Some minor pushback against mandatory jabs in US military so far: Links 2, September 10, 2021

An insidious sentiment has begun metastasizing throughout the United States and Britain, expressed by politicians, pundits, and – most disturbingly – by physicians themselves: that the unvaccinated who contract Covid-19 should be denied medical care. 

It gets worse. A former US senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill, also wants the unvaccinated to have their insurance rates raised. Piers Morgan, the British TV personality, demands to his nearly 8 million Twitter followers that the NHS must refuse them hospital beds. An emergency medical physician in Arizona responds to a video clip of people unmasked in a grocery store with a message, “Let ‘em die”. A liver surgeon at Massachusetts General suggests that declining a Covid vaccine should be treated by doctors as a functional Do Not Intubate/Do Not Resuscitate order. 

These are neither private thoughts nor quiet conversations with overworked colleagues: these are calls to action, shared on social media, intended for public consumption.

This should terrify you. 

Physicians are translating these verbal assaults into action. Doctors in Florida staged a mock walkout, frustrated that their hospitals are filling up. A North Texas task force was obliged to walk back a proposal to allot ICU beds based on vaccination status rather than need. An Alabama family practitioner is firing all patients who chose not to be vaccinated, whether they were sick or not.

The medical community in the West is teetering on the edge of philosophical malpractice, and for the sake of patients’ present and future, its members must step back and recall why and how we do our jobs. 

4. Translation from Czech oped on Quebec book burning 

It seems that times of Inquisition and Nazism, when ritualistic mass burnings were taking place, has come back.  And this is happening in progressive Canada.  As now informed by (public-legal?) Radio Canada, the elimination of ‘harmful books’ from school libraries, and their ritualistic burning had started in Ontario already in the year 2019, but further actions had been interrupted by COVID.  At first glance, this difficult-to-believe pseudo-religious “purge by fire”, as a means of coming to peace with native nations was finalized by the ashes of ‘harmful books’ being used as a fertilizer while planting a tree, symbolizing a new, cleansed-of-past-evils time in an inclusive land.  On that pyre, ended thus – among others – such world-wide known comic strips as Asterix and Tintin..
As related by Radio Canada, this “great literary cleanse” took place in the libraries of the Catholic Board of Ontario, in South-Western Ontario where about 10 thousand students attend, from primary to intermediate schools.  The goal of this action is ‘brokering peace with First (Aboriginal) Nations’.  Eliminated or destroyed were about 5 000 books, novels, graphic novels and encyclopedias:  Radio Canada has the full list at its disposal.  Then in the year 2019, there was a ritual conducted called “cleansing through the flame”, during which about 30 of these books were burned.  Among affected works are worldwide known series, such as Tintin and Asterix.  The ashes from the burning were used as fertilizer for the planting of a tree.  According to the organizers of this pseudo-religious ritual, ‘this brought about a change from the negative to the positive’.  Instructional video for students explains the procedure with this commentary:  “We are burying the ashes of racism, discrimination and stereotypes in the hope that we will grow up in an inclusive country where all can live in prosperity and safety.

Translator’s note: “Give it time…  The step from books to people is smaller than we think.”

5. Afghan journalists describe violent Taliban beatings when reporting on protests – video

Two reporters from Kabul have said they were beaten for about 10 minutes by at least six men then locked in a cell, after reporting on protests in Panjshir valley. An acting Taliban minister, who declined to be identified, said attacks on journalists would be investigated.

The founder of Afghan publication Etilaat Roz said the beatings sent a chilling message to the media in Afghanistan [Video at link]

Thank you all who sent in materials overnight and today.