The disease we called Covid was but the vehicle for a much more serious disease, a social disease of dehumanization, mob morality, and sacrificial violence. It rips through the social fabric like a shredding machine, severing friendships, dividing families, shredding organizations and communities.
What a great essay. The presence of love in your words is moving and the possibility for miracles and how this can happen through keeping the heart door open is an inspiration. I love your work Charles. It has lead me down many paths of curiosity and openness in spite of the intensity of these times. Thank you thank you!
This essay and the last are very thought provoking. I know I stumbled on the word amnesty. Emily didn’t ask for forgiveness but amnesty. I found that weird. Amnesty has a specific definition regarding a pardon by a government usually for political reasons. It’s a legal term. I am not trusting the sincerity because of the use of that term. I didn’t feel any love coming from her essay. It came across quite flippant to me. I wanted an apology not excuses. I am willing to forgive. And your essays provide the reasoning for forgiveness. Your essays provide the very necessity for forgiveness. I can be angry and forgive. I can be angry and still love. I guess I am not trusting yet the motivation for the original essay by Emily. And the use of the word amnesty instead of forgiveness. They aren’t the same. I look forward to hearing what you and others think and continue the dialogue. K
Nov 10, 2022·edited Nov 10, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein
I'm going in and out and back and forth with all this about 50 times a day. One minute I want to take the higher ground, embody the wisdom of Gandhi or some monk, leap to great empathy and compassion around the lack of curiosity and courage in others etc. Next thing I feel so much rage I could run through a wall. It's truly awful.
I think many of us are looking to Xmas and remembering last year where many of us had invitations rescinded and still, not a word has been said about it. I think even if I went to my family Xmas this year, well it wouldn't even be addressed. And I'm to sit there and say nothing also. I honestly don't know how to deal with this and I'm grateful to be able to say this out loud. Thank you Charles.
What you are saying is true. I have been thinking about this since I became a covid dissident, wary that should the movement succeed, it might destroy the country with the violence of revenge. We must have accountability. We did not get accountability after the global credit collapse of 2008, and that is much the source of this god awful authoritarian mess that is Covid-19. If we do not get accountability, nay a reckoning about Covid-19, the next medical totalitarian mess will be infinitely worse. That is a fine line, between accountability and revenge. I want the former and less of the latter. Love is a key to that.
Charles’ writing on climate/netzero dictatorship and Covidmania is inspiring and prescient. But my concern is that there is an even deeper eugenicist evil underlying both net zero and Covid mania. We need to identify the real ideology driving all this and it is antihuman eugenics. There isn’t a war between humans and Mother Earth. It is the elite controlled military industrial Pharma tech finance complex which the elites control which is wrecking our Mother. Lithium mining in Chile is already encroaching on protected areas.
I think I need to read this (or listen to it) every day for the next bit, in hopes that my heart will open and soften. The time since the Oster piece has been very difficult for me. As always, thank you for perspective.
There is unjust punishment, and there is just punishment. This article is written as though all punishment is immoral. It is not.
If it is indeed true that some Pfizer exec or bureaucrat grossly lied about known risks, and then their medical product led to my father-in-laws death, why is it inappropriate to desire some form of punishment?
If some government hack grossly lied about covid data and that resulted in my grandmother literally going mad and dying of forced reclusion in a nursing home, why is desiring punishment inappropriate?
That's just part of my covid experience within my own family. Murder is still murder when the people doing it are wearing nice clothing and telling you they mean well. I don't have some bloodlust to satiate. I don't expect justice in this world. However, in a Biblical ethical system, there is just punishment and there is unjust punishment. The Nuremberg 2 guys are not all righteous saints with noble intentions, sure, but the Nuremberg 2 case for justice is a hell of a lot closer to righteous than the human rights criminals case of the last 3 years has been.
