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Covid, Intubation Change USD Student’s Mind on Vaccine

USD poli-sci student and aspiring lawyer Kian Olson from Mankato thought coronavirus was fake and refused to get vaccinated. When coronavirus put him in the hospital last week, he told his mom, before the nurses sedated him and shoved a tube down his throat to keep him alive, that he now wants to be vaccinated:

Kian Olson’s mother describes him as an intelligent, headstrong 19-year-old who had been set to begin his sophomore year of college Monday. But right now he’s lying in a hospital bed unconscious, with a tube down his throat, hooked up to a ventilator that is breathing for him.

He refused to accept that COVID-19 is a serious illness, said his mother, Nissa Sugden. He suggested the coronavirus did not exist or was a government conspiracy.

He has since told the nurses with Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato who are working to save his life that he wants to be vaccinated as soon as possible [Jordan Smith, “Mankato Teen Struck with Covid-19 Goes on Ventilator,” Mankato Free Press, 2021.08.24].

It’s hard to change your mind, especially in public. My quoting Dean Wormer won’t make it any easier. But the grave consequences of Olson’s previous poor choice are compelling Olson to change his mind. He may also get others to rethink their reckless behavior:

One of those people is 46-year-old Kim Gores, who lives in Garden City and is friends with Sugden and Kian. Before she saw Sugden’s Facebook post about Kian, she had been staunchly opposed to the COVID vaccine. She had denounced the pandemic as a political scam.

People she knew had been sick with the virus before, but they had recovered without a threat to their lives.

She was mulling over a potential vaccination anyway, though, because she just took a new job as a grocery store cashier, a role with constant public interaction amid a nationwide surge in new cases. Kian’s initial situation prodded her further.

Then she went to the Caring Bridge page where Kian’s medical updates are posted. She learned from a Monday night post that the 19-year-old she knew and cared for was on a ventilator.

That was the end of her holdout.

“Him thinking the same way I was thinking to now, him being in that situation and fighting for his life — it changed my mind a lot,” she said. She now plans to be vaccinated on Thursday. She knows it’s what Kian wants [Smith, 2021.08.24].

Olson, Gores, and others may be learning that vaccines are practical, not political. Even uber-political Noem henchman Dan Bucheli in the South Dakota Department of Health has to admit that, in South Dakota, 97% of new coronavirus cases, 93% of covid hospitalizations, and 95% of covid deaths are among unvaccinated people. Getting your covid shot does not reduce your Republican or conservative cred; it reduces your chances of ending up where Olson is: knocked out in the ICU with a tube down your throat and your family and friends hoping you don’t die tonight.

As Kian’s mom says, giving political reasons for not getting a covid shot is just dumb:

“If those kids or family members or friends are not being vaccinated for anything other than a medical reason, just get vaccinated,” Sugden said. “You are going to come in contact with it, so are you just going to be a little sick, are you not going to be sick, or are you going to be fighting for your life on a ventilator” [Jared Dean, “North Mankato Teen in ICU Battling Covid,” KEYC, 2021.08.26].

So vaccine opponents, be like Kian Olson and change your mind before you end up like Kian Olson: drop the political baloney and GET YOUR SHOTS!!!

54 Comments

  1. jerry 2021-08-28 11:01

    Why do we let them clutter up the hospitals and take bed space? Clearly they thought it was a hoax so let them die laughing. All these young folks thought it was funny as hell that old folks were slabbing out. Not so funny anymore.

  2. Porter Lansing 2021-08-28 11:13

    When you’ve lived a life suffering the consequences of your own bad decisions,

    dying for something you believe in, may well be the only disciplined thing you’ve ever accomplished.

    You can slip away blaming BIPOC’s and liberals for everything you’ve been forced to endure.

    PS … there are ventilators in Purgatory, just waiting for the fools who wouldn’t listen.

  3. Mr. Sol 2021-08-28 11:25

    There really is a lot of bad information out there (online and other places) that is doing real harm. Everyone, please listen to the experts and get vaccinated.

  4. Joe 2021-08-28 11:37

    That Mankato Free Press article tells the full story, and it’s very sobering.

