Opposing lockdown is NOT “profits before people”
The UK’s policy is already killing people, it will kill many more if we don’t stop it. Soon.
Kit Knightly
Ever since the UK entered “lockdown”, those pushing for it to end have been labelled “callous” or “selfish” or accused of putting profits before people. Meanwhile millions are unemployed and a global famine is on the horizon. The lockdown will kill more people than the virus, and needs to be ended.
The lockdown has been “eased”. Apparently. Some people should go back to work, schools might be opening a bit. You can see one person at a time. You’d be forgiven for not noticing any tangible difference. You’d be more forgiven for thinking it’s a contrived mess designed to confuse and distract people.
Essentially: We are very much still under lockdown, and likely to be so for the foreseeable future. And it is still, very much, a destructive policy which will ruin many more lives than the virus.
Nevertheless, the usual “liberal” media suspects are up in arms about Boris “putting profits before people”. And, as per usual these days, even alt-media types (who should know better) are buying that line. So is Jeremy Corbyn.
In what is perhaps the greatest example of gaslighting in human history, we have “champions of the working class” arguing for mass unemployment, the shutting down of small businesses and the self-employed, and draconian police powers.
The reaction to #BorisJohnson choosing to even partially #liftthelockdown is a demonstration of how totally propagandised the #UK has become.
Not only are we still living under draconian rules, but the chattering classes are complaining they’re not harsh enough.
— OffGuardian (@OffGuardian0) May 10, 2020
The same people who clamour for more and tighter lockdowns are attacking anybody who opposes the measures. Labelling them “psychopaths” or “far-right” or “extreme libertarians”.
Last week Owen Jones used this phrase to dismiss anyone protesting the lockdown:
the political right who resent a lockdown that values human life over economic considerations.
It’s a lazy ad hominem we’re not unfamiliar with at OffGuardian. Over the last few weeks, many people have accused us of putting money before lives because we have expressed concerns over the decision to deliberately tank the economy, destroy small businesses and send unemployment through the roof.
In his most recent article today, Owen rails against the (so-called) easing of the lockdown, claiming it is protecting business but not people. As usual, he is wrong.
The idea that destroying the economy will only harm the rich, while somehow contriving to liberate the masses, is perhaps the most ridiculous lie of all the lies used to prop up the covid19 rollout.
You don’t need to be a supporter of capitalism to recognise that a collapsed economy always hurts the workers more than the owners. Where are all the students of Marx? Does the atrophied Left now really think “the economy” is some abstract concept which only concerns people who own stocks and read the Financial Times?
Reality check here for Owen and his champagne socialist chums. While they are enjoying their furlough swigging Chablis on the lawn, small businesses are currently going bust. The self-employed are seeing years of work destroyed in weeks. Unemployment is soaring.
Over TWO MILLION people have applied for benefits since the start of the lockdown. And this is just applications, not even close to the total number of jobs lost.
That’s around 5% of the entire working-age population.
That’s at least 2 million lives potentially ruined, and it’s a conservative estimate. If just 2% of those people die from stress-related illness, suicide, substance abuse or malnutrition, then the lockdown will have killed more people than the coronavirus simply through economics.
And that’s just this country – in the US over 33 million people have claimed unemployment in the last month, that’s nearly 10% of the whole population. The knock-on effects of Western domestic policies will be enormous. Already there’s talk of the mega economic crash causing a third-world famine which may kill millions.
Because – and this is a concept those people who derisively spit the word fail to understand – “the economy” translates into the price of bread, rent and fuel. It is warm clothes and clean water. It is petrol and gas and electricity. It is education, infrastructure and opportunity. It’s being able to get a job and feed your children.
Those dreaming that this crash will be the destruction of the monied classes and the dawn of liberation for working people need to look back at Weimar era Germany, or Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.
How much liberation did they bring with them?
Did the people loading wheelbarrows with devalued currency to buy bread feel set free? Did the war veterans selling their medals on street corners suffer less than the Khodorkovskies ripping them off?
Billionaires love a crisis. There are fortunes to be made on put-options and derivatives; buying cheap stock in failing companies; snatching up foreclosed properties for pennies on the dollar; stagnating wages means paying your employees nothing while your profits soar. And debt. Mountains of debt. Private, and corporate, which gives you leverage for years – even decades.
It is in these crises that oligarchs are born. While many of us are struggling, the top billionaires in the US have seen their personal fortunes increase by over 300 billion dollars. The banks handling the bail-outs have charged over 10 billion dollars in banking fees alone.
What’s happening to the economy is a disaster for everyone…except the billionaires.
Remember, all this is the result of a lockdown that, as of right now, there’s zero evidence has saved any lives. In fact, there’s actually very little evidence lockdowns work at all.
Remember, also, that the virus is acknowledged to be harmless to over 80% of the people it infects, and only mild in the vast majority of the those who ever show symptoms. We’re not choosing between a Ebola and a devastating lockdown, we’re choosing between a “mild to moderate” disease and a devastating lockdown.
The economic consequences are catastrophic, but that’s not the end of the unnecessary human suffering being caused.
As part of the lockdown, the NHS has cancelled all non-essential surgeries and postponed cancer treatments.
Then there are the elderly people, and those with cognitive impairments, being coerced into signing DNRs.
Or those people suffering serious illnesses who stay away from A&E departments for fear of catching the virus and/or overloading the NHS.
Far from being overwhelmed, the NHS is operating with over 40% of its beds empty. To prevent the NHS from being “overwhelmed” it has, essentially, ceased functioning.
When society is stopped on a dime, when people are deprived of their livelihoods, when the sick and vulnerable are denied human contact and forced to sign documents declaring their lives meaningless, and when the health service stops servicing people’s health…that is the opposite of saving lives. That’s killing people.
The. Lockdown. Is. Killing. People.
Unemployment. Debt. Stress. Bankruptcy. These are not just “economic considerations”, they are life or death. The lockdown is bringing largescale poverty with it.
Poverty kills people. Millions of them every year.
And thanks to the policies enacted by global governments – and cheered on by so many on “the left” – those numbers are about to get bigger. A lot bigger. For this year, and many years to come.
Unless we stop it.
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No One Has Died From The Coronavirus; leading Pathologists in Europe in examing deceased people’s tissue samples, that their deaths were attributed to the coronavirus, have found zero evidence that any of them died from the coronavirus. This is a fake plandemic enginered by the NWO Cabal. The only answer that peoples of the world can implement to save themselves from this tyranny is to organize into guerrila armies and totally eradicate their Government that is a mere enforcement vehicle for this cabal. That is their ONLY recourse. Otherwise forced-vaccinations, containing ‘death-agents’, and over 90% depopulation is the immediate next agendas, that are attached to this fake plandemic agenda, which was all planned out in advance.
The righteousness of the proponents of home imprisonment and social distancing comes from generations fo brainwashing in the infallibility of “science”. Every Tom Dick& Harry thinks they’re “smart” by wearing a mask and avoiding the virus, because they listen to the “experts” and are informed.
This is a particularly popular attitude in the UK , a population that has practiced social distancing for decades. It is perfectly possible to live in a neighborhood or block of flats and never have any interaction with your next door neighbour for years; people are generally awkward, cagey and nervous in the presence of anyone outside their immediate circle of family and “friends”. This is often confused with a repect for the other’s personal space but is in fact apathy. It’s a population that has resigned itself to its slave status and the worship of their masters.
Almondson
Well stated & 💯% accurate.
Sounds a lot like Canada. But then many Canadians came from the UK and many others wished to emulate England.
https://twitter.com/Wokeman8/status/1261385275529474050
Dr Sherry Tenpenny (I think it was) advised people to ‘find their tribe’. Find allies. Find friends, family or like-minded people who you can turn to if you need to and who can turn to you if they need to because we are, as some religionists say, in a great tribulation. James Corbett advises people to rely on their wits more than ever (as in stay as sharp as you can be) because they are isolating us and you will be on your own (but hopefully not) and will have no choice but to think – emphasizing ‘think’ – about where you’re going.
What do I advise? The above is excellent and I endorse it (even though I am angry at people for not caring enough to know – for caring means knowing – and to act to prevent the exploiters from bringing us to this state), but I go further. You need a ‘solid’ hope. (I have that, although I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that my faith wobbles. And I’m not immune from the hellishness visited upon the poor and the vulnerable. My mental and phsyical health right now is in awful condition and getting worse. Even so…) Wherever you may go in order to escape, today, there’s not going to be any freedom for you – in this system of things. If you don’t believe that a higher power intends to remove this system of things, then you will be left with nothing but words of wisdom, which, in the end, won’t help. I believe in a higher power who will eventually act in a way that sane people would expect a higher – as in powerful and good – power to act, namely with a view to stopping injustice, suffering and those who exploit and oppress, because my mind can’t grasp the idea that there isn’t such a higher power, that hell is something that can just happen to an incredible creation such as humankind and that destruction will come to an incredible paradise called the liveable earth and there is nothing that can be done about it.
“We’re not choosing between a Ebola and a devastating lockdown, we’re choosing between a “mild to moderate” disease and a devastating lockdown.”
Dr Sherry Tenpenny (who says some wacko things but mostly ‘right on’ things) says that we use the word “disease” improperly. We too often say disease when what we should be saying is infection. ‘Infection’ isn’t disease. You can be, in fact, ‘are’, infected with all kinds of viruses, including coronaviruses, but, as doctors will tell you, that isn’t what you need to be concerned about. It’s viral load – and that’s ‘if’ there’s even such a thing as viruses, which I personally doubt.
It’s interesting that you question the existence of viruses. This makes me very curious. Can you share any links as to what you base this on?
Seems like the ‘existence’ of viruses has resulted in a great deal of profit for some.
Hi Leonie. I’ve been working furiously on my latest blog post and just saw your comment but I’ve got to leave for work. Andrew Kaufman (who has some strange ideas about water) has some very unorthodox views that, it turns out, just seem to make a lot of sense to me. Others like Sherrie Tenpenny have a lot of respect for Dr Kaufman’s views. His (crappy) website has a section. And if you just type in his name in YouTube and Bitchute, you’ll find lots of videos where he explains his view of viruses and exosomes. Those two things are virtually indistinguishable. I have lots of questions and wish I could get answers, but people who tell you to reach out to them are often unreachable. And Andrew’s blog on his website isn’t a blog, which I pointed out to him. He didn’t respond.
‘We’ produce exosomes, it appears. And they are meant for communication between parts of the body and even between humans (think pheromones). Andrew says that there’s evidence that even plants produce exosomes.
You have to wonder why, if there are viruses, they make no real effort to prove that they exist, using Koch’s postulates (the gold standard). They won’t get rid of Koch’s postulates because they are too reasonable and people would question ‘that’ move. But they won’t use them either. That should tell you all you need to know about what they are doing with the ‘idea’ of viruses. How convenient that we can’t see them. We are to simply take the word of vaccine makers et al that they are there and that they are what they say they are, which most people will do. Ka-ching!
The uncritical support for lockdowns among ostensible radicals is the most depressing thing I’ve seen in some time. The delusion that they represent the anti-ruling class position is so stupid it’s sickening.
There’s so much of that with covid 1984 that I can’t keep up. I have a series on my blog called “Progressives” looking at the fakery of self-identified progressives, but since covid 1984, I’ve only been blogging about covid 1984 and that has involved ignoring an incredible amount of the progressive community which this crisis has revealed to be fake. In other words, I had no idea that those fakers were good candidates for my series, but now I know!
A few such sources toss out some good material (I include John Pilger and Peter Hitchens in that group because they actually accept the idea that there’s a pandemic, which we should be pointing out.) on covid 19 and the government response to it, but I don’t always use their material because I don’t want to inadvertently feed the fear and panic. When I do use material from a source that isn’t solid, I’m careful to point that out. My blog is A Yappy Trade Barrier and an excerpt from this article by Kit will be the final item that I include in the blog post on covid 1984 that I’m working on right now.
The only silver lining in this latest manufactured crisis is that it reveals where people really stand.
Well said! Brainwashing has been very effective over the recent decades. The “lockdowns” have only ever been about control of all by the ruling class, nothing more, nothing less.
https://globalcooperative.wordpress.com/2020/05/23/revisiting-sane-sweden-intelligence-of-non-lockdown-is-conclusively-proven/
So i don’t know if this is true or not but it makes sense – i believe that farmers use the profits from the sale of produce to buy the seed for the following year. This year they aren’t selling as much globally due to restaurants and takeaways closing and supermarket demand being lowered. As such they won’t have the money to buy as much seed for the following years crop – meaning that the crop yield next year will be smaller. As a result there will likely be food shortages and therefore a rise in food prices. I don’t know if this applies as much to Western farms as it does Asian farms etc – but i can easily see it happening !
Meh, people need to eat, they will eat the same amount whether they go to restaurants or not. Supermarket demand lowered??
Developing countries during the lockdown …
… “265 million people could be pushed to the brink of starvation by year’s end” – quote from Chief Economist at the UN World Food Program, in the NYTimes Apr 22
The starvation will be ostinato throughout each “wave (ie new policy implementation).”
This is the smartest thing I’ve read in months. Brilliant. Sincere thanks for the much-needed sanity. Wish everyone – especially those on the supposed left – would closely read this.
For me, the last word on this comes from Mark Changiz Khan:
-@MarkChangizi
Spot on!
Some interesting news from Canada.
May 13, 2020 : “Vaccine Choice Canada is launching legal action against the Government of Canada and others for violating our rights and freedoms during the COVID-19 outbreak. ”
The lawyer they have retained for this constitutional battle – the honorable Mr. Rocco Galati.
If anyone can get this done, he certainly has the ability and the willpower. Please get behind this if your a fan.
Rocco is the Ultimate, the leading Canadian Constitutional Lawyer – Go Rocco!
He’s the best. Can you imagine if there were just five or ten more lawyers like him? Incredibly sad when you consider the number of lawyers in North America.
