1,300 days late and a billion dollars short
New York Times says "mistakes were made" in COVID measures they pushed
The New York Times is signaling to its audience that it is now safe to acknowledge truths that were known long ago. In a Friday OpEd, the Gray Lady came as close as they ever have to suggesting that maybe…just maybe…they and others went a bit overboard with mitigation strategies to battle COVID 19.
“Some pandemic mistakes were inevitable… But others betrayed an ideological intransigence. The obvious example was long-term school closures, mostly in blue states, which we now know caused significant delays in learning, especially among the most vulnerable populations with the fewest resources. In many places during the pandemic, to suggest that kids might suffer learning loss or social and emotional consequences was tantamount to wishing death upon teachers. Forbidding socializing among young children denied them the development of social skills, yet to advocate otherwise could get you kicked out of a parent group chat [or worse, you might lose your job]”
Of course, uttering these truths in the summer of 2020 got you branded as a Granny-killer, a psycho who WANTED people to die, and a science denier. You were ostracized, coerced, deplatformed, or in some cases actively punished by NGOs working directly with the nation’s largest gatekeepers of information.
There won’t be an *apology* of course. Heavens, no! That’s not how our media masters roll. But there has been sufficient elapsed time for the greatest proponents of the harshest Government social restrictions to at least say, “Well, mistakes were made.”
It’s far easier to let this go if you didn’t lose your job or friends or community just for expressing your views…especially since those views were never unreasonable or controversial, and (ultimately) proved to be FAR more correct than what many of the beknighted “experts” told us.
I had at least a dozen Facebook acquaintances who called me the worst names imaginable, for merely stating that Government must explain the “why” behind their policies. That’s it. To this day, not one of them has apologized. One did admit they could have been a bit more diplomatic in their response, but that’s it.
Mark Twain was right. “It is easier to fool folks than it is to convince them they’ve been fooled.”
Those who were given a blank check to set COVID policy could have shown a little modesty. They could have welcomed debate. They could have denounced the campaign of moral bullying that many were using to defend their recommendations. But they didn’t. And only now, when it politically and socially safe to do so, are they showing ANY signs of introspection and a desire for reconciliation.
There were highly respected scientists and epidemiologists who were excoriated for asking questions. They were silence on social media, sanction or fired by their employers and made general pariahs. And these sanctions were delivered in part by the federal government, who formed an active, robust and unconstitutional partnership with the mainstream media.
The amount of needless fear they fomented can never be quantified. People were arrested for wading alone in the ocean, lifting weights outside in a parking lot, opening their salon/barber shops so they could generate income to pay the bills, playing catch with their kids in a public park. The government poured sand into skateboard parks, nailed two-by-four over basketball hoops, removed benches in public parks. People were fucking insane. And I blame the Government the Media for fostering this unprecedented round of batshit insanity.
So no. I do not forgive the New York Times. This Op-Ed is the equivalent of Tony Soprano going to confession after whacking a convenience store owner. It’s a cleansing ritual to absolve themselves of their sins so they can commit more of the same, with the accompanying peace of mind that they “atoned” for their prior sins. It is basically a means to give them plausible deniability when they push for strict Government policies during the next big thing. It is a means to salvage their reputation.
And yes, it is not lost on me that this comes out months before an election where voters will be asked to elect one of two men who were conspicuous supporters of many of these questionable policies.
The best we can hope is that qualified mea culpas like this will guide our reaction in the next national emergency to better reflect the proper decision-making process which includes the science, the health community, and the Real World. The Real World was left out of the loop in 2020.
But the realist in me doubts that will happen. No, the government and other entities who are vested in chaos and controversy will do the exact same thing. Because you can’t be a savior if there’s no danger. If one is not present you will create it.