The Lotus Guide is a free publication distributed in Northern California. It is filled with the normal New Age fair: meditation and past life regressions, rebirthing and homages to Yogis and Yodas. You will find the usual Woo stuff there. I've read it a few times. Not all that impressive. Most of the content in the magazine sells you some sort of enlightenment. Enlightenment is usually for sale from an Ayurvedic Healer or some other peddler of New Age Goofiness. The Advertisements are for "Life Coaches" (usually Trust-funders who haven't a clue as to how to manage their own life, called upon to tell you how to manage yours) and various dietary claims.
And so it is with curiosity that I picked up the most recent copy where the Publisher named Rahasya (really?) Poe. He names his piece "Disinformation and Misinformation: What’s the Difference And Why Does It Matter?: In it he states:
"I recently read in two local newspapers who published two separate stories that were specifically meant to be disinformation pieces, meaning that they were deliberately published to mislead their readers.
The first one was on vaccinations, giving them approval in a way that was meant to persuade parents to vaccinate their children but that left out pertinent information most parents should have to make an “informed” decision."
He doesn't identify my piece on vaccinations as the one he is talking about, but I have seen this guy elsewhere exclaim his disgust for my article. Frankly, he should have the courage to acknowledge who he is responding to so that people could go and read the article and decide for themselves whether the piece was intellectually honest.
Rahasya then goes on to quote VAERS (the vaccine injury reporting system) to point out just how dangerous vaccines are. He claims the Measles vaccine has killed 108 kids. (It hasn't). When it comes to Misinformation, his article is the one that is guilty of the act.
My tolerance for New Agers gets less and less the older I get. The fact that a New Age Magazine is opposed to vaccinations is not very surprising. New Age Religions are pretty much narcissistic, selfish exercises that ignores the needs of the majority. You won't find much talk about "no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for another" from a New Ager. Nope. New Agers are about their own Enlightenment and to hell with everybody else. They seek their own path. And if others are trodden upon or lethal disease is spread or reawakened? Big deal. More than likely they would argue that their own Immune System is arrogantly superior to the disease. Too bad for those lesser humans who die. If they only were Gluten Free and ate Organic, they could handle the disease.
If vaccinations are safe (they are), effective (they are) and if Herd Immunity is real (it is) then an Anti-Vaxxer has no moral ground to stand on in their opposition to vaccines. It is immoral to oppose them.
A final note, the other article Mr. Poe objects to is one that is critical of those who believe in Chem Trails. Need I say anymore?
Lenin wrote that one must strive to be as radical as reality itself. The radical thing in some circles is to stand up for Vaccinations (they work!), or to state that some things are unreal, a mere fiction (Chem Trails!). Or state that Bush didn't blow up the Twin Towers (which is absurd). Or that cannabis farming is disastrous to the Pacific fisher population and is destroying some of our last wild areas of California (because it is). Liberal Orthodoxy can be pretty bizarre. But Radicals need to tell the truth. Even if it hurts. We need to be as Radical as Reality itself.
Kia ora Allan,
ReplyDeleteI agree. Perhaps I am becoming a grumpy old bugger but I find myself angry at the selfish, and most often very privileged platform the New Age bullshit comes from. Even more so the intolerance and often complete ignorance that lies at the root of it.