Accidentally voted you down, meant to do the exact opposite, my apologies!
He’s the best kind of lawyer; earns enough elsewhere (property “development”) so that he only takes on the cases he believes in, Pro Bono.
I quite concur, if ONLY there were a handful more like him.
Pro Bono ? Mr.Galati usually has to pay from his pocket in the end. The Government of Canada can send Mr.Gates et al $ 600 mil but the true hero’s in all of this pay pay pay to uphold your rights and freedoms.
He is not in it for the money. A true patriot of the people for the people.
I consider myself duly enlightened, Sir.
It’s Rocco? He’s solid. But I fear for Dimitri Lascaris. He was such a fearless people’s champion. And there he is running for leader of the Green Party of Canada. I pointed out to him that politicians are gangsters. He disagreed with me. I told him that I respect him too much to badger him about it, adding that I felt it would actually be easy to make the case that politicians are gangsters. So, He’s been taken out it seems.
Indeed. I’ve covered it a blog post already. (I don’t know how far it will go with tool Trudeau in there. He is so fascist and such a complete servant of power. He has zero independence and seems to like it that way.) VCC are a great source of info. Bookmark them. Bonus: They’ll respond if you try to contact them. I’ve tried repeatedly to contact someone at The Highwire to no avail. What a strange organization. Del’s shows are not bad. He often directs people to The Highwire blog and invites them to leave comments. But there’s zero activity on the blog and the comments that I leave never show. I really don’t appreciate it when I can’t communicate with some organization that wants me to donate. And it really bites when they are otherwise doing good work.
It may be that they just want to put out solid work without all the communication which could lead t other strange things. They leave the comments to other sites.
Think of it a bit like Deep Throat.
As this article points out, our greatest problem is the impotence or complicity or both of most of the media in supporting measures that are so destructive to everyone.
And as most journalists are not even in the millionaire class (apart from maybe their homes, which are not liquid capital and not usually even saleable, as they would have nowhere else suitable to live), these measures are going to be probably sooner than they think very destructive and threatening to them.
For we’ve reached the point now in this sorry saga that in which a sizeable portion of the public have had enough, and aren’t just going to talk about it, but get out there and do something about it, and so now the governments are on a collision course with the people, which of course in the first instance is taking place as a war between protesters and police.
Of course it is beyond belief that when governments imposed mass imprisonment on the public in this unprecedented way, with no possible justifiable excuse – when it is officially admitted this is not a virus that much threatens anybody below 60 or 50, which is most of the working and school age population – that they could not also have guessed that there would be protests that might well mutate into riots.
Especially if the police start getting heavy handed, which early signs, and their conduct to date during this lockdown has suggested is quite likely.
So the question is, as serious public disorder like the rioting in the UK about 10 years or so back threatens everyone with terror, as because it is near certainty police will not respond to emergencies any more, whether this will finally persuade the cowering mainstream journalists that this lockdown policy is too dangerous to continue to support.
Because we need to be clear about what exactly this policy means.
For Boris Johnson’s latest 50 page document is not any proper lifting of the lockdown, that would enable normal life previous to the lockdown to resume, but instead a confirmation that the social distancing policy which is at the heart of the tyranny is here to stay for an indeterminate length of time, at the whim of the so called R number, and we can also assume that similar measures may in future be resorted to for any future similar deemed dangerous virus.
So that the lockdown, to whatever degree it is lifted, can be reimposed at any time, and quite likely more severely than already, and quite likely also on a continuous annual basis starting from now.
And what this lockdown is doing specifically, is not merely bossing us into queues all 2 metres apart like children in a playground to get our effective survival rations, but is forcing us into therefore for all we know permanent denial of intimacy with anybody outside our own household.
The effect of this on the young (meaning those of breeding age) is to deny anybody not already married or with a live-in partner the right and opportunity to mate and date, which is effectively a form of genocide, as it is equivalent to a mass sterilisation program causing somebody’s individual or family type to be eliminated from the gene pool.
That’s quite apart from its possibly more important to many (especially older people, beyond the urgent desire to breed, or having already done so) effect of denying them close physical contact with friends and family, which “food for the soul” is the main thing that keeps their mental health bearable and their life worth living.
To say what Mr Johnson and others leaders are doing to their people in the name of a not properly assessed virus, is perhaps beyond even the phrase “a crime against humanity.”
Done without even a vote or proper debate in parliament, which makes it all the more symptomatic of dictatorship.
I have come to the conclusion lately therefore, that this is not a war – I mean a war of truth against lies, justice against tyranny, freedom against false imprisonment – that can be won merely by arguing a science based case supported by what have become effectively “dissident” scientists, who argue with the scientific basis of this lockdown, but by framing this as a denial of democracy, which does not actually have any legal or moral basis in a democratic society.
And the remedy for that therefore, as nobody wants rioting or protests in which people get seriously killed on either side if there’s any other option, is that we need a specific objective to base the protest upon, which I would suggest is the call for a referendum on whether the public wishes to continue to support the lockdown.
I say that as according to a very recent poll, 82% of the public said they supported lockdown measures till June, but that falls to 69% for July, and only 44% by August support the measure,s so that means by that point 56% of the public will be against them.
Though I don’t wholly have faith in polls, or necessarily even referendums, at least such a measure would lead to a real public debate on both sides of the argument, which has been sorely lacking in the mainstream media and parliament to date.
Either that or the resignation of Mr Johnson, which seems unlikely, as my best guess is Mr Johnson is motivated by almost nothing else but the desire to cling to power.
But such a referendum must be justified, because even more so than EU membership, the fundamental nature of the actions he has taken, affecting everybody’s basic way of life and freedom, cannot have been assumed to have been part of his mandate.
As I think everyone knows he was elected with a majority for the main if not sole reason of putting Brexit into practice, and not to lock all the population up for any excuse less than a genuine Bubonic style plague, which this is not remotely in the class of by anybody’s definition.
Apart from that, the only hope I see is the legal challenges led by various people including by British businessman Simon Dolan, which as he is apparently worth £142 million, suggests not every rich person is happy with the lockdown.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/lockdownlegalchallenge/?utm_reference=b096124fee1f804da25c8982a5b5504f
There has also been a successful challenge in America which has led to the US Supreme court overruling an order by the governor to extend the lockdown in Wisconsin.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/may/13/coronavirus-us-live-trump-cdc-reopening-latest-news-updates
As much as this is a savage and thoughtless tyranny inflicted on the public, I think we need to be careful to try to combat this in creative and lawful ways, rather than allowing it to become mob violence of police against people, which may only encourage the authorities to justify further tyranny.
A very thoughtful response indeed.
The two metre exclusion zone is not, it would appear, law:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/police-no-powers-social-distancing-england-a4439296.html
So could the police (aka the public in police uniform) legitimately stand in the way of gathering, not a protest, necessarily, but an independent gathering?
ginghiniagenie wrote on May 15 at 1.35am:
“The two metre exclusion zone is not, it would appear, law:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/police-no-powers-social-distancing-england-a4439296.html ”
Thanks for that, especially the link.
I think Boris Johnson has been very cunning in blurring the line between telling people what they should do as if it were law and them not knowing if it is a criminal act or not, so the police have been enforcing something they really had no legal powers to do.
But I do have to say I am a bit puzzled about this, as they have been apparently issuing fines, so there must be some law there to enable them to do that, but I have to confess I really don’t know, and it appears the fact nobody seems to know what is the truth legally has led the Police College to come out with this statement saying they have no actual legal powers to enforce it.
So that is, Mr Johnson appears to have left this deliberately vague, so that the police would effectively behave as if it was law, and in confusion start wholly predictably doing over the top stuff which would then intimidate the public into obeying what was not actually law, but the police were behaving as if it was.
I think Mr Johnson is also trying to protect himself from possible future actions against him – some already under way for example by businessman Simon Dolan challenging the legality of the lockdown as I mentioned in the comment above.
The thing that concerns me most however at present is that it seems there is possibly the most enormous lie being told about the government’s testing program.
In the 50 page document released, they said they survey tested about 7,087 people, and found only 0.24% had the virus, so as far as I can see extrapolated from that 0.24% figure to claim only 136,000 of the England population of about 56 million were infected.
I don’t believe this figure, I think it’s wildly inaccurate, so it’s either a deliberate lie or there is something wrong with the testing process.
But this either fraudulent or erroneous claim has awful implications for our freedom, as what it says is 99.76% of the England population don’t have covid-19 yet.
So that is an absolutely ironclad statistic (if claimed as truth, which it is being) that firstly “proves” the lockdown has worked, as the virus has hardly spread, and secondly, justifies keeping everyone locked up and social distancing (those things are more or less the same) until or unless a vaccine is found.
As anecdotal evidence of the fact I think this claim is nonsense, and millions in the UK have already been infected, I saw on Peter Hitchens website today a comment from a US librarian who said she had certain evidence that a fellow library staff member had covid-19 back in December, and obviously she and many others would have been infected and nobody had died or even been seriously ill.
And the statistical evidence already official released make this 0.24% infected in England figure also seem ridiculous.
i.e. total tests in the UK about 2.2 million and infected 223,700 so that’s about 10% of those tested being positive.
https://corona.help/
So as we know up to 80% are going to either not show symptoms or have serious enough ones to go near the hospital and get tested, that says of the 223,700 admitted infected, which must be no more than 20% there must be that other something like 80% who have it in a milder or asymptomatic form but haven’t yet been tested – so that’s 4 x 20% the 4 x 223,700 = roughly 900,000, so that says at least 1.1 million infected, adding the ones officially admitted as such.
That’s in the whole UK however, but still nearly 1 million in England as England has about 86% of the total UK population.
So that’s at least about 1 million must be infected in England based on officially admitted figures and primary school level arithmetic, whereas they are claiming only 136,000, which is claiming there’s roughly 8 time less people have it than actually do.
(whereas I suspect it’s probably at least 8 times more in the other direction – i.e. at least 8 million, and in fact probably a lot more than that, maybe half the population of more, as the ignored Oxford University Study initially suggested)
Funnily enough, there’s a big disclaimer on that 136,000 figure saying as it’s early days of mass testing it might not be reliable, which makes one even more suspicious, and suggests to me they know very well it’s very wildly wrong.
Whereas if they admitted the truth, that numerous millions already have it or have had it, it would show that this whole lockdown has been total nonsense, because a huge proportion of the public would be seen to have already have it or have had it and recovered, and the deaths (falsely exaggerated anyway by “death certificate fraud” ) are not much worse than a bad year of seasonal flu.
I also saw one (as far as I could tell ) random test done in the San Francisco Bay area about 6 weeks ago I think, which tested several hundred people and 26% tested positive, which again says millions must be infected everywhere it has been around long before any lockdown.
But then they started testing only on people with a lot of symptoms you see, so that seems to have been covered up.
It seems it is impossible nearly to get any reliable data, especially when the PCR test that has been mostly used to test for infection has (by Professor Yoram Lass, biology professor and has been advisor to Israeli government) only 70% accuracy, and others even dispute that.
The bottom line is you can’t lock up whole populations and destroy their lives and the economy without far more certain evidence than this.
And so my guess is that when governments start to realise what a blunder they have made, and realise covid-19 is little different in danger than seasonal flu or other pre-existing coronavirus strains, we are going to see attempted cover up after cover up with all the different world governments trying to distort the figures and obfuscate everything, in an effort to hang on to their jobs and power.
My own opinion, which I’ve held from nearly the beginning, is this was a hoax on the world by China, who allowed leak that they had suppressed a doctor whistle blowing the news (who conveniently then quickly died, only making the hoax seem more plausible) some terrible virus had appeared, so the Western media were all over that fake story and bought it hook, line and sinker.
Then when news spread to the West, and China again faked it was in a life and death struggle with the virus and only saved themselves with a tough lockdown, which then made the terrified Western public demand they have one too to save them, like happened in China.
Then suddenly China (ridiculously) said it had no new cases or deaths “proving” the lockdown had worked, so then Western governments (which never believed China before, but suddenly did then) were obliged to do the same.
The reason for the hoax being China’s problem with President Trump, of whom I am sure they are in fear of even nuclear attack, and it is openly established is trying to attack their economy and “put America first.”
So they hoaxed the world into believing they had a deadly virus which could only be controlled by strict lockdowns, which they knew would destroy the US and other Western economies and leave President Trump in particular fighting the consequences of covid-19 right to the end of his 2nd and final term (only 2 terms allowed in America) and then Trump would be gone and China’s problem with him permanently solved.
I frankly think Western governments are being run by idiots to have not seen this.
I completely agree in that China did this on purpose knowing full well there was no virus. The WHO also declared on 30th January that they had been in Wuhan and investigated and found no evidence of human to human transmission. How is this possible if the city is locked down and why would they need to lockdown? What was supposedly making these people sick?
Did no politician or MSM even think this was strange?
And now every country in the west that went into lockdown has done exactly what China did because the WHO said this was the way to beat this alleged virus.
Almost everything copied like these farcical waste of taxpayers money on temporary hospitals with tumbleweed blowing through them now.
It’s also the deeply corrupt WHO who are spewing nonsense about more waves to anyone with half a brain cell who gives them the time of day.
This has definitely been planned a long time and the only virus that threatens humanity is the MSM, governments and the WHO.
The WHO seems to contradict itself a lot. Publishes studies and then pulls them.
Look what they published regarding measures to be taken during pandemics: nothing about massive lockdowns. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789241516839-eng.pdf
Do you think that a deliberate tyranny could ever be overthrown by lawful ways? Is it possible to reason with a tyrant who knowingly is enslaving his people? Do you think that governments worldwide don’t know the seriousness of what they are doing by imposing practically house arrests on individuals in entire societies? Must we really believe that the official experts are not able to weigh, on one side the consequences on people’s health of a supposed new virus whose alleged high lethallity is controversial to say the least Vs those undisputable consequences of prolonged sheltering in place, on the other side? Can’t we see what is deliberately being done to all of us in broad daylight? I don’t think so.
