The War on Reality – Tablet Magazine
Our current state of scientific inversion has sown intense division in the U.S. and threatens to rip apart the social fabric. For the past 16 months, the public has been told that it is our duty to serve the needs of medical institutions and personnel, not the other way around. Effective low-cost therapeutics like ivermectin were dismissed in favor of a vaccine program that transferred billions of dollars from taxpayers to pharmaceutical executives and shareholders. Critics of measures like school closures were accused of far-right white supremacy, even though these measures were most damaging to working-class people and minorities. Deadly policies were portrayed as lifesaving, and public health protocols caused immense clinical damage.
A few people have benefited from this war on reality while many have paid a heavy price. In 2020, workers lost $3.7 trillion, while billionaires gained $3.9 trillion and 493 new individuals became billionaires. During this same period, decades of progress against diseases like malaria and tuberculosis were reversed. Disruptions to health and nutrition services killed 228,000 children in South Asia. Globally, the impact of lockdowns on health programs, food production, and supply chains plunged millions of people into severe hunger and malnutrition.
In the U.S., we are facing a crisis of cardiovascular disease and undiagnosed cancer. Unemployment shock will cause 890,000 additional deaths over the next 15 years. Overdoses from synthetic opioids increased by 38.4%, and 11% of U.S. adults considered suicide last June. Three million children disappeared from public school systems, and ERs saw a 31% increase in adolescent mental health visits.
Now, the stories that were used to justify these hardships are continuing to unravel. Many of the people responsible will insist that the second-order consequences are the horrible symptoms of a magic virus and that the mistakes made in handling such a crisis were inevitable. But preventing young children from reaching crucial developmental milestones in the face of mounting evidence is not just a mistake. Forcing hospital patients to die alone without saying goodbye to their families is not just a mistake. Pushing millions of people into poverty and starvation is not just a mistake. These are crimes.
Read it and weep.