Tim Robbins Apologizes To Unvaccinated For Being Wrong On Covid Policy

Tim Robbins Apologizes To Unvaccinated For Being Wrong On Covid Policy

Nov. 13, 2022

The Jimmy Dore Show

Oligarchism, Totalitarianism, Capitalism, Authoritarianism

"Robbins on the unvaccinated: "I bought into it. I demonized people. I was guilty of everything that I came to understand was not healthy."

~Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) October 26, 2022

Actor Tim Robbins was like everyone else in suddenly having both more time to think, and more unpleasant things to think about. Among other things, as a leader of The Actors' Gang theater company, Robbins had to work through what living in a world of mandated long-term isolation might mean. What if people were no longer forced into contact with one another?

"I wondered," he recalls now, "'What happens when you eliminate the water cooler conversation?'"

Would we miss that "difficult conversation with someone who's not one of your friends, but a coworker and a human being," who's "saying something that is not the way you see the world, but he's right there and you have to hear it"? Robbins felt we might, because confronting a live human being forces people to use parts of their brain the Internet encourages them to bypass.

"When you eliminate that conversation, and everyone goes into isolation, and has their own little silos of thought, that's incredibly dangerous for society. Because now you're isolated to the point where you'll no longer have any kind of discussion," he says. Instead, he worries, "You'll just have that little room you go into where everyone agrees with you, and we all say, 'Fuck those other people.'"

Years later, the Oscar-winning actor known for left-liberal advocacy finds his thinking has shifted in significant ways. In part this is because the entertainment business remains mired in high-vigilance mode when it comes to pandemic restrictions, with an omerta still hovering over vaccine-related questions. Robbins himself was with the program early, which he now seems to regret. "I was guilty of everything that I came to understand was not healthy," he says now. "I demonized people."

However, he soon began to wonder why certain rules were being kept long after they lost real-world utility. For instance, deals struck in 2021 between studios and powerful unions like SAG-AFTRA, the Directors' Guild of America, and Actors' Equity barred the unvaccinated not just from working, but auditioning. This maybe, possibly made sense when the vaccines were thought to prevent transmission. But now?

"I get it. I understand the fear. I was there," Robbins says. "But we've restricted people from working for too long."

"I heard people saying, 'If you didn't take the vaccine and you get sick, you don't have a right to a hospital bed," he says. "It made me think about returning to a society where we care about each other. Your neighbor would be sick, and you'd bring over some soup. It didn't matter what their politics were, you're their fucking neighbor," he says, shaking his head.

"I think we lost a lot of ourselves during this time."

Robbins admits he did as told at the start of the pandemic lockdowns. That included demonizing those who didn't follow the government narratives. In short, he was part of the problem, and he has no qualms about admitting it.

Original: https://youtu.be/WFVgwGYeiJU

https://scheerpost.com/2022/10/26/tim-robbins-and-the-lost-art-of-finding-common-ground/

Kurt Metzger on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kurtmetzger
Kurt's website: http://www.KurtMetzgerComedy.com

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