Censorship: Time to Fight Back

By Danielle Lasher, Vaxxter Contributor

No matter what camp you’re in when it comes to vaccines, informed consent, and other matters of health regulation, you’re probably aware that censorship is plaguing social media — and households — around the world. Its pervasiveness knows no bounds.

Freedom of the Press on Pause

Why can’t we talk about the documented risks of vaccines? Why can’t we discuss the court documents that surfaced last summer revealing the Department of Health and Human Services hasn’t done a single study on vaccine safety in the last 32 years, despite having been required by the Vaccine Injury Act of 1986?  Why are news pieces that question vaccine safety being shut down every day like a bad Lance Simmens post-Vaxxed reboot? Journalists no longer report the news; they spin it.

Are we really free, or are we beholden to whoever has the most money? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of capitalism in our economy.  But I’m not a supporter of ‘mean girling’ to get to the top. Instead of making a strong case for vaccines, Big Pharma has been using politics, slinging mud at free speech and rights to choose. Those who question vaccine safety have been shut down and have no opportunity to voice their very scientific concerns. Come on Pharma, let’s put our best and brightest on television to go toe-to-toe with your best. Bring it on!

Instead of allowing a discussion, we’re slapped with Facebook bans, Instagram bans and even our email is censored (thanks for folding MailChimp and Kartra). Internet forums now have so called fact-checkers resulting with physicians, such as Dr. Bob Sears, being professionally penalized.  Doctors in California have been stripped of the right to advocate for what is in the best interest of their patients through the recently passed SB714 and now, SB276, which gives the government the sole authority to approve or deny vaccine medical exemptions.

The pharmaceutical industry has a monopoly on television programming through advertising dollars. Vaccine truth would be kryptonite to Big Pharma. They’ve locked up the messages we’re allowed to hear and the average American is fed 9 drug ads each day. America’s major television networks run 80 of those ads per hour. They won’t allow our billboards to expose the truth about vaccine risks, even when they’re funded by private donors and organizations.

Television personalities and newscasters have taken serious heat for even broaching the vaccine topic. For example, when Brian Kilmeade, co-host of  “Fox & Friends” spoke out against the flu shot, the Liberal media pounced on him. It seems if you aren’t fully in favor of Pharma, you’re not allowed to have an opinion. We are no longer operating as a Constitutional Republic. Thankfully, more Americans are waking up in disgust to that fact every day.

Fake News Media Magic

Do those who speak out about problems with vaccines want to be labeled “anti-vaxxers” and be placed into the same category as Flat Earth supporters who cling to the concept of the Mandela effect? Certainly not, but we’ve allowed ridicule and name-calling to have such an impact on us it seems we have forgotten one of the most basic, and more important, values of being an American: the freedom to have an opinion and the freedom to express it.

The problem is not that your neighbor, your family, your former classmates, or your colleagues may not believe or agree with your views. The problem is giant tech firms are in the pockets of those with lawmaking authority – tech shuts us up and legislators allow it. But there is an even bigger problem: Many have voluntarily yielded their rights by allowing our sharply socialist legislators to get away with their censorship agendas.

If you try to alert your newsfeed that there may be more to the story than just a mentally unstable person with a weapon gone wrong, maiming and killing innocent schoolchildren, you’re dragged into the equivalent of modern public stoning on a live stream. This is especially true if you engage in discussions about gun laws or attack the psychiatric drugs many are convinced they cannot live without.

The media has spent decades telling people they are imperfect and have a condition or illness that, of course, can be made better with a pharmaceutical drug. In 2019, we’re living in an era where almost everyone is so consumed by their “flaw,” it has become their identity. For example, instead of saying, “I have fibromyalgia” the person will say, “I am a fibro patient.” The distinction may be subtle, but it’s powerful. If the medicine they take is challenged, somehow the person sees this as a personal assault to their character instead of questioning the need for a pill.

Internet Kills Differing Opinions

Have you had a post like this pop up in your feed?

“If you’re in favor of _____, delete me.”

Society has become polarized. Either you’re for….or you’re against. We’ve removed shades of color and innuendo from our language. If someone disagrees with you, you are suddenly a victim. Case in point, we’ve seen many causes emerge demanding rights for their victims. A survey done by the Cato Institute found nearly three-fourths (71%) of Americans believe that political correctness has done more to silence important discussions our society needs to have. Only 28% believe that political correctness has helped people avoid offending others.

Why do we seek to find “common ground” through a list of gender-neutral pronouns and designing gender-neutral public restrooms, but we can’t agree it is unconstitutional to force someone to be injected with a biologic against their will if vaccination goes against their beliefs? Medical providers can refuse to perform abortions if the procedure goes against their belief system, but why can’t people refuse vaccines manufactured using aborted fetal cells if it goes against their beliefs?

