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Writer's pictureMichelle Leduc Catlin

Why All The Vitriol?


“…the means represent the ideal in the making and the end in process. So in the long run destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends because the end is preexistent in the means.”
Martin Luther King Jr.



Before 2020, if you had a cold and went to the office, did people shame you for showing up?


Did they wear a mask around you?


Angrily tell you to go home and quarantine yourself?


There would at least have been some reason to do so, and yet most of us didn’t judge.


We used common sense.


We might keep our distance, wash our hands, and perhaps kindly suggest you go home.


We did not moralize people’s health choices.


And yet now, even if you’re symptom-free and therefore not contagious, and you don’t wear a mask and stay at home unless absolutely necessary and keep your distance when out, you’re selfish or delusional or both.


We need to step back from this hostility and recognize it for what it is.


Fear.


And as former Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Richard Schabas said in the interview I posted earlier this week, “People who are fearful don’t make rational decisions.”


People who are fearful make emotional decisions.


It’s not just the general public who react with fear.


Fear begets fear.


Policies were created out of fear, by politicians and other policymakers who reacted out of fear.


Why were measures like lockdowns and mandatory masking, which had no evidence for effectiveness in protecting us from this coronavirus, put into effect? Were we lied to, deliberately?


Perhaps.


But by whom?


A few technocrat elites who want to harvest our data by containing and tracking our every move?


There is a case to be made for that, and I’ve shared a disturbing documentary on that HERE.


But even if that’s true, the vast majority of players and pawns did not know.

We didn’t know.


Those of us who accepted lockdowns (even initially), wore masks, isolated and eschewed contact with friends and family, need to take responsibility for our own fearful reactions.


To be clear, I don’t mean blame - that’s more fear-based finger-pointing.


I mean that we need to first take responsibility for our own actions, our own compliance and part in allowing this societal devastation.



I saw the first hints of health censorship and just shook my head.


I judged the businesses that wouldn’t initially close (when that was a choice) as greedy and unfeeling.


I did nothing but turn away from the media when I saw the propaganda.


Until I couldn’t any longer.


I could sense the strain of my actions against my principles.


I could feel the weight of injustice on my integrity.


And when I could no longer handle these pressures, I had to speak out.


I had to turn my resources - time, money, skills - to telling the truth.


Only now, as I share the truth about myself and my own complicity, do I feel free from fear.


I now have the capacity to hold others to account, and to do so with compassion.


Why, if those in charge really did lead so badly, should we have compassion?


Because those leaders, like all of us, are so caught up in an identity that has painted them into a corner, that they will only fight like caged animals if they are confronted.


They will other-ize, criticize, and demonize.


We know this because that is what they have already done.


That is what we have all done.

We must hold those responsible to account.


But first we need to forgive each other and hold ourselves to account.


The vast majority of people have not yet accepted what has happened and what is still happening.


Presenting them with data only creates cognitive dissonance, which most will avoid.

No one, no identity, no ego, wants to be wrong.


It is a threat.

So we must educate as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. educated.


Through nonviolent thought, language, and action.

“I feel that this way of nonviolence is vital because it is the only way to reestablish the broken community. It is the method which seeks to implement the just law by appealing to the conscience of the great decent majority who through blindness, fear, pride, or irrationality have allowed their consciences to sleep.”

When we eventually awaken from this nightmare of lost liberty, fractured friendships, and poorly managing health protocols, we will only mend our broken community by taking individual responsibility for our actions first.


This is why the global freedom rallies are so empowering.


They use nonviolent means to stand for something.


You can watch a film on the freedom movement at that link.


I hope you will join me.


I’ll leave the last word to Dr. King…

“Nonviolent resistance…does not require that [we] abandon [our] discontent. This discontent is sound and healthy. Nonviolence saves it from degenerating into morbid bitterness and hatred. Hate is always tragic. It is as injurious to the hater as it is to the hated. It distorts the personality and scars the soul.”

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