  5. mike from iowa 2021-08-28 11:46

    From British satirist Mitch Benn:

    “An old COVID truther called Herbie
    Found vaccines too weird and disturby
    So he treated his ills
    With horse-worming pills
    Now he’s winning the Kentucky Derby”

  6. Donald Pay 2021-08-28 12:09

    It may be too late for Kian. I’m sorry for his mom and sister, but I have little sympathy for him. His political ideology may kill him, which might be the best thing that could happen for society, if not for his family. Kian’s reasons for not being vaccinated were completely bonkers, like those of the nutcases who spout off on this blog. When a virus is smarter than you, perhaps you shouldn’t contribute to the gene pool.

  7. Porter Lansing 2021-08-28 12:14

    – Remember when Trump and Putin were profiling everyone on social media to find vulnerable voters susceptible to crazy ideas about Hillary Clinton?
    – Robert Mueller’s report verified it.
    – That psychologically vulnerable group of voters are the same people being targeted with vaccine disinformation by Russian influencers.
    – Just read some of the misinformation put out daily by Russian Communist John Dale.
    – Here’s a Reuter’s article about all the Russian’s like Dale that have been banned from Facebook.
    https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-removes-russian-network-that-targeted-influencers-peddle-anti-vax-2021-08-10/

  8. Ryan 2021-08-28 13:04

    There exists a reddit thread for antivaxxers or hoaxers who later get covid:

    Reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward

    It’s interesting at the very least.

  9. John Dale 2021-08-28 13:13

    Obesity is the #1 risk factor for complications, serious injury, and death from a Covid infection.

    Censorship of doctors on big tech platforms suppressed information about viable alternative treatments and how to lower risk.

    I’m with Eric:
    https://youtu.be/dNt4NIQ7FTA

  10. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2021-08-28 13:32

    19-year-old buys into Kristi-Noem/John-Dale-style politics. 19-year-old makes resisting covid vaccine part of political identity. Kid gets sick and lies close to death in hospital. Kid changes mind, decides he should get vaccine as soon as possible.

    Do we vaccinated people need to expose ourselves to covid, then go cough on all the anti-vaxers to get them to change their minds? Is this contorted anti-science/own-the-libs stand so important to some people’s worldview that they won’t give up this one tiny portion of their stubbornness until they get sick unto death?

  11. Porter Lansing 2021-08-28 13:32

    John Dale –
    Tell us about when your undercover agent Father took you to be indoctrinated in Cuba.

  12. jerry 2021-08-28 13:45

    John Dale has been vaccinated,..

  13. John Dale 2021-08-28 14:02

    I found a Bloomberg article recently with bearing on the subject:
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-27/previous-covid-prevents-delta-infection-better-than-pfizer-shot

    Porter and Jerry – I didn’t write this article, neither did my Dad, neither did Base Commander Allen in Cuba or Alex Jones or Trump or Roger Stone.

    Jerry and Porter have short circuited. I think they need to go into the shop for an oil bath.

    I have had Covid-19, and my natural immunity protects me from the Delta variant, which is thought to not actually exist by some credible scientists running an inquiry on the matter (they have been banned by social media, which is really perverted in terms of the scientific process).

    I stopped publishing on FaceBook after I proved it was a corrupt shell/spy game. I was not kicked off. Unlike DFP, DWC, and PT, SDCB, and others, FaceBook is a real ghetto .. a total s-hole.

    Oh. You GUYS.

    :)

  14. John Dale 2021-08-28 14:07

    Why would you claim I have had the vaccination?

    I have not had the MRNA shot or the J&J vaccine.

    I did study plasmids and genetic engineering in College de facto but never formally.

    Don’t want any vaccinations.

    Never had the flu vaccine.

    Mom probably caved to the pressure when I was little. I’ve suffered from Athsma and other allergies my whole life, which is one of the symptoms of those shots back then.

    I don’t recall if I had to take the jab when I visited Germany with Study Abroad (I lived in Ulm for 2 months doing intensive emersion to learn the language and understand the history in a colloquial sense). That was around 1998. Since then, since reading up on their efficacy, I haven’t taken any shots, and I refuse them for my children.

