653

The New (Pathologized) Totalitarianism

CJ Hopkins

Image source: here

It was always going to come to this … mobs of hysterical, hate-drunk brownshirts hunting down people not wearing masks and trying to get them fired from their jobs, “no mask, no service” signs outside stores, security staff stopping the mask-less from entering, paranoid pod people pointing and shrieking at the sight of mask-less shoppers in their midst, goon squads viciously attacking and arresting them…

Welcome to the Brave New Normal.

And it isn’t just the Maskenpflicht-Sturmabteilung. The new official narrative is omnipresent. The corporate media are pumping out hysteria about “Covid-19 hospitalizations” (i.e., anyone admitted to a hospital for anything who tested positive for the coronavirus) and “major incidents” (i.e., people at the beach).

Police are manning makeshift social-distancing-monitoring watchtowers in London. There are propaganda posters and billboards everywhere, repeating the same neo-Goebbelsian slogans, reinforcing the manufactured mass hysteria. Dissent and nonconformity are being pathologized, “diagnosed” as psychopathy and paranoia. Mandatory vaccinations are coming.

You didn’t think they were kidding, did you, when they started introducing the Brave New Normal official narrative back in March?

They told us, clearly, what was coming. They told us life was going to change … forever. They locked us down inside our homes. They ordered churches and synagogues closed. They ordered the police to abuse and arrest us if we violated their arbitrary orders. They closed the schools, parks, beaches, restaurants, cafés, theaters, clubs, anywhere that people gather.

They ripped children out of their mother’s arms, beat and arrested other mothers for the crime of “wearing their masks improperly,” dragged mask-less passengers off of public buses, gratuitously beat and arrested people for not “social-distancing” on the sidewalk, shackled people with ankle monitors, and intimidated everyone with robots and drones.

They outlawed protests, then hunted down people attending them and harassed them at their homes. They started tracking everyone’s contacts and movements. They drafted new “emergency” laws to allow them to forcibly quarantine people. They did this openly. They publicized it. It’s not like they were hiding anything.

No, they told us exactly what was coming, and advised us to shut up and follow orders. Tragically, most people have done just that. In the space of four months, GloboCap has successfully imposed totalitarianism — pathologized totalitarianism — on societies all across the world. It isn’t traditional totalitarianism, with a dictator and a one-party system, and so on. It is subtler and more insidious than that. But it is totalitarianism nonetheless.

GloboCap could not have achieved this without the approval (or at least the acquiescence) of the vast majority of the masses. The coronavirus mass hysteria was a masterstroke of propaganda, but propaganda isn’t everything. No one is really fooled by propaganda, or not for long, in any event. As Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari noted in the opening of Anti-Oedipus:

The masses were not innocent dupes. At a certain point, under a certain set of conditions, they wanted fascism, and it is this perversion of the desire of the masses that needs to be accounted for.”

I am not going to try to account for the “perversion of the desire of the masses” here in this essay, but I do want to dig into the new pathologized totalitarianism a little bit.

Now, I’m going to assume that you understand that the official “apocalyptic pandemic” narrative is predicated on propaganda, wild speculation, and mass hysteria, and that by now you are aware that we are dealing with a virus that causes mild to moderate symptoms (or absolutely no symptoms at all) in 95% of those infected, and that over 99.5% survive … thus, clearly, no cause for widespread panic or justification for the totalitarian “emergency measures” that have been imposed.

I am also going to assume that you watched as GloboCap switched off the “deadly pandemic” to accommodate the BLM protests, then switched it back on as soon as they subsided, and that you noted how their propaganda shifted to “cases” when the death count finally became a little too embarrassing to continue to hype.

So, I won’t waste your time debunking the hysteria. Let’s talk pathologized totalitarianism.

The genius of pathologized totalitarianism is like that old joke about the Devil … his greatest trick was convincing us that he doesn’t exist. Pathologized totalitarianism appears to emanate from nowhere, and everywhere, simultaneously; thus, technically, it does not exist. It cannot exist, because no one is responsible for it, because everyone is.

Mass hysteria is its lifeblood. It feeds on existential fear. “Science” is its rallying cry. Not actual science, not provable facts, but “Science” as a kind of deity whose Name is invoked to silence heretics, or to ease the discomfort of the cognitive dissonance that results from desperately trying to believe the absurdities of the official narrative.

The other genius of it (from a GloboCap viewpoint) is that it is inexhaustible, endlessly recyclable. Unlike other official enemies, the “deadly virus” could be any virus, any pathogen whatsoever. All they have to do from now on is “discover” some “novel” micro-organism that is highly contagious (or that mimics some other micro-organism that we already have), and wave it in front of people’s faces. Then they can crank up the Fear Machine, and start projecting hundreds of millions of deaths if everyone doesn’t do exactly as they’re told.

They can run this schtick … well, pretty much forever, anytime the working classes get restless, or an unauthorized president gets elected, or just for the sheer sadistic fun of it.

Look, I don’t mean to be depressing, but seriously, spend an hour on the Internet, or talk to one of your hysterical friends that wants to make mask-wearing mandatory, permanently. This is the mentality of the Brave New Normal … irrationally paranoid and authoritarian. So, no, the future isn’t looking very bright for anyone not prepared to behave as if the world were one big infectious disease ward.

I’ve interacted with a number of extremely paranoid corona-totalitarians recently (just as a kind of social experiment). They behave exactly like members of a cult.

When challenged with facts and basic logic, first, they flood you with media propaganda and hysterical speculation from “medical experts.” Then, after you debunk that nonsense, they attempt to emotionally manipulate you by sharing their heartbreaking personal accounts of the people their therapists’ brother-in-laws’ doctors had to helplessly watch as they “died in agony” when their lungs and hearts mysteriously exploded.

Then, after you don’t bite down on that, they start hysterically shrieking paranoia at you (“JUST WAIT UNTIL THEY INTUBATE YOU!” … “KEEP YOUR SPITTLE AWAY FROM ME!”) and barking orders and slogans at you (“JUST WEAR THE GODDAMN MASK, YOU BABY!” … “NO SHOES, NO SHIRT, NO MASK, NO SERVICE!”)

Which … OK, that would be kind of funny (or terribly sad), if these paranoid people were not just mouthpieces echoing the voice of the official power (i.e., GloboCap) that is transforming what is left of society into a paranoid, pathologized, totalitarian nightmare right before our eyes. They’re kind of like the “woman in red” in The Matrix. When you are talking to them, you’re not talking to them. You’re talking to the agents. You’re talking to the machines. Try it sometime. You’ll see what I mean. It’s like talking to a single algorithm that is running in millions of people’s brains.

I can’t lie to you. I’m not very hopeful. No one who understands the attraction (i.e., the seduction) of totalitarianism is. Much as we may not like to admit it, it is exhilarating, and liberating, being part of the mob, surrendering the burden of personal autonomy and individual responsibility, fusing with a fanatical “movement” that is ushering in a new “reality” backed by the sheer brute force of the state … or the transnational global capitalist empire.

It is irresistible, that attraction, to most of us. The chance to be a part of something like that, and to unleash one’s hatred on those who refuse to go along with the new religion … to publicly ridicule them, to humiliate them, to segregate them from normal society, to hunt them down and get them fired from their jobs, to cheer as police abuse and arrest them, to diagnose them as “abnormal” and “inferior,” these social deviants, these subhuman “others,” who dare to challenge the authority of the Party, or the Church, or the State, or the Reich, or Science.