Tracking on the Homefront

But it is more than just mainstream, cable and social media doing their best to distract us. The censorship is hitting far closer to home. It’s actually in our homes.

Over 5 billion people have smartphones, meaning nearly every person in the world is carrying a device that can listen and track their every move. Over 100 million Alexa devices have been sold that can deliver music – or listen to every discussion. Knowing what we’re talking about in private allows the industry to market to us and direct our discussions. They’re forever a step ahead. Computer cookies and pop-up windows continue to plague us, but it has gone far beyond these annoyances. Do Americans know how much they are actually being monitored, recorded and, in the end, silenced? The bigger question is, do they actually care?

A Pew Research Center survey found in 2018 that 72% of the public thinks it “likely” that social media platforms actively censor political views they find objectionable and it is “likely” that social media platforms are politically biased. More recently, a survey by technology research group Loup Ventures found that 51% of Americans believe more should be done to protect free speech on internet platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Only 51% think that censorship has gone too far?

A few months back, I had been researching a 1901 article published in the New York Times titled Factory Girls’ Resistance: American Tobacco Company’s Employees’ Fight Against Compulsory Vaccination.  It is the story of 350 female workers who were forcibly vaccinated with a smallpox vaccine while trapped inside their place of employment.  Law enforcement even showed up to help carry out the medical procedure.

It took quite a bit of digging to find the archived article because it was nowhere to be found on Google. When I used other search engines, such as Dogpile and Duck Duck Go, the article popped right up.

Why are we not allowed to talk about this?  After all, it’s part of our history. Why can’t we have an adult-to-adult conversation about all those years the industry paid medical doctors to endorse cigarettes, saying they were ‘good for our throats‘ and they ‘calmed our nerves’? Or, does pointing out the foibles of the past shed too much light on the dirty dealings within Big Pharma’s current agenda?

They have created a scenario where we are not allowed to refuse a product. Can you think of any other industry – from light bulbs to automobiles – where a consumer has no choice and is forced to buy a product? This is not capitalism; it is coercion and corruption. Even the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, that penalized Americans for not buying health insurance was deemed unconstitutional and has been removed from law.

Why We Need to Fight Back

We are not marionettes controlled by BigTech and BigPharma. We are American citizens. We are mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters and sons – and most importantly, we are voters. We are constituents. But we can’t expect “them” to fix it. We need to be responsible and recognize that we are a part of the problem.

We’ve allowed ourselves and our society to slide down the slippery slope into this mess. We ripped our phones from the wall and got rid of answering machines in exchange for 24/7 availability and an addiction to a handheld tool that can cause brain tumors and neurological impairment. We’ve chosen convenience and fast “factoids” over well-researched information. We’ve favored sensationalized opinions sold to use as “news” over award-winning, high-quality journalism, such as The MacNeil Lehrer Newshour.  We dropped our interest in real journalism and traded it for opinions on blogs and on Twitter.

I say this as a writer who started out with a naïve dream of becoming an investigative journalist for the NYT. I changed majors and careers because I couldn’t stomach what I would be paid to write.

Will the American Experiment eventually become part of global history as we devolve into a fascist society, being fed propaganda and being told what to think? Will Orwell’s “thought police” become a reality in our country, where a person’s thoughts and his even unspoken beliefs become a crime? Will artificial intelligence become widely used to analyze and control human thoughts? Several software tools are already in place and used for what is called “predictive policing.”

Americans need to remember what our government is: We the People. Every day, I see that the silent majority of angry voters is growing, starting with the revolts, vigils, and protests fighting against mandatory vaccination laws in California, New York and Maine. Americans are waking up and starting to push back against the trend towards socialism; we want to protect and restore our constitutional republic and our treasured first amendment right to free speech.

Time is running out. Will media censorship cripple us? Yes, if we allow it.

I find comfort in my fellow activists knowing that I’m not alone. We’re fighting mandates. We’re fighting against censorship. We’re maintaining communication the old fashioned way: phone calls, emails, and face-to-face meetings. There are good people all around you who are willing to give up convenience and take the hard path to expose the truth, because it is the right and just thing to do.

The question is: Will you be one of them?

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Dani Lasher is a writer, motherhood coach, and health advocate living just outside of Washington, DC. While passionate about informed consent and women’s birthing choices, she’s also slightly obsessed with city living and cooking. You can catch up with Dani at her site, BumpMama.

Photo credit: ID 53149533 © Benjaminec | Dreamstime.com