Last month marked four years since the beginning of lockdowns. It caught me off guard. Time and memory feel like they've been warped in recent years. An endless stream of bad news, confusion, and sadness will have that effect on a society.
I’ve tried to make peace with feelings of anger and betrayal over the last four years. I want to leave it behind me. The problem is not only that I can't drop it, but that I feel it would be wrong to do so. My own personal grievances aside, it would be unjust to let the suffering of so many innocent people just vanish into the past.
These are human beings whose lives were lost or forever altered by the tyranny of the lockdown regime. They deserve more than to have their stories reduced to distant, unpleasant memories. They deserve to be treated as the real people they were and are.
With that in mind, I wanted to write about those people while keeping their humanity and dignity in focus. To do that, it occurred to me to try writing to them, rather than about them. The following letter was the result.
To the Lost,
Four years. Difficult to believe.
Looking back, most of us were naive in the beginning. We trusted the public health officials. We trusted the epidemiologists. We trusted the CDC. We trusted the President. We believed that this virus was a new and unprecedented threat. It was killing people in China. They were falling dead in the streets. We were shown images from Italy as the country was being overrun by the contagion. We were told that this virus would be here soon, that it had probably already arrived. We were warned that our hospitals weren't going to be able to handle it.
We heard all of this and most of us felt like something needed to be done. And without a great deal of forethought, we allowed something terrible to be done. Businesses were locked down. We determined which employees were essential. People strapped masks on their faces made out of pillow cases and dish towels. For a few weeks it felt like an imposition, but one which we were assured was in the service of helping our fellow citizens. Most people obliged dutifully.
Some people saw this for what it was immediately. Others were initially skeptical but remained cooperative. Many spiraled into hysteria and never pulled out of it.
It didn't take long for things to get out of hand. It was clear that what we were being told about this virus wasn't adding up. That something was very wrong with all of these safety measures. Conflicting information flowed in from all directions, often from the same sources. We largely deferred to doctors and public health officials at first. We applauded them. We diverted resources and retooled manufacturing facilities to build new respirators. We were told that you would desperately need those.
We enthusiastically manufactured those devices, not knowing that they would later be used to murder you.
You died alone and scared. Isolated in a hospital room. Forced to say goodbye to your family on an iPad. There was no warmth or connection in your final moments. No ability to reach out and touch your husband, your wife or your children as you struggled to take your last breath. You were allowed no dignity. You were kept confused and frightened. Alone.
The nurses danced in the hall.
But maybe you avoided that awful fate. Maybe you weren’t fully dragged beneath the wheels of The Science in those early days. There was much more to come as the promised “Two Weeks” stretched into months and then years.
The churches failed you. They shut their doors. Worship from home. You were asked to pretend that the community provided by a church wasn't integral to your faith. To act as if fellowship was not just as important as spiritual guidance and the sacraments. That this was close enough.
Like someone pointing to a bag of flour and some eggs and calling it a cake.
Support structures failed you. Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, groups for abuse survivors. The list was endless. These were places that struggling people could gather and find connection, understanding and encouragement. They were shuttered. All stopped meeting in person.
Go home. We'll be on Zoom.
You were made to sit in silence with the thing you needed more than anything to talk to someone about. It simply wasn't safe to gather anymore.
Liquor stores maintained normal hours of operation.
The schools failed you. Your children were denied their childhood. What could be more unforgivable? Learning and socializing with other children can't just be paused for a few years. That time can never be recovered. The damage is permanent and entirely unnecessary. Your children were robbed of important and foundational memories and experiences. Tragically, they may never even truly understand what they missed.
How many permanent health anxiety and germaphobic tendencies were created?
How many of your children never met their lifelong best friend?
How many never got to experience the excitement of their first relationships?
How many of your children will never read at an optimal level?
How will that impact their lives in anything but a negative way?
How many clubs and dances and games were cancelled?
How fragile and impressionable is a young mind?
We'll know soon enough.
Your business was sacrificed to the neurosis of the mob. Your business, that is. Certainly not Target's, or Walmart's. Those were too essential to shut down. It was only small and independently owned businesses that became a threat to their customer's lives overnight. Shutter it immediately. Go home and wait for a check.
It's that simple. No knock-on effects, we promise.
You worked your whole life to build that business. Something of your own. Something you could be proud of. Something to leave to your children.