Plus, in the eyes of GloboCap (and its millions of fanatical, slogan-chanting followers), such non-mask-wearing deviants are dangerous. They are like a disease … an infestation. A sickness in the social body. If they refuse to conform, they will have to be dealt with, quarantined, or something like that.

Or they can just surrender to the Brave New Normal, and stop acting like babies, and wear a goddamn mask.

After all, it’s just a harmless piece of cloth.

Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek.

CJ Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volume I of his Consent Factory Essays is published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.

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Lena Bloch
Lena Bloch
Jan 14, 2021 5:24 PM

I see a lot of people respond with Covid data, as though this “measures” nightmare has any connection to the pandemic. It does not. The lockdowns, masks, arrests, curfews, measures, mandates, distancing, all this humiliating and dehumanizing stuff has nothing to do with any disease whatsoever. Hopkins is talking about the FAKE RESPONSE, not about the pandemic itself. A lot of people understand it as though these “measures” are the only way to deal with something serious. The direct opposite is true. The measures, if they have any relationship to the Covid disease, are designed to make it last as long and as badly as possible, plus make all other diseases stronger and more deadly, plus induce mental illness and suicide. When will it be possible to detach from any medical aspect of this horror and focus on social, philosophical and psychological harm to humanity?

Shruti
Shruti
Jul 4, 2020 6:30 PM

Yesterday I had to go to the grocery store. I always wait until I have nothing to eat, so that it’s my only choice. It is always extremely stressful, but lately my fears have been proven wrong and I would leave the store elated because I was not harassed, and it would lift my mood for one more day.
Not yesterday. The store was busy and everyone had diapers on their faces. Even the smallest of children were muzzled. (Here, it’s been renamed to “face coverings”). Usually, the store plays a repetitive intercom message instructing in detail how I should wipe my nose and how we are all in this together. This time, an actual person went on the intercom and delivered a long tirade about how the few people walking around in the store at the present time should put on their diapers. He was probably speaking as he was watching me through the security camera. It is difficult to describe the feeling, but it was reminiscent of being hunted.
The other three non-diapered people were older citizens and looked very sad and exhausted. July 4th used to be my favorite holiday, for it represented freedom and enjoyment of it across united states. Today, unless I join some riot, I will be taunted for not diapering my face and having an opinion different from MSM dogma. Having once escaped a totalitarian regime, I am stunned to witness people usher in a new one, and with such zeal.

artemis6
artemis6
Jul 4, 2020 3:54 PM

I do see what you are saying…. and agree with it. It is not popular, but i refuse to lie to myself to make me feel better….

tonyopmoc
tonyopmoc
Jul 4, 2020 12:28 AM

I am sorry, but I do agree with CJ Hopkins a lot
 
“fusing with a fanatical “movement” that is ushering in a new “reality” backed by the sheer brute force of the state … or the transnational global capitalist empire..
 
So I thought fck it They are obviously not going to allow any ,more live music in pubs.
 
We already had a couple of small African Drums..amd someone was drumming, and I could tell it was live, but I didn’t think there was any musical talent in our family whatsover,,,,,and it was my wife learning to play drums – on some online meditation class, and cos I have now bought a freestandind much larger drum, but I have to sit down to play it (and to my amazement I can do it), I have now bought an even bigger African Drum to play when I am standing up.
 
The bloke in Ghana who actually hand carves them, wanted some feedback, so I bought another much bigger one.
 
We do know a few people who can sing and play instruments that have got strings, and don’t need any amplification whatsoever in our back garden in England.
 
We don’t have a bass guitar yet, but I am working on it
 
Should be O.K with our Old Speakers and Amp, if anyone turns up at The Jam in our back garden.
 
I do need to practice, get it ready and test.
 
I have no musical talent whatsoever, but know a lot of people who have, who are not allowed yet to play in pubs with an audience.
 
I do have some spare strings, and an electric violin, I can’t play either, but know people who can including my niece – she is brilliant.
 
Wake Up and Make Some Music Live…before you are 1 in a 1000, and are at risk of death of COVID if you are over 90 ..which to be honest is quite a fair innings.
 
I probably won’t make 100, but I do like it here.
 
Tony

Cindy
Cindy
Jul 22, 2020 8:23 AM
Reply to  tonyopmoc

Brilliant! Spirit x

Lou
Lou
Jul 3, 2020 9:15 PM

I’m with you. I’m so over this plandemic. I wish I could give you more than 5 stars. Keep up the fight, as will I. No masks for me.

dhinds
dhinds
Jul 3, 2020 7:39 AM

I said that also.
 
(That masks are symbolic. A sign of exception and forced submission. Like a yellow Star of David).
 
I wear one on my wrist.
 
Or hanging from one ear.
 

threedawgs123
threedawgs123
Jul 3, 2020 4:37 AM

You got to kill their(government’s) enforcement power primarily by guerilla warfare!

Lost in a dark wood
Lost in a dark wood
Jul 2, 2020 5:33 PM

Swiss Policy Research gives a brief mention to the “Great Reset” in its June update:
 
The World Economic Forum (WEF) Davos, which together with the Gates Foundation and Johns Hopkins University already ran the well-known coronavirus pandemic exercise “Event 201” in October 2019, called for a global “Great Reset” in order prepare the economic and social structures for the 21st century.
https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

 
It also links to the following WEF video (which bizarrely has only 21K views):
 
World Economic Forum
The Great Reset Launch | Highlights
Jun 5, 2020
“The Great Reset” will be the theme of a unique twin summit to be convened by the World Economic Forum in January 2021. In-person and virtual dialogues will address the need for a more fair, sustainable and resilient future, and a new social contract centred on human dignity, social justice and where societal progress does not fall behind economic development.
 
More information here > www .wef.ch/greatreset
 
The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.
 

 

Lost in a dark wood
Lost in a dark wood
Jul 2, 2020 6:01 PM

The following are links to my previous posts on the Davos “Great Reset”
 
Article
Now Comes the Davos “Great Reset”
By F. William Engdahl – 9 June 2020
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/15/the-big-plantation/#comment-192739

 
Video:
The Great Reset Plan Revealed: How COVID Ushers In The New World Order
Activist Post – June 6, 2020
By Spiro Skouras
https://off-guardian.org/2020/06/14/watch-uk-column-news-nhs-eye-witnesses/#comment-191742
 

JudyJ
JudyJ
Jul 2, 2020 10:55 AM

The Simon Dolan legal challenge started its Court hearing this morning. There is no live streaming of it on any internet podcast but Joshua Rozenberg is tweeting key developments from Court. If anyone wants to follow it….
 
https://twitter.com/JoshuaRozenberg/status/1278622961273102336
 
From early tweets it looks like proceedings are going to get drawn out and a substantive hearing put off to a future date. The opening words from the Judge already indicate that there are attempts to diminish the importance of the case for those who believe in freedom.
 

antitermite
antitermite
Jul 2, 2020 7:58 AM

I travelled downtown the other day, by foot since I had the time, the first time since lockdown.
I wanted to see the fallout post-pandemic: the paucity of traffic vehicular & pedestrian, the litter of spacing-markers, the mask wearers (actually very few, mostly the elderly), all the closed shops.
Many more closed-down than I expected. Not just closed-for-business but gone, with no sign of what once thrived there.

I wanted to see.
I was appalled but not because I had ever patronised any of those establishments. I probably never would have had there been no pandemic.
Each represents a microcosm of economy that now faces the breadline, employer employees and their families.
I found myself feeling slight outrage yet with a hint of contempt, as if to say “Told You So”. They were probably all Corona-cultists. Probably.
This is not me.

