The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Rocking in the Free World - Or Is It?

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

How the right is trying to co-opt protest music for their own spin on the pandemic and how some artists are fighting back.  Plus is there about to be a vaccine breakthrough on a centuries old virus?�� And why do some people get red spots and soreness when they get the needle?

Hello there, I'm Peter Mansbridge. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, where we're going to go rocking in the free world. Like you, I have been so grateful and so thankful for frontline workers during the COVID crisis. Let's just talk about the frontline workers at SickKids, which is one of the world's best children's hospitals. SickKids doctors also work behind the scenes on incredible breakthroughs to help our kids and generations to come. Listen to their inspiring stories in a new season of the popular podcast called SickKids Versus. Each episode explores a major SickKids discovery, like, well, a virus-fighting supermolec molecule or a cure for hard-to-treat cancers. Just visit sickkidsfoundation.com slash podcast or search SickKids versus and spell versus VS. So SickKids VS. You'll be amazed at what you learn. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here once again.

And yes, this is the bridge for Tuesday. Approaching hump day. But still, it's just Tuesday. And we got something, well, a little different. You heard me plugging Rockin' in the Free World? Great song, great music. What's it got to do with the bridge? Well, you're about to find out.

All of you know that Isaac Bogoch is one of our infectious disease specialists that we use regularly here on the bridge. A doctor at the University of Toronto and very involved on a lot of fronts on fighting the pandemic. And he's been a regular feature on different media broadcasts, you know, for the last year

and certainly been a big part of the bridge and we really appreciate his time. Well, yesterday he said something, not here on the bridge. I'm not sure where it was. But I saw it picked up in one of the news reports that were circulating last night and I love it.

It's a great quote. He was being asked about something some politician had said, which he clearly disagreed with, but he was being diplomatic, and so his answer was, well, you know, there's optics, there's politics, and then there's public health and medicine. There's optics, there's politics, and then there's public health and medicine. That's kind of the same thing as saying smoke mirrors and the truth, right?

But for us, smoke mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson is on Wednesdays. But today we're going to talk a little bit about this idea of optics, politics, versus public health and medicine, because obviously there's a difference. And we see it played out in our life almost every day. And through the pandemic, we've seen, you know, we've seen the NDP and the Liberals go after the Conservatives in Alberta. We've seen the NDP and the Liberals go after the Conservatives in Ontario. And we've seen the Conservatives go after the Liberals in Ottawa.

And they all kind of use the same approach, the same strategy. And it's exactly what Isaac was talking about yesterday. They use optics and politics versus or instead of public health and medicine. Now, should we be surprised by this? I don't think so. Because this has been politics in Canada and elsewhere for years, decades. Where you put your kind of political spin. You try to create

an optic which, you know, isn't a lie, but it's not really the truth. And you try to use it for your advantage. So you put your spin on it. And that is part of the political game. It just is. Always has been. It doesn't matter what your party is, what your stripe is. But there are times in a country's life or a province's life or a city's life

where you kind of hope that these people who play the political game will kind of set it aside for a while. And they will go to one of the other great Canadian strengths. Consensus. Compromise. And try to find some middle ground. Especially at a time of perceived crisis. And what more could you ask for in terms of a crisis than a pandemic

that's taking thousands of lives? Still here, more than a year after it began. We're in what Dr. Zane Jagla described yesterday as the worst of the last wave. We hope it's the last wave, but that's the term he used. I'd suggested the worst of the third wave. He said, let's make it the worst of the last wave, because he truly believes that the vaccines have crunched this thing and will continue to do so.

And if we stay on that pattern of getting vaccines and we convince those who are hesitant to get so, and if we stay on that pattern of getting vaccines, and we convince those who are hesitant to get vaccines, that this is the last worst wave. But to my point, compromise, consensus. There are times in every nation's life, and there certainly have times in every nation's life, and there certainly have been in this nation's life, where that has existed. Perhaps the greatest example was a century ago,

during the First World War, when the federal government became a coalition government. And they set aside elections for that period of time. And they worked together. In Britain, the Churchill government during the Second World War was in a form of a coalition government. The opposition leader was brought in. I think he was Clement Antley. I think he was the Deputy Prime Minister, certainly a significant figure in the

cabinet. And this is a war. It's been described by many as a war. You know, Isaac Bogoch on this program last week described it, said we are in a time of war. We're fighting an enemy. That enemy is the virus. But nevertheless,

we see day after day, and this isn't relegated to one party. They all do this. There's optics, there's politics, and then there's public health and medicine. Smoke mirrors in the truth. So, when I saw that, I thought of this article that I'd read last week in The Guardian, and I went and got it, brought it back. Because this is not a direct comparison with that quote and those issues that Dr. Bogoch was talking about.