    That’s been what .. 24 years?

    NO SHOTS FOR ME OF ANY KIND UNLESS IT IS A STATISTICALLY RELEVANT THREAT TO MY LIFE.

    What you’re doing here, jerry, is reprehensible.

  15. John Dale 2021-08-28 14:08

    PS – I have successfully treated my asthma with herb-ally vaporized cannabis.

  16. John Dale 2021-08-28 14:10

    “NO SHOTS FOR ME OF ANY KIND UNLESS IT IS A STATISTICALLY RELEVANT THREAT TO MY LIFE.”

    Dear Deep State;

    Stop it. This is not an invitation.

    Sincerely,

    John

  17. Arlo Blundt 2021-08-28 14:16

    John Dale–you need to find a herb to treat your ego mania.

  18. Francis Schaffer 2021-08-28 14:46

    I recently was informed that there exists a process by which ones entire immune system can be reset to remove all antibodies from any vaccinations and of course any naturally created immunity. It is primarily for those needing a bone marrow transplant. So those against vaccinations can do this and then take his/her chances. Of course that may put some others at risk.

  19. Porter Lansing 2021-08-28 14:56

    The Israel study again?

    My link is from 08/16/2021 from the United States Center for Disease Control and it states …

    Evidence is emerging that people get better protection by being fully vaccinated compared with having had COVID-19. One study showed that unvaccinated people who already had COVID-19 are more than 2 times as likely than fully vaccinated people to get COVID-19 again.
    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/vaccine-benefits.html

  20. Anne 2021-08-28 15:12

    “…the Delta variant, which is thought to not actually exist by some credible scientists running an inquiry on the matter (they have been banned by social media, which is really perverted in terms of the scientific process).”

    When such a claim is published, it should name the specific instances. Otherwise it must be regarded as the product of a mind which has never been inoculated against maleficent fantasy.

  21. Porter Lansing 2021-08-28 15:31

    Exactly, Anne.

    We must ask, “Why does John Dale persist in trying to harm innocent children? What’s his payoff? Does he demand acknowledgment from liberals that he’s as smart as we are? Does his rent get paid by an anonymous source, who’s agents stretch America like a cobweb of communism?”

    Very strange, you are John Dale.

    Eyes on you, Deep.

  22. jerry 2021-08-28 15:59

    John Dale is vaccinated so his wife will keep laughing as he likes it so. Good on you John Dale for providing that entertainment for your bride.

  23. John Dale 2021-08-28 16:16

    “you need to find a herb to treat your ego mania”

    I get it from seeing my name here so much in the posts of others.

    I also like knowing where and how information is vectoring.

    A smoke test.

  24. cibvet 2021-08-28 16:26

    Remember john dale whining about not being able to buy vitamins with his food stamps. Its looking more like he was turned away from the veterinary clinic trying to get ivermectin horse wormer to protect him from covid. No hammer big enough to beat common sense into him.Those who listen to him should go down and prepay the mortuary.

  25. Mark Anderson 2021-08-28 17:06

    Jezz John don’t you keep a notebook or something of your own statements. First you say I’ve had covid, then you say it could have been a cold or flu, now it’s covid again. Do you just type on a whim? We all know your a coward for shots, I’m sure you don’t even play horse.. I’ve had mine and I’m fine. If you got yours, your natural immunity would prevent anything bad from happening wouldn’t it? PLUS YOU WOULDNT KILL ANYBODY. Gosh it is powerful to use all capitals, I see why you do it.

  26. Mark Anderson 2021-08-28 17:32

    Oh John, you lambasted me when I called Alex Jones fat and you bring obesity up in this, shame on you.

  27. Porter Lansing 2021-08-28 17:44

    Dale –

    Here’s a perfect cause for you to champion.

    Not only should vitamins be available to people using SNAP but medical cannabis is prescribed by a Doctor and Medicare/Medicaid should cover it, just like any other medicine or recommended treatment is covered.

