I used to be an intentional innocent; someone who didn’t want to know what was going on in the world because I felt that even if I did, I was powerless to do anything about it. That complete lack of control stressed me. So I chose ignorance. I was MUCH happier not reading the news. From my bubble, the world was a better place and the people in it were nicer. But, despite all my efforts to shield myself from reality, reality crept in. And it was nasty.
Published in The Seeker February 6, 2023
Recently I heard about Project Veritas’ reporting of a Pfizer Executive who apparently blurted out company insider information to his date – a conveniently planted undercover reporter. He seemed to disclose that Pfizer was deliberately tinkering with the Covid virus to potentially unleash its own variants into the world and make a fortune manufacturing vaccines to cure them.
After watching the footage, a few things led me to seriously question the credibility of the report. The video is cut together – meaning that its message can be altered. This Exec is sharing top-secret company information – with a date that he barely knows. If he in fact works for Pfizer (or did…) it makes me wonder if he knows much about the company’s research. Is he someone desperate to impress his date by making this up or god forbid spilling real information for the same reason? The editors of the piece cut in noted anti-vaxxer Dr. Robert Malone to comment on it further reducing credibility in my eyes.
But could it be true?
Would it be the first time that a company did something that evil? I tend to assume “no” for an American multinational company even as I know that companies and governments have created powerful bombs, and chemical and biological weapons of war and the companies involved made a lot of money doing it.
During the pandemic, we heard about “gain of function” research which alters an organism to potentially enhance its biological functions making it more deadly or transmissible for example. This exploration is supposedly done to study mutations that might occur in nature and prepare vaccines in advance. Yeah, well… to me, it sounds a lot like weaponizing viruses.
The difference might be in the intent: will this be used for good or for evil? Either way, do we really need that kind of research? Anywhere? Despite scientific agreement that the SARS-CoV-2 virus comes from animals, many have blamed the Chinese for it because they were doing “gain of function” research in Wuhan. If I recall correctly Canada knew about this research and the US was involved in it.
When I look at the Pfizer story, it seems so incredibly evil that I can’t believe a legitimate company would do that and expect to get away with it if they did. Pfizer has denied it here.
But what really disturbs me is that little sliver of doubt I felt when I first heard the story. I look around my world and I see things that shouldn’t be possible and yet they are.
For instance, drug companies that make hundreds of billions of dollars of profit a year from the sale of needed vaccines at a time when humanity is suffering astounds me. That they withhold these vaccines from countries that can’t pay or sell them “at cost” to be distributed where needed by wealthier countries – shocks me.
When I think of people who believe in conspiracy theories like Covid death camps and whatnot there’s a part of me that at least… understands why they might believe this stuff.
We live in an era of mind-boggling greed where real conspiracies abound.
Sounds crazy?
Who would’ve imagined that tobacco companies would repeatedly lie about their product causing cancer and that governments would look away from the facts for years and years and years? Cigarettes are the leading cause of preventable death with some 7 million people worldwide dying of cigarette-related illnesses every year.
Who would’ve thought after doing the research proving climate change, oil companies would go on to deliberately deny the link between fossil fuels and global warming and spend billions of dollars on disinformation campaigns and lies to make money? And who would’ve believed governments the world over would allow this to happen? We are now faced with life-threatening weather changes on a global scale as a result.
The bottom line for all of this crap boils down to greed for money, resources and power in the name of capitalism. Capitalism has been incredibly successful at boosting wealth, but it has failed at redistributing it fairly. Despite seeing the failure of capitalism to benefit most people, we are still caught up in the lies of the greedy – that this greed is somehow the “natural order” of things and the money and power are equally accessible to all who are willing to work for it.
It’s not that I’m against the usefulness of money or saving for the future. However, I don’t believe that the accumulation of money and power should make most people slaves to those who own it in obscene amounts. To me, there is something sick and twisted about people who hoard money. And to glorify them as deserving models of success is a sick and twisted feature of our culture.
Could the Pfizer story have been true? Yes, I fear it could have been.
Notes for the reader:
Pfizer profits: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/31/the-covid-pandemic-drives-pfizers-2022-revenue-to-a-record-100-billion.html
The capitalist dream gone sour: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/the-pursuit-of-happiness-how-the-american-dream-turned-into-greed-and-inequality/
A different perspective on the Project Veritas’ report by The Majority Report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P0LxXsQaT0
Photo credit: Mikhail Nilov Pexels