But in a way, it's the same kind of thing. It's how you push your spin as a political party on something that's clearly not designed for that. It's something that's popular in a general way, and you try to co-opt it into your camp. And that's why I was teasing you with the headline, Rocking in the Free World. Here's why.

You a Bruce Springsteen fan? It's hard not to be, you know. It really is hard not to be a Bruce Springsteen fan. And of his many, many, many hits, one of the most popular, one of the best known, is Born in the USA. I'm a Bruce Springsteen fan, although I've never seen Bruce Springsteen live. I can remember my friend Alan Gregg, the great Alan Gregg, telling me in, it would have been the late 1970s, that he

had just seen Bruce Springsteen at a concert in Ottawa. I can't remember where it, you know, it was before Bruce Springsteen became this enormous megastar. And Ottawa was on the path of many of these people who wanted to become megastar. And Ottawa was on the path of many of these people who wanted to become megastars. Bob Dylan used to go to Ottawa in the late 50s. And early 60s and play in, you know, in bars. But Springsteen, who was in Ottawa,

for some reason, I think the concert was at the National Arts Center, but it was before he became this megastar. But whatever, I can remember Alan telling me, this guy is fantastic. He's not just a great singer and a great writer. He's a great performer. And he was on stage for hours. And he's still that way.

All these years later when he does a concert, he'll stay there for hours. So why am I mentioning Bruce Springsteen? Well, you probably, you may well have heard during the last weeks, months of the United States election, that the Trump campaign, Donald Trump's people, kind of co-opted Born in the USA. They were playing it at his rallies. And it drove Springsteen nuts for two reasons. One, he never

asked for permission to use this music. Certainly wasn't paying rights for it. But Springsteen said, does he not understand what that song is about? It was lashing out against the Vietnam War. It was an anti-war protest song. But, you know, a lot of people, ourselves included, kind of forget that. Or we never knew it.

We love the song. We love the music. We love the beat. We love the refrain on born in the usa and we kind of hum the you know the verses in between because we can't recite them verbatim i know that some of you sitting there right now are listening on your podcast as you're running around town or biking or whatever you're doing, and you're going, I know every word to Born in the USA. What are you talking about, Mansbridge?

Well, good for you. I'm glad you do. I would suggest the majority don't know every word to Born in the USA, just like they don't know every word to a lot of other songs they hum from the 60s, 70s, 80s. Every word to Born in the USA. Just like they don't know every word to a lot of other songs they hum. From the 60s, 70s, 80s. And that's what the Trump people were counting on, I'm sure. We know that song.

We know it's Bruce. It's the boss. And my gosh, he's singing for Trump. Well, of course, he wasn't singing for Trump. And he wasn't alone because some of the, you know, you can say what you want about some of those right-wing campaigns. Some of the people behind them knew exactly what they were doing. So the Guardian article written by Luke Ottenhoff is basically an inside-the-right-wing takeover of protest music.

You might want to look it up. There's a lot of really interesting stuff in it. You know, and Springsteen's music wasn't alone. And the Trump campaign wasn't alone. You know, the band The Clash? Their status as a leftist punk icon band, really, has been a sticking point for Boris Johnson, who named the band one of his favorites in 2019.

Clash didn't like that. But Boris Johnson, BJ, Bojo, he looked good on that for his group. Same with Rage Against the Machine. Socialism and anti-police stance has been a problem for anti-mask truthers and Trump diehards

who last year blasted the bands killing in the name at a Trump rally. Neil Young, our guy, the great Neil Young, Canada's Neil Young, had to weigh in after Trump repeatedly used his anti-America song Rockin' in the Free World, at campaign events. Same thing, great music, great beat, great refrain, Rockin' in the Free World. And a lot of people just humming on the verses in between because they couldn't remember them or they didn't know them

or they'd never known them and had no idea that it was really an anti-America song. Now, Neil Young tried to sue the Trump campaign. I think he's pulled that suit back now. But he said, I can't in a good conscience allow my music to be used as a theme song for a divisive, un-American campaign of ignorance and hate. Twisted Sister, you know that band? Lead singer, J.J. French.

I guess one of their big songs, and you hear it all over the place. You hear it in hockey rinks. We're not going to take it. We're not going to take it. Okay, I can't sing. But that, too, has been co-opted by the anti-lockdown people. So I find this all, you know, I find it all, I got to thinking this when I listened to Dr. Bogoch on what he was, his smoke mirrors and the truth comparison. Because sure enough, you know, that's what's happening with some music, right?

