Dear Jon Schwarz,
I just read your latest at The Intercept.
I very much appreciate your critique of Erik Prince's disturbing "yay imperialism" attitudes and statements with regard to Africa, but I am mystified by your side contention that “a pea-brained fear of vaccines” (I think you might mean: a developed critique of the liability-free vaccine product empire) is a feature of fascism.
“Like the previous enthusiasts of imperialism, Prince is completely blind to his own motivations and where they inevitably lead. He doesn’t want to do this for America’s benefit, you see. No, it’s because “if you go to these countries and you see how they suffer, under absolutely corrupt governments that are just criminal syndicates, a lot of them deserve better.”
This was the rationale for Britain’s white man’s burden, France’s mission civilisatrice, Spain’s misión civilizadora, Portugal’s missão civilizadora, and even imperial Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, which aimed to conquer every nearby country for the benefit of allOpens in a new tab. Imperialists have always told themselves that they are subduing other lands to help their benighted inhabitants. This beneficence somehow always leads to mass death.”
You obviously understand how an imperialist cloaks authoritarian actions in rationales about "doing good", yet you do not seem to recognize this dynamic at play in the medical world when the imperialism takes place on the continent of the human body, and "the beneficence" takes the form of a particular suite of liability-free, sold-for-profit medical products.
In this very piece, where you rightly dismiss as invalid Prince’s attempts to portray imperialism as a “gift”, and lay bare the motives of those who invade countries (economically or militarily) as ultimately self-serving, you make a rather strange statement:
“In any case, Prince’s words illustrate that we are living in a time in which many of humanity’s worst ideas, ones we thought were long dead and buried, have risen from the grave and are now staggering about again.
Fascism? Maybe things went off the rails last time, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. A pea-brained fear of vaccines? Sure, why not? A conviction that the old lady who lives in the forest is stealing our children and vivisecting them to consume their adrenochrome? That makes perfect sense.”
Let’s dissect the paragraphs’ claims:
A. Bad ideas that “we thought long dead and buried” are back.
B. One of them is fascism. (I’d actually contend fascism can’t come back because it was never defeated and dispatched, but has been growing steadily more thorough since World War II, but we’ll put that aside)
…and then, what seems an insupportable, and very strange claim
C. Current re-spawned fascists can be recognized by the “baby” they have saved from the “bathwater” of “old fascism: “A pea-brained fear of vaccines”.
I don’t remember old fascism urging people to “fear vaccines”. In fact, I’m pretty sure old fascism is very associated with zero regard for an individual’s bodily sovereignty, and the perpetuation of medical experimentation on non-consenting bodies.
Because of the horrific acts of medical experimentation and coercion discovered to have been perpetrated by mid-20th century Nazi fascists, the Nuremberg Code was born, to explicitly make verboten violations of informed consent in medical matters.
Medical experimentation and medical coercion = the ultimate imperialism.
Attempting to dismiss those with critiques of the suite of medical products known as “vaccines” and the legal-regulatory-commercial complex in which they are sold as people driven by “fear of vaccines” and then, on top of that, to claim that objections to body imperialism = fascism seems like quite a piece of logical whiplash.
Have you ever in good faith attempted to steel man your apparent belief that all recommended vaccine products are safe, effective, necessary for individual/public health, and that their recommendation by bodies such as the CDC is in no way a product of the very fascism (state and industry working together for power and profit) you rightly point out as negative in your critique of Mr. Prince?
I contend that the federal regulatory/recommendation system in this product arena currently serves industry over citizens. The sworn deposition of Dr. Stanley Plotkin (godfather of vaccinology as he is oft-called) clearly brings the sand into focus which the vaccine "authorities" rely upon as foundation for claims of safety, efficacy and necessity. It's nine hours, and worth it if your goal is to truly understand the problems that exist in this product arena. https://archive.org/details/2015-831539-DM
If you prefer, here is the transcript. https://reformedhealth.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Plotkin_Deposition_Transcript_-_Matheson_Case_-_2018-01-11.pdf Covid vaccines? Just as problematic as detailed here by attorney Aaron Siri: https://rumble.com/v2puuxa-ican-attorney-aaron-siri-delivers-scathing-speech-at-dartmouth-college.html
The vaccine industry in partnership with the state has demonstrated its belief that our bodies are Prince's Africa.
It's understandable that people get lazy on this issue, because people want to believe the carefully maintained propaganda story that every vaccine product is a miracle conceived and delivered out of altruism.
Anyone who looks, finds that its not so simple a situation. I hope as a journalist, you will take the time to look.
It's both sad and funny that people get fascism completely wrong, to the point that they believe it's fascist to *oppose* government-crony products.
Clearly, we can define a good liberal, a NON fascist, as one who does not believe in any “conspiracy” theories, defined as straw men.