I think that sometimes, when appeals to reason and serious debate are so plainly and repeatedly dismissed by those who are supposed to protect us, you just run out of talk and there is no choice left but to act because the abuse is so manifest and deliberate that it revolts our guts.
The enemy we, as peoples of the world, have in front of us is one and well organized; knows how we tick; he is centuries-old, and never concealed his intentions toward the common people but has never been so daring. I think he is sensing its final may be approaching so he is playing his last card; he knows that an ever-increasing fraction of the world peoples no longer falls for its tricks and he can’t control everything anymore but he doesn’t stand its power being challenged everywhere, so he wants to precipitate the confrontation. This confrontation can only have one of two outcomes: total submission or a radical social revolution.
No point, however, in confronting him in the present situation; it would be a suicide because we are sparse, divided over unimportant things, and unarmed (let’s be frank), while the enemy has layers after layers of armed protection. I fear that he sensed that something big was coming and concocted something so that popular gatherings would be outlawed. We must organize and unite. Somehow we must create our own real pandemic, a pandemic of awakening. How do we start to do that? That’s the question. I just can’t believe all of this is happening; we mustn’t get used to this.
Nothing new is really happening- this scenario has been foreseen by many individuals in the past… Only a few at a time wake up from the eternally recurring nightmare of history. The only real revolution and real freedom is within. The masses will never wake up.
People cannot meaningfully and sustainably co-exist in communities of more than 100 people or so…this is a basic ecological fact…
But the root of the problem is not overpopulation ; it’s that humanity is being preyed on and parasitized.
Staying human is more than worthwhile but we need to expand on what being “human” really is.
True. Nothing new under the sun; it’s the same old struggle of the world peoples, whose natural right to a fair share in the planet’s resources, as a necessary corollary from being alive, is denied by a dominating minority, which imposes a particular economic system that favors the already privileged.
I would argue against that but maybe this is related to what you mean by “waking up”. So,
Of course; but I am sure that those who think that true revolution comes from within would agree that “within” and “without” are just words. The experience is everything. What does “revolution from within” mean? What does being awake mean? No matter what meaning we give these phrases, of course I don’t think that being awake means that one experiences extraordinary things that challenge the physical laws, or acquires unusual powers, or any other spectacular manifestations. I don’t think either that being awake should necessarily convey the image of someone living, if only in mind, in isolation from his fellow human beings, dedicating oneself to spiritual life, whatever that consists of, and at the same time being indifferent to social questions, even though he or she may be aware of these; that would be contradictory, wouldn’t? And I certainly don’t think that it should convey only that image, for,
It would, however, necessarily imply having a clear conscience of whom one is as a human being, of one’s place in society, of one’s connection to other beings in this world, seeing clearly that others are simply instances of oneself. That consciousness would imply in turn that one becomes responsible of one’s actions; one would have to take sides and have convictions. As a result one becomes involved socially. That is what I think awakening signifies.
This tendency to be indifferent, or rather to be inactive via-à-vis the social and political life, is not without bringing to mind that of the intellectual class, even though one would expect them to be among the enlightened members of society: they tend to be on the winning side of the moment, regardless of their political signs. In the prologue to his Fifteen Years of Struggle, 1919-1934, Romain Rolland criticized the apathy of the intellectual community of his time, in front of the events that were taking place before, during, and after the Great War:
But, although action is important when one becomes conscious of reality, it must be planned intelligently, and be consequent with the peculiarities of the moment to be able to bear its fruits; that is, radical change. What is the point, for instance, in getting out in the streets in the present situation and doing something that surely would throw me in jail or be shot at? None. The passive resistance organized by Gandhi and his supporters was consequent action. It’s called passive only in the sense that it was not provocative but it was active by the simple the fact that it took place, and showed that an intelligent opposition exists to the then British rule in India. Another known instance of an extreme involvement in political life is the burning monk of 1963:
One must have a really clear and distinct perception of what one IS to perform such a drastic act of protest. His reasons are in this world but not of this world. Us? Just cowards behind keyboards, and cell phone screens. We mustn’t however be harsh on ourselves; it was carefully planned that we should behave in certain ways through pervasive technology; true science is used against us to make of us fanatics of virtual and sterile protests rather participants in direct action.
This also may answer your claim of “Only a few at a time wake up from the eternally recurring nightmare of history.”, for, if we agree that awakening implies social involvement, as I think it does, then “Only a few at a time…” don’t follow logically; quite the contrary would result because preaching by the example in society, and not from a self-proclaimed authority, is very contagious. We may ask about it the comrades of Durruti during the Spanish civil war, if we ever can.
Categorical and specific affirmations like that one are very suspicions. Maybe you can bring some proof of it. Anyway, I didn’t claim that we should all gather in the same place and live as in a global village. People are of different cultures, different languages, etc. The change we need to make concerns the economic and political systems that are causing much misery in the world, it is to bring about a new social paradigm. I don’t know how that will affect our willingness to live together an in what numbers.
Wholeheartedly agreed.
Let us be human, I say, and let humanity unfold itself into whatever it shall freely become.
Request to the administrators:
In the comment above I had intended to insert an image after the paragraph ending “the burning monk of 1963” but instead it’s the whole following text that links to it.
Could you please fix that for me by inserting the image or a link to it in the place I intended to?
Thank you
The referendum idea: (a) what makes you think a majority of the members of the House of Commons would support the holding of a referendum on this issue? and (b) even if they did, it takes six months to organise a referendum.
What mob violence? There are simply not enough people for that. Until the entire “virus causing disease” theory is debunked and this is massively understood, there will be no mobs as the vast majority will stay home because of the invisible (and now contagious) threat.
South Korea and Sweden are but two examples of how it could be done, not perfect but on another planet compared to this SNAFU
77th Brigade at it again, implying that people who oppose the lockdown are far right terrorists! I mean, why else would anyone object to having their civil liberties removed?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/14/police-vow-to-break-up-planned-anti-lockdown-protests-in-uk-cities
As an aside, twice today I saw 2 police officers side by side in the front of their police cars. Definitely not 2 metres apart. Can I make a citizen’s arrest??
No. One can read, the other can write and there was probably a police dog nearby to keep an eye on these two suspect and dangerous intellectuals.
Very good. 🙂
Last time I checked (11th May) the 2m Social-Distance issue is not ‘Law’ in England.
English Law is clear about this, however for various reasons Scotland and Wales are different and it may be enforceable in those ‘nations’.
The Police have been formally notified that they have NO power to enforce social-distancing in England, only offer ‘advice’, so if one trys, tell them to look up current Police College guidance.
Interestingly, the ‘Science’ behind the concept is deeply questionable when applied to a virus, and I for one believe the motives for it are not public protection.
It’s the same with music in the street.. people try to claim you need a license but it is a lie… there are local “guidelines”… lack of motivation is usually enough.
This was in Wales, where it’s still STAY AT HOME (or else)!
“experts warn”.. It is hard to put into words the contempt I have for The Guardian and its supporters. Arse licking sycophants, hyprocrits and demagogues of the worse kind. Truly sub-human trash wearing a mask of sophistication. I spit on The Guardian and everyone who works for them.
Again. Misconduct in PO can mean a life sentence.
Earlier.
“And the legal class action to immediately remove so-called leaders shysters puppets oligarchs?
Is starting when exactly?
Just wondering.”
Malfeasance / Misconduct (collective action)
The elements of misconduct in public office are:
a) A public officer acting as such.
b) Wilfully neglects to perform his duty and/or wilfully misconducts himself.
c) To such a degree as to amount to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder.
d) Without reasonable excuse or justification.
cps website:
Misconduct in public office is an offence at common law triable only on indictment.
It carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04909/SN04909.pdf
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/misconduct-public-office
There is actually overwhelming evidence that lockdowns work. In every single country, decline in new cases has started just after lockdowns started, or social distancing with effects close to a lockdown (like in Sweden).
People who oppose lockdowns aren’t putting profits before people. They are simply criminally dangerous to both people and the economy. The overwhelming majority of people understand the risk, and they are refusing to get involved in risky economic activity, full stop. In places in the USA where they insisted on reopening, malls remain practically empty. When people correctly perceive that the government isn’t taking their safety seriously enough, they take matters in their own hands. Problem is, because people don’t have access to information as good as those at the top of the government, that means they must be extra careful. When people don’t trust the government about their safety, economic activity gets far more hampered than in places where people trust the government to correctly estimate when it’s safe to go back to normal.
In short, those that oppose the lockdown are the ones causing the most harm, and shouldn’t be surprised if their behaviour gets treated like the criminally dangerous behaviour that it is. They are causing tremendous harm to both lives and the economy, and if they are arrested to protect society from the consequences of their very harmful behaviour, that’s even less surprising than if somebody started shooting random passers-by in the middle of the street and shouting to others that they should copy him, and found themselves treated by the police as you imagine they would. After all, shooting sprees are not usually a catching disease.
I’m assuming you’re either retired, sufficiently wealthy that don’t need to work, or fulfil some other criteria that makes you immune to the destruction of the economy. Armed forces or law enforcement perhaps.
Let’s say you’re correct and lockdowns prevent the spread of disease (questionable but we’ll let that go for now), will that be of any consolation to the millions thrown into poverty, possibly starvation and death? Will they be able to congratulate themselves that at least they didn’t die from the flu?
You say they are a danger to the economy. What economy are you thinking of? The mythical one that only involves governments, banks etc? Or the actual economy ie people working, paying taxes, making things, producing food, buying food – you know generally staying alive.
If you are correct and the lockdowns are necessary, no matter how many people they eventually kill, would that not, in your view, be a case of: the operation was a success, but the patient died?
“Let’s say you’re correct and lockdowns prevent the spread of disease (questionable but we’ll let that go for now”
Wrong, it is factually correct that lockdowns have prevented transmission and thus deaths
“will that be of any consolation to the millions thrown into poverty”
Wrong again. Lockdown will not do any ofthe above, only government action will in relation to it will.
” Or the actual economy ie people working, paying taxes”
There is only one economy, it encompasses all of these things.
The article itself, is mostly based on nonsense.
Hi Douglas,
Can I assume you have evidence to back up your assertion that it is “factually correct” that lockdowns have prevented transmission and therefore deaths? If so, I would really appreciate your posting it or linking to it so I can make up my own mind. Many thanks.
Likewise, if you could provide evidence that the lockdown will not throw millions into poverty, it would be great to see it. Many thanks.
I understand that there is only one economy – the one that is being systematically destroyed, globally. I was merely pointing out that a lot of people tend to view the ‘economy’ as some sort of ethereal concept that applies to governments, banks etc but doesn’t really affect them.
As you obviously already understand this, would you like to comment on the consequences of a gutted economy on ordinary working people, given that you assert that it will not throw them into poverty?
My point here is that if you destroy hundreds of thousands of small companies worldwide, and make tens of millions unemployed (many with no companies to go back to, post lockdown), how are those people supposed to earn money ie stay out of poverty?
Looking forward to your explanation.
Yep, look at the FTs details of the excess deaths(John Burn-Murdoch). Those that locked down early, sufffered less. a good one for comparison is Norway/Sweden.
As for the economy, Were the furlough scheme to pay 100%, and there to be 100% govt backed bank loans to business, there would be no reason for business to go under. Many businesses that were virtually insolvent prior, are only being kept afloat by furlough – they would have gonr anyway.
So you see, it is the Govt, not the lockdown, that determines poverty.
douglas,
You are correct when you say it is the govt that determines poverty. It was the govt, after all, that imposed the lockdown, thereby potentially driving countless people into poverty. For a disease that has a death rate comparable to seasonal flu. Does that not seem a bit drastic to you?
You cite the FT – would that be the same FT that is currently carrying an article extolling the “People’s Vaccine”, by any chance? Perhaps go back and look at some other sources – there have been plenty of good articles and sources posted on this site recently.
You suggest a 100% furlough scheme and 100% govt backed loans. Leaving aside that companies wouldn’t need loans, ie go further into debt, were it not for the govt lockdown, where is this magic money tree? Seriously – where will the money come from to fund this scheme? Do the BoE just go on a printing spree?
Devaluation and inflation, not to mention higher taxes, are the inevitable results of such a course of action. By higher taxes, I of course mean those paid by ordinary people. The big boys don’t pay tax – they get bailouts.
I also think it’s a bit over-simplistic to claim that many businesses were virtually insolvent and would have gone anyway. I’m sure there are plenty of examples of such companies – Laura Ashley would be a prime example.
However, most of the businesses that will go under will be much smaller, employing maybe half a dozen people or so. They weren’t insolvent prior to the lockdown, yet could disappear forever.
What about the self-employed? Apparently they’ll get some money at some point in the future. Will BT, or British Gas, or any of that ilk, wait for a couple of months for their payments? You know, because they’re such great guys.
“You are correct when you say it is the govt that determines poverty”
Glad to see you have changed your tune and now agree that lockdown doesn’t cause poverty.
“Do the BoE just go on a printing spree?”
No printing needed, just a keyboard. BoE been doing it for years. No need for higher taxes either, inflation isn’t going to a be a problem for some time yet.
You see it isn’t lockdown or the economy, it can be both. Those who say we must end lockdown, are just happy to let others die – a sort of trait of the right wing, really.
douglas,
My statement was …
Not sure how you managed to miss that second sentence – the one where I point out that the lockdown is driving people into poverty. I only conceded that it was the govt that ordered the lockdown. Please tell me you know what “thereby” means.
“Printing spree” is an allegory. Please tell me you know what allegory means.
When you say inflation isn’t going to be a problem for some time, how much time are you thinking of? Six months, a year, eighteen months? The time doesn’t really matter. It will be devastating to a population where unemployment has grown massively, thereby reducing household incomes or even the ability of households to generate income. Those with jobs will be paying disproportionately higher taxes, whilst everybody struggles with higher prices.
