That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, and aeroplanes. And Lenny Bruce is not afraid…

Turns out that R.E.M. were not as prophetic as we all might have hoped, for as @bj_flemming pointed out on the Twitterer this morning:

Chances are though, that Lenny Bruce would have been a little more afraid, or deeply concerned at least if he had watched the Plandemic video that has been all over the internets. A documentary type video consisting of a single interview between the filmmaker and virologist Judy Mikovits.

Invitation to a Plandemic

A friend on Facebook dropped the video into my inbox [about a week later than everyone else it seems – sounds like this thing was all over the place last week so not sure how i dodged that one] and i gave it a watch.

It is very convincing to a layperson like me who doesn’t have any medical knowledge and is suddenly hearing doctoring types talk about masks being ineffective and how we need to be on the beaches because of the stuff in the sand that… [okay, on second thoughts that bit does sound a little].

Do the work!

But fortunately, i am also someone who typically likes to check things out before i share stuff on social media [great skill everybody, work at this one!]. So i contacted a doctor i know from my school days and she was gracious enough to call me and chat to me for a good half hour on the phone after she watched the video.

In a nutshell, it really does seem to be a conspiracy theory piece that is light on truth. It is not completely without benefit though and i can’t believe it took me close to a day before i got it – Planned Epidemic – Plandemic – very clever. But that’s about it.

And so i posted a thing and some people got quite enthusiastic about me suggesting that very thing and memes were debated!

Some resources you might find useful

i don’t want this to be a long piece and so we’re not going to be discussing the ins and outs of why i believe that to be true. Although let me just say that Google is your friend You have a friend in Google!].

It doesn’t take long to join the dots on this one. But if you found the video convincing [or maybe you have friends who have been urgently trying to sell you the notion] then here is a helpful article by Beth Skwarecki that gives you some much-needed insight. As is this piece on The Logic of Science website which looks specifically at the claims made by two doctors (Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi) in California who you see in Plandemic.

For those of you who already believe it to be a little flat earthy, here is a helpful piece by Tara Haelle which gives you insight on why then video is so powerful and gives some advice on how to push back effectively when you know people who have bought into it.

Edit: was just passed another really helpful article telling some of the story of Virologist Peter Piot who had a history of fighting Ebola and HIV before contracting COVID-19.

The danger behind

It might also be helpful to know that Facebook has been removing posts that promote Plandemic under the reasoning that a claim in the video [relating to mask-wearing being dangerous] ‘could lead to imminent harm’.

Something like Plandemic is not simply just a nuisance piece. It is dangerous. Because it is slickly made and it does seem to have an agenda. And people are eating it up. We can’t just sit back and hope it goes away. We need to be able to understand how to engage with those who believe it to be true.

These are confusing times and information is being updated every day. What we thought was true last week might be proven wrong this week. This is why it is so important for us to do the best we can when taking on information and sharing it.

Hopefully, these two articles, plus this one where Politifact fact-checked eight of the most misleading claims from the video, will provide you with some helpful resources.

There is enough crazy and messed up and confusing in the world at the moment without needing misleading information building up momentum around us. And if this has not helped you feel a little more fine about the state of the world, maybe these guys can help…

And if you haven’t seen the video yet, maybe give this one a miss[kovits!]