, this
seems strange
to you. Other than a handful of idiots, you've never met a racist.

If you're an ethnic minority immigrant like me, this seems even stranger.
Why would people in one of the most welcoming, tolerant countries in the
world want to convince themselves their country is racist when it's so
obviously not?

But the evidence is right there on your TV screen. Imagine your horror as a
gay black actor is assaulted by MAGA hat-wearing thugs who racially abuse
him and put a noose around his neck. He even cries while talking about it
to a media eager to believe his every word.

Imagine your outrage as you see news reports of a bunch of MAGA hat-wearing
kids from a religious school contemptuously confronting a Native America
elder. Reza Aslan tells you the kid has a "punchable face" and while you
abhor
violence, it's hard to disagree.

Imagine that for days you watch coverage of these events, with expert after
expert, pundit after pundit, sharing and fuelling your outrage about them.
With every word, your belief that you are a good person and that your
country is a good country wavers.

Imagine that soon after, however, the Jussie Smollett story turns out to
be an attention-seeking hoax. Imagine that you quickly discover that the
Native American elder was the one who confronted the kids and not the
other way around.

"If this is such a racist country," you ask yourself, "why would they need
to make up stories of racism?" As you ponder this, you remember that for
years now, you've been expected to go along with other make-believe.

You're expected to believe that whether you're male or female is not as
simple as you once thought. Whatever you learned about biology at school
is wrong. You no longer know how many genders there are and it seems
dangerous to try to find out. Imagine reading that the experts at the
American
Psychological Association say that traditional masculinity is "pathological
and harmful":

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/traditional-masculinity-american-psychological-association/580006/

Imagine that you still want to believe the media and their experts, but
doing so now requires you to believe your country is racist, men are bad,
and gender is a social construct, whatever that means.

It is at this point that a pandemic emerges on the other side of the world.

You are initially unconcerned, but as scenes emerge from Italy and other
countries, it is clear that something big is happening. You watch nervously
as politicians give press conference after press conference, flanked by
experts, to explain the situation.

The racist Donald Trump shuts down travel from China. In response, the
mayor of Florence advises citizens to fight racism by "hugging a Chinese
person". Shortly thereafter, Nancy Pelosi, a respected Democrat visits
Chinatown in San Francisco to explain "there's no reason tourists or locals
should be staying away from the area because of coronavirus concerns."

"Thank god there are some sensible non-racist people who aren't
overreacting," you say to yourself.

Then imagine watching as Trump doubles down on his racism by claiming
the virus may have come from a lab in Wuhan.

"Nonsense," you think to yourself as you wonder how best to protect
yourself and your family from this deadly disease. You consider getting
masks-- you've seen visitors from Asian countries wear them. But the UK's
Chief Medical Officer tells you not to wear a mask and wash your hands
instead.

As lockdowns are introduced around the world, you diligently follow all the
rules. You stay at home, only go out once and live off savings or government
grants. You are proud to be doing your part. Thanks to you and millions of
your fellow citizens the first wave of the pandemic does not overwhelm the
healthcare system. While thousands sadly die, you've helped to protect
the NHS.

Imagine your confusion as the same people who have spent three months
telling you masks don't work and you shouldn't wear them introduce mask
mandates. We're "following the science" they tell you. This makes little
sense but a pandemic is no time for questions.

As you cautiously go to the supermarket, you notice that masks have made
people far less likely to socially distance. You remember reading somewhere
that bicycle helmets work similarly: they give the wearer more confidence
and the result is more accidents and injuries, not fewer. "Silly people,"
you say to yourself. "If only they would follow government advice."

You turn on your TV to learn that shoppers at your local supermarket aren't
the only ones who have been ignoring the rules.

Neil Ferguson, the man whose projections were used as the basis for the
lockdowns, appears to have broken his own rules to get some action with
his married lover.

Boris Johnson's chief advisor, Dominic Cummings, drove halfway across
the country to ensure he had a better place to isolate. The journalists who
berate him for this are later found to have attended a birthday party in
breach of the rules.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9033859/Kay-Burley-Beth-Rigby-four-Sky-News-stars-taken-air-60th-birthday-bash.html

The lockdown continues. However, a man is killed in Minneapolis while being
arrested for a petty crime. The man is black. The officer is white. The
arrest
is captured on video and quickly goes viral around the world. Imagine your
horror as you watch an officer of the law kneel on another man's neck until
he passes out and later dies. "This is disgusting," you say to yourself.
"I hope
they throw the book at him." Overnight, a huge campaign for racial justice
springs up around the world.

No one explains what racism had to do with the incident but they don't need
to. As you know by now, the West is racist and therefore any time a white
person does anything bad to a black person, there can only be one
explanation. The fact that an identical incident happened to a white man
named Tony Timpa is never mentioned for context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Tony_Timpa?wprov=sfti1

While the lockdown rules remain in place, the protests against injustice
spill out onto the streets. Tens of thousands of people crowd into major
cities. Few wear masks and social distancing is non-existent. Clashes with
police ensue and protestors loot stores, attack residents, and start fires.
A retired black police officer named David Dorn is among dozens of people
who are murdered in the chaos.

On 8/6/2021 7:31 AM, a425couple wrote:
> (courtesy of Ed in sh medieval)
>
> Courtesy of Konstantin Kisin
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Kisin
>
> You're struggling to understand why some people are vaccine hesitant.
> Let me help you.

Jay Inslee didn't trust the vaccine because it had Trump's fingerprints
on it.