
Sometimes I make a post at someone else’s Substack and say to myself, “Hey, that’s pretty good. I ought to develop that point in a column at my Substack newsletter.”
This happened this morning when I made the following post at Megan Redshaw’s Substack:
“Any narrative works … when there’s no watchdog press to expose the liars.”
I was responding to a poster who pointed out that officials simply changed the “vaccine” narrative when most people figured out the shots didn’t prevent infection or stop virus spread.
The new narrative became, “But the shots prevent severe cases or death” … so, everybody keep getting your shots … if you don’t want to die!
This essay gives me another chance to criticize the world’s ‘Vaccine Promotion Agencies’ …
This narrative audible shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Americans still capable of critical thinking … because we’d all seen the same playbook employed with the flu “vaccines.”
If anyone’s read the thousands of stories about a given year’s flu outbreaks all the way to the bottom, they’ll find a statement from a public health authority who’s quoted as saying:
“It’s not too late to get your flu shot. Even if you still get the flu, the shots will ensure you experience a much less severe form of the flu.”
This obligatory quote is also BS as everyone must know people (including themselves) who’d gotten the flu shot …. and then got a case of the flu … that wasn’t mild.
For example, the only year I ever got a flu shot I, of course, got the flu … and that flu put me on my fanny for at least a week.
That is, the shot didn’t prevent the flu; I was also just as miserable as the other three or four flu cases I’d survived in my life.
Speaking for myself, I don’t know what study the experts cite to say with a straight face that the Covid or flu shots reduce the severity of any future case.
Which brings me to this point: Experts and authorities don’t have to cite any study because they know the reporter writing the story (or the editor running the press release) is just going to accept that these experts are infallible and are telling the truth.
More examples, which are everywhere if you know what to look for …
Young athletes are probably the most healthy population cohort in the world. But millions of young athletes were told they also had to get a Covid shot.
When most people figured out no athletes were at risk of dying from Covid (something that should have been known by Week 2 of the pandemic), the narrative became “the athletes have to get these shots so they won’t spread the virus to their grandmothers.”
Since I’m a smart-aleck contrarian, I always asked how many 19-year-old quarterbacks were going to make a point of visiting their frail grandmother in the nursing home while the grandson was sick with Covid symptoms?
Doesn’t everyone with a case of sniffles know that they shouldn’t visit grandmother in the nursing home or at her home when they could get her sick?
Calling an audible, the experts changed the narrative to unvaccinated athletes are going to spread Covid via the check-out line of the Piggly Wiggly when the athletes go buy some milk after practice.
(This was actually a tacit admission that the footprints every six feet on the grocery store floors and mandatory masking … didn’t work.)
I’m sure every Covid narrative or piece of CDC guidance now includes an “audible” or revised guidance.
… Or the experts just dropped the guidance
My wife, a school teacher, spent the first months after the experts let students back in school, wiping down every desk and surface in her classroom after every class. She also doubled as a nurse and had to take the temperatures of random students walking in the hallways.
At some point, Carrie’s principal must have said, “Oh, we can stop that now.”
But in that staff meeting the principal was still wearing her Covid mask, prompting teachers in the back of the room to whisper to themselves:
“What did she just say? I can’t understand her.”
The strategy works for all debunked lies …
It’s not just Covid guidance where one lie is followed up with another lie or dubious statement.
In the months after 9-11, the vast majority of Americans believed America should invade Iraq because its dictator had “weapons of mass destruction,” which he was somehow going to unleash on American citizens 2,000 miles away.
When no weapons inspectors could find any of these weapons, the justification for the invasion became this would help “spread democracy” in the Mideast.
Surely, anyone who values real freedom would support a war (intervention) waged to bring about “more freedom and democracy.”
As it turned out, few people stopped and asked what nation’s government was more inclined to take-away our freedoms … or, witness the 2020 election, rig “democratic” elections.
Personally, I never understood how Saddam Hussein was going to steal my freedom of speech or tell me that I couldn’t attend church services … or enjoy a sit-down dinner with my family at Ruby Tuesday’s.
Awkward question: Whose government did tell me I couldn’t do those things?