This is what it must have been like 80-odd years ago in Germany.

We are in a lull now, waiting for the next event. Those who wait for the economy to recover wait in vain.
The Overton Window has shifted.
Myself, my immediate family largely remain untouched. Perhaps we have benefited more than most. Our essential employment continues and it is easier to travel and find parking. Saved money on vacations not taken. The inlaws have kept their distance.
There are minor inconveniences such as all the temperature-taking and credit-card usage. Had to get creative with meals and household items for a few weeks. We are now accustomed to stocking 3 months of essentials. Avoiding others is now reflexive, perhaps not 6 feet but at least a yard or so.
I certainly do not do this for fear of some overhyped seasonal flu, but out of social conformity.
This is definitely not me.

The woman who does my hair is in full thrall of this new religion, proudly showing how well the salon has conformed to distancing & contactless. I nod & smile. My temperature is taken along with the ritual questioning of travel & encounters with any afflicted.
I want to ask how she & the others managed in the months without income, how hard did they have to sacrifice, but feel that would be prying. I note that the price at these premises like many others has gone up slightly.

I have embraced the mask, if only in a superficial way. Superficial vs the supercilious.
Lately I’ve taken to wearing a bandana, weather permitting. Mine sports a wacky face, can be reversed plain, and best of all the manufacturer caveats that it is zero percent effective vs viruses. I feel a bit like a bandit with it up.

I wonder how far I can push it .. Searching up face protection there are some wonderful non-mask coverings available – hockey visors, President (&clown) faces, airsoft shields .. None of which are “Corona-proof” of course.
Perhaps I should see if I can get away with wearing a balaclava, starting in the privacy of the car on the daily commute. And then progress to a ballgag. A social commentary of sorts.

Beyond the horizon lurks The Vaccine.
Of course no-one will be forced, we will have a choice. If I wish to remain gainfully employed I will have to choose.
I wonder how can I find an unbrainwashed doctor who will sign me off or give me a placebo or something.

I took the tram back home, a moment of panic when I embarked as I had no facial coverage (the weather +walk too warm to warrant wearing one). But neither of the other passengers had one either.
The only mask-wearers were the tram-sanitisers, who avoided eye-contact; no-one was ejected. One senses they do not have full faith in what they do and I am heartened that these custodians have not succumbed to the Corona Cult either.

snuffleupagus
snuffleupagus
Jul 2, 2020 11:59 AM
Reply to  antitermite

comment image

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 3:55 PM
Reply to  antitermite

I wore a balaclava here in California, to a service, yesterday morning. At one church I’d been to, which I’d showered at the staff’s email boxes with anti-hoax messages, many didn’t wear masks.

This one yesterday is five miles away, I had been out of county since before the hoax and everyone here now wore masks.

Now, in church the conformable rule is for males to uncover their heads upon entering, ages old.

My statement here was to cover everything above my neck, except my mouth, nose and eyes. It’s the least I could do, right?

I didnt get much friction, but afterwards, when everybody was leaving, I was alone and in a sea of empty pews, a lady comes up and puts a mask on the top ridge of the bench in front of me. I made a (not too) dismissive gesture with my hand to shoo it away, and she retreated without a challenge.

Roger
Roger
Jul 2, 2020 12:05 AM

Good article! It’s a bit hyperbolic but is there a better historical model at the ready that shows how volatile the true believers are and what extraordinary lengths they’ll go to “correct” anyone who differs from them?
 
The level of animus against non-mask-wearers I’ve seen among my social media contacts has been truly frightening– I’ve seen people whom I know are very peaceful joking openly about killing those who break quarantine or refuse to wear masks. And their online friends pile on their complete approval.
 
I do think the masks have become a consolation prize– the more things open up, the less in control people feel, and so they (and their governments) resort to mask wearing because it is so easy and cheap to enforce, and so readily apparent when one has not complied. The more silly the pretense of the mask is, the more the faithful double-down on it– precisely because to them it is a flimsy, thin veil separating them from Death. The thinner the veil, the more one clings to it tightly.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 12:22 AM
Reply to  Roger

FYI: the normal official literary genre classification for this kind of excelling piece is not “hyperbole” or its adjective.

It’s: “satire”!!?

Find out about it.

Cicatriz
Cicatriz
Jul 2, 2020 1:26 AM
Reply to  John Ervin

Once I’d call it “satire,” now I’d call it “tomorrow.”

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 1:32 AM
Reply to  Cicatriz

As I read the man say at an “Idiocracy” (2005, Colin Owens) review, “Its a documentary”. Now weve got our weird variation.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 3:57 PM
Reply to  John Ervin

Colin Wilson, rather, classic filmed satire.

Arby
Arby
Jul 2, 2020 12:57 AM
Reply to  Roger

I wish it were hyperbole!

Zen Priest
Zen Priest
Jul 2, 2020 8:18 AM
Reply to  Arby

Great movie. An interesting point is that that world would not have been a descent into idiocy for all – it would only be possible if created by a controlling elite, who preferred the 99% to live in diocy because… how EASY does that make us to control? It’s exactly what we are seeing now and what’s coming if we don’t wise up.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 4:15 PM
Reply to  Zen Priest

Anastasio Somoza, billionaire playboy and dynastic dictator deposed by the Sandinistas, said this during his rule: “I don’t want educated citizens, I want oxen.”

£4£&$4$

“Everyone does better when everyone does better.” –favorite maxim of Jim Hightower’s “pappy”.

I suggest that what’s coming, in all likelihood, “if we don’t wise up”, is not so much idiocy –that’s just the convenient interlude– but status as “meat-based” robots, since they are clearly developing tech (perhaps already here) that can communicate content directly to the cortex, and how much more useful we could be, purely programmed, rather than killing us or “dumbing us down”?

God forbid.

So, I guess wising up is the best option…. lol

“He was granted the stern struggle that he might learn that wisdom is the mightiest of all.” –Wisdom 10

Reuven Chatzkel
Reuven Chatzkel
Jul 1, 2020 9:09 PM

You have hit the nail on the head, Mr. Hopkins. Thank you! The medical fetish crows is wholly unable to explain how the number of hospitalisations and number of people on ventilators has dropped so precipitously in Belgium and The Netherlands since early April. For example, Belgium (a country of around 11 million people) reported today a total of 18 (eighteen) people on ventilators as of 30 June, down from over 1,000 of the height of the pandemic in early April. (see source: https://epistat.wiv-isp.be/covid/covid-19.html). And the number is not going up. The numbers show that the virus is become less and less deadly by the day. And this is happening as Belgium has been loosening the COVID rules for over a month now. So the numbers are dropping, even as we are getting closer and closer together. The media is not reporting the numbers. They are largely innumerate. This mask fascism is indeed disturbing and I don’t know how we will ever get out of this.

john ward
john ward
Jul 1, 2020 9:09 PM
Zen Priest
Zen Priest
Jul 1, 2020 6:29 PM

Have faith. Stop fearing death. Be careful but learn how to live freely, at least in your mind. We all have low points, but giving into to the fear is what they want. It’s what the Sheeple have already done. The outcome of all this is not certain. We may win. And we can only win if we never surrender.
I have been reflecting today and yes, the world is looking horrendous. But a body on life support can become healthy once more. One thing to be grateful for is that ordinary people are becoming wise to the grand deception that is our lives. This is a painful but necessary step if we are ever to overcome it.
Have hope and love.

