Across the country there has been a Koch-funded Republican caravan of anti-mask and anti-vaccine protests. The levels of disruption and threats to school boards and students getting back to school has varied. Republican operatives have used this as an issue with which they can promote what is left of their long-abandoned platforms of “small government” and “family values.” Grabbing onto what was once a fringe movement, the GOP has now added more money and resources into the existing anti-vaxxer movement infrastructure and tied it to the general amorphous conspiracy theories the Tea Party and Trump have run on for the last decade. Think Affordable Care Act “death panels.” It’s the same dangerously asinine logic that the conservative movement has used forever to make Americans vote against their best interests.
For as depressing as this battle has been, for how retrograde and counterintuitive its intentions are, there have been some great moments of levity and defiance. On Monday, one teen stepped forward to give us all a moment of righteous exhilaration and cement their place in the pantheon of social heroes fighting to make our world a better place. In a video posted on Twitter, a group of adult protesters on a corner yelled at children as those children walked to school. The group was holding their anti-vaxxer signs, telling the kids to “find out how dangerous these vaccines are.” The young man in question was walking past and piped up to say, “Fuck off!”, stunning the anti-vaxxer parrot, who likely thought someone else’s children were as easy a mark for manipulation as her own.
Enjoy.
One note to make here is that one of the signs prominently displayed includes the “My child my choice” rallying cry of anti-vaxxers everywhere. None of these children are any of these protesters’ “child.” Just one of those things that makes you wonder.
The responses to this heroic feat of F-bombadiering are glorious.
A reminder: Not all heroes wear capes.
From Shakespeare:
“Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he’ll remember with advantages What feats he did that day: then shall our names. Familiar in his mouth as household words Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember’d; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”
And finally my favorite response.
For as depressing as this battle has been, for how retrograde and counterintuitive its intentions are, there have been some great moments of levity and defiance. On Monday, one teen stepped forward to give us all a moment of righteous exhilaration and cement their place in the pantheon of social heroes fighting to make our world a better place. In a video posted on Twitter, a group of adult protesters on a corner yelled at children as those children walked to school. The group was holding their anti-vaxxer signs, telling the kids to “find out how dangerous these vaccines are.” The young man in question was walking past and piped up to say, “Fuck off!”, stunning the anti-vaxxer parrot, who likely thought someone else’s children were as easy a mark for manipulation as her own.
Enjoy.
One note to make here is that one of the signs prominently displayed includes the “My child my choice” rallying cry of anti-vaxxers everywhere. None of these children are any of these protesters’ “child.” Just one of those things that makes you wonder.
The responses to this heroic feat of F-bombadiering are glorious.
A reminder: Not all heroes wear capes.
From Shakespeare:
“Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he’ll remember with advantages What feats he did that day: then shall our names. Familiar in his mouth as household words Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember’d; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”
And finally my favorite response.