{"id":77915,"date":"2021-05-20T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=77915"},"modified":"2021-05-19T05:28:45","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T10:28:45","slug":"of-dictators-and-religions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=77915","title":{"rendered":"Of Dictators And Religions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It was interesting, a few years back, watching the retrospectives of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s a sjhort one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Moments in History - The Fall of the Berlin Wall\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MM2qq5J5A1s?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s as fun to watch now as it was otherworldly and unbelievable back then:  after decades of complete control, a government official&#8217;s inadvertent slip causes and uproar; another official&#8217;s resigned ad-libbed decision opens a single gate; from there, the entire Eastern Bloc, the Communist world that all the experts reminded us was here &#8220;forever&#8221;&#8221; disappeared inside a couple years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I thought about that last week, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/cdc-mask-guidelines-covid-vaccine\/\">CDC director Rochelle Walensky abruptly changed course on masks<\/a>.   One week after President Harris was &#8220;inadvertently&#8221; photographed trying to french-kiss her husband through paper masks on an airport tarmac in front of a random mob of press cameras, one week after &#8220;President&#8221; Biden did a press conference wearing a mask standing 20 feet from other people, the CDC flipped.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"CDC Director Walensky Discusses Change In Outdoor Mask Guidance | NBC Nightly News\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tGLGwXtM_eg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And people started ditching the masks.  Major <a href=\"https:\/\/bringmethenews.com\/minnesota-lifestyle\/target-lifts-its-face-mask-requirement-unless-local-rules-state-otherwise?fbclid=IwAR0SQC9-LQrPWfASeQSz56WGpzbDuJ1TMk05R7NwejHDG9nk98I1gFW1Eis\">retailers<\/a> jumped <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/money\/shopping\/2021\/05\/14\/mask-mandate-stores-change-fully-vaccinated-cdc-no-masks-indoors\/5102169001\/\">off the Karen Train<\/a>, joining vast swathes of the country that have changed course, to <em>protecting the vulnerable<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And just like that night at the Bornholmer Stra\u00dfe gate over the Berlin Wall, many &#8211; but not all &#8211; people ditched the masks.  Roughly 10% of the entire population of East Germany roamed the streets of West Berlin, at one point that glorious night, tasting and smelling and buying freedom.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Communists spent a few years trying to put <em>that<\/em> genie back in the bottle, and failed.  Their distant cousins here are trying to do the same thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Promptly, Big Karen &#8211; a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Left &#8211; leapt into action.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox9.com\/news\/mask-mandates-in-st-paul-minneapolis-to-remain-in-place\">cities<\/a>, and other <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/us\/nurses-union-president-criticizes-new-cdc-mask-guidance\/ar-BB1gPZKf\">subsidiaries of Big Left<\/a>, clung to the ban.  Given that the ongoing mask mandate had nothing to do with science &#8211; the CDC said so &#8211; the only logical conclusion is that &#8220;Masking Up&#8221; is a statement of faith, almost a religious exercise in self-abasement and rule following.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And Big Left, being the <em>Curia<\/em> of this particular church, is all about keeping people following rules.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that explains a lot about Karen, whoever he or she is; they seem to be people whose connection to logic, fact, even &#8220;science&#8221;, involves logrolling others into following the rules they&#8217;ve mastered.   It&#8217;s the ugly side of the Scandinavian culture to which so much of Minnesota traces its roots &#8211; the flip side of close-knit communitarianism is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinnorway.net\/what-exactly-is-janteloven\/\">passive-aggressive rule-lawyering<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that passive-aggression seems to have worked.   A casual count of people at newly-mask-free Target in Shoreview yesterday showed about 80% of customers, and probably more among employees, still wearing masks.  We know that at least half of those people, likely more, are vaccinated, so the exercise is more or less pointless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s been 30 years since the Berlin Wall fell.  There are still people who pine for the days when the <em>Stasi <\/em>and <em>ZOMO <\/em>kept things nice and tidy and in order.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And watching some of the urban social media groups, plenty of little Karens are already feeling pretty bereft.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was interesting, a few years back, watching the retrospectives of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Here&#8217;s a sjhort one: It&#8217;s as fun to watch now as it was otherworldly and unbelievable back then: after decades of complete control, a government official&#8217;s inadvertent slip causes and uproar; another official&#8217;s resigned ad-libbed decision opens a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435,321,416,255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-karen","category-big-left","category-covid19","category-the-racket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77917,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77915\/revisions\/77917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}