Dors
Dors
Jul 1, 2020 7:35 PM
Reply to  Zen Priest

Have faith. Stop fearing death. Be careful but learn how to live freely, at least in your mind.
 
I agree.
 
One thing to be grateful for is that ordinary people are becoming wise to the grand deception that is our lives
 
I’ll ask the same question I’ve asked about this pseudo-disease at the start of the brouhaha:
 
What are the numbers and how are they produced?
 
Also, how do those numbers compare to the numbers of others? Those who are becoming more immersed in the grand deception?
 
The query is not addressed to you specifically. It’s just how I think.
 
We may win. And we can only win if we never surrender.
 
How do we define a win and how a surrender? Does the latter include wearing a mask, respecting a lockdown?
No one can decide but myself, you say? Then, what if I’m indecisive and incapable of clear thinking due to hunger, cold, or health problems?
And, also this question: In the fight for freedom and civilisation, what is the place of small children? Imagine saying “I’ll never surrender,” only to make a U-turn ‘for the sake of the children’.
 
Again, I don’t mind zen buddhism or, say, christianity. Just thinking aloud.
 
 

ZenPriest
ZenPriest
Jul 1, 2020 9:44 PM
Reply to  Dors

We will never be 100% free. We never have been. But I’d class a victory as avoiding the hellish totalitarian technocracy we seem headed towards. I’m sure our ancestors thought humanity deserved to perish, as they couldn’t conceive a worse world. Yet we did progress. Life did get better for your average human (I’m sure some loony lefties would disagree but they are insane). We live lives of unimaginable freedom and prosperity compared even to 500 years ago – at least prior to the moronic lockdown.
Don’t surrender to the Devil. You must outwit the Devil. I will admit he’s reared his ugly head many a time during this lockdown. Where in my anger I imagined doing his bidding (let’s say causing harm and suffering to certain others).
This is why so many lefties are a lost cause. They are under the Devil’s grip.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 12:39 AM
Reply to  ZenPriest

Yep, but Nope: equal opportunity employer. That is: Deceiver.

Keep cool, and beat that Heat.

Dante called it: Inferno.

ZenPriest
ZenPriest
Jul 1, 2020 9:46 PM
Reply to  Dors

Surrendering is giving up, can’t beat em, join em (the side of evil). Stay on the side of good, it may be worth it. And what have you got to lose anyway.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 12:45 AM
Reply to  ZenPriest

Fine practical argument, I wish everyone saw it. Why go from bad to worse when the better or best direction is pointed from bad to better?

After all, everything to gain, with patience through great inconvenience.

And there is a real reward for that. That itself. The itness of what it is, in the end.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 12:36 AM
Reply to  Zen Priest

Using your comment as my cue card, we hope the more observant have not missed the many positive lessons being reaped from this “adventure”, hopefully to turn out escapade. I count our blessings.

Rather than enumerate them, let them all make up their own lists(s).

Personally, my cup runneth over: in California, for many historical and cultural touch points, a whole lotta people aren’t buying this load of global manure.

£4£&$4$&€4€

“Experience is what you get when you don’t get what youre looking for.”

–Maxim seen on a packet of Spreckels sugar.

“An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered. An adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.”. –GKC

kevin morris
kevin morris
Jul 3, 2020 9:34 AM
Reply to  Zen Priest

Dear Zen Priest, I’m not sure whether your moniker is meant to be ironic or not, but if you feel you have an affinity at all with Buddhism, you would know that we are all of sentient beings subject to the same three poisons. It is only the proportions of each which give us our personal characteristics. In that sense and as I have been at pains through these pages to emphasise again and again, in the sense that certain self aggrandisers use the term, we are all of us sheeple.

Zen Priest
Zen Priest
Jul 3, 2020 11:29 AM
Reply to  kevin morris

What’s your point? Sounds like whataboutery. I’m aware we’re all the same, and yet we are not.
I’m aware that applying different labels to others is in some sense perpetuating the same cycle of suffering.
But then I never said I’m a Buddhist or that Buddhism is the best path at all times.
Sometimes there is no choice but to fight fire with fire. A Taoist would not take umbrage with this (I find Taoism more humanistic).
Would you tell a man not to defend himself against a murderer (which includes identifying aid murderder)?
Rather convenient for the terrorists that the sheeple follow this doctrine, don’t you think?

kevin morris
kevin morris
Jul 3, 2020 1:05 PM
Reply to  Zen Priest

You clearly have little or no understanding of the point I am making and your reaction suggests, as I did wonder that you have little or no affinity with the Buddhadharma. My point, at the risk of repeating myself, is that if some people are sheeple, then we all are. All of us are subject to the same delusions that ultimately relate to our mistaken view of the world of cause and effect and our place within it. Some people are perhaps more fearful or angry whilst others are more desirous of certain things and yet others have a need to focus on certain matters to the exclusion of others.
 
In a very important sense we are all in this together since all of us are subject to delusions about the world of cause and effect and our place within it. If we wish to take our place in this world, it behoves us, in my modest opinion, to recognise that if some people might be given that unfortunate name of ‘sheeple’ then the best way for us to develop in maturity is to acknowledge that we all are, since we are all of us subject to very similar delusions.
 
I would not wish to self aggrandise here myself, but I will say that if you see yourself as more of a Daoist than a follower of the Buddhadharma, I think Lao Tzu would tend agree with what I say. Following any spiritual discipline rather than merely subjecting oneself to what has been described as spiritual materialism, involves the giving up of what amounts to very comfortable delusions which unfortunately hamper our own self development. SOmetimes the process is painful.
 
Your question as to whether I would tell a man not to defend himself against anybody ignores the history of Zen, where for centuries it was the religion in Japan of killers who were often referred to as soldier monks. The Buddhadharma accepts killing as a fact of our existence as seen in the case of Buddha Shakyamuni’s disciple, Angulimala who had been a paid assassin. One of the greatest saints of Tibet gained enlightenment in one lifetime after showing remorse and fear for the murder of the tormentors of his widowed and poverty stricken mother. In any case, what I would do when faced by a murderer is irrelevant because thankfully I have never faced the situation. Like most religions, Buddhism teaches that certain human acts are to be avoided wherever possible, but it certainly doesn’t deny one’s right to self defence. His Holiness the Dalai Lama only calls Tibetans not to engage in armed struggle against the Communist Chinese because he is all too well aware of the damage that such a struggle would do both to the Tibetan people and to their cause.
 
All the best!
 
 

ZenPriest
ZenPriest
Jul 3, 2020 1:30 PM
Reply to  kevin morris

We are all in it together, indeed. I do my bit by trying to wake up sheeple. If I’m to do this I have to define and identify sheeple, as imperfect and harmful as that may be. But if you’re telling me I shouldn’t do this, then I can’t really help anyone, can I?
I think you may be making an assumption that I consider myself as ‘other’ to sheeple. I do, and yet I don’t.
Daoism always was a harmony of paradoxes.

kevin morris
kevin morris
Jul 3, 2020 5:17 PM
Reply to  ZenPriest

To have a chance of waking anyone, first we must realise that we are asleep ourselves, just like the rest. There’s no point calling anyone ‘sheeple’ yet failing to recognise that we are in exactly the same state ourselves.
 
Take care!

Viv Aldistaw
Viv Aldistaw
Jul 12, 2020 11:38 PM
Reply to  Zen Priest

I agree with you except for the “a body on life support” part. This world is wonderful and human history has just begun. The doom and gloom thing is part of the deception. Namaste

Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings
Jul 1, 2020 5:59 PM

The Cronohoax has been ready to roll for a long time. It will serve two purposes. It will take the blame for decades of mismanagement and fraud from politicians, banks, and the scientific community, and TPTB want to ensure everyone on the planet gets a vaccination.
 
