Covid-19 and the Green Void

The Curious Case of the Disappearing Greens

"In a dark time, the eye begins to see"
-Theodore Roethke

“The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants.”
 -Albert Camus

Anyone who follows me on twitter (@KimPigSquash), will know I have devoted a fair bit of bandwidth to berating the progressive Left for its collapse around the official Covid response and the attendant rise of authoritarianism. In fact, let’s be honest. It’s been worse than a collapse. The Left has abandoned its historic role as defender of civil liberties and bodily autonomy, and critic of the surveillance state and government overreach. And it has bizarrely begun championing and even demanding that government suspend ever more rights, up to and including imprisonment or death for those who won’t comply with a medical procedure. All in the name of the greater good, of course.

Collectivism taken to such extremes, turns into something else.

None less than Noam Chomsky himself, grand old man of Left thought, says the unvaccinated must be isolated from the rest of society. When asked by Primo Radical how we get food to them, Chomsky replied, “Well, that’s actually their problem.” His take is nothing short of sociopathic. It also is not supported by science, since the vaccinated are spreading SARS-CoV2, lying in hospital beds with Covid-19, and carry a comparable viral load to the unvaccinated when infected.

On December 13, 2021, New Brunswick became the first Canadian province to allow grocery stores to ban the unvaccinated, if they choose. Anyone needing to renew a driver’s license in 2022 in the province of Manitoba will require either a vaccine passport or proof of a negative rapid test at their own expense. In the Australian state of Queensland, unvaccinated patients can no longer receive life-saving organ transplant surgery.

Such measures are being announced daily worldwide. And for each new blow of the wrecking ball on the edifice of democracy, the progressive Left is the primary cheerleading squad.

Yes, there are some outliers in the Left’s mad embrace of our new checkpoint society that has divided us into haves and have-nots. San Francisco doctor Vinay Prasad offers this excellent Youtube analysis: “Progressivism is dead—COVID19 killed it” in which he remarks “I see total abdication of progressive values from my fellow progressives.”

Another cogent analysis is offered by Left writers Toby Green and Thomas Fazi in “The Left’s Covid Failure,” published on UnHerd. In it they assert: “The Left’s response to Covid now appears as part of a broader crisis in Left-wing politics and thought — one which has been going on for three decades at least.”

Other prominent Leftists who have spoken out against vaccine mandates and passports include former UK Labour Party leader MP Jeremy Corbyn, who voted against the Covid passports that took effect in UK on December 15, 2021.

Also George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain, which has condemned the notion of Covid passports since 2020 and continues to this day.

I even maintain a twitter list of “Left Against Mandates,” because we are so few in number we can all be listed. lol!

So we do exist but are cut off from the majority of the organized Left that has, quite simply, lost its mind. In fact, if you want to find other Leftists on twitter who are against coerced injection and medical apartheid, you search the phrase “politically homeless.” Because no one other than those of us rarities on the Left who still oppose tyranny and discrimination find themselves politically homeless at this time. That’s how far down the panic-hole the Left has fallen.

So the Left appears to be lost to the cause of justice and morality for the duration of the Covid event. But there is another player not yet heard from.

Where are the Greens?

The gaping void in all of this insanity during two years of inadequate Covid response and extreme hardship is the Green voice. Where is it?

Green parties everywhere and Greens as a movement are pre-eminently qualified to put forth an organic, holistic vision, a multi-pronged strategy that could get us all through Covid with the best level of health and the least amount of casualties. A vision that would be life-affirming, pro-active and empowering rather than the government’s doomed strategy of relying solely on a single medical intervention of limited benefit and unquantified risk, and then punishing all who don’t comply.

It is in fact the Greens’ duty to lead the way on an effective path out of the Covid crisis. It is the Greens’ duty to propose a Covid response that would be broad enough to actually work. Why? Because no other party has the paradigm to allow for such a vision. The other parties are hobbled by a mechanistic, reductionist, technocratic paradigm, which then goes searching for its deus ex machina to magically fix an otherwise hopeless situation. Which then leads to the crisis of placing all faith in a single strategy, a single “machine” as it were—the mRNA vaccines. And then descending into despotism to cull those who don’t participate.

