Sunday, October 10, 2021

Vaccines For Me, Not For Thee


Last Wednesday, Chris Haye of All In noted of Fox News

Media Matters found that channel pushed claims undermining vaccines 99 of the days in the past six months. And the hosts over there are strenuously opposed to vaccine mandates or requirements, right? They let you know every chance they get.

Hayes' producers then showed video of Carlson maintaining

These demands are so obviously irrational that forcing you to accept them without complaint is the whole point of the exercise. It is a form of sadomasochism. It is dominance and submission. It`s about power. If they can make you take medicine you don`t want or need, they`ve won. You are theirs. You belong to them.

We don't often see tongue in cheek Hayes, but we should more often:

Sadomasochism. Spicy, Tucker. Who would willingly suffer in such submission? It`s why fox news has been celebrating the very brave resistors in other organizations who have resigned from their jobs or gotten fired or placed on some kind of leave rather than get the vaccine or be owned. They brought on nurses and teachers, even an army lieutenant colonel.

He continued

But their newest champion is someone at another cable channel, ESPN. A host there named Sage Steele who is now suspended from being on air partly for appearing on a podcast and going after her employer for mandating vaccines.

Following was video of then-ESPN employee Steele stating

I think to mandate -- I respect everyone`s decision. I really do. but to mandate it, is sick and it`s scary to me in many ways. But I have a job, a job that I love, and frankly a job that I need. But again, I love it. I just -- I`m not surprised it got to this point especially with this Disney, I mean a global company.

Citing Fox co-host Brian Kilmeade and Fox political commentator Clay Travis, Hayes remarked

The irony here again is that none of these people, Clay Travis, Brian Kilmeade, to Tucker Carlson have shown that same bravery to call out their own network and their own employer. The Fox News vaccine requirement is stricter than the one proposed by President Joe Biden and described as tyranny and creeping communism.

Fox is requiring unvaccinated employees to be tested every day. And inside the buildings, I mean just look at this video of the opening of their new D.C. bureau. Everyone is wearing masks and are most likely also vaccinated or getting tested every day because that is what their company is mandating.

Now, Tucker Carlson has been the most vocal anti-vaccination voice in American media. And unless he just does not actually believe any of the stuff he`s saying, and it`s all just a craven cynical act for ratings while he himself is vaxxed and people die needlessly by the thousands, he might just be highlighting all those other people who showed actual courage as he works up his own courage, you know kind of through osmosis to walk out.

Tongue in cheek again, Hayes concluded

Because if you truly believe you are suffering under the sadomasochistic heel of a tyrannical employer, even if they are paying you lots and lots of money, even if you don`t want people to think you`re a total fraud, then you have got to have the guts to call out Fox News or resign in protest. There`s no other option. It`s the only way forward. You can do it, Tucker. I believe in you.



And on both the day before and the day after these comments, Hayes pounded Fox, even recognizing on Tuesday "So, inside Fox News, everyone takes this seriously. They're in on the joke, I guess."

They are in on the joke, and they're in on the hypocrisy.  It's analogous to the right's obsession with forced-birth.  Activists know that if abortion is killing (highly arguable) or even murder (legally and linguistically inaccurate), a woman obtaining an abortion is even more guilty of such a hideous and horrendous act as is her surgeon.

But that doesn't stop them and the politicians also in on the joke from demanding that doctors performing an abortion be prosecuted and women held blameless, perhaps even held up as victims. The Fox personalities and the forced-birth activists both lack the courage of their convictions. They're in on the joke.

They're educated and aware, as are GOP politicians, who also understand the importance of vaccination, but work hard to not let their supporters in on the joke. If politics is the art of manipulation, these guys and gals are the Pablo Picasso of our generation.



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