The slippery slope toward the elimination of free expression and critical thinking rights has long turned into a roller coaster ride. In that light, it’s interesting to look back and see how the “update in the cultural norms” has been ushered in.
Joomi Kim recently unearthed and wrote about a “remarkable video of Kennedy talking with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough in 2005.” Today, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is portrayed by the mainstream media as a “dangerous antivaxxer” and a “conspiracy theorist” for bringing up safety issues with “holy” vaccines.
But less than twenty years ago, when people on mainstream TV were allowed to talk like normal human beings — as opposed to obedient clockwork parrots, blindly touting the party line — they were far less afraid to agree with Kennedy on his views. Oh, now much difference can a couple of decades and a series of successful fear-mongering campaigns make!
Here is a telling excerpt from the interview:
SCARBOROUGH:
Let’s talk about Thimerosal … There are a lot of people, a lot of Americans very concerned about the impact of this drug, which is found in vaccines, and how it causes autism. Talk about that.
KENNEDY:
That’s right. Thimerosal is a preservative that was put in vaccines back in the 1930s. Almost immediately after it was put in, autism cases began to appear. Autism had never been known before. It was unknown to science. Then the vaccines were increased in 1989 by the CDC and by a couple of other government agencies.
SCARBOROUGH:
OK, let me stop you there. That’s an important date. And I will tell you why. My son, born in 1991, has a slight form of autism called Asperger’s. When I was practicing law and also when I was in Congress, parents would constantly come to me and they would bring me videotapes of their children, and they were all around the age of my son or younger. So, something happened in 1989.
Remarkably, Scarborough plays along with Kennedy in considering the possibility that the increase of vaccinations in 1989 had something to do with the rise in autism.
KENNEDY:
Exactly. What happened was the vaccine schedule was increased. We went up from receiving about 10 vaccines in our generation to these kids receive 24 vaccines. And they all had this Thimerosal in them, this mercury. And nobody bothered to do an analysis of what the cumulative impact of all that mercury was doing to kids.
As it turns out, we are injecting our children with 400 times the amount of mercury that FDA or EPA considers safe. A child on his first day that he is born is injected with a Hepatitis B shot. Under EPA guidelines, he would have to be 275 pounds to safely absorb that shot.
SCARBOROUGH:
And yet, we are just constantly pumping our kids with these vaccines. Where is the federal government in all of this?
KENNEDY:
What happened was that, in 1988, one in every 2,500 American children had autism. Today, one in every 166 children has autism. And, plus, one in six have other kinds of learning disorders, other kinds of neurological disorders, speech delay, language disorders, ADD, hyperactivity, that all seem to be connected, that are all connected, the science shows are all connected to autism — to Thimerosal.
SCARBOROUGH:
… You can’t prove it, but, intuitively, you look at the spike. You look at what happened with Thimerosal. There’s no doubt in my mind — maybe it’s two years from now. Maybe it’s five years from now. Maybe it’s 10 years from now. We are going to find out Thimerosal causes, in my opinion, autism [emphasis by Joomi].
Kennedy then goes on to mention that there are “hundreds and hundreds of studies that connect Thimerosal to these disastrous neurological disorders,” but the studies that federal bureaucrats use to defend Thimerosal, are weak.
KENNEDY:
Then I went and I talked to the federal bureaucrats who are defending Thimerosal. And I said, what are you relying on? And I looked at the science they are relying on. And I can tell you, Joe, it is so weak. And you and I have seen, in the legal practice, junk science. And we know what these phony scientists are who create this stuff.
SCARBOROUGH:
It happened in big tobacco.
KENNEDY:
Right. Tobacco.
SCARBOROUGH:
It happens in big oil. It’s happening in global warming. And now it’s happening in a way that is impacting our kids’ lives.
Scarborough even said to Kennedy: “Let’s get you running for a public office. I will defend your honor whenever any Republican says anything nasty.” The full interview transcript can be found here.
Thimerosal Today
By the way, here is an official wishy washy and roundabout statement about Thimerosal on the CDC website [emphasis mine]. Looks like straightforward talk doesn’t come easy to the CDC:
“Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative that has been used for decades in the United States in multi-dose vials (vials containing more than one dose) of medicines and vaccines. There is no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.
However, in July 1999, the Public Health Service agencies, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and vaccine manufacturers agreed that thimerosal should be reduced or eliminated in vaccines as a precautionary measure.”
Meanwhile, the mouthpieces for Big Pharma have seemingly forgotten to recall the study showing that Thimerosal is “linked to immune system dysfunction”: “The study provides the first evidence that dendritic cells show unprecedented sensitivity to thimerosal, resulting in fundamental changes in the immune system’s ability to respond to external factors.”