Yet Greens everywhere, including Canada, have been missing in action on the Covid crisis and the politico-medical tyranny crisis the virus has spawned.

The Green Party of Canada (to which I belong) released its only statement to date about the government’s Covid response on August 18, 2021. In it, then-leader Annamie Paul questioned the Liberals’ motives in announcing a plan for mandatory vaccination two days before calling an election. And she cited the legitimate reasons and concerns many Canadians have for not vaccinating.

“However, we know that there are people who are unable to get vaccinated for legitimate reasons, whether those be medical conditions, religious or cultural convictions, or that live in rural communities with limited access to either vaccination clinics or information that addresses their concerns. What accommodations will be made for them?

“There are whole communities of people in Canada with historical experiences of very painful and damaging interactions with the healthcare system, many of whom are still dealing with the legacies of that trauma. These are legitimate concerns…”

I suppose this is a shade better than the US Green Party which, on Dec 8, 2021, issued a disturbingly reactionary statement declaring “The Green Party of the United States Steering Committee strongly supports the use of vaccines, vaccine mandates and quarantines as part of a comprehensive public health effort to curb and eradicate the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has swept the globe since early 2020.”

On November 29, 2021, the UK Green Party issued a statement calling for a “‘reset’ of Covid preventative measures to help stem spread of infection.” The statement seeks an increase in masking, distancing, ventilation and booster shots,  but stops short of calling for vaccine mandates. So I suppose we can be thankful for the omission.

But why should we settle for our Green parties simply being silent on proto-fascist vaccine mandates or cautiously whimpering about the discriminatory implications of them? Our Green parties should be leading the way in putting forth a truly Green and democratic vision for a Covid response plan. Where are the Greens when we need them?

Sunk by Silence?

Canadians held a federal election in September 2021. The Green Party scored a mere 2.3 percent of the popular vote—the worst bruising the party has taken at the polls in twenty years. Meanwhile, the Right-libertarian People’s Party of Canada tripled its vote share, from 1.6 percent in 2019 to 4.5 percent in 2021. That uptick was due almost entirely to public opposition to vaccine passports, which had recently been announced in several Canadian provinces. It was basically the only issue that PPC leader Maxime Bernier campaigned on all across Canada, drawing large crowds and “freedom” rallies in many cities.

The trouncing of the Greens was primarily due to the shambles the party was in after a year of misleadership and internal division. However, one can only wonder how different the result might have been if the party had offered the country hope, options, and a strong health-centered vision for how to get us all through this pandemic and preserve democracy in the process. How each one of us could make our body more resilient for withstanding the virus. What lifestyle hacks we could start deploying today to get us there. What we should have on hand at home so we are ready. And how we as a country need to draw on all the varied resources of our health care knowledge base, not just a narrow few.

The public is starved for hope and meaningful strategies for battling Covid, and can see the government’s vaccine-only approach is not sufficient. Why didn’t the Green Party offer these strategies and this vision? Why are they still not offering it?

Instead Green parties everywhere are, at best, timidly voicing their “concerns” about vaccine mandates while hurriedly back-stopping every word with unqualified praise for vaccines, lest the party be branded “anti-vaxx.”

A Green Covid Response Plan

Rather than bleating its adulation for the vaccine-only approach flogged by government, a truly Green Covid response plan would be overarching and would incorporate lifestyle, diet, mental health, organic food supply, regenerative agriculture, Vitamin D, early treatments and relevant supplements, vaccines, and most of all: our immune system.

A Green Covid response plan would recognize the pre-eminence of the immune system in determining the severity any virus will have on our bodies and our society. Even the vaccines rely on our immune system in order to work.

A Green Covid response plan would foreground the crucial role of natural immunity that protects Covid-recovered individuals and brings the population closer to herd immunity. Rather than squandering endless testing resources on the daily Covid case count (which is meaningless and part of the fear campaign, since only hospitalizations are relevant, not the number of positive PCR tests), a Green Covid response would prioritize testing immunity instead. And it would test immunity using sophisticated antibody testing as well as T-cell testing. Because this is the important piece of information two years into this pandemic. Who and how many are now protected at this point? I guarantee you it will be more than government recognizes.