Nobody is happy to let others die. What a ridiculous idea that is usually the last comment flung by people who have no grasp of reality and no coherent argument. I don’t imagine you are happy to let others die as a result of the lockdown, are you? This isn’t a competition. This is the real world where real lives are at stake.
And what do ‘left’ and ‘right’ have to do with anything? You’re either 12 years old and getting a buzz from pretending to be a grown-up. Or you’re a grown-up getting a buzz from acting like a 12 year-old. It doesn’t really matter to me either way. Whatever you are, you don’t appear to like research or to able to think for yourself and I won’t waste any more time on you.
Those who drive cars are only too happy for others to die. Nearly 700,000 died from traffic accidents this year. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789241516839-eng.pdf
This doesn’t even address the many killed by pollution created by the manufacture and driving of cars. Not to mention the people and other creatures killed by the mining required for car building.
One of the only nice things about the lockdowns is the curb on pollution. It’s so great to be able to breathe fresh air – without a mask on.
Over 800,000 died of AIDS but there is still no vaccine and no one really gives a shit about those deaths.
Over FIVE MILLION died of starvation and another more than 400,000 died of water related illnesses but no one cares about them either.
ONLY deaths claimed to result from Covid 19 are treated as important and horrifying. It takes quite a long time to die of starvation and I’ve heard that it’s not a pretty death either.
Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship
, 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
Hermann Goring 1947
I’ve highlighted the bit you perhaps need to look at in reference to your own words
They have already forced millions into poverty or real economic distress, in the neo-liberal capitalist shit-holes like the USA and UK.
I have some time to waste so here goes: You are regurgitating the same old very British idea that a bank giving someone a loan is “helping” them. It goes hand in hand with the idea that charging interest is a de facto aspect of lending. If businesses and individuals are given a loan with interest to supposedly make up for the loss of income during lockdown, what this means is that they are then in debt and have to work more to pay back that debt. Which won’t be possible for many . As for “they would have gone anyway”, it shows your incipient Thatcherism.
77th Brigade or “useful idiot”?
I have no idea if Philippe is either
I do beg your pardon.
D’oh!
You’ve caught me. It’s a fair cop.
What was it gave me away?
Your post?
You’re clearly an idiot.
I guess you would know all about that. If not, I’ll help you. Look in the mirror.
Welcome to the party Malecon.
You’re a tad late, but don’t let that slow you down.
Regarding your offer of help, I shall go and find a mirror immediately. Thank you for your contribution. Much appreciated.
Here is just one study that disputes your assumption that lockdowns work : https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20078717v1.full.pdf
And another :
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.01.20088260v1.full.pdf
Those that tend to show a favourable response to lockdowns are those that use computer modeling – not real data !!
Also the WHO’s own guidelines. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/329438/9789241516839-eng.pdf
But who funds the WHO as they stumble all over themselves contradicting themselves as they go?
Are you actually getting paid enough to promote the propaganda or are you just a useful eejit?? I like how you are so sure about what’s “wrong, again” and what is “factually correct”… You sir, represent the failure of the modern educational system.
Somebody just un-latched their cage, the 77th are out in force today, backing each other up.
“Fear statistic for the sheep VS Reality”
Even with the inflated numbers of mostly elderly people that more often than not have some preexisting conditions and are aged at or close to the life expectancy of about 78.6 it adds up to about 82,260 deaths as of yesterday. This is not for one US State it’s for the entire US population.
Divide 82.260 by 330,000,000 US population and you get a death rate of 0.0251% and that’s definitively inflated as many Dr have stated.
Let’s all panic and close the economy.
Recent figures:
Kids under 15 years: out of 60.9 million persons 13 deaths
Parents & Workers 15 to 64 years out of 214.5 million persons, 12,637 deaths
Grandparents & Great Grandparents 65 and older: out of 52.4 mill
50,819 deaths. 80% of total. I don’t know about you but I would say that
they tend not to be in the work force anymore.
These also are very likely inflated figures because if you die at 85 years hold “with this virus” that does not mean you “died from it”. In order to honestly have a better reference numbers we would have to compare how many people at or above the life expectancy age of 78.6 have died on average in the last 5 years or so as opposed to this year. If it’s much higher this year it’s likely those figures are correct but if it’s about the same something very likely does not add up.
Instead of the dramatized daily 24/24 empirical numbers of cases presently going on in the Fear medias and Dr Vaccine perhaps it time to wake up and realize that this
this is not Ebola and its’ the first time in history that healthy people are quarantine.
Did we ever have a constant 24/24 countdown of people that have had a real bad flue in the last 100 years? How about when 100,000 died in 1968 from the Hong Kong flue.
Nothing stopped and most people that where a live can only remember it was the moon landing and the Vietnam war. The economy was doing just fine and beaches where crowded etc
When did we go from “flatten the curve” to “we have to find the cure”?
and “If we only only can find a vaccine” … Sure and let’s make it mandatory once we are at it. Is it not obvious where all this is going?
Is this going to be the century of the Sheep or what?
If this tyrannical situation does not stop now we are going to have a
very bad economic situation that will kill and destroy a lot more people than this virus
will ever do. Prepare for massive unemployment. bankruptcies, personal debts, shortages depressions & suicide, drug addiction. stress & pills addictions. large scale poverty,
and yes public tensions & street violence.
Government Bureaucrat’s and leaders do not suffer from this yet until
they realize the public does not need them as much as they need the public.
My verbal reaction to this was what would be regarded as an “ad-hominem attack”.
It’s okay to indulge yourself once in a while Daniel 🙂
If you consider yourself a reasonable person who can think and draw conclusions, inquire, choose, accept or refuse after premeditation, with years of lesson-teaching-life-experience, by what logic would you allow someone you don’t know and didn’t vote for, may be living thousands of miles form you, having a totally different profession, make decisions in you behalf, and tell you when you are permitted get out and what to do? Could it be possible that that person knows your interest better than you do? Is slavery any different?
Entire lecture.
Thought Crime! On the other hand, Doly, how long do you think the lockdowns should last, before they do more harm than good, to economies, people’s health and psychological well-being? I see that the Fuhrer of Los Angeles is demanding that it continue there until the end of July!
This is a nice example of how the brainwashed think. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Please Wake the Fuck Up- the experts are lying to you. Or kindly Fuck Off.
Keep it going, silly person.
Great article. However, Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution would have been a better comparison than Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Khodorkovsky was not a billionaire before the collapse of the Soviet Union who ripped off others after its collapse, but someone who became a billionaire after its collapse, through a combination of hard work, willingness to take risk, and luck.
Khodorkovsky took advantage of the lawless Yeltsin years. When he seemingly had carved himself out a Russian monopoly on oil and gas he proceeded to selling it to a US company. That could not be tolerated. He had overplayed his hand after he got hold of the Bankers Trust (BT) money which is said to have disappeared in Russia and bankrupted the BT and Enron.
Nobody knows today if the opening up will not have a higher death toll. If there is significant re-infection it will be ugly. Nobody can assume that once you get it, you will be immune. There will be no famine when a significant percentage of people has died.
Nobody can assume that this virus (and its contagiousness) is a reality that we need to worry about.
Weird how no one ever really worried about flu/cold viruses before this particular one. People say ‘but it’s a NOVEL virus that no one has immunity to’ when in fact every seasonal flu is novel.
Since so few people actually get very sick from flus and colds there must be something else going on with our immune systems. It will be interesting to see if more studies are done on the immune system or whether these will be suppressed in the interest of drug companies.
“became a billionaire …..through a combination of hard work, willingness to take risk, and luck.”
is a polite way of saying
“ripped off others”
A Western businessman advising on turning Russia towards a “market economy” back in the 1990s said that what was needed was the type of people who ran black markets in the USSR in its late years. These were the kind of people who hung around Western tourists trying to obtain blue jeans from them to sell to Russians, or who offered to change money at rates more favourable than the official exchange rate. After the USSR collapsed they often moved into profitable endeavours like prostitution and human trafficking. Basically human paraquat.
As Gore Vidal once said, “Another triumph for the American way!”
I wonder what Norman Mailer’s retort was?
It was from a Vidal essay on Edinburgh of all places.
Thank you George.
Sounds slightly like Alan Sugar.
I wonder what they might have in common…
Khodorkovsky, a vicious parasite who never did a day’s work, was bankrolled by the Rothschilds as a blood-sucking leech. Even lower, of course, is the type that would kiss his thieving backside.
Or we take advantage of the crisis, I.e.,, wage class warfare against the owners of capital, rather than whine about the conditions. If the working class, environmentalists, and others don’t radicalixe, then far greater numbers will die than even in your dire prognostications about maintaining the present Covid response. The enemy is monopoly capital and the Laborite and Torres, Republicans and democrats, and all those who can’t see through the deadly path we were on with or without the Covid virus. Speculations about present policies and political/economic interests during the crisis are pretty well empty if they don’t advocate radical revaluations and economic realignments. Otherwise you are just feeding the capitalist railroad that maintains itself by our/YOUR anarcho-libertarian smugness.
I read all of this and as with so much of off-guardian , its well written, but something doesn’t sit right. I worked it out. Over 4 years of following there are 2 terms never mentioned: UBI or MMT. Which is odd for alt news source that appears so meticulous and unafraid about their socialist anti-capitalist stance (#metoo). I have the same problem with George Galloway. Not once as far as I can tell in the last 3 years has UBI and / or modern monetary theory been discussed or mentioned on these pages. Yet its clearly a relevant topic right now. I mean you don’t have to agree with either to have a discussion about it. Even that twat Keir Starmer has outright rejected it, but at least said so. and almost no socialist I know (and a significant number of the general population apparently) thinks this should be off the table. Powerful people have one thing in common: whether Guardian, Off-Guardian , Trump administration, UK Labour party, GBWorkerParty or any other high profile ‘socialist’ mouthpiece, they all reject any conversation about UBI . I’m a socialist libertarian (or anarchist’ if you must ), im against the existence of the state, but its obvious even to me that a UBI administered by the state is a step toward less state bureaucracy and technocratic capitalist bullshit than almost any other proposal from the (generalized) anti-capitalist left. Why then are off guardian so adverse to discussing the subject in stead of talking about saving and creating more shit jobs to save the goddamn stupid economy?
MMT has certainly been mentioned by commenters here, if not in the actual articles.
You do know that most MMT experts (I mean people like Bill Mitchell, Stephanie Kelton, Warren Mosler, and Randy Wray) don’t agree with UBI? They support the idea of a Job Guarantee. All unemployed people who wish to work would be guaranteed employment at minimum wage with good conditions (in the USA, including health benefits for example).
Has Starmer openly come out against MMT? It would not surprise me, but I just hadn’t heard about it. I know that John McDonnell did. Someone told me that Anneliese Dodds had promised to look into MMT. I don’t know if she has. Ages ago, I sent her a copy of one of Bill Mitchell’s book (she lives in the next constituency to me). I didn’t get a reply. It probably went in the bin or to Oxfam.
John Mcd did laterly, sya UBI was worth investigating. Starmer will be against it, so Dodds with have no choice but to tow the line
Yes I know about bill mitchels position.. It’s possible to have ubi and job guarantee. But uni must come before the job guarantee.
Starmer openly rejected UBI. (Despite huge support among members) . He won’t ever support mmt I’m sure of that. He won’t even ask the givnt to help out renters preferring instead to save the landlords by asking renters to pay it all back over a longer period. I was disappointed McDonell didn’t also. And even more disappointed Galloway won’t support UBI
There are forces at work that we do not see. Anybody with a slightly dissident opinion is not really tolerated and will be whacked at every opportunity. Just today I read that over the last 10/12 years the privatisation of the old disused Athens airport Ellinikon was a condition for a loan. Forcing people into privatisation does not sit well with me. Forcing people into economic use and activity, okay, but privatisation is never a solution, just a band aid.
When China tries to rule through economic conditions it’s coercion = bad.
When US tries to rule through economic conditions it’s sanctions = good.
A universal basic income has its appeal, but there is a big danger: that states providing it may use it as an excuse to withdraw services which are still free at the point of delivery, such as basic health care or school education. “We’re paying you an income, so use part of it to pay for your health and education.”
Under such a dispensation, multitudes of people could wind up worse off. That’s why many on the left are (justifiably) wary of UBI. A job guarantee may be a better bet.
I think it’s more the worry that you will need to conform to get your UBI, have the vaccination, have a good ‘social’ score, be a ‘good’ citizen to get it, otherwise it’s reduced.
I like the idea of UBI, but it should be for everyone, regardless of anything. It seems it would be good if used for the right purposes ie the benefit of the people, but nothing ever appears to be for the real benefit of the people although we are brainwashed into thinking lots of things are – cause we are all in this together.
Yes of course. Universal basic services must be protected too. Any idea can be implemented badly. (And always is when capitalists are in charge)
UBI is coming, it will be the ultimate state controlled system to deny freedom.
Unlike neoliberal capitalism?
Once they got everyone on UBI there be no creativity no freedom to express yourself as a human. It will be a top down control of a society of compliant global citizens – if you speak gain at the government narrative, if you do an activity or Visit a location Outside of your zone, if you don’t have a vaccine etc then your UBI will be reduced or cut. You be forced to be a mindless meat drone to survive.
All this of-course will be policed by A.I powers by the 5G internet of things.
United Nations have been planing for this since the 80s as part of their agenda 2030 plan. So it’s coming unless we the people keep our humanity to be free and sovereign.
So like the trajectory we are on already without UBI? UBI allows us to say no to shit jobs. Job Guarantee does not. Unless a job guarantee means you can’t get fired in which case why put in much effort if its a shit job? If you can get fired then its nmot a guarantee, anyone can get a job if they don’t mind it being absolutely awful work.
That’s the same thing they said about public health care and income assistance programs. And incredibly we still have creative people in society.
Welfare can be a trap but it can also save lives. Besides, the rich can afford it. We just need to tax them more.
MMT the same old shite as far as I can tell.
