An edited version of this article is published today at TCW Defending Freedom (aka The Conservative Woman)
Of the world’s big three tennis stars currently playing, one of whom may or may not be better than Rod Laver and therefore the best ever, Novak Djokovic has always seemed to be the least likable, what with Federer’s effortless panache and goodwill to all and Nadal’s irrepressible charm and determination. (It isn’t a big four. Sorry, Brits. Andy Murray doesn’t count).
Yet now “Novaxx” Djokovic is a global hero to the voiceless, whatever the result was at Wimbledon. Well, it turns out that he won, defeating an unstable and possibly unhinged Australian.
Anyone who has questioned Covid madness and, especially, the mindless cruelty of the vaccine mandates, over the past two-and-a-bit years has had a public figure to cheer on in Novak, who has – stubbornly for many – refused to be jabbed. This has, maybe, cost him an Australian Open and may do the same with the forthcoming US Open. And quite possibly also the bragging rights over the other two of the Big Three, who are in an ongoing contest to see who ends up winning the most majors. So, Djokovic’s act of Covid conscience and independence, seen by many as rebellion, has not been costless. Why he has chosen not to be vaccinated is no one’s business. Just as anyone’s medical self-management is no one else’s business, despite all the spittle-flecked vitriol of all the do-gooders and the medical utilitarians who have provided fascist governments all over the world with the cover they have needed to impose all their freedom-sapping mandates.
Anyone who stands up to these bullies and thugs deserves the undying affection of those of us who value freedom and cherish basic rights. This is the reason that Ron DeSantis is also a hero. There are very few others in politics. Anywhere. There are hardly any in mainstream journalism. Yes, a number of critics have pushed back over lockdowns. Far fewer, though, have taken on the seemingly harder task of challenging the vaccine mandates. Mark Steyn is one, with his welcome focus on the many, tragic jab injuries and deaths that have occurred and, shamefully, are still largely ignored by the media. Many so-called conservatives have simply chosen to sit out Covid and its illiberal mandates. They have either been MIA or, even more strangely, have chosen to be on the side of those would destroy freedom and upend tradition. The two things thought to be most highly valued by conservatives. Some brave scientists and doctors have resisted the opprobrium at best and the career destroying censorship and punishment at worst. Whistleblowers in the bureaucracy have been rare, but whenever they have emerged, their efforts have been heroic. Even the (very) odd celebrity has done some heavy lifting, like the legendary Eric Clapton.
All are champions in the mode of The Djoker, and now, of his wife Jelena who has felt the need to give her husband’s vax critics a well-deserved spray.
Djokovic’s wife Jelena defended her husband on social media after his vaccination comments at Wimbledon were widely reported. She engaged in a Twitter slanging match with tennis journalist and podcaster Ben Rothenberg who, like many, has been critical of the legend’s refusal to get vaccinated.
Ben who, many will ask? Note the journalist’s revealing descriptions of Jelena’s intervention. “Rant”. “Lashed out”.
I know how she feels. I am sick to death of the sneering, the censorship, the bullying, the fact checkers, the self-serving propaganda, the lies. Oh, the lies. There must have been literally hundreds of consequence uttered during Covid, propagated by politicians, medical bureaucrats and other friends of Big Pharma, and endlessly repeated by media that have been largely bought and paid for by the aforesaid drug companies and/or Bill Gates.
The latest lie, repeated by the usual suspects but now trumpeted as well (and almost routinely) by Covid sufferers, both well-known and anonymous – there are plenty of these, let readers be assured – is that their symptoms were very mild simply because they were jabbed. This is unproven and unprovable at any level. Covid liars love unprovables. Just like the big one. That vaccines globally saved millions of lies, as the ever-spurious models claim.
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/237591/vaccinations-have-prevented-almost-20-million/
This claim is almost certainly false, and, of course, cannot be established with the remotest confidence one way or another. Very convenient, as unprovable lies are. It is also a classic example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Because mild symptoms followed the vaccine, they must be caused by the vaccine. That Imperial College even dares to poke its research above the parapet is itself astonishing, and demonstrates yet again that there is little shame left in public life or in the academy.
