Oscar-winning actor Tim Robbins admits that he “regrets” falling for the lies pushed by the government and corporate press, surrounding discriminatory Covid measures and Covid vaccines that “do not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid-19.”
In an interview with investigative reporter Matt Taibbi, Robbins said he initially believed the safe and effective propaganda about Covid at the start of the pandemic, but ultimately realized it was all predicated on lies.
“I totally understood it in the first year. I was compliant with everything. I locked down, I isolated, I was away from people for seven months. I bought into it. I demonized people. I was guilty of everything that I came to understand was not healthy,” Robbins admitted.
When lockdown restrictions suddenly waned during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Robbins began to realize Covid was about instituting a political agenda.
“I was angry at people that weren’t wearing masks, and protesting about it in Orange County,” he said. “Yet, a month later I was protesting for BLM in the streets with a mask on. A week after that, I kind of had to do a self-check on that. I knew there was a little bit of hypocrisy going on there
“I had a really good friend that died from it early on. I was angry. I was fearful, and I did everything I could to help stop the spread, but also I kept my eyes open and at my age, I think one of the most important things that I’ve been able to do is understand that I’m not right all the time, and I have to check myself and see where the hypocrisy lay. So I started having more questions.”
Inmates suddenly being released from prison during the pandemic also prompted Robbins, leader of The Actors’ Gang theater company, to further question the illogical narrative propagated by the Covid enterprise.
“It provided us an opportunity to hire more returning citizens, the ones that had done their time and were being paroled, which was another bizarre thing — you had guys that were in jail for 30 years that got out right during Covid, and went right back into isolation,” he said. “Isn’t that insane?”
Robbins railed against discriminatory Covid measures that only permitted the vaccinated entry
We were capable of opening [the theater] last September, but there were still all of these restrictions. I had a problem with this idea of having a litmus test at the door for entry:
I understood the health concerns, but I also understand that theater is a forum and it has to be open to everybody. If you start specifying reasons why people can’t be in a theater, I don’t think it’s a theater anymore. Not in the tradition of what it has always been historically, which is a forum where stories are told and disparate elements come together and figure it out.”
That’s what it’s been for. People figure out their relationship with the gods, with society, with each other. But at the door, you don’t say you can’t come in, because you haven’t done this or that. I had a problem with that. So I waited until everyone could be allowed in the theater. We opened up with a show called Can’t Pay Don’t Pay in April last year.”
But the most challenging thing has been dealing with the actors themselves, because there is this skittishness and fear, and it’s still in people. Unlike England — I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time last year in London, and they got back a lot sooner than we did. There was an attitude there, it’s that “keep calm and carry on” thing. You know, we got bombed last night, but we’re getting up today. When they reopened their theaters, they reopened them for everybody. They never excluded anybody. And when they got back to it, their West End was thriving, and continues to thrive today.
Maybe the reason we have problems is that some people are still skittish about being in a crowd with other people, but it could also be that maybe 30 to 40% of theater audiences were told they weren’t welcome. And maybe there’s something in that: when you’re told you’re not welcome, you might not necessarily want to go back.
It’s clear the pandemic is being exploited to marginalize the unvaccinated, bar people from human interaction and permit only “correct opinions” to destroy human creativity, particularly when Covid vaccines do nothing to prevent the transmission of Covid, Robbins argued.
“Soon it’s a year on, and two years on, and people are still stuck with these restrictions despite the fact that we now know that the vaccine didn’t stop transmission and didn’t stop people from getting it,” said the Shawshank Redemption star. “Once the CDC changes policy and says basically that both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are capable of getting Covid, the restrictions don’t make sense anymore, particularly regarding employment.”
“I almost feel like there are forces within our society that just want art to die,” he added.
Diverting from the mainstream media’s narratives about Covid places Robbins “on the outs with the same Hollywood political culture where he was once a leading figure,” Taibbi contends.
“Areas of contention include the mandates and the passage of AB 5, a piece of California legislation originally aimed at gig-worker corporations like Lyft and Uber that ultimately forced hundreds of businesses, including theater companies, to offer minimum wages and benefits many claim they can’t afford,” the independent journalist notes.
On Tuesday, Robbins blasted SAG-AFTRA, the world’s largest labor union representing performers and broadcasters, and Actors Equity, the American performing arts labor union representing professional theatre actors & stage managers, for continuing to bar unvaccinated actors from employment.
Hey @sagaftra and@ActorsEquity: Way past time to end your discriminatory policies,” Robbins wrote on Twitter. “NY Supreme Court just ruled that all unvaccinated NYC employees are “reinstated to their full employment” and are “entitled to back pay in salary from the date of termination.”
“Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid-19,” he continued. “As of the day of this Decision, CDC guidelines regarding quarantine and isolation are the same for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.”