We have discussed UBI in at least one recent article. We have no resident experts on MMT but are certainly not avoiding the subject.
Well part of the reason people are playing up to the lockdown panic is perhaps because many of us see the economy as a complete croc if shit. Of course the ruling class won’t hand us a new economy that works for us, and they will exploit the lockdown as they exploit everything. But there is an opportunity for the left here to make the world think about how the economy works. And that’s the most radical thing we can do right now. Conscious awakening.
As a self respecting anarchist who lies to think of things such as human dignity, and the fact that governments are protection rackets, I wouldn’t be happy living on government handouts. I would prefer to see them all shipped off to Siberia, or preferably a space station so they can live out their fantasies off-planet where they belong.
The government stooges and their overlords, I mean.
Hello Kit and company:
I’ve seen the meme about people being selfish for wanting to be free? Or to work? Or support their families? How weird is that? Think about it?
The very idea that being locked down, impoverished, placed under massive stress is something that should not be resisted.
It’s the strangest kind of straw man argument. Those that make it build the strawman and then they tear it down. But, it’s so absurd. Because what they are saying is “lay down and take it” Have your life destroyed, shut up and put up!
As those perception managers promote that false idea they gloss over the facts of the elder care death toll, ( fail to protect the elderly and vulnerable) the impending fall out from all the unnecessary stress and the massive damage to society- literally tearing it apart. Making it less stable.
As the elites and their sycophants go about their lives unimpeded with their entitlement/hypocrisy firmly intact. And big business is bailed out with enormous handouts that the people are responsible for. Instead of chastizing the destroyers they are attacking it’s victims.
There is something perverse/evil about that!
I don’t understand this so simply. Yes there are hardships with lockdown, But there are also many hardships with the drudgery of everyday working week, with your boss breathing down your neck when you wish you were able see your family or loved ones at home like a normal social animal, a human being, was always meant. The destruction you describe is from a cultural lens not an innate human one. This matters.
Mister Bump: Seems to me you missed the point of Kit’s article?
“The destruction you describe is from a cultural lens not an innate human one. This matters.”
People are not wrong or immoral for wanting to have a livelihood, support themselves and be free to move about.
That destruction is very real. And it’s very human. The collateral damage that this episode is already causing and will continue to create will result in a great deal of human destruction. Whatever the means the end is the same. Making your cultural vs innate arguement extraneous.
The collateral.damage is caused by the govnt not implementing UBI and MMT and redistributing resources. Money \ work is a means to that end but not the only one. And of course there’s nothing immoral about wanting to survive. But why must going back to the same shitty low paid jobs be the only way out of this. It plays into the hands of the state when we say ‘the economy’ and ‘jobs’ and ‘businseses have to make money’ are some universal law for human survival and wellbeing. It’s bullshit. And exposes the greatest crisis humanity faces right now : a total lack of imagination.
The lockdown provides oportunity against the state as well as oppresion from the state. Being forced to go back to work and forget all about Cornoavirus would be yet another missed opportunity to jemi neoliberal capitalism right of its cracked overton window..
How do we stop it?
The best way is to not cooperate- Not comply
I do try not to cooperate but I cannot send my daughter to school or avoid queuing to get my food or relax in a bar, even if I want to. People that think that the lockdown should end before is too late should get organized and become visible in our now sad streets. However a lot of courage is needed. Who would go to do is shopping holding a placard that says END THE LOCKDOWN-SAVE LIVES or WAKE UP-WE NEED EACH OTHER or anything else?
I would but I’m scared because I’m alone and that I think is exactly how we are meant to be and feel.
Hi Francesca:
Yes, I do think we are supposed to feel as if we are alone. But we aren’t and you aren’t
I understand the difficulties we are in.
What I’ve taken to doing is dropping meme bombs on people- when appropriate- just try to think of little things to say when out and about (plant seeds) , smile, don’t lose your humanity through all of this. That will make a difference
Buy t-shirts, with messages on them, not social distancing queen or anything like that but other things, covid-19(84) , con or a virus, make something up.
I have a ‘world fear tour will kill us all on the front’ and a list of many of the msm’s lies about what will kill us and we need to be in fear about, such as y2k, mayan end of world, zika, migrants, north korea, h1n1, swine flu, ebola, fake news, and covid is at the bottom of the list.
I am also passed being nice to people if they distance and expect a thank you!
Why do you want to go back to normal? Normal was the problem.
Children are better off not going to school anyway… have you seen the horror of social distancing in schools?
By going back to work and keeping everything just as it was. Wow, what a revolt that would be!
we need to end the lockdown. If we don’t protest the govt has no intention of letting us out
The govnt wants our labour. Thats all they have ever wanted from us. The last thing they want is for us to be locked away from their exploitative labour practices
but they have locked us up
They don’t need so many people any more
we are dispensable hence the destruction of the economy
If you are talking about real change, and for the betterment of all then I am in agreement.
That would be Laissez-faire of you
You send out emails that there doesn’t seem any way to stop them. I’ve actually emailed you numerous times but still they arrive.
I have tried to unsubscribe from your ranting emails but to no effect. Why don’t you have an unsubscribe button at the bottom of your email?
??
OffGuardian don’t send out emails (‘ranting’ or otherwise) direct in their name. The only courtesy emails you are likely to receive are notifications of replies from other commenters (such as this one) to any comments you have posted.
Never heard of spam settings? They really are extremely simple to use to send any email you don’t want to a spam folder.
And talking of ranting, your comment sticks out like a sore thumb in an otherwise pretty much rant-free discussion.
UK public coerced; threatened by gauleiters; propaganda -ised; intimidated by so-called public servants; lied to by “assets”; deceived; defrauded; made homeless; made jobless; disenfranchised; universal human rights taken away; disempowered; children’s lives ruined……..by nobodies?
And the legal class action to immediately remove so-called leaders shysters puppets oligarchs?
Is starting when exactly?
Just wondering.
Interlocutor mentions Dolan:
“And the legal class action to immediately remove so-called leaders shysters puppets oligarchs?
Is starting when exactly?”
Yes, aware re S Dolan… for me, reliance on crowd funding is ‘suspicious’.
Normally (basic human rights; justice) a case of such obvious and massive public interest would automatically qualify for full, competent, if available? legal-rep-funding; with full costs indemnity against the far more powerful (crooked “for your own good”) State defendant. imho.
For me, ‘smelly’ and possibility that SD is an “asset” or a patsy. Similar to a stalking horse?
Would also be a massive opportunity to restore access to justice-rights-legal aid to those (majority) whose basic rights have been stripped.
Just my feeling, anyway. More than content to be corrected.
I do hope this isn’t the case with Dolan.
I know what you mean. But I think we have been so thoroughly conditioned that ‘public interest’ has now been reduced to the single catchphrase End Lives, Save Money… I mean, Save Lives Protect the NHS, or the new one that escapes me right now.
Failure can set precedent (do we even have common law any more?) So I really, really hope it’s above-board. I’m not sure why a lawyer or two have not already started some kind of massive challenge. Apart from Lord Sumption, is there any other legal personage who is seeing that human rights (other than a new right, with its corresponding duties, to watch mainstream news all day) have vanished, been wiped, been negated, and who thinks this is shocking? Or how dangerous the new changes to laws have been? I know next to nothing about the way law operates; maybe there has to be some ‘harm’ raised by an individual or a group before a challenge is raised? But without legal aid, who will take that first step?
Here in South Australia we have an American woman whose court case in LA has been dropped because there are no flights, so the Sherrifs cannot pick her up. When will flights between US and UK stop and Assange gets the chance to return to Australia?
I don’t question in the least the assertion that “the left” is fully on board with the lockdown lunacy. What I do question is why. I would call myself “Ultra Left”; yet I can find nothing within any leftist media (i.e., actually left, not in name only) which seriously questions the Covid-19 schtick – even calling it a “schtick” would garner a “far right” label.
Kind of makes me think this whole “left-right” thing is itself nothing but a clever schtick.
In terms of politics left right is only one axis. Another is authoritarian libertarian. The supporters of the lockdown (who are doing so from an politico-ideological position, as opposed to having being frightened to the point of having lost any sense of proportion) are authoritarians. Some authoritarians are right-wing, many are left-wing.
Excellent point, thank you.
‘Some authoritarians are right-wing, many are left-wing.’ Wow that’s a revelation to the world except you appear to be saying only SOME are right wing but MANY are left wing. 6 upvotes and 0 downvotes. The left are scumbags arent they? They should come on here and see the error of their ways. no?
As an anti-authoritarian I support the lockdown because for many people its liberating and less authoritarian to be locked at home with loved ones than be in work with an asshole boss. Just because this isnt true for everyone, doesnt make it less authoritarian to go back to how it was.
Which media exactly are you talking about here? Why are you reluctant to name names of left wing media you talk of to back up your assertions? It would be so useful if you did.
Since clearly all mainstream media automatically disqualifies itself as “left wing media,” I do a lot of “slumming” among YouTube videos. Previously, my premier choice for left wing information was the blog Truthdig; but that is in a self-imposed lockdown mode unrelated to Covid-19. Currently, my go-to left wing site is Mint Press – which does at least quasi-question the lockdown wisdom. The YouTubers (Redacted Tonight, Jimmy Dore, Kyle Kulinski, Chris Hedges’ On Contact) all seem to have accepted the Official Narrative.
Admittedly, I do not visit the Worldwide Socialist Website, though frequently their articles appear in Global Research (basically a “libertarian” blog). I am duly dripping with guilt and shame. of course, that I do not find all their articles entirely “left wing”; but that’s life on an imperfect planet.
I forgot to add Going Underground. Sorry.
Nobody knows today if there will be more deaths through opening up or lockdown, or if there can be a lot of re-infection. They operate in the dark and might as well throw a dice. Putting all over 70 year olds under house arrest is not lawful.
The ones I know in Greece are not fully on board with it but were not in a position to risk heavy fines either by flouting it too blatantly.
The day after the lockdown ended flyposting suddenly re-appeared on the walls. There was virtually none during the lockdown as you can’t walk around with a bucket of glue and pretend you were just going to the supermarket if stopped by a cop.
lots of far right websites do though. So perhaps its offguardian that is a clever schtick?
Daily Mail publishes ‘advert’ for national Lockdown Protest…
Mass gatherings with picnics and live music hosted by anti-vaxxing group are advertised in cities across UK for Saturday as police urge public NOT to attend
Great Job!!!! 🙂
This is beautiful. See pictures of people in the park? Remember what that is like? Going outside, not being afraid.
But so many wish for a “new normal,” where our bodies are nothing but hazardous vessels to be isolated from any healthy human connection. Our face, our identity, to be covered by the new Star of David.
Hopefully some musicians take advantage of this and we actually start to see some real artists start to protest lockdown – as so many have fled with their tails between their legs from this scare.
“But so many wish for a “new normal,” where our bodies are nothing but hazardous vessels to be isolated from any healthy human connection. Our face, our identity, to be covered by the new Star of David.”
This statement so beautifully encapsulates what’s happening now. I live in the US and something as simple as going to the grocery store now feels so soul destroying–people’s faces covered in masks, some wearing gloves, afraid to get too close to you, some no longer even make eye contact. Very different from just two months ago when you could expect people to smile as they passed you in the aisle or even strike up a conversation about the price of produce or meat and where you could get a better deal with no worry they were standing too close. Sometimes you’d make a new friend at the store. Now, even family members are afraid to touch each other or breach the 6 foot barrier. It truly depresses me, yet I’ve talked with people who are okay with living this way because “it’s for our safety, the experts say so.”
Some laws should be broken…
Keeping families apart should be a law that is in no way obeyed.
Ordinary German’s were hung for following orders.
Labour and remainers need to stop this. they are putting everyone at risk. Bring in the army to deal with them.
This was the first comment underneath the article. Made me giggle…
Tell the police to quarantine since they love it so much!
Tell the police to stay locked up in a nursing home cell for 4 months!
Tell the police to they cannot work anymore!
Police on Furlough starting Now!!!
Yay! The daily mail are really on board with socialism and anti-authoritarianism.
Huh?………..aren’t those mutually exclusive?
They want to sell newspapers and probably sense a groundswell of opinion to tap into. About a month ago the “Sun” and “Telegraph” were giving some space to criticism of lockdowns, or at any rate the more high-handed police behaviour.
One of our informed local politicians characterized all the protesters of the lockdown as “selfish, paranoid, and misinformed” tinfoil hat wearers but had no direct comment on any of the above type of claims of the protesters. Why are pols so seen as elitist and arrogant and and at a nadir of public trust ?
The “lockdown” measures are killing people. And this was entirely predictable. Yet the government made no attempt to assess how many people would die as a result of its “lockdown” measures. This was admitted by Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, on 10 April 2020 at the Coronavirus Daily Update. It was a breathtaking admission. Hancock’s admission revealed that the government had adopted an irrational, irresponsible and incompetent approach to policy-making on this issue. Why would any rational policy-maker adopt a policy to save say twenty thousand lives if that same policy would kill two hundred thousand people? They wouldn’t; not if their motivation was to save lives. Yet that is what the government has done. So either the government’s motivation is other than the one publicly claimed or the government has gone collectively mad.
I’m replying to thank you again – this time for the logical argument. The lack of logic in any of this event has terrified me. I wrote a quite logical question to my MP when this kicked off, asking her directly to pose it to the government, which she said she would do (to Matt Hancock… queue sounds of tumbleweed from her direction ever afterwards). But the rest of her reply was so teenager-ish, so illogical, and using so many fallacious arguments, that I went into shock for about three weeks.
AMR The use of logical fallacies and emotive rhetoric as though they constituted evidenced, reasoned argument is terribly fashionable. The values of the Enlightenment are olde worlde, outmoded, anachronistic, superannuated, antediluvian, antiquated, out of date, uncool, and just too much like hard work and awfully inconvenient. Just ask Titania McGrath.