A Green Covid response plan would include simple at-home treatment strategies and preventative measures, as well as community support systems for those isolating, to make sure no one runs out of food or other necessities or slips into severe respiratory distress with no one around to get help.

A Green Covid response plan would ensure every household has a fingertip pulse-oximeter. A simple tool, available at drugstores, for easily measuring your own oxygen saturation so you know exactly when you do (or don’t) need to go to the hospital.

A Green Covid response plan would stress the importance of nutrients as simple and readily available as Vitamin D. Dr. Fauci himself says he takes 6,000 IU daily, along with daily Vitamin C.

A Green Covid response plan would fast-track the investigation and usage of simple, safe, early treatment protocols involving repurposed drugs with decades of safety data behind them. These treatment protocols are now being used successfully against Covid-19 in various regions around the world and by individual doctors in North America. But these protocols have been the target of well orchestrated disinformation campaigns to prevent their adoption in North America and Europe/UK. An untold number of lives have been lost because of this.

A Green Covid response plan would encourage all doctors and researchers with insights and data to put their heads together, share data, hold public debates if necessary. A Green Covid response plan would demand an end to the muzzling and deplatforming and suspension of doctors and scientists whose knowledge and clinical experience conflict with the official Covid narrative. A narrative whose primary beneficiary appears to be pharmaceutical corporations. A Green Covid response plan would welcome a Renaissance of ideas, strategies, and outside-the-box thinking from the entire medical community.

A Green Covid response plan would restore the doctor-patient relationship as the primary decision-making unit for each citizen’s health choices. This relationship has been jettisoned in the Covid era, with doctors only allowed to prescribe, recommend or discuss that which the politburo decrees permissible. Doctors who attempt to actually practice medicine with their Covid patients, using the full scope of their knowledge and experience, are now risking suspension, termination,  loss of hospital privileges or loss of license for the “crime” of saving lives.

A Green Covid response plan would insist that pharmaceutical manufacturers and their regulatory agencies release the data from their vaccine studies now, not 75 years from now, as the US FDA has determined it will do for the Pfizer data. Because Greens recognize that in order for individuals to give informed consent, they must first have the information.

A Green Covid response plan would empower citizens with the tools and techniques for maximizing their own health and immune function before illness strikes, and for responding pro-actively with basic strategies to any respiratory infection they are beset with. Over-the-counter products as simple as zinc, quercetin, and vitamin C are all relevant for slowing viral replication in a respiratory infection. A steam dome made from a pot of boiling water and a towel over your head with a few drops of eucalyptus oil or a thwack of Vick’s Vapo-Rub in the water can help clear lungs. An 81 mg aspirin daily (or nattokinase) while sick could stave off much of the hypercoagulation associated with Covid-19.

Why isn’t every Canadian set up with each of these simple strategies at home and ready to use them at first sign of illness? Why isn’t that the primary message from public health officials at their daily briefings? Why aren’t we being told to clean up our diet, eat fresh and organic, reduce sugar and junk food, walk or exercise daily, lose excess weight? Why have our doctors and public health officials told us our only path if infected is to stay home and isolate with no counter-measures whatsoever until our lips turn blue and we can’t breathe, and then we can go to ER for some oxygen or worse? Why does Canada not even provide monoclonal antibodies, as is commonly offered in the US in the first few days of Covid infection. Canada purchased a large stockpile of monoclonal antibodies in 2020 but refuses to use them, despite their apparent success south of the border.  

And most of all, why have our Green parties in Canada and beyond been mute on these practical, available, life-affirming strategies, and on the larger Green vision of how to create a healthier population? Green parties the world over should be leading the conversation on the immediate and long-term strategies needed to better protect the population from the ravages of a virus. Greens should be putting out the boldest and most sweeping Covid response plans and proposals—a vision that would not only reduce casualties from this pandemic, but from any future assault on our collective health.

Why have Green parties seemingly abandoned their most fundamental values of organic existence and living in harmony with the planet as the path to wellness for all?

I understand how ruling parties and their public mouthpieces get co-opted and “captured” into reciting and enforcing a Covid narrative that worships a single, highly profitable magic bullet. But what is the Greens’ excuse?

~

Kim Goldberg is a poet, journalist and author on Vancouver Island, Canada.
Twitter: @AlsoGoldberg