Nov 10, 2022·edited Nov 10, 2022Liked by Charles Eisenstein
There is something deeply strange and perverse about the whole Covid thing, a pyramid of deception and partial truths and information. A friend told me of a current advertisement of a child rejoicing she had the jab because she thereby wouldn’t spread it to her infant sister even though it is known widely by nearly everyone vaccination does not prevent infection and transmission! Sanctioned blatant disinformation. I can not help but feel the half hidden coils of something deeply sinister. Or was it an insidious comedy of errors, a lab escapee followed by cover ups and denials that will ever prevent full disclosure unless painfully pried out by clear sighted wise determined souls armed with the power to do so? Not likely I believe. Or good intentions madly awry and then gone into hiding?
Wow. This is the most important discussion for the year ahead. There is massive healing available for any individual who takes on the challenge you've offered here. Thank you for these words.
I wish this kind of dialogue was happening around every supper table and in every social gathering, on the radio and TV, at the supermarket checkout, on the bus.........where is the talking amongst we not so ordinary people? Where can I find people who want to have these conversations in real life? It is good to find you on line but not enough. My dissident friends just want to get on with life now and the others have never wanted to discuss. I am angry, as Charles describes, but also Oh so disappointed in the people I still love and the organisations that I have left. I don't know what to do with the disappointment -any ideas? Thanks to you all especially Charles.
People are masking up again in fear of "variants;" the Plandemic is not even over yet. In WA State you must get jabbed to apply for a government job. Some colleges still demand jabs for entrance. I can't participate in Grange or some other social events events unless I get vaxxed. Children are being lured to State and PTA-sponsored Halloween "Trunk and Treat" parties to receive candy in exchange for jabs, and many parents are going along with it. The benefits of the struggle is that through protests and meetups I have found wonderful friends who can think critically, see what is still happening, and we do advocacy work against the iatrogenocide. How can we rebuild relationships while the battle is ongoing, and many still don't see? Our work of education must continue.....
LOVE this post, Charles. Thank you! The following truths come to mind: 1) When you hate someone for hating, you become what you hate; 2) Love is always more powerful than hate; 3) When you truly love your own self, you find it impossible to hate another, because you are the other and the other is you; and 4) To love others (and yourself) unconditionally sets you free in a way that nothing else can.
I've been trying to synthesize my thoughts on Never Again and these last few years into an essay format but it's still just a big mess. Watching various sides invoke the fears of fascism even as they act out their authoritarian roles, I think we didn't learn the lesson of Never Again, taking it far too literally and specifically. As a Jew in California, it's been a particularly weird perspective on it.
Healing and love are admirable ambitions but don't work in war time. We are in a war. Nuremberg was a necessary conclusion to a horrible war. Another tribunal will be necessary to conclude this one. Many will be anrgy and will seek revenge. That's never constructive and never necessary. But closure is both constructive and necessary. It won't fix human nature, but it will suppress it for a while.
Thank you for this. I, too, have been so troubled by the division and am desperate to come to a place of compassion, love, and some sense of peace.
But it’s challenging when we are still being attacked and on the defensive. My husband may lose his job (now of all times) for refusing to be jabbed. We still can’t visit loved ones in the hospital. We cannot fly to his native country. We have all been through some very hard times.
A friend, who has gone out of her way to continue to offer olive branches during times in which most would have struggled, recently asked me, “But what do we do with all our anger?” And I wonder this too. I think validation is a start. Acknowledgement of the struggles we’ve gone through and continue to go through. Admittance of wrongs. But those are not in our control.
So then I think it must come from us. We must dig deep and try to understand where all this hate and division came from. We know what happened. We can see how hard and fast lies we’re being spewed and truth was being censored. And so it is no wonder those who were not looking for it… those who were just trying to survive another day amidst the terrifying tales which were being put forth, in addition to just making it through a regular day of life… it’s no wonder they got swept up.
So I love your tale of the unforgivable man who was forgiven. As impossible a task I think it may seem (and I don’t know that I will be able to show it to everyone) it does seem like the best way to move towards a more unified world, which I am more than ready for.
Charles, you nailed this. Forgiveness will lead us to a better world. Hate is impotent. Anger can be a motivating force to change for the better.
I suggest any of us who consistently follow Charles’s writings are open to forgive and to understand that if people knew better, they would do better. For a better world to unfold, those qualities will underpin our holding the powerful and influential to account. Yes, we should demand they be held to account, but Charles makes us stop and think when he says that we must look at the instinct to punish, to inflict retribution, which fuels the fire of hatred and prevents reconciliation and resolution.