‘Compassion’, the NHS and faux-socialism are being wickedly used as a cover for fascist objectives, where the safety and support of the vulnerable are whipped away because these people don’t make money for the masters. Shame on those supporting the government in any way (and, yes, I’m afraid at the moment that includes ‘honouring’ the NHS and veterans) and shame on the businesses colluding.
Of course one can critique lock-down, but we will only see its ultimate worth, in preventing death and morbidity, when lock-downs end. I fully agree that lock-downs are being used by the ruling thugs for nefarious reasons, but that is a perennial feature of the ‘Free World’.
So when will lock down end? What about all that noise about how things will never be the same again? And what about these endlessly produced statistics which are constantly being queried and fought over? When will all that be straightened out? And when are we going to see figures relating to non-coronavirus matters? Suicides? Cancer cases? Cancelled operations? At what point do we reach that objective height where it all becomes clear and we can say, “Ah so THAT was what it was all about?” (Also considering the political interests involved?)
You tell me-the longer the lockdown the more the stink. Even Wuhan, the epicentre of the US bio-warfare attack, ended theirs after 76 days. The current Fuhrer of Los Angeles, who looks like he’s lost his marbles, wants it to last there until the end of July. We know enough now, which we did not at the onset of lockdowns, to end them, protect the vulnerable, and use hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc as prophylaxis and post-exposure protection, under medical supervision, of course.
I don’t think they plan to let the UK elderly out ever. Or at least until we have surrendered our actual bodies to the government in payment for their freedom.
I don’t believe the UK government intends to ever reach their Level 1 Green. They state quite clearly that we’ll only be Level 1 when a) either the virus is completely eradicated, or b) we have the famous (non-consensual) vaccine. Since they also clearly stated at the same time that the only disease ever to be completely eradicated is smallpox, I think they’re more or less letting us know that a) is never going to be an option if we want our elderly to be released from solitary confinement, so we must therefore have b).
In the predicted ’18 months til vaccine’, a large number of those isolated and confined 70+ year olds will have had their health plummet, their treatments suspended or canceled, been denied sun and fresh air, and companionship and human touch, with misery, stress and mental health issues lowering their immune systems. How many of them will still be around then? Protect the NHS, sacrifice the elderly.
The UK already treated its old like shite, so this comes as no surprise.
Every morning when I get up I feel like I’m living in the old representation of the communist state or of Orwell’s 1984 where Winston Smith confronts his enormous TV screen which he can never switch off and I am waiting for my “words for today” – only with us it’s presented as a great struggle in which “we” are gaining power etc.
Hello,
1984 by Orwel was written not about communistick country,but about end of capitalism.
I was living in Soviet Union in 70 and 80-ies,life wasn’t wonderful,but no one could control people by compolsary chips,nobody could keep you in house for 3 months,everybody was entitled for working places,free education,free medical security,we could travel to sanatoriums for free,people wasn’t rich,but they were sure about the tomorow day.
p.s we never had a benefit sistem,but nobody was homeless.
Inga,
I was careful to say “the old representation of the communist state or of Orwell’s 1984” knowing that each of these was a matter of presentation – obviously so in the Orwell case since that was fiction. Of course, in the West, 1984 was gladly taken to be a vision of life under communism. But Orwell was postulating a global order whereby the masses were kept under control by having them split into three different areas with a constantly shifting war allocated between the three. It seems to me to be not about communism but about propagandist devices in general and it retains its power because these devices are still being used today.
As for the actual conditions within communist states, I have always thought that these states had to be presented to us through Western propaganda. It’s not a question of saying that these states were utopias but acknowledging the presence of anti-communist propaganda which must always be borne in mind before you make further comment.
Arguably, perhaps communist East Germany (the GDR/DDR) was closer to Orwell’s 1984 than the Soviet Union, with the Stasi, and its huge army of voluntary informers.
The German film “The Lives of Others” (“Das Leben der Anderen”) is well worth watching.
Technology wasn’t well enough advanced for them to use Telescreens as in 1984, but they did use such technology as was available for surveillance purposes.
On the other hand, Britain has probably the largest network of tele-surveillance in the world (at least the western world) and nobody turns a hair.
I have often wondered what the inhabitants of some previous infamous society thought. Bearing in mind that they, like we, are “trapped” within their own environment with its power structure and propaganda. How do you suppose e.g. Nazi Germany looked to the folks actually living inside it. Imagine Hitler portrayed as the great leader etc. The point being that every society has its norms to which no-one turns a hair.
And also bear in mind the obvious point that you can only view the propaganda of other countries through the propaganda of your own. I recall having a discussion with a friend 30 years ago about Russia and he said “Well at least we’re better informed than them” to which I said, “Well – we’re informed that we’re better informed!”
many were happy to support hitler/that system. it looked pretty wonderful. my aunt certainly thought so.
I am sorry if i didn’t correctly understood your previous comment.
My first language is not english.
The first time in all entire human history we didn’t see such a propaganda and Big Lie on every channel,of every country,-now it doesn’t matter your cultural code,ethnicity or social status,now you are Loyalist (those who believes and really scares of them lifes,no matter even on them knees) and Disidents(those who wants truthfulness and not afraid to say that.
I understand that behind of all That Lie stands big money,and for them money is not enough-no they don’t want you to be here,they don’t want your foot prints on Earth,they given permision for us to live or die,to breath or not,to sit on the bench or not,go to work or not.
You get right to the heart of the matter when you suggest that as far as the ruling class is concerned, the rest of us should be able to do nothing without their permission. It doesn’t matter what particular “ism” they’re toting around, the dynamic never changes: they rule, we are ruled. The rulers have no trouble acting out their roles; and sadly most people have no trouble acting out their rules either.
I lived and worked in a number of former soviet countries (post 2000, so not immediately after ‘the fall’) and I was very surprised to find that most of the older people with whom I spoke missed communism, for the very reasons you give.
When I pointed out that, surely it was better to have freedom than to live under the communist yoke, the retort was almost always the same: We had free electricity, free gas, free water, a job, food etc. They didn’t have much of any of these things but they had enough to live. It seemed strange to me, coming from the west, that people would settle for the minimum requirement, but then they had never known anything different.
Now, they told me, the new rich control almost everything and scarcity/cost has plunged many into an impoverished state as everything is ‘for profit’ and far fewer people can afford the things they took for granted. As those countries have developed, their situations have improved (largely thanks to the presence of oil, gas, minerals etc being exploited by western corporations that employ a lot of younger locals). But the stark difference between my expectation and the reality was a real eye-opener.
I am not here advocating for communism in any way, but it occurs to me that ‘freedom’ is merely a perspective. When we talk of regimes and nations, then the term has a certain relevance; but it turns out the man in the street would rather live in a warm home and have food to eat on a daily basis. Notions of ‘freedom’ are meaningless when you don’t have a job and can’t afford to feed your family.
Are we any better in the ‘democratic’ west? What are we actually ‘free’ to do? At the moment, it seems we are free to lose our businesses, lose our jobs, stay at home (until we lose them if we can’t pay the rent/mortgage), clap the NHS (partly because they are heroes and partly because pretty soon they’ll be the only ones with jobs), listen to politicians and the media talking bullshit constantly; and we are free to revel in it and accuse anybody not revelling in it of being a callous, death-loving, far right nut job (or words to that effect).
I wonder if the people now shouting the loudest to maintain the lockdown will be those shouting the loudest when their respective worlds cave in around them. Probably, in my opinion. Some people just love shouting.
You always need to ask what is meant by that word “Freedom”. I would say that in a capitalist world ruled by the rich, it means freedom of the rich to exploit, become richer, cut out “wastage” on unprofitable (for them) investments etc.
And once again I recall that joke circulating around Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall:
Q: What did capitalism achieve in a single year that communism couldn’t in 70?
A: It made communism look good!
🙂
I agree re ‘freedom’.
Freedom nowadays is based on ability to pay, and it’s expensive. The more you can pay, the more freedom you have. It’s a bit like justice in that regard. I’ve always kind of known that, but it only came into sharp relief when I was confronted with the real world consequences, for real people as opposed to demographic statistics, of newly imposed freedom.
The other common usage of the word is when the US attempts to bring freedom to another country by bombing the shit out of it and stealing its natural resources.
You’re missing context here. Anyone would have been fond of a president who ridded their country of the murderous Bolsheviks. The years after their terror were relatively stable and brought with them a sense of hope. Not so during Bolshevik reign.
We had freedom but over the decades it has been taken away but the politicians in cahoots with global corporations and now they have made their final move and staged a coup.
Universal basic income will come in to replace the jobs lost but it will hardly get you a loaf of bread. It will be similar to the USSR. We will be tracked maybe with ID chips unless we fight back.
The ‘partnership’ between billionnaires and government needs to end, specifically Gates Foundation runs our government and calls the shots.
I’m not sure we have had freedom over the decades.
We were told that we are free, but how many of us ever really questioned that concept? Yes – we might have appeared to be free in comparison with other countries – hard line communist states, religious fundamentalist states et al. But, I suppose people living within such countries thought that they were free, within the specific boundaries inherent in their national structures. That was certainly my experience in the FSU.
Were/are we any different? We are free to go to work (albeit not at the moment), free to pay taxes, free to limit our expectations and accept our lot in life, free to vote for who they put in front of us etc etc. But does that amount to freedom, or is it simply the illusion of what we think freedom should look like?
It comes down to the point made by George Mc earlier: How are we defining ‘freedom’. Is it a meaningless concept, an unattainable ideal, a worldview, a realistic goal, what?
We have to define for ourselves what freedom looks like, then decide whether we actually have it, or could ever attain it. Therein lies the rub. What you think of as freedom might not agree with what I think of as freedom. So if we are both in the exact same circumstance, one of us may believe we are free; the other not.
The people now shouting for the lockdown to continue, those who cannot wait to download the tracing app and who will queue up to get Bill’s vaccine and chip implant, may well believe themselves to be free once they have all that shit. I, on the other hand, would call that indentured slavery.
Started waffling now so I’ll make one final point: Are boundaries required in order to make freedom meaningful, or should freedom be boundless? Or is it more nuanced than that – a question of degree, if you will?
Its a philisophical question however there are markers of a country where the inhabitants are not free.
So far in my life I consider myself to have been free to do what I liked. The only thing stopping me has been whether I can afford it but should I wished to have travelled to China I just needed to work to make the money for the trip. Noone was stopping me
I was free not to be vaccinated and to choose the job I did to some extent
I was free to choose where to live, what to say and what to read.
Now this is all disappearing.
A state top down approach always removes the freedoms of people
we need as small a government as possible. The larger government becomes the more corrupt and the more it strangles the economy, like a triffid and therefore cuts off people’s choices.
I agree that it’s partly a philosophical question. I also agree with the examples you gave upon which you base your perception of freedom. But I still think freedom is relative.
For example, travelling to China if you can afford it is a form of freedom ie the freedom to travel in principle.
We accept that somebody has to build the aircraft to take us there, which requires materials, which in turn require raw materials; plus the people doing the actual building need to be paid etc – you know how it works. Therefore, there is going to be some sort of cost, or reward, system in play.
We accept this system because it’s the one we’ve always known. The problem we have is that we cannot conceive of a different system that we would consider viable. None of the political ‘systems’ we have ever tried or even thought about differ very much in this respect – some may claim to distribute the rewards differently, but they are still built upon the same foundation.
What if there were a way of doing things that didn’t involve the idea of ascribing value and reward? I can’t think of one – I’m not that clever. I can’t explain how things would get dug out of the ground and processed to be made into other things which people could then use, without some form of exchange taking place.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. This, to me, is not a philosophical question, but a paradigm question. We have our current paradigm, within which we are all so firmly entrenched that we cannot see beyond it. We don’t even know if there is a ‘beyond’ it.
Knowledge is the greatest barrier to learning. We ‘know’ how things have to be, so we don’t ask the questions to which we think we already have the answers. We tend to go as far as attempting to refine the system (I won’t say ‘perfect’), but the system remains unquestioned.
Perhaps if we could do that (having first vaccinated the billionaires to get them out of the way) then we may re-evaluate what true freedom actually looks like.
North Korea (for example) gets presented as hell on earth, but not a few who defect from there find South Korea difficult or impossible to cope with.
Get real. Your were a mouse living in a cage, a part of an experiment designed to rip that country apart and steel its natural resources when the time suited its masters living in other parts of the world we won’t mention.
Thank God, if there is one, for Mr.Putin. That’s all you need to say.
I would rather not comment about Owen Jones… I think Mr. Knightly nailed it. Has anyone seen the Rockefeller scenario planning from 2010? UK Column covered it, as did Deborah Tavares, in a report also discussing the document “Silent weapons for quiet wars”, which I haven’t read fully, yet.
Which apparently is an album by Killarmy 🙂 Journalists are like magpies 🙂
Great piece, thanks, Kit. It seems people are slowly waking up. To my surprise protests are sprouting across Germany, even in small towns. Some have even revived the old punchline “wir sind das Volk”, formerly used against the communists.
– Tweet from Aaron Bastani
These people can’t even make up their minds who are the ‘right wing libertarians’ – the authoritarian governments enforcing massive state power grabs, or the ordinary people who want to be able to resume normal lives and human relationships.
“100,000 will die” is absurd totalitarian propaganda. I hope that Bastani and crew are locked down/up for a long time yet.
Most likely because that’s just a convenient label indiscriminately applied to anyone who disagrees with them.
Another face plant here. I used to read these people avidly, now….jeez:
Damian From Brighton tweets:
When Neil Clark rightly points out that some billionaires are making whoopy out of this he replies (literally two tweet later):
Nowhere you can go with such doublethink really. A firm shake of the shoulders maybe ? Oh no, social distancing etc.
https://twitter.com/damian_from/status/1260461470032302084
It’s not double think to acknowledge 2 things can be true at the same time. Or in this case that some cvapitalists will bet one way and the other will hedge their bets another way. All of which are greedy sel;fish bastards who couldn’t care less about peoples lives, only the bet itself.