  28. Jake 2021-08-28 18:51

    Johnny Dale said it all in above posting when he state that he gets his ‘rocks’ off by seeing his name used by so many readers. Far as I’m concerned, I ‘m past reading his B,S, and I agree with those who state he’s a Putin poster. Figures.

  29. John Dale 2021-08-28 19:02

    I have to ask ..

    While you all are so obsessed with me, what are you missing?

    I searched the page, Jake. Despite the quotes, the word “rocks” only appeared once on this page before posting.

    For you aspiring Philosophers, Porter makes an interesting case.

    Why doest he CDC advise that vitamins strengthen the immune system but the FDA recommends an experimental and dangerous medical procedure?

    For the record, I think anyone on SNAP should have the ability to purchase CDC recommended micronutrients.

    Additionally, if the federal government is going to subsidize Pfizer’s profits (and their stockholders who receive that welfare), they should also be willing to subsidize vitamins for everyone.

  30. mike from iowa 2021-08-28 19:12

    Rumour has it, Johnny Rabbit Hole Refugee’s own site won’t allow him to log in. Many, many people have said this.

  31. Dicta 2021-08-28 19:34

    We arent obsessed with you. Most of us preferred you went away. But if you are here, behaving like a narcissistic sociopath, we are gonna hammer you. Toughen up or leave.

  32. DaveFN 2021-08-28 20:15

    Freud worked doggedly on cases involving distorted thinking inconsistent with the external constraints of reality. He tells us, for example, that dreams consist in the transformation of latent thoughts into manifest dream experiences often far removed from reality. Kians’ distorted thoughts of COVID being a “government conspiracy theory” and being “non-existent” clearly have been transformed into a real experience of being on a ventilator, a reality most of us prefer to avoid.

    Without the specific associations of a dreamer we are unable to plumb anyone’s thoughts to ascertain someone’s underlying fantasy, of course, and hence are left to but speculate upon what might be afoot. Freud does tell us, however, that dream thoughts camouflage a desire—which psychoanalysis seeks to examine by a patient’s free association to those thoughts—and that those thoughts serve a specific function for the dreamer, namely, the fulfilment of a wish.

    One might counter that Kian is not in the dream-state per se. If so one is yet left asking what unconscious fantasy is at work that removes him and others like him so far from the objective reality which includes the known consequences of a contagious and deadly virus.

    Is the function of Kian’s thoughts to be some kind of talisman he adopts in order to protect himself from competing thoughts of death, played out within a larger scenario in which he himself would ultimately come closer to what he feared? A kind of video wargame prevalent among those his age? Is his desire to come as close to death as possible if not die, and if so, why? Does he wish the infection and death of others? What unconscious desires condition his thoughts, distorting them?

    We tend today to dismiss Freud and say and say someone like Kian was simply “misinformed.” Only correct information and formal education (which I myself proclaim as a corrective, at least in part) will set people on the correct path and keep them from “stinkin’ thinkin’,” however uphill and incomplete that battle of education may be (Freud himself says there are three impossible professions: government, education, and psychoanalysis, each of which each inevitably end up incomplete and open-ended). That there could be and are highly individual and subjective reasons one adopts thoughts such as Kian’s is simply too messy for anyone other than a psychoanalyst to address, one reason people have shunned psychoanalysis since its inception: unconscious desire is too hot and hard-to-handle. Better to have forms of quick band-aid thought-control such as CBT, or pharmaceuticals to suppress thoughts and shut down desires, or other inventions such as formal education, although the latter is a more protracted and expensive proposition. (Those who are clinically psychotic, however, easily twist the objective knowledge of formal education that governs reality into protean and complex distortions).

    There is a well-known effect in chemistry termed the “leveling effect.” Although strong acids have measurably different strengths, when individually dissolved in water each will react with it to form the same hydronium ion (H3O+), effectively “leveling” the acid with the result that the individual strengths of the acids become indistinguishable.