It was Facebook, an American company, that told me I couldn’t post “speech” that “violated their community standards.” Mark Zuckerberg probably was pressured into changing his “community standards,” but it wasn’t Saddam Hussein who pressured him into doing this.
I guess nothing has changed …
I used to think “free speech” was an All-American principle, universally celebrated since the times of the world’s first great philosopher, Socrates.
And then I remembered that the leaders of ancient Greece murdered Socrates for practicing his Socratic Method (aka asking unauthorized questions).
It wasn’t the leaders of a nation in Persia or Asia that “sent a message” to would-be followers of Socrates - it was the leaders of Socrates’ own country.
Let’s move back to the world of sports …
I could cite examples from all walks of life. In sports, for most of my life, it was important to celebrate and protect the “amateur status” of college student athletes.
However, at some point, the narrative changed and was replaced by the narrative that millions of athletes were being “exploited” by greedy athletic departments and sports conferences.
The reform - the new narrative - became “pay everybody” and let those poor kids transfer as many times as they want.
But this narrative is bogus too because every athlete isn’t being paid - only the really good ones and only if they play a sport that makes a lot of money for the athletic departments and ESPN.
Anyway, the greedy and cheating boosters and sports agents (who used to get your school on probation) are now compassionate and benevolent humanitarians.
Global Warming and Climate Change were flops … but this doesn’t matter
For at least a decade, “Global Warming” was the great existential threat to the planet as this was going to cause the sea levels to rise, flood all beach-front communities, kill all the polar bears and make snow in Minnesota a once-in-a-decade anomaly.
When this didn’t happen, the experts changed the narrative (and the scary term) to “Climate Change.”
*** (Thanks for sharing with family members or friends who are still terrified of Climate Change.) ***
Pre-Climate Change, the planet still had hurricanes, tornadoes, wild fires and droughts. But after Climate Change the public learned that all of these events were caused by … the changing climate (which, apparently, had always stayed the same in previous eons).
Once, we had to have electric cars because we were running out of oil. Now, we have to have electric cars because the gas ones cause … Climate Change.
The Soviet Union used to be our arch enemy because these communist SOBs might nuke us in a World War.
Today, Russia is our arch enemy because a cadre of its trolls came up with a couple dozen memes on Facebook that caused millions of voters in swing states to change their votes from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump.
In Conclusion … A ‘Help Wanted’ thought exercise …
When I was growing up, my teachers used to compliment me because I was always asking good questions and I sometimes wrote provocative essays in English class.
Today, per the new narrative, I’m a dangerous disinformation spreader and I should keep my dangerous and wacko views to myself.
Because I don’t follow the herd, I’m un-hirable in any corporate newsroom.
Today, a reporter’s job description at a legacy or corporate newspaper might read:
“Experience a plus … if applicants can demonstrate they’ve never questioned any official guidance or tried to expose an important leader as a liar.”
It’s hard to fathom, but these narrative defenders are actually VIPs in the Real World.
They’d know doubt go on strike and demand a pay raise if they didn’t know there’s millions of out-of-work journalists who’d risk giving Grandma a case of Covid if they could get one of these salaried jobs.
(I appreciate Substack adding the “Gift Subscription” box at the top of our stories this holiday season. Who knows? A few people might enjoy the gift of a year’s worth of “Bill Rice Jr. content.”)
And thank you to everyone who keeps giving me these very generous gifts …
Cutting room floor text ...
When I write about journalists who have never questioned the narrative that the flu shots at least produce milder cases of flu, I caught out this sentence for space reasons:
If these journalists (who write these stories) happened to get a bad case of flu after one of their earlier flu shots, I guess this somehow qualified as even more proof that the “vaccines” worked.
Out of curiosity ... if I can get any intelligence from subscribers ... was the "Holiday Gift Subscription" banner from Substack included in this article?
I get emailed copies of my own articles and it wasn't present in the version I got in my email.
This is a smart gesture on the part of Substack to help authors grow their subscriptions right before Christmas. Of course, this helps Substack too - which gets 10 percent of all subscriptions. Stripe gets 3 percent for processing the payments.