Interesting. What do people make of TyskieSour (sic?) more generally? Controlled opposition? They are very slick indeed and have captured the hearts and minds of my left-leaning friends, but there’s something too slick and implausible about them, not your average lefties. Is there a whiff of Cheltenham in their airwaves?
Well said, Kit! And even when lockdown eases more, social distancing will continue to ruin livelihoods and destroy lives /kill people. I cannot find ANY evidence for the effectiveness of this measure (2m plucked out of thin air?) in keeping people “safe” from this virus for which we have no accurate test (and is hence probably massively over diagnosed).
The “science” of social distancing is nothing more than computer model outcomes. I have no idea why so many people apparently think that the outcomes of computer models constitute scientific evidence, when the outcomes are nothing more than the mathematically inevitable results of the assumptions. Computer model outcomes are simply guesses dressed up as science.
… and not dressed up particularly well.
These models, and the horrific consequences of their adoption, hinge on the premise that one person with this coronavirus can give it to another person. Yet what is the evidence of that? Has it been proven? And if so, have the transmission methods been clearly defined? Does anyone in the government or MSM even want to know? Thought not.
Good points all.
It will be interesting to see what this German document (referenced elsewhere on this site today) contains, once somebody has translated it (I’m not a German speaker). Assuming it’s gen.
Initial reports suggest that the German govt believe this ‘pandemic’ is a sham. That will put the cat right amongst the pigeons, if true. I wonder how our media will cover that [heavy irony!]
I had a “debate” – Well not such a debate, more of calmy giving evidence whilst the other person uses ad hominem attacks the other day. It was on one of the local Facebook community pages. I have to admit, I deliberately dropped little truth grenades to see if anyone would get caught in the shrapnel.
The title was obviously something about the virus, and as we have only had a soft lockdown here, and now this is being lifted slowly I have done what I usually do. I have not changed my habits at all and carried on as normal.
Well, this triggered someone in the Facebook community to start ranting about how irresponsible I am, I simply asked why. He stated the EVENT. So I pointed out to him the responsibility of being an adult and the consequences that we take. By this time, I think he must have been having some sort of fit as his language got a little more accusatory. So I then started to link various experts to support my argument – Knut Wittkowski, Dr. John Ioannidis, this person dismissed them as accredited people and then decided that I was a conspiracy nut!
So Asked this person if they would share information on their findings, to which they replied that they didn’t need to because I had shared discredited individuals, therefore this cannot be used as evidence to back up my argument. AS the “debate” (ad hominem) progressed this person then asked me for undeniable, unrefutable evidence regarding the people involved in this. I shared 4 MAINSTREAM MEDIA interviews with Bill Gates, he dismissed these to be nothing more than conspiracy theories too, and he does not trust Bill Gates at all. When I pointed out that it is very clear to see that he has orchestrated this whole pandemic and the fact the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now the main funder to WHO, he dismissed WHO as being in no way involved in this.
My last link was the global fundraiser (James Bond Villan Style) to funnel billions to WHO via the SABC News YouTube page. Nope, nothing. No matter how much evidence I provided it, this person dismissed it. The conversation had to end so I ended it and I wished this persona good day and advised them to go out to the beach (I live on a small island) and enjoy the sun and sea. to which he replied he will get all his fresh air by staying on his balcony and STAY SAFE! (F@*”)
Now I have been thinking about this exchange, the person I was having this “debate” with had no profile picture, only the Union Jack in black and white, they shared ZERO evidence and with recent reports of the 77th Brigade taking to social media to attempt to counter dissenting information, I’m thinking my encounter was actually one of these stooges?
I checked back later to see the links that were fact and no conspiracy theories being deleted in real-time by a member of the admin only to be replaced by more fear porn regarding only seven new cases, and the same admin member who deleted the links using alarmist titles “Oh it is going back up again!”
It actually made me so angry that adults would think that giving balanced facts counters fear porn. Then this popped up by the very same news organization on the very same day.
https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/102281/no_spike_in_mortality_rate_in_covid19_months_compared_to_last_year?fbclid=IwAR1uSsAyLsCNqX_jNDvCJRfVGqHLAxHe67d8SLgCf8C4zfoLcQzJh-occ0c#.XrmYrpCxXqs
Don’t get angry, David, get even. There is a lot of information about the thrombosis-riddled mili-trolls. For a start, they don’t have single informed idea in their head: they work off diagrams, “if they say that, say this”.
Disrupting productive discussions is one of their key techniques. You’re sharing a thread and everybody’s learning something until the mili-troll turns up and, please excuse my language, pisses in the pool. Some of these disruptors are military, others are political, like David Brock’s Media Matters outfit. JTRIG is the British GCHQ variant.
You can find one JTRIG document here in PDF format: behavioural-science-support-for-jtrigs-effects
The Intercept also had fun with: How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations which highlights the simple bloody-minded soldier boot boy approach.
Wow, why bother to pay for a horror novel or movie when you can access this recipe for screaming night terrors for free? Seriously, this is horrific stuff. Not surprising, as the weaponization of behavior science (is is that redundant?) has never been a secret, but chilling for the sheer callousness and hubris that motivates it. To say these agencies view people as chattel or herd animals is far to generous… we are, to them, only little meat-buttons to be pushed.
I have used the metaphor of the entertainer who spun plates on top of poles. That’s how the propaganda works. The aim is to set the system up. Once it’s up it spins on its own momentum and only needs the occasional tweak. In this case, it’s fear porn that powers it. And it’s quite easy – similar to scandal mongering. Give folk a whiff of something nasty and they’re quite willing to run with it. That’s why you don’t need anything as troublesome as details and evidence. Just start a stink and watch while others build on it.
Of course it has been said that this “The govt is out to scare us” line amounts to another kind of fear porn. But I would say that this second kind can only come after the first and also, it has no chance of taking root since it will certainly not receive backing in the media. That media is a one note symphony with unlimited amounts of sticks and plates.
So who is the entertainer with the poles? Well that’s the cute thing. It could be a he or a she or any amount if theys. With any number of identities, all popping up and then disappearing when they’ve done their job.
More particularly with regard to the virus operation, there will be armies of trolls who are given basic memes to spread in order to cultivate the desired habits of thought. These memes will include “stay safe”, “stay alert”, “flatten the curve”, “protect yourself”, “social distancing”, “support our services” and various others to emphasise the notion of a universal vulnerability etc. There will also be negative ones like “selfish”, “irresponsible”, “flouting advice”, “anti-social” (redefined to indicate what has always been considered sociable behaviour) and the ever useful “conspiracy theorists”.
So the trolls go off and plug away with their instantly formed little blogs, FB pages, Twitter accounts as well as posing as any number of aliases on comment threads. All of this being in the nature of a temporary trail that can be “disappeared” whenever it has served its use.
Your points are bang on except, sadly, the derogatory marxist comment. If a world was operated by labour-owned business enterprises, there would be no ‘billionaire’ class. Yet capitalism is designed to create just such a class. On the premise that the billionaires are directing this medical-marshall law stunt, it’s not unreasonable to conclude it may not have come to fruition under an owner-operator (marxist) economic model.
Thanks for the read. Keep them coming.
Hmm . If socialist policy’s are so so good for society’s why is there not a single country that has made a success of applying them? And you quote “On the premises that the billionaires are directing this….” You must have misread the article, that was not implied, the only menion was how the “billionaire class” may have made money from fees–which, incidently I also don’t wear; the assumption is that billionaires own the financial institutions.
Who does own the financial institutions, is a good question, dear Sardinius.
One explanation that is entirely consistent with Marxist theory – and I merely throw it up as a hypothesis – is that the time for mankind to transition to socialism has not yet come.
Socialism is not marxism; redistribution of wealth is not labor-owned profit sharing. As for your belief that the billionaires are not calling the shots from behind the scene, let me introduce you to the saying, “follow the money”.
Why has there not been a single country who has made a success of capitalism? Not least that there have been so many of them, every single one a horrific and brutally cruel failure.
These leftie dinosaurs chant ‘no profits before people’ while at the same time hope to profit politically by encouraging the lockdown. For me this bullshit has always been about our basic human rights. I don’t give a flying fuck about anything else. The thought of not being allowed to go out for a walk trumps anything these dickheads are on about and will ever be on about. Dickheads on both sides of the fence. This is what we get when we make them relevant at the polling booth. Suppose they have an election and no one turned up to vote? That’s the only way things will drastically change. Revolutions are over-rated.
I am as left-wing as they come. Nationalise everything useful, etc…
It’s obvious this is all a scam to feudalise the masses, for the benefit of the 1% or 0.1%
(A quote from Max Keiser, not in any way a leftwinger!)
JC is a suburban socialist, but at least McDonnell had the economics.
Compared to his spending ideas, this Boris crowd will tank the UK completely.
At least the real workers in the ‘States are not putting up with this.
Labelled all rednecks, or gun toting Trumpers, they are just the real workers, who, as in all countries are the people who really make it run.
Reminds me of 1979, winter of discontent- when city slickers had to walk over uncollected rubbish, graves were not dug, the elite saw who really mattered in making a country function.
Similar reaction from the elite is to be expected this time. Shackle the real workers…
You know where the term redneck originated?
Well according to Wiki (crosses himself!):
I doubt if it has the Marxist connotation. Indeed one of the curous things about America is that their political colours seem the opposite of the UK’s i.e. we have Blue Tory and Red Labour, they have Blue Democrat (left liberal) and Red Republican (conservative).
Sadly, John McDonnell didn’t have the right economics. He’s at best a microeconomist, not a macro economist, and was badly advised. With his “Fiscal Credibility Rule” he was just accepting the neoliberal paradigm. Instead of taking on board MMT, he publicly rubbished it. I gave up on him at that point. Labour is better off without him. I hope Anneliese Dodds does better.
(The Tories have temporarily adopted a sort of bastardised MMT in their temporary Corona panic, but if and when that comes to an end they will soon revert to type and claw it all back with the most horrible cuts imaginable. It will not be a pretty sight).
Thanks once again to Kit (and other OffG contributors) for articulating our thoughts so clearly and succintly.
Lockdowns across the world must be lifted immediately.
Here, in India, too the government announced it extending the 56-day lockdown that was otherwise to end on May 17.
The lobby groups behind the Indian government’s decision are mostly linked to RSS, who have no intelligence beyond propogating hatredness towards minorities and Dalits, and which also want to restrict the freedoms for Hindu women.
The lockdown also gives them the excuse to further their hideous agenda, as people can’t protest on the streets; the worst part being that most of the judges of the Supreme Court of India bend backwards to accomodate the government’s view on all major human rights violation cases coming before it.
Flattening the Population Curve:
https://theconversation.com/hospital-beds-and-coronavirus-test-centres-are-needed-fast-heres-an-australian-designed-solution-136041
https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2020/03/26/xcaliber-container-company-making-coronavirus-covid-19-testing-pods/2917099001/
https://archpaper.com/2020/03/cura-shipping-containers-into-covid-19-treatment-centers/#gallery-0-slide-0
Genocide apparatus.
The lockdowns are ruining lives, of that there is no question, but only in the sense that in our current circumstances they are catalysts accelerating a process of social and economic disintegration that was already in progress and well advanced.
Under the circumstances, yes, it’s true: a worse choice among alternative measures could not have been made, on the one hand, as is done every year, doing nothing to protect the truly vulnerable against what is and has always been a recurrent winter plague, while, on the other hand, prematurely condemning millions upon millions to the distress and despair of unemployment and penury.
But even if the lockdowns had not happened, the economic implosion we are currently witnessing was already fully emergent, so that if the results of that unfolding bust might not have been at this very moment as extensive and extreme but for the lockdowns, we would yet have gotten here if only some few short months from now.
Recessions and depressions, such as the one into which we are now entering, are inevitable outcomes of for-profit production.
Yes. End the lockdowns. By all means. Mitigate what is coming even if ultimately nothing can nor will in the long run prevent it from happening. The better choice, the more humane course, would have been, and still very much would be, to stave off the inevitable as long as humanly possible.
But profitability has evaporated. The only thing that can restore it is widespread bankruptcy or, God forbid, the wreckage of wars, that is to say, the destruction of massive amounts of capital so as to reset (from the standpoint of capital) the value of most assets down to a level that makes them profitable once again.
A catastrophe far worse than has already happened, I fear, is coming our way.
Capitalism has made it, and makes it, inevitable. With or without any lockdowns. With or without COVID-19.
Ernst Wolff has a similar discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LYjOEib9iI I think the coronavirus smokescreen was a masterstroke. Play to people’s fears, divide people into ‘grandma killers’ and ‘grandma protectors’ camps, get the ‘grandma protectors’ to spread your propaganda for free as they feel they are doing a service to humanity, dangle the magical carrot via the vaccine to ensure future obedience, meanwhile the thieves solidify their control and throw some more distractions (second wave, contact tracing, etc.)
Thank you for the link. I’ll be sure to watch the video as soon as I can make time.
As for the coronavirus being a smokescreen and a masterstroke: perhaps.
It certainly appears as though the hysteria whipped up around this thing is being used as a pretext to work out the kinks between various apparatuses of social control and repression. It’s not news to those in positions of power that social dissent and even unrest tend to be on the rise under conditions of economic stress and breakdown. Something preemptive seems to be afoot.
There is a certain fraction of any society, much larger in neo-liberal capitalist shite-holes, that DO put their own interests before those of others, even their lives.
My theory about the virus/lockdown operation is that it was intended to pre-empt the crash that you (and just about everyone else) predict i.e. the lockdown is a device to speed up the crash and thereby “take the blame” for it. As well as delivering a handy pretext for imposing a police state that would actually be supported by the public. And when you think about it, how else could the government have done it? It therefore makes perfect sense.
And your scenarios (“Recessions and depressions …..widespread bankruptcy …..the wreckage of wars”) are also depressingly credible projections. You miss out one possibility i.e. revolution. But admittedly that seems unlikely or a long way off. Mainly because the vast majority of the population have no idea what is happening.
