Holding the Line Press Release | Ramola D | Dec 26, 2021
Journalists united against Covid censorship in the UK, USA, and elsewhere, including this writer, call for a Christmas truce between the vaccinated and unvaccinated factions and urge a revisiting of awareness of basic freedoms for all people of speech, discourse, and medical choice. Christmas Press Release re-posted below, please share widely. Holding The Line posts important news on censorship versus freedom at their website.
Society has become polarised around the issue of Covid vaccines and it is worrying to imagine where this schism could be pushing normally right thinking people.
There are two camps drawing battle lines in the digital world, those who are injected and demand everyone else be injected, and those who want to remain uninjected for now or permanently while keeping their freedoms.
In the non-digital world there is another group, which outnumbers both the other two groups put together, that simply wants the vaccinated and unvaccinated to be able to coexist in peace.
Let’s move back to the first group for a moment, though, as it seeks to influence the largest of the three groups. This group is small in number but sometimes has the platforms to shout loudest.
Without naming names, as HTL understands that hostility against journalists and commentators is rising in parallel with hostility against the unvaccinated, here are some headlines from this month.
The unvaccinated have become a lethal liability we can ill-afford
Make the unnjabbed face their own lockdown so we can live our lives
It’s time to punish Britain’s five million vaccine refuseniks: They put us all at risk of more restrictions. So why shouldn’t we curb some of their freedoms?
There have been several precursors to the robust views above that have also been topped by equally strong headlines in national newspapers this year, including: “No job. No entry. No NHS access; It is only a matter of time before we turn on the unvaccinated.”
The language is stark and unambiguous, and appears to be written by people who believe the unvaccinated are a huge problem for society, a problem great enough to warrant the loss of freedoms and punishment.
The power of these headlines should not be underestimated, indeed many readers only ever read the headlines of a story and perhaps the first two or three paragraphs if the author is lucky.
So how will those headlines make the third group feel, the one that wants to live in peace with their unvaccinated/vaccinated brothers and sisters?
If they are unvaccinated they are possibly going to be feeling anxious and this could lead to fear and even anger against the vaccinated. Perhaps they will be led into thinking many injected people share the opinions expressed in those headlines.
If they are vaccinated they are also possibly going to be feeling anxious and this could lead to fear and even anger against the unvaccinated. Perhaps they will be led into thinking the uninjected could be disrupting everyone’s lives or, worse still, causing the death of others.
And so we now have a split in this third group, many of whom will join with either of the other two groups, depending on their vaccine status.
Is the language used in those headlines something we should be worried about? Are polarised splits in opinion a fact of life, something we just have to deal with? Or is there a way we can encourage respectful debate and perhaps even move aside the debate altogether and allow for peaceful coexistence between opposing groups?
Perhaps a Christmas truce is needed. Even if it is temporary, let us for today try and live with each other, injected and uninjected, accepting and respecting other points of view.
If we can then perhaps hold on to that feeling of mutual respect, it can lead to understanding, and from there to coexistence in peace.
We emailed four major UK newspapers for a right of reply to this article but none responded within the specified time frame of three working days.
Happy holidays to one and all from the team at HTL.
Date: December 25, 2021
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