Quote:
Originally Posted by chrisr
that...imho...is one of the most sensible comments in this thread
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Agreed in large part.
Other elements, including distrust of govt and fear incited by certain people, may play a role.
Do you read Jack the Insider, currently a column in one of the Murdoch rags?
JtI is of course Peter Hoystead, a journo who has
sold his talent to diverse publishers, as well as previously publishing a weblog.
JtI has spent a week or three examining the anti-vaxxer phenomenon.
He summed up his findings this week:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...113fca94f50d40
Just in case you're in a jurisdiction to which the Murdoch press applies a paywall, I'll quote some of JtI's key paras.
First, he has over the past few weeks argued that: "the big kahunas in the anti vax movement, all of them in the US, all of them on the grift, all of them flogging some sketchy remedy to new age hypochondriacs. Some had cut their teeth in cancer treatment fakery. The pandemic came just in time to fill their coffers with cash. They can’t say their supplements cure Covid-19, or the regulators will be over them like a bad case of shingles. But they hint at it. In terms of cash flow, the worst thing that can happen to these con artists is a successful and effective vaccine roll out."
Second, JtI argued that: "The business model at the pointy end of anti-vax activism in Australia, if we can call it that, is different although it remains grounded in monetising fear and anxiety. They live off donations. Imagine it. In the middle of a pandemic, perfectly healthy young people who essentially live off charity. They don’t merely exist. They flourish by what appears to be an inexhaustible supply of people here and overseas prepared to throw cash into their pots.
"Some of these activists have the nerve to claim mental illness has risen in our communities which it almost certainly has, without acknowledging the obvious point that they have contributed to a rise in depression and anxiety and in no small way.
"The scaremongering has changed over time. Before the development of Covid-19 vaccinations, they claimed the pandemic didn’t exist. It was a plandemic, organised by a deep state cabal of the wealthiest and most influential people on the planet. Then when the vaccines did roll out, those vaccines would kill us all or render reproductive systems barren and desolate. Pregnant
women would suffer miscarriages, others would metamorphosise into reptiles.
"When that didn’t pan out, anti-vax activists shifted again. Vaccines would kill our
children. Now, the doom merchants concentrate on vaccine mandates based on the ghastly notion that it should be permissible for those in aged care or
health care to wander into their workplaces while infectious."
In short, JtI - who has done the
research - argues that it's all about
money. The anti-vaxxers in Aus have preyed on fear and sought benefits by donations and, when collared by coppers, sought crowd-funded support for their
legal fees.
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