March 2, 2022 at 4:50 p.m.
Mask farce
Mask farce
First, there are the authoritarians of the political and medical establishment who want to use masks to reinforce the masked class's inferior place in society and to rob them of personal identity - essentially branding them, and as a means of social control. Throughout history, compelling the wearing of masks has worked as the equivalent of social handcuffs, cementing inferior status and constituting a form of mental torture.
As Grada Kilomba wrote in an essay more than a decade ago for the Bicentenary of the Abolishment of the Atlantic Slave Trade, the mask in the age of slavery represented a "sadistic politics of conquest and domination":
"Formally, the mask was used by white masters to prevent enslaved Africans from eating sugar cane or cocoa beans, while working on the plantations, but its primary function was to implement a sense of speechlessness and fear, inasmuch as the mouth was at the same time a place of muteness and a place of torture."
It's hard to argue against the same kind of function for masks in today's world when masking is inadvertently stripped of its meaningless public health facade, as it is when mostly white elite liberals happily attend birthday parties and fundraisers, all unmasked while being obediently waited on by the masked servant class. Nothing depicts oppression better than that.
The second category of mask advocacy comes from those who wear them to virtue signal. The intention is not to oppress directly but to signal that they are part of the preferred class, or at least its ally. They seek not to oppress but to avoid oppression.
Finally, there are the many who wear masks simply because they have been terrified, for no good reason, by the corporate media and the public health establishment.
And who can blame them? We've been subjected to this new study and that new study showing how effective masks are, though critics have punched gaping holes in each and every one. Either that, or the CDC has cherry-picked the data.
But how do you really know?
Well, we do know that for decades prior to the pandemic, the science behind universal face masking was pretty much settled: Face masks didn't do much if any good, the experts said, and themselves posed some downsides, a false sense of security chief among them.
Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended against the widespread use of masks right up until and into the pandemic, in fact as late as March 30, 2020.
Indeed, the scientific reality was buttressed by a major policy review published by the CDC, a meta-analysis of 14 randomized controlled trials on the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of influenza, conducted between 1946 and 2018 - they were not effective. And Covid aerosols are as small as influenza aerosols.
Then the science suddenly changed, and masks were essential. Now there is more evidence that it is the politics and not the science that changed because in recent weeks the pandemic authorities, such as they are, have told us that the science has changed yet again.
Now it's OK to drop mask mandates, and, oh, by the way, cloth masks don't work. You really should wear a respirator. Here's former Planned Parenthood president, CNN contributor, and all-around Covidian authoritarian and professional hysteric Dr. Leaan Wen:
"We have known for many months that Covid-19 is airborne and therefore, a simple cloth mask is not going to cut it."
And this from her, too: "There was, and is, a time and place for pandemic restrictions. But when they were put in, it was always with the understanding that they would be removed as soon as we can. And, in this case, circumstances have changed. Case counts are declining. Also, the science has changed."
Hooray. But boy the science is changing awfully fast.
In truth, the science never did change. The science was and is just like it was before the pandemic and during its early stages. Indeed, what the public health authorities are circling back to now that mid-term elections are approaching is the very same conclusion issued by prominent scientists at the beginning of the pandemic who were later exoriated and even canceled for telling the truth.
For example, here's Dr. Lisa Brosseau, a nationally recognized expert on infectious diseases who taught for many years at the University of Illinois at Chicago, in an April 2020 interview with Infection Control Today.
"And at the end of the day, cloth masks in my opinion don't work in any form," Brosseau said. "They aren't very good at source control, except for maybe very large particles. And they should not be used in healthcare settings for a number of reasons. Surgical masks, I decided, based on the literature, might have a role as source control for people who have symptoms. Say if they're staying home and they have some symptoms. They shouldn't be something you'd wear if you have symptoms going out into the public because you shouldn't be going out into the public service."
In other words, cloth masks did nothing, and surgical masks should be worn only if a person has symptoms, and then only in the house. Most important of all, Brosseau also correctly pegged a central point of the previous consensus - when masks work at all, they work only as a source control. The masks don't protect anybody from getting the virus if the source isn't controlled.
They just don't work, except for respirators.
"So, at the end of the day, the only thing that provides personal protection for the person wearing the mask is a respirator," Brosseau said. "And that is the thing that healthcare workers should be wearing. Particularly if we're worried about the small aerosols, small particles that people will generate when they're infectious."
Brosseau went on to say about the beginning of the pandemic in Asia: "It was clear that even surgical masks weren't working in healthcare settings or controlling Covid-19."
Now the hystericals have acknowledged that cloth masks are indeed useless, and the CDC, which has been loathe to update its formal mask guidance, has begrudgingly allowed that "a respirator may be considered in certain situations and by certain people when greater protection is needed or desired."
"The science" will undoubtedly change many more times between now and election day. Perhaps by then the whole pandemic might be polished right down to the actual truth.
But we won't hold our breath. The lies by the government and the medical establishment have piled up like garbage in a landfill. The mask farce is only the elites' latest demonstration of the political agenda behind this pandemic, becoming ever more clear by the day as they fear it will end and they will lose their new-found powers.
We must stay vigilant, and vote.
Comments:
You must login to comment.