They're just taking it because they're twisting it into their position. Now, there's a whole history, obviously, in terms of this issue. So much so that Noriko Manabe of Temple University in the u.s says it's been this way for centuries this is in this guardian article i suggest you look up if you want to read it's quite it's a lengthy one there's a lot of good stuff in it but he says folk songs were reinterpreted and rewritten by opposing social and political groups. Similarly, in the 18th century America, songs that were once used by loyalist or anti-loyalist groups in England were adapted by warring Federalists and Republican factions. Manabe says that popular music has always been an effective organizing and emotion-rousing

tool, no matter which way you twist it. Another observer says, beyond the emotional triggers, the co-opting is part of an effort to link conservatism to rebellion, and the idea that to be conservative is to be rebellious. This crops up in younger conservatives and Trump supporters and even more visibly in anti-mask and anti-lockdown movements. The anti-mask movement, at least on its face, is about don't tell me what to do. You can find that all over popular music. There's so much pop music about freedom and being able to do what you want. Okay. Let me wrap this up with

a quote from J.J. French, remember, from Twisted Sister. Twisted Sister. When asked about, you know, what are you going to do about this, them co-opting your songs? He says, all any artist can really do is to publicly shame the user into stopping the use. But artist rebukes and social media parody can only do so much to staunch the appropriation.

The far-right's acceleration of this tactic could demand a more comprehensive, proactive approach. Well, we'll see where it all goes. As I mentioned with Boris Johnson, this isn't just an American thing and there have been I can remember there were issues surrounding some of the music that conservatives were using in one of the Stephen Harper campaigns I can't remember which song it was, which band it was, or what the resolution was, but it did kind of end. I think they stopped using the music, actually. Just to, you know, prevent too much of a blowback on it. But there you go.

Little smoke mirrors and the truth while we're rocking in the free world there. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, something about a vaccine that's been sought for decades, if not centuries, and it appears to be on the verge of breaking through. That's when we come back. Are you still trying to find ways to get into the world of crypto? Well, look no further. Bitbuy is Canada's number one platform for buying and selling Bitcoin

and other cryptocurrencies. Bitbuy has launched a brand new app and website with a new look, lower fees, and new coins. Bitbuy is your one-stop shop to get involved and super easy to use for beginners. Visit bitbuy.ca or download the Bitbuy app. Enter referral code podcast20 to get $20 free when you make your first deposit. I remember when I was, it's one of the few memories I have when I was very, very young. We're talking, you know, low single digits. I was born in England, as I've told you before.

And we, early childhood was actually in what was then Malaya, now Malaysia, in KL, Kuala Lumpur. And I remember at night, because we were living right along the equator, so it was always very hot. Lots of big thunderstorms, like thunderstorms like you've never heard before. That's a Trumpism. I've been so good like you've never seen good before.

I'm as good as as good as ever been in history. Well, it was like those thunderstorms in KL, unlike anything I've ever heard since. But one of the things you used to do at night there is you would sleep with a mosquito net around your bed. It's like a tent. And the great fear in areas like that, and still exists today, was what some mosquitoes carry. They carry the malaria virus, which is one of the great killers of our time, and has been for at least the last couple of hundred years.

I think it's still 400,000 people a year die from malaria. And it's mostly transmitted by mosquitoes. So obviously, for 200 years, they've been looking for a cure for malaria. And looking for that cure has meant looking for, at least in the last century, for a vaccine that will work. People have won Nobel Prizes for their work on trying to find a successful vaccine for malaria. Now, why do we talk about this now?

We talk about it now because I don't think most of us appreciate the unbelievable speed in which a vaccine, a number of vaccines have been found for the coronavirus. You know, a year, less than a year, and they were into phase three testing. And now we have this incredible display of vaccines out there for COVID.

And there are at least four different ones. There are four available in Canada now. Pfizer and Moderna, AstraZeneca, and now Johnson & Johnson. Well, for malaria, they seem to be on the verge. Finally, after all these years, after all these decades, after a couple of centuries, at least a couple of centuries. I mean, there were reports going back to when they used to call this the Roman disease. They came up with the, you know, Hippocrates, the great Hippocrates,

called it the Roman fever. You know, the guy who came up with the Hippocratic Oath that all doctors take. So it's been around a long, long time. It's 1829. My history books tell me that they started calling it malaria. And what does malaria mean? Mal, bad, area, air, bad air. That's where the term came from.

Anyway, after all the study, they are now seemingly on the verge. 450 children, it's mainly kids that get malaria, right? And mostly in Africa. But 450 children from Burkina Faso, aged between 5 months and 17 months, participated in a series of trials, which took place over a 12-month period.

