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My Gratitude For the Apologies and Sincere Expressions of Regret

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Dear Friends and Valued Acquaintances:

Sorry it’s taken me so long to write. Frankly I’ve been overwhelmed by all the signs of love and sincere regret so many of you have recently sent my way. 

While I’ve never been a huge fan of group messages, I believe in this case it is (someone once told me it is never wise to postpone the expression of gratitude) probably the most expeditious way of thanking you for the outpouring of support and compassion you’ve directed to me and other Covid heretics now that the mainstream discourse on this “unprecedented threat to our safety”™ lies in tatters on the ground before us. 

So here goes. 

I’d like to send a special note of thanks to all those friends and family members who, after sniggering behind my back that I had gone off my rocker, or had suddenly become an unthinking and selfish Trumpite, sent their sincere apologies for what they said about me, and how I had fallen into mindlessly and obsessively repeating Q-Anon memes. 

I am especially grateful for the words of regret I’ve received from those among this same group that brought the logics of medieval witch-shunning and apartheid to family gatherings and friendships. It’s so nice to see that you now realize the fire you were playing with and have all made solemn and quite public pledges to apologize to those you ostracized on the basis of institutionalized superstitions and to never go down that sad and divisive road again. 

Most of all, I’d like to thank you for the way you have all graciously admitted that the truth of what I told you repeatedly from the beginning based on my reading of the FDA’s own briefing reports on the vaccines (that there was never any scientific evidence that the injections would stop infection or transmission) as well as what has been clear since the leaking in 2021 of the numerous contracts between Pfizer and sovereign governments: there was no available science to back the repeated Government claims that the vaccines were “safe and effective.” 

I’d like to send a special shout-out to my doctor friends who apparently never took the time to read any of the multiple scientific studies on the efficacy of masks and proven vaccine capabilities that I sent them over the past 30 months and who preferred to respond, on the few times when they did at all, with mocking one-liners and admonitions like “Stay in your lane Tom.” 

The way each and every one of them has now personally acknowledged the truth of these things as well as the fact that the PCR tests were wildly unreliable, that the idea of massive asymptomatic transmission was a chimera, that social distancing was useless, and that the vaccines have done nothing to stop infection and may, in fact, be promoting it, has been heartwarming. 

For these sincere expressions of rectification and regret I will be forever grateful. Moreover, they give me great faith going forward that the medical profession, having recognized its ingrained tendency to substitute Pharma-supplied slogans for the careful review of ever-evolving empirical realities, is poised for a true humanistic renaissance in the realm of patient care. 

To my “progressive” former editors in both the US and Spain who decided that my counter-current reflections on Covid starting in March of 2020—almost all of which have now been proven true—were toxic enough to earn me marginalization or excommunication from their list of contributors, I am thankful for the way you have acknowledged how you were taken in by the fear porn aimed your way and have undertaken rigorous investigations aimed at explaining to your readers what happened, and insuring that you will never engage in hysteria-induced sloganeering and personnel purges like this again. 

To my former colleagues at the university who hooted me down on the internal faculty listserv with the intoxicated brio of stone-throwing Jacobins when I simply posted the CDC’s and the WHO’s own words and approved studies on the effectiveness and use of masks in public settings, or when I merely shared the actual death rate per age tranche (as determined by the CDC) of those infected by the virus in the Spring and Summer of 2020, I want to thank you for the many kind and sincere words of regret and repair you have conveyed to me. 

My cup runneth over when I think of all the remorseful words and bridge-building sentiments that I have received from the administration of the same university which once arrogantly dismissed my efforts to inform them about the actual known capabilities of masks and PCR tests early on, and spent much of the last two years imprisoning students who had little or no risk from the virus while encouraging the development of a snitch culture among them and, of course, mandating that they get a vaccine that would do next to nothing for them or the community, but would definitely raise their chances of having a serious adverse event. 

All this while they fattened the institution’s bottom line by charging full tuition at a time when all the very expensive extracurricular activities that are so much a part of today’s university experience were felicitously disappeared from the debit side of their ledgers. 

And who could forget the way they presented members of the staff and faculty with an ultimatum to take the experimental and useless shots or get fired, even when these employees could present abundant evidence of antibodies from previous infection, and/or a letter from a licensed physician saying that the demand to vaccinate in his or her particular case failed the most basic tests of medical necessity or individual safety. 

I can only be grateful that they are, along with other heavily-endowed institutions, taking time out from the urgent task of suppressing free speech to spearhead a national movement to indemnify the students they grifted, as well as the millions of people, like those at their institutions, who lost their jobs for having the ability to see through the blizzard of Pharma-led and government amplified propaganda and stand for the essential idea of bodily sovereignty. The billions you will pay out of the gains you made while maintaining high tuitions and greatly limiting student services will be much appreciated. 

My heart sings when I hear all of the ways that leaders at school districts across the country are expressing remorse for what they did to children under the guise of protecting them from a virus that could do them little or no harm, and for which they were known, from the mid-spring of 2020 onward, to not serve as important vectors of transmission. 

And then—and here again my soul takes flight—there are the profuse and never-ending mea culpas from the teachers unions, like the one in New York City, that not only insured that students would wither cognitively and emotionally before their screens at home (that is, if one was readily available in the house where they live) for years, but also colluded with the city’s Department of Education to deny—in apparent violation of federal law—religious exemptions to some 99% of the people who requested them. 

That they are now taking responsibility for what they have done to the defenseless children, and are welcoming the ostracized teachers back to work with both affection and considerable financial recompense for lost wages is truly heartwarming. 

I am sure that there are many, many other people who were wrong about almost everything on Covid who, in the spirit of maintaining a sense of moral rigor or exercising basic adult responsibility-taking, are staying up late to compose messages of contrition, and thinking of how best to offer financial restitution to the people whose lives they harmed. 

These are harms they committed out of a desire to either not think too deeply, or to simply avoid being seen as being complicit with those that the media and all the cool people around them were identifying again as ethical and intellectual deviants. 

As their further messages of love and healing flow toward me and my fellow demonized citizens, I will do my best to acknowledge and celebrate them in the way I’ve done above. 

With gratitude: 

Tom 



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Author

  • Thomas Harrington

    Thomas Harrington, Senior Brownstone Scholar and Brownstone Fellow, is Professor Emeritus of Hispanic Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, where he taught for 24 years. His research is on Iberian movements of national identity and contemporary Catalan culture. His essays are published at Words in The Pursuit of Light.

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