    On one hand people will believe a storm is coming and prepare accordingly based on the mediating influence of a weatherman on TV who is taken to be in a privileged position to make a forecast. On the other hand the same people will totally dismiss an expert in his field as is Dr. Fauci as being just one more talking head among many, a kind of “leveling effect,” one in which Fauci is stripped of his expertise and leveled to the plane of surrounding popular culture.

    Stepping out of his dream and awakening, Kian might better have listened to the words of those who are highly educated and experienced, those who know what they are talking about, weighting and privileging Fauci’s expert words.

    Proverbs 19:2 “Further, without knowledge [from those who know what they are talking about], desire is not good; and he who is over-quick in acting departs from the right way.”

    Luke 16:29, the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus: “I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also end up in this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses [Fauci] and the prophets; let your brothers listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone is sent to them from the dead, they will repent.’…”

    So Kian has now “changed his mind,” rectified his fantasy and thus better attuned himself to the constraints of objective reality and the purpose of vaccination. He may survive if he is lucky. If so, what will be his next fantasy? Or is his former fantasy only part of a larger, continuing, unconscious fantasy yet to be written, post-vaccination?

  33. O 2021-08-28 20:20

    GOP: The party worth dying for. Nothing “owns the libbies” like self-harm.

  34. cibvet 2021-08-28 23:50

    Apparently someone who claims to be a health guru with knowledge of all the correct foods to eat in order to maintain his immune system and yet wants taxpayer dollars to buy him vitamins to suck down that he has no idea of what the ingredients would be. All this to avoid a vaccination for his and others’ protection.
    Probably beamed up by aliens, sucked out any and all common sense and dropped back to earth to test our resolve.
    Please come back and get them.

  35. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2021-08-29 07:43

    The preliminary study from Israel has not been peer-reviewed and does not indicate that getting covid is safer than getting the vaccine. The authors’ abstract states, “…the comparable long-term protection conferred by previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear.” It is a retrospective observational study, thus not controlled or randomized and thus not take-to-the-bank research, but the authors conclude that getting the vaccine improves the immunity of folks who had covid.

  36. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2021-08-29 07:48

    And of course, the Israel preliminary study is irrelevant to Kian’s case. He refused to get the vaccine, and his covid infection now has him near death. Kian is a lot worse off than if he had gotten the shot.

    Getting covid also costs a lot more than getting the shot. I didn’t have to set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for my vaccine.

    John Dale contends the covid vaccines are part of the Deep State plot against him. The previous administration hurried the development of the covid vaccines with Operation Warp Speed, perhaps one of the only initiatives of the previous administration that produced positive results. Thus, the previous administration, whom John Dale idolizes, appears to be part of the Deep State. The previous administration was all a sham, making people like John Dale think they had a chance against the Deep State while duping them into activism that distracts us all from the Deep State’s continued dominion.

  37. Dana P 2021-08-29 08:03

    Mr Dale, it is your ‘gut instinct’ and your stance (and other people like you) on how to address Covid is why this deadly and easily transmissible virus isn’t being stopped and is mutating.

    Do what ever you want with your asthma treatments (asthma isn’t contagious). Your conspiracy whipping theories that you post remind all of us of your crazy rantings at workers who were installing cable on/near Jackson Blvd a few years ago.

    If you won’t be a true patriot and get your vaccine to help be your brother’s keeper and do your part to keep the virus from spreading, then at least go hide in a bunker while the rest of us do our parts. Ok?

  38. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2021-08-29 08:12

    From the Deep State to the Dream State—Dave! fascinating psychoanalytic perspective!

    Dave writes,

    One might counter that Kian is not in the dream-state per se. If so one is yet left asking what unconscious fantasy is at work that removes him and others like him so far from the objective reality which includes the known consequences of a contagious and deadly virus.

    Is the function of Kian’s thoughts to be some kind of talisman he adopts in order to protect himself from competing thoughts of death, played out within a larger scenario in which he himself would ultimately come closer to what he feared? A kind of video wargame prevalent among those his age? Is his desire to come as close to death as possible if not die, and if so, why? Does he wish the infection and death of others? What unconscious desires condition his thoughts, distorting them?