Which brings me back to The Left. They would have known this. Does this in any way account for their backing of the lockdown? Do they – or a substantial amount of them – know that, even if the virus is a device being used by the establishment to buy more time, the lockdown can be used in a revolutionary way? I have my doubts about that since most of the Left seem to be singing the virus song sheet i.e. they seem to believe that the virus is an indication of capitalism’s weakness, not a device being used by capitalism.
Not sure that anything ‘about the virus/lockdown operation” was ever ‘intended’ in the sense that it may have been pre-planned, but I’m willing to grant that the whole thing seems to have become a tactical opportunity that’s now not being wasted.
As for ‘The Left:’ I’m also not sure that there is such a thing, at least not anything more than a loose aggregation of people who can be lumped together on the basis of the general conviction that there has to be something better that can collectively be made of the institutions of for-profit production and distribution.
Beyond that, working class consciousness, which is what “The Left” is, is contradictory consciousness, subject as it is to the contradictions between the ubiquitous propaganda from on high and the vaguely apprehended ‘facts’ of its lived experience from below.
What looks like ‘intention’ is very often only a reflection of structural dynamics.
I think a great many ‘on the left’ have simply been taken in.
No one is really immune from the effects of misinformation, in my opinion.
Thanks for that Norman. And you haven’t been round here for a while. Nice to see you back. And I’d like to thnk you for putting me in touch with Sam Williams:
https://critiqueofcrisistheory.wordpress.com/
I have found him to be illuminating (as well as terrifying).
Sam Williams is a case in point: he offers great current affairs and economic analyses, but is an example of someone who has not, like most leftist intellectuals, delved deeply enough into the scientific uncertainties and controversies pertaining to COVID-19.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t worth your time. You read him for possible insights into social, political and economic aspects of our world, just as you lend an ear to the dissenting expert opinions of the likes of Knut Wittkowski to get a better fix on the nature of the COVID-19 pandemic if not necessarily for their (perhaps less than expert) opinions on economic, social or political issues.
No one can be expertly informed on all aspects of all issues of public concern, which doesn’t mean that s/he isn’t actually informed about some things. As listeners and readers we need to keep this in mind and grant sources of information their dues on that basis.
And thank you for that link. That’s where I’m off to next . . .
Sorry, I thought it was YOU who put ME in touch with that link. I may be suffering from “cybernesia”!
It may have been me who originally put you on to Sam, but you just left me a link to a post I haven’t yet read. So . . .
Long before the virus I was struck by how much of the left can be taken by certain media themes – for example the “Arab Spring”. Basically lefties get their news from the MSM for the most part and while in Britain they may not read the Daily Mail, they do read the Guardian. While in theory they are probably aware of who controls the media, in practice they are influenced and moulded by it. In 1914 it became abundantly clear that the leaders and the rank in file of socialist parties were swept up by patriotic fervour in all the countries for the most part – basically, despite formal declarations of workers of all lands unite, they were not immune from the influences around them to support their respective countries’ governments in war.
There may be more sinister and insidious influences at work in the behaviour of some, but just because a member of a Marxist group has for example read Lenin on imperialism does not mean he or she has actually applied it in practice to analyse recent developments.
Entirely agree!
Kit, you could not have put it better and it is just as valid for New Zealand where I live. Hopefully enough people wake up soon so we can just ignore the lockdowns.
All true Kit. Unfortunately it seems we are outgunned. We are rendered impotent. The media storm behind this crisis has the majority of people fooled. This appears to be the case all over the world.
Of course, this isn’t the bad news. The really bad news is that we appear to be on the front end of a totalitarian wave washing over the whole globe. We can see it coming now as they are forcefully rolling out their agenda for total social control. It isn’t clear just how fast they will move, but they seem to be pushing pretty fast.
It seems we will be facing an array of difficulties in the near future. I am arguing, as I have been arguing for some time now, that we will need to escape society.
We, the small group people who are aware of what’s actually going on, are currently quite isolated and alone. This makes us weak. We will be easy to take down if we remain isolated. Seriously, so what if we “refuse to comply”. If we remain isolated in our houses, the authorities will pick us off one by one. They will steamroll us.
My point is, we really need to start getting organized. We need to get into groups. We need to prepare for this. We can find safety in numbers.
I’m talking about this in some videos I have been making lately. Here’s the most recent one:
Get Organized – https://youtu.be/HPuM1CpeH8M
There’s a lot more to say about this subject, but the only thing I would add is this: we should all pray for help. We should do this first and foremost. Seriously, the forces we are up against are incredibly powerful – they control the whole world. If we don’t have divine assistance, we won’t stand a chance. We should humble ourselves and ask God for help, because if God won’t help us, we won’t make it. We should pray and hope that God will help us. Maybe He will. If we are lucky God will help us.
I share your concern about our predicament but the thing is I’m not sure what the actual breakdown of support is like. I know the TeamApocalypse is extremely vocal and has the entire corporate media behind them. But the screeching on the Internet isn’t representative of the whole population and probably represents a particularly manipulable and unstable demographic. For example, check out this extremely busy the first day of a restaurant opening in Colorado (against orders and I think it was ordered shut the next day, sadly): https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1259621745344098308 No one there looks particularly concerned about the safety theater that is threatening people. So there are people out there, but I don’t think the government and media wants to people to know how many people think this whole thing is bullshit.
It is the aim of the virus propaganda to turn the population into screaming headless chickens. But we have an affluent consumer population who have been living in a state that would be considered the lap of luxury by most on the planet. This has led to a curiously schizophrenic situation. You have people frothing at home about “those selfish bastards endangering all our lives” – and yet how would even they expect people to behave when out? Are we supposed to go around hunched up, masked and fearfully waving our arms around to fend the pestilence off? It is as if the media are attempting to somehow transform the entire Western world into a huddled third world community, the terrified playthings of tyranny or warlords.
So how far will the government and its executive arms go? Will they start shooting people to make sure everyone gets the message?
“Affluent consumer population” – that covers it. At the start of lockdowns someone somewhere noted that tens of millions of people in North America and Europe were for the first time experiencing a typical and everyday slice of life for say, Palestinians.
A lot of the time it has been impossible not to note a certain First World neuroticism, even in relatively impoverished Greece.
WHO BEARS THE BURDEN
A while back I watched a film advertising elaborate underground bunkers. These bunkers could be built under a newly constructed house or manufactured to fit on an adjacent piece of property. The idea is that during a cataclysmic event you’d live underground in a cozy bunker. One owner of such a bunker gave a tour of her secret underworld sanctuary. The entrances heavy metal doors were succeeded by narrow steep stairs. The underground bunker was sectioned into several rooms. The kitchen had a long bench which lifted revealing thousands of dollars of prepper foods supposedly edible for years. There were other storage shelves packed with additional boxes of food intended for an indefinite stay. So in effect, the bunker was like a well-stocked coffin. The notion of living for years in an underground bunker never venturing above ground didn’t sound too appealing. For that matter, could anyone survive a worldwide nuclear holocaust, ecological apocalypse, or a horrific contagion wiping out all of humanity.
In any case, it was clear from this film that if civilization collapsed a very tiny percentage of affluent preppers would “try” to survive. In any event, COVID-19 is not such an apocalyptic event, although the liberal mainstream media news would like you to think so. Preppers for the most part haven’t mirandered down into their deep bunkers, however, many are sitting comfortably in spacious dwellings leisurely working from home. Most have fled New York City and are enjoying their second homes at the beach or in the mountains.
As usual a crisis demonstrates it’s the poor, working-class, and middle-class who bear the burden. Wealth, allows for freedom and spontaneous choices without the fear of financial repercussions. The affluent jump into their luxury SUVs and head to second homes, while the jobless are crammed into tiny apartments worrying about how to pay for food, rent, or utilities. Politicizing a pandemic might be amusing for wealthy liberals during an election year, but it’s not a joke for those who lost their small businesses, jobs, and entire life savings. It’s also hardly funny for the elderly who are COVID-19 terrified and are too frightened to leave their homes.
Another thing Covid-19 revealed was the suffocating bureaucratic nature of the Democratic Party and how little they care about individual liberty and freedom. Nevertheless, the Dems did display how enamored they are about international health organization heavily funded by Bill Gates. Fauci, a Bill Gates stooge is the Dems oracle on all things COVID-19. No alternative opinions are allowed by other virologists or epidemiologists. Whatever happened to the notion of consulting several doctors about managing a disease. It appears, the official narrative even about a pandemic can only exist when specialists are handpicked by the security state.
And wouldn’t you know it “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation committed up to $100 million for the global response to the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). The funding is to strengthen detection, isolation and treatment efforts; protect at-risk populations; and develop vaccines, treatments and diagnostics.”
The autocratic arbitrary policies initiated by Democratic Governors destroyed the livelihood of millions, and will not be remedied by a noxious Gates vaccine.
A one-size-fits-all vaccine. Mandated. No taking into account the uniqueness of each person’s body. Little children, who do not know what’s happening, being injected with poisons by those who profit from imposing control. This is Marxist hell. Cheered on by the heinous bastards who frankly hate humanity.
Evidence of direct victims of lockdown in NYC (from LV)
Exactly what many epidemiological experts predicted back in March that locking down families, young with elderly and sick at home and not protecting vulnerable instead would increase infections and deaths.
Dewine is exacerbating the exposure of the same ‘at-risk’ populations he is supposedly concerned with, as well. While much of Ohio’s retail has reopened, allowing people to return to work, he has delayed opening day care centers, putting many families in difficult positions. Having already ended the school year prematurely (not that it would have gone on for much longer), parents who are now ‘allowed’ to work have to figure out what to do with their kids… which usually falls to the retired or part-time grandparents. Now the media is also floating the notion of ‘mystery illness’ related to COVID but targeting children. If they’re not tying the hands of working people one way, they’re doing it another.
Is there any leftist political party not falling for this trick? I notice, even the Stalinist CPGB-ML have. If I were half as Stalinist/‘paranoid’ (as I am), I would not be spouting the nonsense they’re coming out with.
Same as it ever was. The left are fooled. And divided. When will we learn? The truth is hidden in plain sight.
If I ever felt more isolated, it’s now.
Yet I’m surely not alone. We need a real party. And we need it now.
I’ve only seen some individual twitter users* who are more or less socialist and not any actual party yet, but I would be happy to see one. I did see something about a German anti-lockdown party or something but I didn’t look into it. But the left truly got played. Running into the hands of austerity and the pharmaceutical and surveillance industry after having had the wool pulled over their eyes by the media and government. Why trust them when as putative leftists they should skeptical of power and its dissemination? I have speculated before (worship of experts, scientific illiteracy, psychological tendencies towards anxiety, naivety about medical industry, naivety about how stories are chosen and presented in the media, naivety that ‘scientific’ matters are not interwoven with political ones, naivety that government=good and anti-government=bad). Basically no consideration of class and material analysis!!! The protesters in the USA demonstrated more political aptitude in 1 hour than the legions of internet leftists who strangely find themselves welcoming austerity, precarity, privatization, incarceration, and fear.
* https://twitter.com/PhilGreaves01
@cordeliers
@Charlotte3003G
I do wonder how many leftists will change their positions once they realize there won’t be the same jobs to come back to after furlough as this extended layoff will give many companies the justification to reduce their work forces. Same for the people relying on the relief funds, once those are withdrawn (or tied to some ridiculous medical-surveillance requirements). Or should this debacle continue long enough, the lines for food become longer, and the selection becomes smaller and smaller. Will they still think the government and pharmaceutical industry and their puppet media as friends?
This is certainly not a left-right issue. And believing such a thing misses the mark entirely.
This is an issue of tyranny, of controlling the peasants. And we’d best all come to understand that the lock-downs are subjecting all of us ‘peasants’ to economic, emotional, psychological, physical and social destruction. We either come together and stop the tyrannical psychopathy, or we die a painful death.
Bingo. Rockefeller, Cargnegie, and their cronies long ago set an agenda to ensure that the left/right paradigm would only be a smoke screen for a more unified shadow administration, preventing the ‘disruption’ of laws being passed and then repealed ad ad nauseam. They wanted to give people the illusion of choice while themselves remaining free to enact their overarching policies. If we can’t move past the false dichotomy they’ve set up, we’ll be forced to continue playing by their rules.
The con worked with the Left by linking opposition to the virus story with “libertarianism” which became a catch-all word for “the Right”. But before anyone want to get into an ideological debate, let me just say that the details of this aren’t important. The fundamental logical error is in assuming that you have to make your political/philosophical allegiances clear before you even look at reported events.
Thus, the virus story became inextricably linked with “revolution” while the questioning of the story was linked with “reaction”. After which, the actual details i.e. arguments about what was actually happening became irrelevant. (And the Left were certainly not above a level of duplicity here. When struck with statistics that seemed to go against their view, they would prevaricate with, “Well we just don’t know. We have to wait and see” but then they would carry on as if the worst-case scenarios and projections could be taken for granted.)
Chablis on the lawn?
Chablis under the Wisteria, surely.
Great article.
Every morning in our local newspaper I see the myriad articles giving us pep talks and lauding our humanity for staying on side to end the virus (eventually – remember flattening the curve) through our obedience and perhaps one or two sad articles on delayed surgeries, increased unemployment, mental health and suicide hotlines. It always reminds me of the joke about the kid who murdered his parents and threw himself on the mercy of the court because he was an orphan.
n…,
I think you’ll appreciate this cartoon courtesy of Peter Hitchens’ twitter!
https://twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1259446203605045251
More Marxist madness in Los Angeles
https://www.targetliberty.com/2020/05/madness-in-los-angeles-lockdown-will.html
Thank God for fascist commonsense.
Better than your fucking totalitarian paradise.
If you think Los Angeles is under ‘Marxist’ rule, you need your head read-a short exercise.