^{John C. A. Manley | December 24, 2020}

For Christmas, my wife and I sent our local provincial and federal representatives, as well as the mayor, gift-wrapped copies of Corona: False Alarm?…

I had meant to mail copies back in November (along with this letter) but ended up giving those books away to neighbours and the management at my parent’s retirement home. So I had to order more from our local bookstore; they arrived just in time for Christmas gifts.

(In addition, we also sent a copy to Loreena McKennitt — the world-renowned celtic musician, who lives in our city, and is currently leading a protest against a Chinese manufacturing plant.)

I’ve no idea if the books will have any influence on those politicians. They seem to ignore reason and science. Are they evil? Blackmailed? Do they have guns to their heads? Are they incapable of critical thought?

In the end, they are leaders, and leaders should be shepherds. My hope is that one of them may be a good shepherd who only needs a little direction.

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of a (very) “good shepherd.” Whether you believe in the authenticity of the Biblical Jesus or not, the essence of the “greatest story ever told” may still hold true for you. (Personally, I much prefer the nativity story found in the non-canonical Book of St. James.)

Jesus was born into a country under the tyrannical rule of the Roman Empire and a culture under the dictates of hypocritical Jewish priests. The Romans were expected to be wolves; but the priests were supposed to be shepherds. Yet even Jesus called these shepherds, “You snakes! You brood of vipers!”(Matthew 23:33).

This is what we have today, bad shepherds pretending to be good shepherds. Or, as Jordan Henderson illustrated in his recent painting, Sheeps, Shepherds and a Goat, most political, medical and media leaders are actually wolves disguised as shepherds, as you can see in this detail:

Today, our shepherds tell the sheeple to harm themselves with lockdowns, isolation, face masks, experimental vaccines and sanitizers; yet pretend they are protecting them from a harmful pandemic that doesn’t really exist.

The poor sheeple. Alas, one thing I’ve avoided in all my writing is labelling those who have accepted the COVID-19 hoax as sheep. It always seemed derogatory and divisional. Hence, I was reluctant to share Henderson’s painting because it depicted the masses as sheep — though rather cleverly, as humans with sheep horns — as you can see below:

Upon greater reflection, however, I came to realize: What’s wrong with a sheep? They’re obedient, reliable, gentle and easy to work with. One has to wonder if civilization could not exist without the sheeple. Nothing would probably get done, as we all debate the best way to do it.

So, instead of blaming others for being sheep, I think we really need to blame our leaders (political, medical, media, etc.) for not being good shepherds. Many leaders, I think, have no business being leaders. They are sheep who have been given the role of shepherd, so that they can be controlled by the wolves. Others, as Henderson’s painting illustrates, are simply wolves, pretending to be shepherds.

It’s hard to know who is who. Randy Hillier, the outspoken Canadian parliamentarian from Kingston, Ontario, certainly seems like a good shepherd. I rather hope Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta, might simply be a good shepherd, gone astray. People like Anthony Fauci, however, I see as a wolf beyond redemption.

Regardless of the leaders, for better or for worse, the masses are going to be sheep. With the right shepherds, they will be nice sheep who will help make the world better. With the wrong shepherds, they’ll angrily drive themselves and society to death and destruction, as Henderson illustrates is his painting:

What we need to do for the sheeple is point them towards good shepherds. That has been largely what I’ve been trying to do with MuchAdoAboutCorona.ca — send them to the journalists, doctors and political leaders who truly have their well-being in mind; and keep them away from the wolves who will have us sacrifice our livelihood, family, society, assets, health, freedom and life on the new normal altar of COVID-19.

I, myself, am no shepherd. Nor have I ever made a good sheep. I’m the goat depicted in Henderson’s painting:

A goat doesn’t want to follow. I know, I used to live on a farm in Southern California. We had goats. Well, we lived with goats. Only Jimmy, the old desert rat, could herd them (who died on Christmas morning 1999 in his sleep)…

When Jimmy was away, others would try. It never worked out. They’d milk the goat and immediately she would stick her hoof in the bucket while she peed in it.

Goats do things their own way… quite unlike sheep.

You can spend all day telling the sheeple to think for themselves. They don’t want to. They want to be led. At best you can get them to think about who will lead them. Facts and figures are not leaders. As a neighbour told me, “I need experts to interpret the data.”

I hope Henderson paints a sequel, that would be displayed to the left, showing to whom the goat is pointing to. Those sheeple need good shepherds. They’d rather be led to their doom then wander out on their own. And they aren’t going to follow a goat. And the goat doesn’t want followers, anyway.

That is why in my most recent flyer, 20 Reasons Mandatory Face Masks are Unsafe, Ineffective and Immoral, I quoted many authorities, rather than just studies. That’s what the sheep want — good shepherds. So, in the New Year, I’ll be quoting more good shepherds, and less thought-provoking facts.

Goats like us, can find facts easy enough. And we are good at separating the bad shepherds from the good shepherds from the outright wolves. Once we’ve done that, we need to be like that goat in Henderson’s painting, or the wise men in the nativity story, pointing out for the masses where the trusted shepherds reside.

With the darkest day of the year behind us, I encourage us all —whether you’re a sheep, goat or sleeping shepherd — to help direct this corona-cazed masses away from the shadows of lies, fear and insanity to the light of truth, love and sanity.