    Kian was not dreaming (does he dream now, under sedation while intubated?), but he was treating reality like a lucid dream, where he could chose to construct his own reality and guide it toward his unstated desire. Dave’s mention of video wargames triggers my thought that perhaps the unstated desire is that the pandemic continue. When coronavirus first hit, I wondered if we were headed toward a super-plague like that in Stephen King’s The Stand which wiped out society and set the stage for the survivors’ ultimate conflict of good versus evil. The shortages of toilet paper and other goods, the disruption of schools and other normal public activities, and the appearance of masks all contributed to the feeling that the world was falling apart. Plagues have long stood next to global nuclear war as the trigger of survivalist fantasies. In The Stand, the government lies and promises a vaccine that never comes (and never could have come quickly enough to combat a virus engineered to spread and kill almost everyone within a week or two). In the real world, coronavirus turned out to be not as fast or lethal. We were able to control it with masks and social distancing (which people of Kian’s and Kristi’s political ilk resisted) and give researchers time to perfect the two decades of research they’d been doing on coronavirus into safe and effective vaccines by the end of 2020. Safe and effective vaccines meant the end of the plague, the end of the chaos-times that the survivalists and insurrectionists enjoyed. Chaos weakens the state and loosens the social boundaries that check insurrection. Vaccines take away the opportunity for folks like Kian to claim (at least before mid-August, when he appears to have contracted covid from his cancer-stricken, hospice-bound dad) that their luck in not catching covid really represents a physical and spiritual superiority and Darwinian fitness to rule.

    it sounds like covid has done a lot of damage to Kian’s lungs and body. He won’t come out of the hospital like a John Dale-style raging bull (emphasis on bull) spouting nonsense about how tough his immune system is, how he can take on the world now without a vaccine, and how others should just wait to suffer through covid as he did instead of getting the shot. His survivalist fantasy of surviving on his rugged individualism has been fatally punctured. He is surviving so far only by the intervention of doctors and nurses and science paid for by his mom and donors and the rest of us through insurance. He’ll struggle just to haul his body around the house for a few weeks while his lungs try to regain oxygen capacity. It’s hard to maintain a fantasy of self-sufficiency and superiority when you need someone’s help walking to the bathroom.

  39. jerry 2021-08-29 08:15

    Another mentally ill anti=vaxxer has achieved their goal of beating the “Deep State”. Why are they given a platform in the first place to speak to normal people in the first place? Here is Caleb Wallace, who sounds and acts just like the mentally unstable blowhard, they both even have children watching their meltdowns.

    “Caleb Wallace, who was a leader in protesting mask requirements and other COVID-19-related restrictions in central Texas, died after a monthlong battle with the coronavirus, his wife said on Saturday. “Caleb has peacefully passed on. He will forever live in our hearts and minds,” Jessica Wallace, Caleb’s wife, wrote on the family’s GoFundMe page. A day earlier, Jessica Wallace had written that “Caleb won’t make it much longer.” Wallace, who lived in San Angelo, Texas for most of his life, was hospitalized on July 30. The father of three, with another on the way, quickly deteriorated and had been unconscious and heavily sedated since Aug. 8.” https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/caleb-wallace-texas-san-angelo-mask-covid-protests.html

    I wonder what ol’ Caleb’s thoughts were on the 5B?

  40. mike from iowa 2021-08-29 08:53

    Covid wears a coat of many colors. Not only does it hog IC beds and meds, it also is hogging oxygen which could easily become a problem for those of us on oxygen 24/7.

  41. Porter Lansing 2021-08-29 14:43

    DaveFN asks, ” What unconscious desires condition his thoughts, distorting them?” about what deep desires a vaccine hesitant/resistant/insistent person is basing their irrational decision on.

    I believe it’s quite core.

    They fully believe that overreaction to Covid was done primarily by we liberals, to get Trump out of office.

    They refuse to vaccinate in hopes that it will make Joe “Steady” Biden look just as bad and his fate will be the same.

    Poor logic, though as the 80 million who won’t join the group in a simple safety precaution only make themselves look petty and hostile, not President Biden.

