{"id":14190,"date":"2022-09-14T15:14:25","date_gmt":"2022-09-14T14:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=14190"},"modified":"2022-09-14T15:14:25","modified_gmt":"2022-09-14T14:14:25","slug":"covid-19-torches-of-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2022\/09\/14\/covid-19-torches-of-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: Torches of Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Harold Evans used to say that an investigation only really began to count once the readers \u2013 and even the journalists \u2013 were bored with it’<\/span><\/em><\/strong>
\nAlan Rusbridger: who broke the news?<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

In New York city on Easter Sunday 1929, in a premeditated move, a group of women brought the annual parade to a halt and proceeded to light up cigarettes. In a choreographed response, the tobacco industry, guided by the legendary Edward Bernays<\/a><\/span>, re-branded cigarettes \u2018Torches of Freedom\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

This manipulated scandal had the desired effect of connecting smoking cigarettes with female empowerment. Within a few years, a woman\u2019s \u2018right\u2019 to smoke had largely been conceded. Effectively doubling its market, the tobacco industry laughed all the way to the bank.<\/p>\n

Such an apparently spontaneous public spectacle is arguably the gold standard in advertising, wherein an avant-garde movement is associated with a product or service \u2013 all while the consumer is blissfully unaware. Importantly, radical or even rebellious social groups often inform mainstream taste, as with the popularity of so-called \u2018ghetto styles\u2019.<\/p>\n

This article explores how the pharmaceutical industry, in league with technology corporations<\/a><\/span> and so-called stakeholder capitalism<\/span><\/a> \u2013 which entails giving corporations more<\/em> power over society and democratic institutions less<\/em> \u2013 successfully associated global support for universal vaccine uptake against COVID-19 with a \u2018left-wing\u2019 political outlook, infused with youthful idealism.<\/p>\n

In particular, global Black Lives Matter demonstrations appear to have been harnessed \u2013 without the consent of organisers \u2013 to popularise the use of face masks, which became the enduring global symbol of the pandemic. The fretful atmosphere these inculcated offered a chilling reminder that COVID-19 was constantly in our midst.<\/p>\n

This arrived despite an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in April, 2020 dismissing calls for widespread masking as \u2018a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic<\/a><\/span>\u2019. That same month the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine referred to 14 trials on the use of masks vs. no masks<\/span><\/a>, saying these \u2018showed no effect in either healthcare workers or in community settings\u2019. Thereafter, even experts who questioned their efficacy were censored on social media<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Masks were supposed to play an equivalent role to the assumed purpose of vaccines: protecting others. They were made \u2013 and in some cases remain \u2013 compulsory in many settings in numerous states, foreshadowing similar laws enforcing vaccine compliance. In essence, the vaccine would set us free from an obligation to wear masks.<\/p>\n

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@frankarmstrong2<\/a> calls for generous Big Government intervention but an unintrusive Small State to address factors acerbating the Covid-19 Pandemic. https:\/\/t.co\/uhWto9S3EZ<\/a>@broadsheet_ie<\/a> @LumberBob<\/a> @itsmybike<\/a> @think_or_swim<\/a> @doctorskunk<\/a> @KevinHIpoet1967<\/a> @amandaknox<\/a> @RonanMcCrea<\/a><\/p>\n

— CassandraVoices (@VoicesCassandra) April 16, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n