This vaccination will be whizzed through at record time, even though it takes at least 15 years to develop and fully test a vaccine. The dummies will have theirs in mere months. The last time the very same companies tried this was with the H1N1 and the Swine flu. That gave every 1 in 16,000 who took the vaccine brain damage and very quietly cost the gov’t 60 million in claims.
 
The Georgia Guidestones state that the population is to be reduced. Even Bill Gates himself says the very same in his TED equation on youtube and chuckles proudly to himself every time it’s mentioned. Bill Gates has been throwing his money around the world for some time, even education establishments in the UK such as Cambridge University and Imperial College London. Their depts are now bought and paid for and they will ensure to give credence to the coming CronoPassports. How the mighty have fallen to such depraved practices as pushing secret agendas on to an unsuspecting public for profit.
 
Bill Gates also said that things will not return to normal until everyone on this planet has had his vaccine. He is telling you that you will not move from your house, go visit stores, go get a job, or travel anywhere without a Gates vaccination and a nice little passport being devised by shady British businesses with direct links to the British gov’t itself.
 
To date the worldwide death toll is 500,000. So no worse than a regular flu.

Jeremy Biffo Bruin
Jeremy Biffo Bruin
Jul 1, 2020 12:18 PM

Yes, totally agree. I even have similar experiences ( mostly by email or texts). Right now, we have hysteria based on a completely useless (qPCR) test. Next comes a “new” virus, pig/bird etc. But, I wonder, if that happens, people just might begin to find that a bit coincidental?!

Grafter
Grafter
Jul 1, 2020 12:08 PM

Here is % deaths by the “deadly virus” by country. UK has the terrifying figure of 0.06% !!!
 
https://isabelcastillo.com/coronavirus-deaths-population

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Jul 1, 2020 2:41 PM
Reply to  Grafter

‘Lockdown’ worked.

That upset you?

Grafter
Grafter
Jul 1, 2020 6:12 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

Lockdown is the cause of the excess death rate. Now run along and knit yourself a new mask.

JudyJ
JudyJ
Jul 1, 2020 7:11 PM
Reply to  Grafter

“…knit yourself a new mask”

 
Might be more effective than these ones supplied by the Government! You couldn’t make it up.
 
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8480117/Department-Health-puts-warning-85MILLION-face-masks-unsafe.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed_desktop_news
 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 12:48 AM
Reply to  Grafter

Oh snap for DunG as you say it: “C ya, wouldn’t want 2B ya.”

Mishko
Mishko
Jul 2, 2020 10:26 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

It is because I carry a dildo on my person when using public transport that I have
not had an encouter with tigers, leopards or panthers on these occasions.
Totally works for me.

bob
bob
Jul 1, 2020 10:49 AM

we really are dealing with an amazing ‘virus’ again – Leicester City have been cleared to play the match at Everton tonight despite the new lockdown of the city and they can continue to play their remaining home fixtures as well
 
“The Foxes have been cleared to travel despite the government-imposed lockdown of the city of Leicester in the face of surging positive tests for coronavirus but doubts were briefly raised — since dismissed — over their ability to host their remaining home games at the King Power Stadium.” (toffeeweb)

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Jul 1, 2020 2:41 PM
Reply to  bob

Not fans.

Mac
Mac
Jul 1, 2020 9:50 AM

Oh ffs, this is an hysterical article. Lockdowns are gradually ending, everywhere is gradually reopening, lots and lots of people aren’t wearing masks, yes it’s mandatory to wear them in certain places but that will be ignored by more and more people when the virus narrative becomes unsustainable, which it will. The sheeple who see many others not wearing masks will quietly follow because given a choice they’d rather not wear them.

sharon marlowe
sharon marlowe
Jul 1, 2020 10:40 AM
Reply to  Mac

“…that will be ignored by more and more people when the virus narrative becomes unsustainable, which it will”
 
I think virus is the new terrorist, and the war on virus is the new war on terrorism. They’ll try to sustain this fake war for decades.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 12:53 AM
Reply to  sharon marlowe

At Robin Williams’ (then) unreported cremation (24 hrs after a “suicide”?!?!?!), his widow spoke these words, “He succumbed to the terrorist in his brain.”

Same people who brought us *this, must have scripted *that.

kevin
kevin
Jul 2, 2020 8:52 PM
Reply to  sharon marlowe

They’re already promoting the next one, a new swine flu. I guess the war of terror was getting stale. Having said that, I suppose they could always combine the two.

Mishko
Mishko
Jul 2, 2020 10:33 PM
Reply to  sharon marlowe

Probably. We will have endless nonsense about the virus going up,
the virus going down, the virus going to be gone, but oh noes, the virus is back!
Even deadlier, but not as deadly!
The “flooding” practice mentioned in event 201 basically.

Adam
Adam
Jul 1, 2020 12:33 PM
Reply to  Mac

Mac, I would agree with you, the article is a bit OTT, and i’m also of the opinion that things are opening up with people gravitating towards normal behaviour.
The worrying thing is that the goalposts keep changing and we are now going to be subject to local lockdowns, so people can still have their businesses destroyed, and the justification given is that the number of “cases”, not deaths has gone up,
On the positive side, Germany and Sweden have daily deaths below 15 now for over a week, but you wouldn’t know that from our own media in the UK, Eastern Europe, very low cases, very low deaths throughout. France, they had a strict lockdown but are now almost back to normal, no local lockdowns and deaths down to 25 as well as very low cases.
Information has been very controlled in the UK, so the mass of people that don’t question which is roughly the 80% is only just now 3 months later, starting to question the numbers and the narrative, there is still some mileage in this, at least here in the UK.
I think we are slowly and surely coming towards a tipping point. It’s going to take time, but the government are running out of stories to make up.

Grafter
Grafter
Jul 1, 2020 6:20 PM
Reply to  Mac

I take it you don’t live in the the centre of Leicester ?

Moneycircus
Moneycircus
Jul 1, 2020 9:09 AM

It gets to you. I read this headline as, Australia in 300,000 Year Lockdown… or goes back 300,000 years… Coronavirus live news: Australia puts 300,000 back into lockdown; US reports another record increase in cases 
 
Then I read Fauci’s name as Fuck.
Fauci says US death toll ‘going to be very disturbing’ and fears 100,000 daily cases — Record Covid-19 cases in California as some countries prepare for ‘universal’ testing — ‘We are not in total control’: Fauci issues stark coronavirus warning – Anthony Fauci: ‘Anti-science, anti-vaccination feeling’ could thwart Covid effort –
Fauci – Fauci – Fauci… … Fauci – Fauci – Fauci… … Fauci – Fauci – Fauci
 
He is supposed to frighten you. He’s a thug and a gangster.
 
Something for desert? Pictures on Guardshits U.S. of Mount Rushmore… Trump Should Stay Away says Sioux Leader… and Confederate Flags… drums drumming drums drumming drum drum drum
 
Impressions can be unnerving.

Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings
Jul 1, 2020 6:06 PM
Reply to  Moneycircus

Isn’t it pronounced Fucky?
 
Just a thought.

Gall
Gall
Jul 1, 2020 4:07 AM

I gotta admit it’s one of your more depressing pieces that light at the end of a long tunnel that turns out to be an oncoming train.
 
