Originally published at: Advocate for keeping masks in healthcare settings followed, harassed, and hit by a car after testifying at the LA County Public Health Commission meeting | Boing Boing
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“Anyone who objects to the vaccines or points to vaccine adverse reporting are dismissed as right-wing conspiracy theorists. I am not right wing.”
For now. There are few better candidates for becoming a beefsteak Nazi than a brocialist anti-vaxxer and anti-masker. A year from now Ian Jameson will take the next step on that path by alternating the Bernie t-shirt with an RFK Jr one.
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Prior to COVID, a good number of anti-vaxxers were people who were otherwise left of center politically. I think of people like Mayim Bialik, who now tries to claim she was never anti-vax. The political flip of anti-vaxxers has been an interesting phenomenon that, once we’re through it, will probably make for an interesting scholarly paper.
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At least these harassing fuck-wits stayed true to their “no-mask” stance; making them easy to identify.
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Big pharma had earned itself a well-deserved reputation as a bad corporate citizen, so it was easy enough to convince some conspiracists on the far left that vaccination was yet another corporate plot. The twisting of pro-choice rhetoric into anti-science woo (the “bodily autonomy” line) reeks of deliberate right-wing/Libertarian ratf*cking, though.
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Let me just call bullshit on this. Skepticism of corporate America is warranted and admirable. Disregarding decades of science to push a “my ignorance is as good as your knowledge” position is just disingenuous. He is correct that traditionally, vaccine skeptics were more to the crunchy left side of things, but the GQP made it an antiscience position and coopted a lot of the leftists into their camps. It wasn’t the left that made it a political position. Alex Jones and co. are not leftists. The asshole surgeon general in FL is not a leftist. Just say no to assholes.
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Nothing says, “my opinion is uninformed and likely useless” like preferring to harass someone from your car rather than provide public comment in a setting designed for it. Also, I am highly skeptical of Ian’s (why are they so often called Ian?) political leanings. The Bernie shirt, the founding of an org with “LEFTIST” in the name, the inconsistent bodily autonomy stance. He a Libertarian in lefty clothing. Literally.
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oh, he also provided public comment at the hearing – there’s videos floating around X if you care to listen. it’s the same old ‘body autonomy’ and ‘medical freedom’ shiz
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at first reading i thought the driver and the harassers were together, but no: it looks like he was trying to get space from the people harassing him and then someone hit him apparently because the driver was… tired of waiting? ( “get off the road. i’ve been honking.” ) 
( eta: to fix the quote. also he appeared to be in the cross walk )
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He said “Medical freedom means that the government has no right to interfere with your private medical decisions” I wonder if he’s pro-choice.
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the government has no right to interfere with your private medical decisions,
But social medical decisions (like quarantining you if you had smallpox or insisting kids get measles, mumps, rubella jabs, etc) are ENTIRELY legitimate concerns of government, whose first duty is to protect its citizens - and that includes from epidemics of diseases that can be prevented but for the fuckwitted bleatings of a small but vocal bunch of wilfully ignorant and misinformed arseholes.
(Umm - was that clear enough, as to which side of this fence I am on?) 
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Masks are such a simple, cheap, non-invasive way to protect yourself and others from airborne particles I can’t see why you would associate them with big pharma and medical tyranny.
A good leftist should be more exercised about the massive attack on sexual and reproductive health being waged through anti-abortion law.
Plus, masks and vaccines have become so politicised in the US that being ‘anti’ is a glaring marker for being a Republican.
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Yes, and…remember all the breathless coverage about Obama’s perceived lack of action when it came to e-bola?
I still remember a group of Repubs rage-screaming at the tv news coverage playing in an airport bar I was sitting at at the time the nurse Kaci Hickox came back to the US from West Africa. Someone said, “they just shouldn’t let those people into the country at all!” All kinds of nods of assent.
But asking you to wear a mask is, apparently, just going too far.
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Ok, I think I have a fix. What if, we make this into like, the world’s largest TAG (The Assassination Game). We sell hypodermic dart guns and darts loaded with vaccines, and you buy into a hit list of unvaccinated individuals. Libertarians love their guns and shooting people. Now we can get them to shoot each other and increase vaccination rates!
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I’d be curious if he could talk in detail about Bernie’s statements and positions on anything.
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Given the rest of his schtick, it’s doubtless just a “Bernie = lefty” shorthand. None of these idiots is capable of much nuance.
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They have very few ways to release the built-up bile, and possibly none that involves prudent behavior.
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