  42. DaveFN 2021-08-29 17:25

    Cory

    “…perhaps the unstated desire is that the pandemic continue…” Perhaps. One never knows and even when the person is on the psychoanalytic couch and one has access to unconscious material and associations it’s sometimes difficult to pinpoint the desire at work.

    Freud makes clear that the unconscious has no interest in conventional morality or the ethical obligations of civilization.

    As far as the “ethical obligations of civilization,” in our era of cultural relativism (which has been going on for an admittedly long time, now), norms of any kind (including public health norms) tend to be regarded as a matter of arbitrary convention which are not fixed but malleable. Progressives challenge conventions (resulting in cultural shifts to legalize same-sex marriage, for example), and conservatives challenge public health authorities who call for vaccination. The “ethical obligations of civilization” can be and are viewed through many a lens, including many a distorted lens.

    In the Freudian clinic there are three and only three broad, differential diagnostic categories: perversion, psychosis, and neurosis into which all people fall and none escape. Some psychoanalytic schools would consider transgression of norms a challenge to the general principle of Law itself. These schools tend to see such challenges to norms as suggestive of a perverse clinical structure (where perverse does not necessarily have the derogatory moral connotation in common usage). Kian and others could possibly be in such a category, seeking to challenge the ethical obligations of living in civilization by a refusal to be vaccinated.

    This, of course, raises the question of political progressives who also challenge norms and conventions (because they view them as unjust, etc., really no different than Kian overtly might). It is tempting to refute that progressives are not clinically perverse. Psychoanalytically, however, this jumps the gun, since unconscious motives and desires have been omitted from the picture. Overt behavior is not a good indicator of unconscious desires and fantasies as overt, manifest behavior may emerge a distortion of what is in the unconscious, just as manifest dream language is a form of censorship of the latent dream contents and desires that give rise to it. (Body language is a good example as it, too, can lie, Dr. Phil and pop culture aside which foolishly claim to ‘read’ it). It is for this very reason that European schools of psychoanalysis do not diagnose by overt symptomatology (as per the US DSM which itself is continually realizing the limitations of doing so and revising itself). Diagnosis by dominant psychoanalytic schools in Europe and South America is instead made according to unconscious orienting structural features. (The post-WWII US psychoanalysts caricaturized in Woody Allen films constitute an anomaly compared to the European/SA schools, which latter don’t put words into their patient’s mouths via various canned interpretations of what a given behavior or dream “means” as in Woody Allen films).

    Freud is clear that dreams are nothing other than a particular way of thinking, and that the unconscious is always active, even when one is awake. He insists there is a continuity between fantasy in dreams and day-dreams which makes it impossible to draw a line between conscious fictions and unconscious effects.

    All of which–if one is not in psychoanalysis—should cause those who aren’t some deep scrutiny of their overt behavior and ask just what it is they are about. WYSIWYG prevalent in current American thought remains a matrix full of contradictions operant at many levels composed of conscious fictions and unconscious desires. The overt is not what it seems.

  43. Mark Anderson 2021-08-30 18:10

    You know of these right wing pod casters John Dale, Marc Bernier (you always have to watch for Marcs), Caleb Wallace, Dick Farrel. Tick tock John, that is if you didn’t get your shot.

  44. ds 2021-08-30 20:10

    In Rapid City we sacrifice our children in the name of ‘personal freedom’…God forbid we have them wear a mask….

    Dear Parent or Guardian,
    3rd grades at Rapid Valley have been diagnosed with COVID-19. We are
    We have been informed that four employees and three students in 1st, 2nd, and alerting parents to be watchful for children with symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 illness during the next 14 days. If your child is identified as being a close contact to the COVID-19 case, a SD-DOH official will contact you.

  45. grudznick 2021-08-30 20:17

    Did you fellows see that our old blogging friend, Mr. Stan, is giving away $9,000 to entice people to get the covid bug shot? Good for Mr. Stan. He’s usually a pretty swell fellow, for a libbie.

  46. mike from iowa 2021-08-31 08:21

    This is my idea of karma humor….Kid Rock cancels concerts after half his band tests positive for covid after Sturgis performance.

    Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

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