James Karinchak finds vaccines to be oppressive, although that's not the real news here. Not to judge a book by its cover, but that kind of medical opinion is common and maybe even expected from a kegerator-shaped reliever who loves to yell at himself. No, what stands out about the Cleveland pitcher's take on vaccines is that he went so far as to compare it to a bunk quote misattributed to Nazi Party deputy Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials. This is entirely too early in Karinchak's baseball career to go full Schilling. Don't go full Schilling!
Earlier today, Karinchak shared this post, from a pandemic truther and weightlifter named Jay Nera, to his Instagram story. That's typically a good source of information on the coronavirus. You can measure the power of this post because of how "FEAR" and "SCARE" are red and in all caps. Do you believe in society's lies?
If Nazism is the coronavirus vaccine in this analogy, what is ... the coronavirus? It's difficult to follow. In any case, Goering never said this. In March, Reuters attempted to find the quote's origin, and concluded it definitely wasn't said by him:
Simone Paulmichl, a spokesperson for the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History in Munich and Berlin (here), told Reuters via email that the none of the institute’s experts had seen the alleged Goering quote in historical sources.Paulmichl also said that the institute had seen the same alleged Goering quote circulating last year among followers of the sprawling QAnon conspiracy theory (here).Paulmichl said the quote was likely a manipulated excerpt from the 1947 book "Nuremberg Diary" by Gustave M. Gilbert (here), a psychologist who had access to the prisoners during the trials.[...]Reminded by Gilbert that “in a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives,” Goering told him that “voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
Karinchak probably won't be elaborating on any further details of this analogy, since he's already deleted the post from his Instagram story. Maybe he remembered how Cleveland's clubhouse reacted last August when fellow pitcher Zach Plesac and now-former teammate Mike Clevinger acted like dipshits about COVID-19.
H/t to @jonbecker_