Anthony Fauci has decided that none of that matters. The police will be called if you don't lock up immediately.
Maybe you somehow made it through all of that. Maybe you were inconvenienced and outraged by everything, but still largely unharmed. The next phase made sure to hit everyone.
Your captors marched out to dangle the keys to freedom in front of you. They expected you to thank them for a chance at deliverance from the prison they created.
"Take the shot. We can be done with this."
By now many of you who saw through this. You were done listening to these self appointed warden-saviors of society. There weren’t done with you, though. A new chapter of abuse would begin.
Your livelihood was now being used as a weapon against your personhood.
Do you want to keep providing for your family?
Do you want to keep that position you've spent a lifetime working toward?
That career you've sacrificed to pursue?
Then get the shot.
We don't care if you're the same nurse we called a hero yesterday. Today, You're a threat.
Healthcare professionals that resisted were let go. The system then lamented the shortage of nurses and doctors
Your autonomy was used to vilify you. You were barred from the public square. Shunned by people in your own family. Mocked by smug comedians and actors. Hectored by your president.
They called you a conspiracy theorist.
They called you a nutjob.
They called you a murderer.
Some of you couldn't decline the shot. Financial pressures on already strained households meant that their threats would be effective. Many of you took the shot against your better judgement. You did it to preserve the wellbeing of your families. You were robbed of your dignity. Forced to choose between your self-respect and your duty to loved ones. You deserved better than this.
Some of you went along with the program willingly. When the horrific and entirely predictable side effects of mass experimental vaccine uptake started presenting themselves in you, you were shocked to be silenced too. You were called liars. Told you were being dramatic. Told your suffering was not statistically significant. Human beings were reduced to a category on a spreadsheet.
Labelled as outliers and dismissed.
Everyone lost something. In the worst of cases, their lives. Still others lost their childhood, their sobriety, their families, their businesses, their livelihoods, their sanity, their dignity, their self-respect. Their souls.
All were betrayed. We all lost things which can't be given back.
We deserved better than this.
Four years ago the world changed forever. We won’t forget those who showed their true colors.
We won’t forget being confined to our homes.
We won’t forget being lied to by doctors, scientists and politicians.
We won’t forget the news media lapdogs and their shameless shilling.
We won’t forget the entertainment media and their smug condescension.
We won’t forget the gleeful celebrations of the deaths of people who refused the shots.
We won’t forget the neighbors and coworkers who leaped at the opportunity to inform on their fellow citizens.
We won’t forget the lying governors, mayors and congressmen who were caught time after time circumventing measures they held citizens to by force of law.
We won’t forget the playgrounds being barricaded.
We won’t forget children being made to attend school in plastic bubble tents.
We won’t forget being required to show our papers to travel or enter businesses in America.
We won’t forget having our jobs threatened for the sake of congressional kickbacks and Pharma’s bottom line.
We won’t forget our service members being humiliated and their careers destroyed.
We won’t forget the public debates over whether the unvaccinated should be offered medical attention.
We won’t forget being treated as pariahs in our own country.
We won’t forget being called murderers.
We won’t forget being told we should die.
We won’t forget.
We will remember everything.
We owe it to the memory of those who are no longer with us, and to the humanity of those who are still here to never forget what was done. We will keep your memory alive in our hearts and minds. You deserved better.
Take care of yourselves,
O.M.
You’re not alone my friend. Many of us ended up in the same boat unfortunately. The loss of trust is difficult to come to terms with. It creeps into all of your thought processes and makes it hard to be around those who either didn’t or wouldn’t see it. Thank you for reading, and keep moving forward.
It is horrendous when you review the events in a compressed format like this. It reads like bad fiction, and yet it happened. We lived through it.
I was one of the early push backers. By the end of March 2020 I knew something was up although reserved judgment in case I was wrong. Around about then Italy's chief science officer wrote publicly to the Italian government to state Covid deaths were being miscounted by a factor of at least ten, perhaps more.
The almost total silence around that made me realize early we were witnessing a mass hysteria event.
The sad fact is many are forgetting. I believe that will be the real lesson. The minority who woke up and wish to document what happened for posterity will not be popular. I have family members who just brush it all off as a thing that happened. No big deal.
They certainly don't view it as a practice run for totalitarianism. Many cannot cope with discussion of that sort.
So I think it is good we do not forget. But we must also be realistic about who wants to learn lessons and who prefers to ignore them.