Death Cult Rally at Rady Children's Hospital to Celebrate 'Freedom'
Ah, the hypocrisy of Freedom: A group that’s been harassing patients outside of hospitals in Los Angeles because masks or vaccines are required is bringing their act to San Diego.
Think of them as the Westboro Baptist Church for the twenty-first century, generating outrage through street theater based on conspiracy theories.
“America’s Healthcare Workers for Medical Freedom” have invited San Diegans to attend a “Stop the Mandates Rally.”
And since it’s become clear in recent days that children are susceptible to and transmitting the Corona Delta variant, I suppose it’s only appropriate that they’re having their shindig outside of Rady Children’s Hospital.
It’s not as if anything’s happening in San Diego that should be concerning, right? Wrong.
Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas reinstalled surge tents outside their emergency room yesterday to handle the influx of Covid patients. Case rates throughout the nation are soaring and it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing news accounts of portable morgues being set up.
San Diego County’s daily COVID-19 caseload as of Monday -- 1,012 cases out of 10,125 reported tests for a 10% daily positivity rate. In the 30 days leading up to July 27, COVID-19 confirmed hospitalizations increased 274% and ICU admissions increased 116%; 78% of the county's hospital bed capacity is in use.
Dozens of the country's top medical organizations — including the American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association — called for health care facilities to require all employees to be vaccinated, and many of the nation’s largest hospitals agree.
Mask wearing and/or vaccines have been made into a litmus test for loyalty to various far right causes. People who would be thrilled if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade are walking around with signs saying “my body, my choice.”
https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1422651311120596994?s=20
Similar rallies by this Medical Freedom group have already been announced for Redding and Riverside. In Los Angeles, anti-mask/vaxxer rallies are apparently a fad of some sort.
There have also been events outside businesses insisting on proof of vaccination, and these aren’t just your standard nice and orderly picket lines. People are getting beaten up. (It should surprise exactly nobody that the LAPD/LACSO are never quite engaged when these incidents happen.)
People have started to notice that some of the same faces show up five days a week in different locations, theoretically organized by different groups.
The Shiva Bagheri mentioned in above tweet is also known as Shiva Gordon, and like Ashley Jeffrey, Jason Lefkowitz, pretend doctor Nick Yaya, Siaka Massaquoi*, Roman Drake, Jess Weber*, and Paul Onaga all are small time actors with IMDB profiles (Links to their profiles are with their names; those with asterisks next to their names were identified as participants in the January 6 insurrection).
It may be that lots of people in Los Angeles are out of work actors who also happen to be anti mask/vax and show up at rallies five days a week. What do I know?
Because it’s not enough to just want your own people to get sick, these so-called freedom types are insisting on their right to infect the rest of the population.
If you choose to confront them, get ready for a face full of bear spray, the same shit used by the so-called patriots in their assault on the US Capitol on January 6.
In case you missed their act up in LA, here’s a snip from Vice.Com
A breast cancer patient says she was sprayed with bear mace, physically assaulted, and verbally abused outside a cancer treatment center in West Hollywood, Los Angeles by far-right activists who were angry over the clinic’s mandatory mask policy.
Dozens of anti-maskers holding signs with anti-vaxx and QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories amassed on the sidewalk by the Cedars-Sinai Breast Health Services building on Thursday afternoon, and harassed patients and doctors.
One of the San Diego organizers is in the video below saying that carrying a concealed weapon is more protection than a mask.
https://twitter.com/nicole_chenelle/status/1422349167393796096?s=20
On a personal note, I’m scheduled for major reconstructive surgery in September, since they got all the cancer last fall, but fixing up the damage done in doing so hasn’t worked out. I guess I’m just gonna have to bite the bullet if these “medical freedom” people have their way and we descend into another major health emergency.
There will be counter demonstrators at Rady’s Children's Hospital on Monday, people sick of seeing ignorance run amok.
(I won’t be one of them, since breathing through a hole in your neck and bear mace spray are not a recommended combo.)
Finally, here’s Paul Krugman from Monday’s New York Times:
My answer is that when people on the right talk about “freedom” what they actually mean is closer to “defense of privilege” — specifically the right of certain people (generally white male Christians) to do whatever they want...
Why, for example, are conservatives so insistent on the right of businesses to make their own decisions, free from regulation — but quick to stop them from denying service to customers who refuse to wear masks or show proof of vaccination? Why is the autonomy of local school districts a fundamental principle — unless they want to require masks or teach America’s racial history? It’s all about whose privilege is being protected. [emphasis added]
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h/t to @nicole_chenelle, whose Tweets were invaluable.
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Psst. Don’t tell anybody, but getting a jab might be good for the economy.
https://twitter.com/axios/status/1422351329071075328?s=20
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