 

Doctortrinate
Doctortrinate
Jul 1, 2020 3:06 AM

Big Brother is a Supercomputer – built by childish subservience to the indebtedalbatross of fainthearted past – and glorified through regular worship to an an impious few who played the fiddle on the back of a golden calf.
 
You reap what you sow.

hope
hope
Jul 1, 2020 11:41 AM
Reply to  Doctortrinate

Its not so much a question of big brother as such possibly as that of social engineering done in ways in which we are not even aware of, in view of bringing social conformity through peer pressure, with attempts to get rid of the uncertainty which is part of life, i.e. to engineer our behaviour in such a way that we react as an algorithm, i.e. that our behaviour becomes fully predictable and certain. The lockdown and current measures anyhow have accelerated this process. Now, evidently all this requires an extensive use of digital technologies. These require large amounts of energy, which were possibly no longer available if society had continued as usual. Hence I have been wondering if one reason for these extreme measures and for basically collapsing the economy we have is not to economise the energy it was consuming it and transfer it to mainly these technologies. I havent really thought this out properly.
It would be interesting to find out if the transfer of energy actually gives sufficient energy to put in place the surveillance world of socially engineered societies, where people will be dehumanized. If not, we’re certainly safe: because whatever may be your aim, you need energy to achieve it. If yes, then we’re in a tight spot. Evidently such a society is unviable since human survival depends on human unpredictability, i.e. on the human mind having a full scope for free will. But there is something sinister in the way the world has been made subservient to the sick minds of computer nerds, and how easily society has fallen for it.
 
 
 

ZenPriest
ZenPriest
Jul 1, 2020 12:16 PM
Reply to  hope

Very interesting. You’re right the world can’t function without our input, i.e. our energy. Since the cabal aren’t satisfied with how the world’s working, how our energy is being used, perhaps they plan on farming us, I’m thinking the human batteries in the Matrix.

hope
hope
Jul 1, 2020 1:08 PM
Reply to  ZenPriest

By energy, I meant not human, I meant the transformation of matter into energy (fossil fuel, sustainable sources, nuclear, whatever): the fact is matter we cannot create, and producing energy, requires energy, so that amount of energy at any one time is limited, and all activities need energy. So the energy constraint is huge.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Jul 1, 2020 2:54 PM
Reply to  hope

There is an extraordinary large amount of energy from the never ending battery that is the Sun – the Earth harnesses barely a infinitismal proportion of it.

But hey what would the resource ‘owning’ bandit robber barons do
without their control over it?

The human race has been held back by these who have laid claim to the Earth and its people’s and control over its ‘money creation’.

The old slave masters, the knowledge horders, the land grabbers and killers of babies and philosophers.

You would be amazed at the millions of ideas ideas and patents they sit on.

Technology is not a weapon it’s a tool.

hope
hope
Jul 1, 2020 3:19 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

The problem is that to actually make solar power usable, you have use a huge amount of energy. For instance you need a lot of material (matter=energy), in particular lithium, the exploitation of lithium is highly energy consuming (apart from being highly polluting). So things are not that simple. Hence the kind of society we have, the amount of energy needed is immense, sustainable forms of energy are not sufficient, because the inefficiency in their exploitation.

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
Jul 2, 2020 9:40 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

Dun, I’m agog with anticipation of your full technical explanation of how we’re going to capture all that abundant solar energy – in some new way that is vastly superior to the one sustainable way of which we know at the moment: photosynthesis (which nets about 1%-2% of total incoming insolation energy, after hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary refinement of the process).
 
And doubtless you have some perfect solution to the havoc that ‘renewable’ energy generation, above a very modest maximum input, plays with grid systems (See Gail Tverberg’s ‘Our Finite World’ blog for highly-informed, highly-numerate details: https://ourfiniteworld.com/author/gailtheactuary/).
 
And you have some cure for the intractable problem that modern, relatively high-output ‘renewable’ systems can only get made and maintained with a constant energy-subsidy from older fossil-hydrocarbon sources. You have some perfect solution to that problem too? Do tell! 🙂
 
The real cure for our growing – and insoluble – energy problems is that we must use less. And we will. We have absolutely zero choice on that matter. Time to delete ‘PROGRESS’ from the collection of myth-words that rule our culture’s thinking in this non-sustainable, already overly-hitech, entirely temporary society that we inhabit now – for the time being. For ‘PROGRESS’ substitute the words: ‘The Long Descent’ (qv).

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 4:06 PM
Reply to  ZenPriest

Only the right spirit (over-unit energy*) can contend with their increasing subjugation of all human affairs to the laws of entropy, which is death. I’m thinking of salmon swimming up stream.

I don’t recall anywhere in a good book I’m reading any passages saying it would be easy.

As the world acquires greater material organization, the spiritual demands on our souls increase. And it seems that the window is notably narrowing.

It appears the most practical answer is having recourse to Mercy from a Source independent of this (“complexifying”) Maze.

Actually, imho, the only one.

We’ll truly need that, if the species is to survive as something more than an adjunct of technology.

In sincerity and true humility, which are not always strong points…

…” these days “. Lol

*Ive heard over-unit energy defined, in the physics, as “extraterrestrial”.

Don’t angels inhabit that “non-local” universe?

“Calling all Angels”

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 3:43 PM
Reply to  hope

Convenience. The “sick minds of computer nerds” simply analyzed the range of needs and wants and offered ways of “connectivity” that made them increasingly “convenient”. As is clearly seen.

Pretty convenient, eh?

£4£&$4$+my2¢~~~~~~~~

“Before you take the bait of a pleasure, first make sure there isn’t a hook concealed beneath it.”

—Thomas Jefferson

(If convenience is seen as expediting or increasing pleasures, this the carnally based side of human nature, substantial, and it seems that computers are just the slicker and slicker toys under our Christmas 🌲.

MLK called the US a Slave Economy, and computers dovetail perfectly into its pandemic drug culture, but that is because playing “their” game has no real spiritual benefits, only their carnal ones. To escape it there seems to be a simple need to find all the real solutions outside the box. But armies of agents and tsunamis of propaganda have flooded into churches to mimic, and gradually shift, the main messages.

Someone I read just recently put it succinctly: “Technologically superior and spiritually inane.”

Not too many words could much better describe the Spring we’ve just hopefully “survived”.)

hope
hope
Jul 1, 2020 5:59 PM
Reply to  John Ervin

Indeed, a major issue is the complete materialism, there is not even any discussion. But you saw the reaction of all so-called Churches and religious organizations round the world, not a single one, apart from a small group of Catholic bishops who wrote a public strong letter to all people of good will,
stood up to what was happening. Had only one said something, that very day there would have been a return to normal. It shows to what extent true religion
(what Tolstoy defined as the relation of man with the infinite) has been distorted into dogmas. We know that, but I had not realised it was to this extent.
 
 
 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 1:03 AM
Reply to  hope

The reaction of my churches locally didnt surprise me, sadly, but still disappoints.

Feeble, at best. They reopened in CA 2 weeks sgo, but with all kinds of pantomime and nonsense, just too ridiculous.

A lady today came up after service and placed a disgusting folded accordion mask on the back of my pew, even though I was the only one left of yhe exiting crowd within 50 feet.

I shooed her away like a fly, not a typically devout gesture, but appropriate.