What a great essay. The presence of love in your words is moving and the possibility for miracles and how this can happen through keeping the heart door open is an inspiration. I love your work Charles. It has lead me down many paths of curiosity and openness in spite of the intensity of these times. Thank you thank you!
This essay and the last are very thought provoking. I know I stumbled on the word amnesty. Emily didn’t ask for forgiveness but amnesty. I found that weird. Amnesty has a specific definition regarding a pardon by a government usually for political reasons. It’s a legal term. I am not trusting the sincerity because of the use of that term. I didn’t feel any love coming from her essay. It came across quite flippant to me. I wanted an apology not excuses. I am willing to forgive. And your essays provide the reasoning for forgiveness. Your essays provide the very necessity for forgiveness. I can be angry and forgive. I can be angry and still love. I guess I am not trusting yet the motivation for the original essay by Emily. And the use of the word amnesty instead of forgiveness. They aren’t the same. I look forward to hearing what you and others think and continue the dialogue. K
I'm going in and out and back and forth with all this about 50 times a day. One minute I want to take the higher ground, embody the wisdom of Gandhi or some monk, leap to great empathy and compassion around the lack of curiosity and courage in others etc. Next thing I feel so much rage I could run through a wall. It's truly awful.
I think many of us are looking to Xmas and remembering last year where many of us had invitations rescinded and still, not a word has been said about it. I think even if I went to my family Xmas this year, well it wouldn't even be addressed. And I'm to sit there and say nothing also. I honestly don't know how to deal with this and I'm grateful to be able to say this out loud. Thank you Charles.
What you are saying is true. I have been thinking about this since I became a covid dissident, wary that should the movement succeed, it might destroy the country with the violence of revenge. We must have accountability. We did not get accountability after the global credit collapse of 2008, and that is much the source of this god awful authoritarian mess that is Covid-19. If we do not get accountability, nay a reckoning about Covid-19, the next medical totalitarian mess will be infinitely worse. That is a fine line, between accountability and revenge. I want the former and less of the latter. Love is a key to that.
Charles’ writing on climate/netzero dictatorship and Covidmania is inspiring and prescient. But my concern is that there is an even deeper eugenicist evil underlying both net zero and Covid mania. We need to identify the real ideology driving all this and it is antihuman eugenics. There isn’t a war between humans and Mother Earth. It is the elite controlled military industrial Pharma tech finance complex which the elites control which is wrecking our Mother. Lithium mining in Chile is already encroaching on protected areas.
I think I need to read this (or listen to it) every day for the next bit, in hopes that my heart will open and soften. The time since the Oster piece has been very difficult for me. As always, thank you for perspective.
There is unjust punishment, and there is just punishment. This article is written as though all punishment is immoral. It is not.
If it is indeed true that some Pfizer exec or bureaucrat grossly lied about known risks, and then their medical product led to my father-in-laws death, why is it inappropriate to desire some form of punishment?
If some government hack grossly lied about covid data and that resulted in my grandmother literally going mad and dying of forced reclusion in a nursing home, why is desiring punishment inappropriate?
That's just part of my covid experience within my own family. Murder is still murder when the people doing it are wearing nice clothing and telling you they mean well. I don't have some bloodlust to satiate. I don't expect justice in this world. However, in a Biblical ethical system, there is just punishment and there is unjust punishment. The Nuremberg 2 guys are not all righteous saints with noble intentions, sure, but the Nuremberg 2 case for justice is a hell of a lot closer to righteous than the human rights criminals case of the last 3 years has been.
There is something deeply strange and perverse about the whole Covid thing, a pyramid of deception and partial truths and information. A friend told me of a current advertisement of a child rejoicing she had the jab because she thereby wouldn’t spread it to her infant sister even though it is known widely by nearly everyone vaccination does not prevent infection and transmission! Sanctioned blatant disinformation. I can not help but feel the half hidden coils of something deeply sinister. Or was it an insidious comedy of errors, a lab escapee followed by cover ups and denials that will ever prevent full disclosure unless painfully pried out by clear sighted wise determined souls armed with the power to do so? Not likely I believe. Or good intentions madly awry and then gone into hiding?
