Editor’s Note

DISCOVER OJAI MONTHLY

Bret Bradigan

THE GREAT UNMASKING

"A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can put on its pants.” — Winston Churchill

There’s a consensus in Ojai that we mind our own business and yet we are all in it together. We live poised between those poles of self and selflessness. So when there’s a gross violation of the common good, we all feel as if our world view is threatened. The graffiti recently emblazoned across the school district headquarters, smack dab in the middle of downtown, is a good example.

If there were to be a city motto for Ojai, I’d vote for Thomas Jefferson’s quote: ‘‘I don’t care what you do, so long as you don’t pick my pocket or break my bones.’’ The anti-vaccination crowd does both. By prioritizing their ‘‘freedoms’’ over the health and welfare of the community, they put at risk everyone, especially those with co-morbidities.

There’s also the trillion-dollar cost of such a major economic disruption, which goes well beyond statistics to a very personal tragedy for millions of us. As someone noted about the death of Colin Powell, ‘‘(he) didn’t die because he was vaccinated, he died because you weren’t.’’

The rapid and rampant spread of mis- and disinformation accelerates like a cyclone through the internet. No calm facts and reasoned risk can compete against the dumpster fire of innumeracy and bad-faith actors. Science can’t compete against hearsay and anecdotes that are so much more persuadable. That’s human nature. Your ex-boyfriend’s cousin’s dubious account trumps the Centers for Disease Control every time.

People who march to the beat of their own drummer seem to be on their way to Ojai. Oddballs and misfits are just friends and neighbors here. But those who deface our public buildings with four-foot high letter spelling out their angry grievances aren’t. I hope that the security cams lead to their arrests and that pissed-off judges exact a just toll for what they’ve done. It’s more than just graffiti, it’s symbolic of a breakdown in social trust.

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