Anyone who grew up in the period between the end of World War ll and the turn of the Millennium would have had a fundamental truism indelibly impressed upon them: It's really really bad when mass media is used to single out and target a particular group of people for collective demonization.
No Canadian who came of age in this era would have managed to remain unaware of this. The idea that you could have an established career in media and not be particularly conscious of this despicable practice and its consequences is inconceivable.
And yet here we are.
Every day we see seasoned journalists reviving this practice in the biggest media outlets in Canada. Their targets are the millions of normal Canadians who have made a reasonable, informed decision not to be injected with a particular product of the pharmaceutical industry. In other words, they've simply maintained a principle that had been a norm of living in a liberal democracy for their entire lives: Human beings are entitled to decide for themselves what medications they take.
This disinclination to jettison long held principles in favour of the new, COVID-era social conformity appears to have rubbed the Canadian media establishment the wrong way. They have taken it upon themselves to use their platform to openly incite hatred, fear and rage towards anyone who fails to fall in line.
One of their tactics is using the moronic, intellectually dishonest label "anti-vaxxer".
We can understand the use of this term in the context of another unavoidable lesson from 20th century history: People who apply generic labels to their fellow citizens to demonize and strip them of their individual humanity are despicable.
That's another one of those truisms that everyone agreed with until just now.
Here's the thing: Labels like this have always been used by creeps who want to impose their will on others and need to invalidate the perspective of the people they're trying to push around.
It's as simple as that. The label "anti-vaxxers" is being used by the same kind of people for the exact same purpose.
Canadian journalists are freely employing other kinds of dehumanizing language too. Much of it is unambiguously reminiscent of the language used by the most heinous regimes of the 20th century.
Take this tweet from health reporter Andre Picard promoting a column by fellow Globe and Mail journalist Doug Saunders. The "unvaccinated" are referred to as "a group that is a problem to be solved".
It is jaw-dropping to see senior Canadian journalists in a major daily newspaper singling out a 'group' of people in their country and designating them a 'problem' that requires some kind of solution.
To state the obvious once again, it is implausible that Picard, Saunders and the editorial staff at the Globe and Mail are not fully aware of the dreadful historical precedent for what they are doing here. And yet they're doing it anyway!
What the hell is going on?
Picard and Saunders are definitely not the only ones doing it.
Here's broadcaster and columnist Jerry Agar in a piece for the Toronto SUN saying the same thing:
"The remaining adult population that aggressively won’t get the vaccine are the problem... Get vaccinated and stop being a scientifically ignorant, selfish drag on society."
You have to hand it to Jerry. He invokes the descriptor "aggressively" as if one can "aggressively" not engage in a particular action. That is how determined he is to attribute malevolence to his fellow citizens.
Here's sports writer and official infectious disease columnist for the Toronto Star Bruce Arthur expressing the same sentiment: "The problem with anti-vaxxers is what to do about them."
Notice how these journalists frame their own unquestioning support for government 'vaccine' policies as universally normative.
Bruce positions himself and his views as synonymous with "our society". He speaks about Canadians who don't share those views like they're some kind of alien presence that exists within "our" society. This fundamentally narcissistic worldview allows Bruce to believe he is entitled to pronounce anything other than his own unwavering commitment to the new orthodoxy as an abomination.
This mindset has been used throughout history to divide populations into an infallibly righteous us and an irredeemably evil them. The former are entitled to inflect whatever punishment they deem is justified on the latter who deserve whatever they get. It's the ground out of which socially approved bigotry and persecution arises. It's the mentality of the mob.
The Globe and Mail's Andrew Coyne has used his regular gig on Canada's state broadcaster the CBC to foment the same shockingly irresponsible us and them style of thinking. The manner in which he does so borders on unhinged:
"It will embolden the anti-vaxxers who we've discovered are much more numerous and much more determined than perhaps we had thought previously."
It feels like you're watching Andrew's audition tape for the bit part of 'Paranoid Reporter' in another remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers... 'There's more of them than we thought! They're coming to get us!'
These journalists are using their platform to normalize the conception that Canada is now composed of two castes: People like themselves who conform to the new official orthodoxy and those who haven't converted. They have decreed that only the perspective of those who embrace the new belief system matters.
When you convince yourself that the perspective of a group of people in your country doesn't matter it's inevitable you'll conclude you're entitled to decide "what to do about them".
These Canadian journalists are openly telling you they've settled on that conclusion.
Bruce Arthur is absolutely explicit about dehumanizing anyone who hasn't reached the same conclusions he has reached. He refers to them as 'symptoms'. He is literally equating his fellow Canadians with the phenomenon of disease itself.
Of course characterizing a segment of the population as spreaders of disease is another well understood propaganda tactic practiced by the most odious totalitarian regimes and their acolytes.
Here is columnist Tasha Kheiriddin matching Bruce's enthusiasm for that tactic in the National Post:
"Kenny expects 10 per cent will not take the vaccine no matter what. That leaves millions of people as living petri dishes, able to host the virus and allow it to potentially mutate into a more dangerous strain."
Toronto Star journalist Ed Tubb makes no bones about using his privileged position at the country's largest daily newspaper to instruct his readers on exactly who to blame: "The current wave is their fault."
Eager to jump on the bandwagon, Bruce Arthur concurs that the job of a journalist is to focus the public's ire on a particular minority group: "It's largely the fault of the vaccine refusers, full stop."
One of the most surreal aspects of all of this is how journalists have responded to the obvious historic precedent for their conduct. They've reacted by denouncing their critics for engaging in the "Nazi-ification of COVID-19 discourse"...
...while simultaneously calling them Nazis:
Andre Picard (Globe and Mail) and Rachel Bergen (CBC): "Antisemitic rhetoric commonplace among opponents of COVID-19 measures. Comparisons with Nazi era becoming a common refrain at protests against vaccine mandates, COVID-19 rules."
That's right folks. Speaking out against the revival of practices we've been told our entire lives were used by regimes like the Nazis to target, demonize and justify the persecution of groups like the Jews is proof that you... wait for it... hate Jews.
When they're not going on about the threat posed by other people allegedly acting like Nazis, they are calling for a minority group to be persecuted, treated like second class citizens and denied the same rights and privileges that people like themselves are entitled to enjoy.
Andre Picard, Gary Mason: "Time to get tough with vaccine resisters. Those who refuse to get COVID-19 shots should not have the same privileges as those who do."
You would think there would be people within the media establishment willing to break ranks and take their colleagues to task. But the absence of professional self-correction has been striking. Either they all endorse the revival of these fascistic practices or they lack the courage to identify themselves as out of step with their peers. So they say nothing.
A few former mainstream journalists like ex-CBC reporter Trish Wood in Canada and James Delingpole in the UK have distinguished themselves by calling out their former colleagues.
I will leave you with this clip from James Delingpole's conversation with evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein. It's striking how precisely James' description of what he has observed in the UK media matches what has been happening in Canada. Bret's insights about the precedent for what we are seeing and what it suggests about where this could be heading should send a chill down the spine of every aware Canadian.
Bret Weinstein: "We don't really have a precedent for a population demonizing a minority as disease ridden and then coming to its senses and going back to behaving in decent way towards each other."
コメント