Here is the multi-boostered, multi-masked Tony Fauci’s claim about his own recent bout of Covid:
After month-long COVID bout, Fauci claims quad vaxxed status prevented ‘severe’ disease.
Of course. Well (in the immortal words of Mandy Rice Davies), he would, wouldn’t he?
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that symptoms among the young and the healthy are mild because Omicron is, well, itself mild. Everyone who knows anything about the virus knows this, yet many feel the need to justify their own vaccinations so as not to look foolish, as gazillions of jabbed and boostered saps all over the world get infected with Covid and pass it on to all around them. The same folks probably still have their masks firmly affixed as well. Sadly, a combination of censorship and the silencing of Covid dissidents, a tsunami of advertising of the vaccines and boosters, and the individual self-justification noted above has worked to let the clearly failed vaccines off the hook. Even Bill Gates knows the vaccines have failed. But there are simply too many invested in prolonging the lie.
Academics, often funded by Gates and by the drug companies, and career-dependent on this funding, are still leading the charge in keeping the falsehoods going. The media promotes these not inconsiderable efforts on the part of the “scholars”, as I have demonstrated at length elsewhere in relation to a spurious study undertaken by Rupert Murdoch’s flagship newspaper down under, The Australian. Here was the claim that highly vaccinated Australian jurisdictions did better in relation to Covid illness and deaths than less vaccinated places. This claim is demonstrably wobbly and has been contradicted by studies of far greater rigour and robustness.
It is very disappointing, though, that so many vaccinated punters are suspending what remains of their critical faculties in service of the Covid regime. The easy slide from “the vaccines will protect us from infection” to “the vaccines stopped me from dying” has been a monumental achievement of the Covid class. The continued belief in dumb lies has been simply astonishing. It allows critics of the Serbian tennis great to continue to spit their venom at him. He is the one who has been proven right in relation to the vaccines, of course. And that must rile his many critics.
While the politically inconvenient mandates have been dropped all over the place (though not all of them), the Covid narrative is alive and well and we should all expect the forces of darkness to re-marshal their forces when they think they can get away with bringing back all the restrictive rules, and, especially, the masks and the boosters. Meaning that the work of the Covid dissidents and warriors like Novak is far from over. Djokovic’s prevention by Biden from entering the United States reminds us that the “leader” of the free world doesn’t much believe in freedom, and that there is much residual Covid totalitarianism extant. One of the practical benefits of Novak’s continued stand is that the idiotic US entry rules are being brought to our attention afresh.
One of Covid’s awful legacies has been the non-punishment of the cabal that has rendered our rights and freedom worthless as a result of their heinous acts of commission and of omission. There has been no retribution, no justice. Many governments (especially those on the left, as Steyn has noted) have prospered electorally from their acts of Covid totalitarianism. Including two and counting in Australia. Mercifully, though, Alex Hawke, the minister responsible for the mean and despicable act of deporting Novak from Australia in January, has lost the election (the Morrison Government’s heavy defeat in May) and subsequently lost his position on the Liberal-National front bench. This factional hack, this political nonentity humiliated and sent packing from Australia one of the greatest tennis players in history. Long after Hawke has been shoved down the plug-hole of history, Djokovic will be remembered, fondly I trust, as both a tennis great and a heroic man of principle and courage in an age when few others of note will. Most of the rest of us have gone along to get along, have banked the proceeds of Government Covid bribes while having a two-year holiday at home, and have either ignored or, worse, mercilessly bagged our few real Covid heroes.
So, here’s to Wimbledon, the home of tennis and the scene yet again of a famous victory, both on and off the court. And here’s to all the Covid dissidents and heroes.
Paul Collits
11 July 2022
Spot on Paul .
The anti vaxxers are the light in the darkness .It is vitally important that these lights don’t give up and keep shining by speaking up .Let’s hope it remains their ethical duty and that they won’t go down with the masses.
Chris Loft
thanks mate. And I have one on the census under way.