Joe Scarborough: A Change of Heart
As noted by Joomi, in 2021, Joe Scarborough, the very Joe Scarborough who had been sympathetic to Kennedy’s views in 2005, expressed support for vaccine mandates — and this year, he called anti-vaxxers “freaks”:
“Let me say something about anti-vaxxers. I felt really sorry for anti-vaxxers and their children when they were left-wing freaks. And I feel really sorry for anti-vaxxers and their children now that they’re right-wing freaks … This misinformation keeps getting spewed out there, and unfortunately the weakest, and perhaps the least educated, are the ones that fall prey to these stupid lies.” (True? No.)
“Farce Mask”
Here is a stunning blast from the past. In 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald published a sweet (and truthful!) article titled, “Farce mask: it’s safe for only 20 minutes”:
“Retailers who cash in on community fears about SARS by exaggerating the health benefits of surgical masks could face fines of up to $ 110,000.
NSW Fair Trading Minister Reba Meagher yesterday warned that distributors and traders could be prosecuted if it was suggested the masks offered unrealistic levels of protection from the disease.
“I’m sure everyone would agree that it is un-Australian to profiteer from people’s fears and anxieties,” Ms Meagher said.”
Another Change of Heart: Vaccine Mandates
Remember December 2020? The time when mandating adult vaccines was still a conspiracy theory? Erase that. Don’t believe the evidence of your own eyes. Speaking of evidence of your own eyes, Biden did say that he would NOT introduce mandates:
A year later, he announced vaccine mandates:
Is there accountability? Asking for a friend.
Fauci Said What?
Meanwhile, in March 2020, The New England Journal of Medicine published Fauci’s article, titled, “Covid-19 — Navigating the Uncharted.” Guess what Fauci compared COVID to?
“If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%.
This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.”
And if we go far enough, here is what Fauci in 2003: “The country wouldn’t have accepted being vaccinated [for smallpox], and we knew it.”
How the Monster Is Born
If we see today’s America through the eyes of somebody who fell asleep in 1999 and just woke up, that person would think that he’s been drugged. Between the censorship, the attack on liberty, the attempt to withdraw the medical freedom, and the push for isolation camps, it doesn’t feel real. And yet …
People usually ignore philosophers at their peril, resorting to crisis management when the crisis is impossible to ignore. However the signs of decay and self-betrayal are usually on display for a long time, available for observation to anyone with a pair of eyes.
It is little by little — personal choice by personal choice — that the big monster is born. And yes, the conception of the monster is more often than not brought upon by the people with some power and not so good intentions. But the nourishment of the developing monster is impossible without the participation by the regular people: the people who are broken, fearful, dependent on external validation, emotionally wobbly, and not quite connected to their souls.
For example, if the entire citizenry produced a giant outcry at the mention of vaccine mandates, there would be no vaccine mandates regardless of how much the people with not so go intentions wanted to usher them in.
But they worked the citizens meticulously, using every possible trick: from fear to resentment of happiness to pseudoscientific talk.
For example, before any COVID, they had introduced and popularized the antiscientific concept that in order for an “effective” vaccine to work, everyone has to get the “effective” vaccine. Even without going into the bigger picture of vaccine development, this concept is absurd on its face. I was kind of extremely suspicious of that move a few years ago when they started ramping up the fear in the context of measles and the flu. I thought, something’s up! Well …
But again, individual views may vary, and when someone is convinced by the propaganda to make personal choices against their interests, they remain in the category of the abused. However, when they become so disconnected and terrified that they feel like their world will come apart if they don’t force their view on others, they receive the “abuser” badge as well. And the monster gets bigger. And so it goes.
This applies to any views, by the way. I have never encountered a person who is healed and whole on the inside, who has any inclination to proselytize on people against their will. And the irony is that the more broken the person is (assuming sincerity), the more self-righteous that person feels! Never fails.
Way Out
There is no easy formula for starving out the ugly monster but there is definitely a way out. I believe that a big part of the deal is refusing to be afraid, refusing to freak out, and remembering our beautiful spiritual worth. Once we get the part of our souls that knows no fear, we become a force for good. We can be warriors, we should be warriors — but we are more effective warriors without fear. Letting go of fear and remembering the love go hand in hand.
In my own life, I have found that it is far more productive to be focusing on my job in this life than to obsess with other people’s “wrong” beliefs, even if I find their beliefs bizarre. I have found that doing my job with love contributes to the process of starving out the monster. And that’s all I can do. And the rest is in the hands of the universe (God, the higher powers, however you pray). One the monster will disappear. If we have faith and patience and do our jobs right, it will disappear.
About the Author
To find more of Tessa Lena’s work, be sure to check out her bio, Tessa Fights Robots.