Wow. This is the most important discussion for the year ahead. There is massive healing available for any individual who takes on the challenge you've offered here. Thank you for these words.
I wish this kind of dialogue was happening around every supper table and in every social gathering, on the radio and TV, at the supermarket checkout, on the bus.........where is the talking amongst we not so ordinary people? Where can I find people who want to have these conversations in real life? It is good to find you on line but not enough. My dissident friends just want to get on with life now and the others have never wanted to discuss. I am angry, as Charles describes, but also Oh so disappointed in the people I still love and the organisations that I have left. I don't know what to do with the disappointment -any ideas? Thanks to you all especially Charles.
People are masking up again in fear of "variants;" the Plandemic is not even over yet. In WA State you must get jabbed to apply for a government job. Some colleges still demand jabs for entrance. I can't participate in Grange or some other social events events unless I get vaxxed. Children are being lured to State and PTA-sponsored Halloween "Trunk and Treat" parties to receive candy in exchange for jabs, and many parents are going along with it. The benefits of the struggle is that through protests and meetups I have found wonderful friends who can think critically, see what is still happening, and we do advocacy work against the iatrogenocide. How can we rebuild relationships while the battle is ongoing, and many still don't see? Our work of education must continue.....
LOVE this post, Charles. Thank you! The following truths come to mind: 1) When you hate someone for hating, you become what you hate; 2) Love is always more powerful than hate; 3) When you truly love your own self, you find it impossible to hate another, because you are the other and the other is you; and 4) To love others (and yourself) unconditionally sets you free in a way that nothing else can.
I've been trying to synthesize my thoughts on Never Again and these last few years into an essay format but it's still just a big mess. Watching various sides invoke the fears of fascism even as they act out their authoritarian roles, I think we didn't learn the lesson of Never Again, taking it far too literally and specifically. As a Jew in California, it's been a particularly weird perspective on it.
Healing and love are admirable ambitions but don't work in war time. We are in a war. Nuremberg was a necessary conclusion to a horrible war. Another tribunal will be necessary to conclude this one. Many will be anrgy and will seek revenge. That's never constructive and never necessary. But closure is both constructive and necessary. It won't fix human nature, but it will suppress it for a while.
Thank you for this. I, too, have been so troubled by the division and am desperate to come to a place of compassion, love, and some sense of peace.
But it’s challenging when we are still being attacked and on the defensive. My husband may lose his job (now of all times) for refusing to be jabbed. We still can’t visit loved ones in the hospital. We cannot fly to his native country. We have all been through some very hard times.
A friend, who has gone out of her way to continue to offer olive branches during times in which most would have struggled, recently asked me, “But what do we do with all our anger?” And I wonder this too. I think validation is a start. Acknowledgement of the struggles we’ve gone through and continue to go through. Admittance of wrongs. But those are not in our control.
So then I think it must come from us. We must dig deep and try to understand where all this hate and division came from. We know what happened. We can see how hard and fast lies we’re being spewed and truth was being censored. And so it is no wonder those who were not looking for it… those who were just trying to survive another day amidst the terrifying tales which were being put forth, in addition to just making it through a regular day of life… it’s no wonder they got swept up.
So I love your tale of the unforgivable man who was forgiven. As impossible a task I think it may seem (and I don’t know that I will be able to show it to everyone) it does seem like the best way to move towards a more unified world, which I am more than ready for.
Thank you for opening up such needed discussions.
Charles, you nailed this. Forgiveness will lead us to a better world. Hate is impotent. Anger can be a motivating force to change for the better.
I suggest any of us who consistently follow Charles’s writings are open to forgive and to understand that if people knew better, they would do better. For a better world to unfold, those qualities will underpin our holding the powerful and influential to account. Yes, we should demand they be held to account, but Charles makes us stop and think when he says that we must look at the instinct to punish, to inflict retribution, which fuels the fire of hatred and prevents reconciliation and resolution.