A news report at Huffington Post tells of Frog News Network podcaster and antivaxxer Doug Kuzma who has ended up on a ventilator in a medically-induced coma after attending a “ReAwaken America” event in Dallas in December.
Doug Kuzma posed with supplies of ivermectin, which the FDA and CDC have warned against using to treat COVID-19.
...Podcast network Frog News said on the social media site Telegram that Doug Kuzma’s last communication with them included a photo of him posing with ivermectin, the antiparasitic medicine that many claim treats COVID despite federal health agencies’ warnings not to use it for such purposes, and other chemicals after the three-day event that featured Michael Flynn, who briefly served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser and later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
A number of people who attended the event and have become ill have come up with an interesting explanation:
A number of individuals who developed COVID-like symptoms after attending the Dallas event have claimed without evidence that they were somehow poisoned with anthrax.
The person who tweeted this is also invested in the Big Lie among other things. Not surprising, considering who was featured at the rally.
The Dallas event was part of a national tour paid for by right-wing funders featuring guest speakers including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as well as Flynn, according to an itinerary for the conference.
The events push baseless conspiracy theories, including claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
It should not be necessary to point out how dangerous the anthrax conspiracy theory is. People who believe it are likely to consider any and everything is justified as a response. The Big Lie was enough to send people storming the Capitol; what will they do if they believe they are being deliberately killed with a deadly disease? And what are we going to do about the people who are spreading this kind of thing for no good reason, but a lot of bad ones?
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There is something perverse at work here.
People who dismiss healthcare experts and call Covid a government hoax are perfectly willing to embrace a theory from hacks, conmen, and loons that they are being made sick by anthrax instead of the virus they’ve been warned about.
The same people who put all their faith in God put their lives in the hands of the medical establishment they refused to listen to on the vaccine when they do get sick. And even then they refuse to believe what is happening to them.
The New York Times did one of their stock heartland stories, about angry, scared, white Christian people in Enid, Oklahoma who freaked out over vaccine mandates and decided it was time to take back their town — and the country too if they can manage it.
ENID, Okla. — On a hot night in July, the first summer of the pandemic, Jonathan Waddell, a city commissioner in Enid, Okla., sat staring out at a rowdy audience dressed in red. They were in the third hour of public comments on a proposed mask mandate, and Mr. Waddell, a retired Air Force sergeant who supported it, was feeling increasingly uncomfortable.
He had noticed something was different when he drove up in his truck. The parking lot was full, and people wearing red were getting out of their cars greeting one another, looking a bit like players on a sports team. As the meeting began, he realized that they opposed the mandate. It was almost everybody in the room.
The meeting was unlike any he had ever attended. One woman cried and said wearing a mask made her feel like she did when she was raped at 17. Another read the Lord’s Prayer and said the word “agenda” at the top of the meeting schedule seemed suspicious. A man quoted Patrick Henry and handed out copies of the Constitution.
“The line is being drawn, folks,” said a man in jeans and a red T-shirt. He said the people in the audience “had been shouted down for the last 20 years, and they’re finally here to draw a line, and I think they’re saying, ‘We’ve had enough.’”
At the end of the night, the mask mandate failed, and the audience erupted in cheers. But for Mr. Waddell, who had spent seven years making Enid his home, it was only the beginning. He remembers driving home and watching his mirrors to make sure no one was following him. He called his father, a former police officer, and told him what had happened. He said that people were talking about masks, but that it felt like something else. What, exactly, he did not know.
“I said, ‘This is honestly just crazy, Dad, and I’m not sure where it goes from here.’”
A lot of Americans seem to be living in Jonestown, and they can’t get enough of the Koolaid. Asking someone if they are willing to die for their beliefs is no longer a rhetorical question. Nor is the possibility that they are prepared to make you die for their beliefs...
The slogan splashed across the middle of this graphic is a terrifying prospect.