Doctortrinate
Doctortrinate
Jul 1, 2020 8:18 PM
Reply to  hope

Hope.
 
reminded me of the film “Gattica” – sunrise over the solar farm scene – as we’re charged toward an electrically reliant future – connected and regulated.
The pressure from above certainly assisted the behavioral psychology required to manipulate the mass toward the desired goal – right down to the old spicy scent splashed in surfing dreams, bottled in a man-of-war, who’s fate is surrounded with the sound of “O Fortuna” – as the door repeatedly closed in surrender to the whirling wheel. 
 

hope
hope
Jun 30, 2020 11:01 PM

This article excellently discusses what I now find to be the main issue: the insidious totalitarianism that has been put in place. There is the mask and social distancing, but also none of the usual human activities are allowed: no concerts, no cinemas, theatres, sport events, nowhere to go to continue any activity one did or would like to do, work places are a nightmare, or else you are forced to work from home, which is equally dehumanizing, life is via the internet, a virtual life, no real life, and for those of us who for whatever reasons have/ would like to spend time abroad, just forget it even more. Yet there is no protest: everyone has accepted this, every one, even us. Because we are all too scared to protest. Because we are all waiting for a Gandhi or a Luther King to lead us. Yet there is no one, its a complete silence. And even among those who did take a stand and did a lot and could actually continue doing a lot, some of the most outspoken have disappeared in the summer sunset, and dont even want to discuss the issues even more, or hear about them.
 
Past totalitarian attempts were highly repressive, but not dehumanizing. This is what people are not realising, and because of the insidiousness of the process no one is reacting against it.
Indeed the perseverance of sites like Off-Guardian and some other commentators is highly admirable, but they mainly appear to be in 3 countries: UK, US, Germany…
 
At this point, sincerely given the reaction of humankind, its of little relevance what happens to our species, of no relevance. We’ve become some pitiable monstrosity not worth saving.
The problem is those of us who simply wish to live as human beings. We’re caught in this dystopian scenario despite us and there is nowhere to escape.
 
Long ago when I was a student I had had a nightmare. It was so vivid that I still remember.
All was bright red (possibly a nuclear war: the main threat we’ve lived with in our lives until now) and I was at first scared. Then someone said you dont need to be scared because you and your friends have been given a space ship to escape. So all then seemed personally ok until I realised, yes but escape where, there is nowhere to escape. Until today I used laugh about this nightmare.
 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 12:16 AM
Reply to  hope

Funny, I had that same dream, in essence, long ago. I remember the same shock: means of escape, but no known terminus! Even that much didn’t explain the lonely feeling. Bereavement?

But back then, I had long been a fan of The Twilight Zone, in several of its iterations (the 80s version with theme covered by The Grateful Dead rocks most). And The Night Stalker. And XFiles, which seemed to have some eerie overlap with my own affairs.

Nothing new. There is a sublime message in that dream: we are all in this together, and no matter how innocent any one of us may be, collectively we still bear the brunt of all.

Round and Round Trip, in the ol’ Space Ship!

Hey, that may well be the message of The Cross! (I knew I meant something.)

The Holy One killed and buried among criminals, but soon raised up by Justice. All in a day’s work called Life?

Perhaps because the weak need the strong, but it’s still all the same Problem.

Ours.

hope
hope
Jul 1, 2020 6:03 AM
Reply to  John Ervin

How interesting you had the same dream. I have no idea why in my case as I was having a most enjoyable time at uni. I never really liked science fiction, so it couldnt be that. And frankly here in Europe, in those days one had not grown up with the fear of a nuclear war. It was not a danger one felt (unlike the US where my generation as children were daily reminded) or thought of as part of one’s life…

AJ Henson
AJ Henson
Jul 1, 2020 1:21 AM
Reply to  hope

Hope, In my opinion you are spot on and I agree with everything you said, seeing it the same way myself. It occurred to me that you said we are all waiting for Gandhi or King to save us, but look what happened to them. It has occurred to me that if the PTB could get away with the JFK assassination and 911, there’s nothing they can’t do, are already doing and sadly, I believe there’s no hope for humanity to rise up and stop it.

hope
hope
Jul 1, 2020 6:34 AM
Reply to  AJ Henson

There are the totally downtrodden, and one cant blame them for not understanding. They are the first victims, and will now die of hunger, malnutrition, joblessness. I wonder even here in Europe how many will become homeless before the end of the year. So should we not do what we can to help? As for the middle classes, they’ve long lost any capacity to understand on the whole, any desire to understand, led only by the selfish desire for material comfort in societies increasingly atomised, and as the article says, welcoming a dehumanizing form of fascism in some sadist
desire in a life that for them has become a purposeless void. I left academia partly because of that: I did not want to waste my time teaching people who at 20 already are only thinking mainly of their first house, of the great jobs they’ll have, of their car, for whom maths and science had just become a technique to learn so they could go in their ” little boxes on the hilltop” and be just the same as others, lifeless before having even lived. I left because the mediocratization that had become so pervasive that talent disturbed. Everyone had forgotten to question. The questions themselves no longer occurred. So, the middle or upper middle classes, Ive long ceased to have any respect for them.

RobG
RobG
Jul 1, 2020 2:01 AM
Reply to  hope

Hope, one of the most depressing things I find about all this is that people like Craig Murray and George Galloway have completely bought into the con.
 
What’s happening at the moment is totally unprecedented in human history.
 
You’d think that sharp minds would question it; but no: they’ve all been bought and sold (particularly Murray).

demolitionman
demolitionman
Jul 1, 2020 11:08 AM
Reply to  RobG

Funnily enough they were both the same about 9/11- refusing to ever say it was a massive lie. Controlled Opposition.

snuffleupagus
snuffleupagus
Jul 1, 2020 1:38 PM
Reply to  RobG

those two have gone along with the 9/11 official faery tale for years, so there should be no occasion for surprise if they also support the great viral pandemic hoax.
 
the ruling class would never have dared to try something like this, if they hadn’t been emboldened by the lack of widespread opposition to the 9/11 fraud. the current situation is entirely a product of mass acquiescence to that psyop. the primary victims of that eruption of public conformity and obedience were the Iraqis; if the goodthinking citizens of the Empire now find that they’re the ones being bitten in the ass, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

kevin
kevin
Jul 1, 2020 2:58 PM
Reply to  snuffleupagus

Precisely. With every success the ruling class becomes emboldened. 9/11 demonstrated that the global masses will accept anything and everything.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 4:50 PM
Reply to  RobG

I listened to Danny Sheehan last night, stayed up til midnight to hear him, on kpfk.org, one of the few beacons, and the original listener-funded radio, 1947 (Lewis Hill founded it). I’ve been listening since ’67.

Sheehan defended the publication of the Pentagon Papers in the ’70s, won the Silkwood case, many other such just causes, a totally brilliant and storied man, head now of the Romero Institute in (The People’s Republic) of Santa Cruz, California, which is defending Lakota Sioux rights, a cause very, very dear to my heart (Bobby Kennedy was adopted by them in his last weeks, given the tribal name, “Brave Heart”).

I nearly passed out when, off the top, speaking about his defense of the Sioux against the Pipeline incursion, he stated “And they removed the barricades, causing 500 Lakota to be infected by the coronavirus!”

Et tu, Danny? I had to turn it off. It was like greeting your best, long lost, friend only to see him raise and point his finger at you and shriek. Yet one more fully taken-hostage pod of the body snatchers.

I believe Mr. Hopkins uses that “visual” above, to great effect..

Yes, he writes: “pod people”.

So, I got some sleep and just woke up, feeling strangely refreshed.