They were split into three groups, with one group receiving a high dose of the vaccine that was being worked on by the same people who came up with AstraZeneca. All right? Same place, Oxford University. Another group receiving a low dose, and one group getting a placebo. They've gone through phase one and phase two,

and they're now into phase three. The phase two group had an efficacy rate of 77%. That's very good. I mean, we're used to the 90s now because of Pfizer and Moderna. But a 77% efficacy rate going through the second phase of trials is very good. And so they're working,

the Oxford University group are working with two areas, Serum Institute of India, which has been the biggest vaccine maker in the world, under huge stress right now because of the problems in India, and a Maryland-based vaccine maker, Novavax. They've started recruiting for phase three trials, and they're into that now. So obviously, I'm telling you this story because there's great hope that this terrible virus can finally be defeated through a vaccine.

Or at least you can be protected against the virus by a vaccine. I'm telling you this because it's been a fight for a couple of hundred years at least, which only underlines how remarkable it is that science and medicine, who we trust with our lives, have come up so quickly with a vaccine for COVID. And yet, every day you can hear people complaining, it's not fast enough. Where's my vaccine? Why can't I get it? Like yesterday. Come on.

They're producing millions of vaccines. Hundreds of millions of vaccines. Through a, and for a world stressed by this. And they're doing it in a little more than a year since they even discovered the virus. It's amazing. Okay, going to close out with something that's still vaccine related. I don't know about you.

When you got your vaccine, if you've been lucky enough to get it so far, did you suffer any kind of side effects? I had AstraZeneca. I didn't. I was a little tired the day after and two days after, but other than that, nothing. I've had some of my friends talk about some side effects that they've had on different vaccines they've had,

but that they only lasted a couple of days. One of the most common is that kind of redness you get in your arm, right? Well, National Geographic did a piece recently which talks about that whole issue of the soreness. You know, why do certain shots hurt so much? Why do some people feel more pain than others? And why some don't feel any pain at all? I felt no pain. In fact, I don't recall any vaccine that I've had over time.

I've had a lot of them. I don't recall ever having any sort of post-needle soreness or pain. So anyway, National Geographic does this piece, and among other things it says, the good news experts say is that arm pain and even rashes are normal responses to the injection of foreign substances into our bodies. Getting that reaction at the site is exactly what we would expect a vaccine to do, that is trying to mimic a pathogen without causing the disease.

That's according to Deborah Fuller, a vaccinologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. you know that and they do a great kind of analogy they say look it's kind of like that by the way like nevertheless there's another one of those phrases i use all the time i've discovered kind of like i I always say that. I got to work on that. Anyway, the comparison that some of these experts use is it's similar to a, you know, a battle that's going on and you're trying to protect a hill

when suddenly the enemy makes an incursion that grabs part of the hill. So the experts say, within minutes or even seconds of getting vaccinated or detecting a virus, antigen-presenting cells also send out danger signals. The mosses essentially say, this is like the battle scenario,

hey, there's something here that doesn't belong. You guys should come here. We should get rid of it. And that's what happens in your body. It rushes to that area. And then it gets really confusing with all the medical terminology. But basically, when that kind of battle between your body's best sources and the bad stuff they've injected into you starts taking place, that's why it gets so painful.

The innate immune response doesn't stop at the arm. For some people, the same inflammatory process can also cause fevers, body aches, joint pain, rashes, or headaches. But the bottom line is, those are all good signals. Obviously, it's great if your body is able to handle all this stuff without causing you discomfort. But the very fact you're getting discomfort underlines the fact that the process is taking place the way it should take place.

And the fact that over in a couple of days says, hey, the good guys won. Okay? Anyway, there's a lot more in that National Geographic piece, which you can also find online if you wish. But I thought it was an interesting thing to read. All right, tomorrow's Wednesday, and you know what Wednesday means? It means the real smoke, mirrors, and the truth with Bruce Anderson.

He joins us from Ottawa. I have an idea of something to talk about tomorrow, but I haven't floated it by Bruce yet to make sure he's into it. If he is, I think you're going to find it not only interesting but timely in terms of what else is going on tomorrow. It'll give you a good background to understand what's going on in certain ways tomorrow. That's tomorrow. Friday, of course, is the weekend special.

Your thoughts on any subject, send them in. We'd love to get a reflection of the country. Make sure you add your name and the location from which you're writing. Okay. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge. Thanks so much for listening. Really appreciate your time.

If you want to write, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. In the meantime, we'll talk to you again in 24 hours.