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Jul 1, 2020 5:07 AM
Reply to  hope

The impact of the lockdown provisions is widely disparate depending on where you live. I live in an outer surburbia area in a city that’s a third open space which has easy access to both mountains and coast. I have a brother that lives in a lodge on several acres of rural Sussex. Needless to say, neither of our households have been impacted by the restrictions, we’ve just been a bit inconvenienced. Meanwhile there a innumerable people who are living in much more restricted — and restrictive — circumstances, cooped up like factory farm animals. Its small wonder that they end up rushing the beaches given the opportunity.
 
The failure of government is a failure of imagination and empathy, an inability to understand the lot of many people and adjust policies to help everyone. Legislators probably live in comfortably off circumstances like ours so its not occured to them that being confined to a too small flat — and housing in the UK is for the most part ‘too small’ — is like being confined to a jail cell. Add to this the worries about the future — health, welfare, solvency and so on — and you’ve got a powder keg waiting for a match.
 
Its possible that the totalitarianism is deliberate but I suspect that its a result of ommission, not commission. The effect’s the same but at least Big Brother had some kind of end game in mind instead of this aimless wandering, a sort of group incompetence that sleepwalks us from one disaster to the next.

bob
bob
Jul 1, 2020 11:00 AM
Reply to  Martin Usher

“Its possible that the totalitarianism is deliberate but I suspect that its a result of ommission, not commission. The effect’s the same but at least Big Brother had some kind of end game in mind instead of this aimless wandering, a sort of group incompetence that sleepwalks us from one disaster to the next.”
 
No. It’s conditioning – it’s mental/psychological torture – the end game is obvious – it’s social control and a power grab – they know exactly what they are doing despite idiots like Fatty Mancock fronting it up – he’ll be disposed of just like the rest of the people when the time comes – if we allow them to get away with it
 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 5:06 PM
Reply to  Martin Usher

Very well said, you have summarised my take to a tee.

Failure of imagination and empathy. Lack of vision and understanding. More lack of competence than any fixed accountability.

And above all, the “sleepwalking”. Like the title of Joe Bageant’s last collection of essays, “Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball” .

Dors
Dors
Jul 2, 2020 7:46 AM
Reply to  hope

Your comment is good, but when I read this
 
At this point, sincerely given the reaction of humankind, its of little relevance what happens to our species, of no relevance. We’ve become some pitiable monstrosity not worth saving.
 
when I read this I felt like dealing with an old problem that I have internally resolved a long time ago. And now, will I muster strength to reproduce my mental; processes back then? Oh, please no, not right now. Instead, I’ll just limit myself with a mediocre lackluster answer :
 
We have to differentiate between what we see, as a phenotype, and the ‘genotype.’ The monster is just a phenotype. 
In ‘the long march of mankind,’ it is perfectly natural for the mankind to stumble now and then. It has surely happened before, too.
And : our disappointment now is simply a function of our own fault of deluding ourselves about the qualities of the people and the society around us.
And for that, we have ourselves to blame. The developments in the world had many critics. They were open, public, and more or less thoughtful. We were aware of their criticisms – and – I personally was just fearful to draw all the conclusions to their end.
And : when we’re thinking : ‘this species is not worth saving,’ it looks quite presumptuous. It may be intellectually vain, to choose to make such a judgement.
Btw, it has arguably always been of little relevance what happens to our species. And at the same time, it is of relevance just as everything else.
 
 
The problem is those of us who simply wish to live as human beings. We’re caught in this dystopian scenario despite us and there is nowhere to escape.
 
Yes. I sense in me a compartmentalisation : part of me is ‘an opportunistic materialist,’ and part an ‘idealist.’ The idealist finds a way to cope, while the materialistic mind is in despair. I refrain from marginalising the materialist, it may easily result in the body soon ending up hospitalised or dead. This is a simplification. What is meant here by idealism, I guess it’s best to leave for another time.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 5:12 PM
Reply to  Dors

It’s of greatest relevance what happens to our species, because, for starters, it comprises the children of God.

“Hope does not deceive” wrote the Apostle, because he knew it came from Him.

Darren
Darren
Jun 30, 2020 10:37 PM

What an excellent article! Wonderful work!
I am not sure if folks know but any links or mention of the off-guardian.org within the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) will get your comment removed and three attempts will get your account banned. Let’s remember that the CBC is a publicly-funded corporation, supported by tax dollars. Hopkins is a supreme writer and he seems to understand what is happening with the “New Normal”. Keep up the great work Mr Hopkins!

rachel
rachel
Jul 1, 2020 9:32 AM
Reply to  Darren

cdo they preface their content with a warning it contains signs of lock dowwwnn? no? then it is breaching the law. the publication is soald. if a cigarette packet needs to carry a warning then soald content needs flashing lights and alarm bells.

snuffleupagus
snuffleupagus
Jul 1, 2020 1:47 PM
Reply to  rachel

perhaps you imagine that “soald” is actually a word, but you’re sadly mistaken.
 
however, your other symptoms of illiteracy suggest that we haven’t been deprived of much, on account of your comments being indecipherable.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 30, 2020 10:27 PM

I can’t recall ever reading prose that so blurred the lines between pure satire and strict polemic.

That says a lot to me, since the lines between absurdity and reality have been blurred more and more in recent times, and now they are as one, this Spring into Summer.

With a nice ear for that Noise, Mr. Hopkins has done our sanity a service.

And thanks for that. The tone weakens a bit toward the end of the essay, but in this case that even serves to strengthen the force of the first salvos.

Such key arguments, and our real thanks!

Carey
Carey
Jun 30, 2020 10:47 PM
Reply to  John Ervin

Seconded on all that!

Niether Mason nor Profane
Niether Mason nor Profane
Jun 30, 2020 9:34 PM

I note that General Albert Pikes statue was recently attacked. This is ironic for those who know about Pike.
 
19th Century General, Albert Pike was a highly influential 33rd Degree Freemason who seemingly managed to predict both WW1 and WW2 (and the protagonists).
 
He also predicted a WW3 involving ‘Political Zionism’ and ‘Moslems in the Arabic World’ (his terms).
 
After WW3, which we seem to engaged in by proxy since 911 (if not before through the creation of Israel in 1947, or the invasion of Iraq in Gulf War 1 in 1991), General Pike predicted a ‘Social cataclysm’ throughout the West – driven by ‘Minority Revolutionaries’. Quote:
 
“We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil.
 
Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view.
 
This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism,both conquered and exterminated at the same time.”
General Albert Pike, 1871.
 
It should be noted that in Freemasonary (Pike was the highest degree holder) the true ‘god’ is Lucifer. Pikes written records, letters, and books (such as Morals and Dogmas) are in the public domain.
 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 30, 2020 10:45 PM

The Freemasons are either at the very root of these global problems we now see, or very close to it.

My attorney father (www.ecjlaw.com) was attorney to at least several of that 33° (“honorary”) rank, and Pike has made comments that definitely scan, semantically, as “Luciferian”.

I’m very hesitant to judge them, but they represent an intrinsically anti-democratic influence, by definition. (Theirs.)

P2 Lodge in Italy cause such massive migraines in that country, that they have now been banned by Italian government (as if you can really ban secret societies). 11 Popes since 1700 have denounced them. With reason, Freemasonry does everything conceivable (for it) to destroy the Church founded by St. Peter, and Vatican. It is sworn to do so.

And, to add another injury to those insults, their fingerprints are ALL over the Kennedy assassinations.

The fact that you SO seldom hear that one, is a cautionary tale which I refuse to ignore or forget. (Vive moi! Vive La Vie.)

But evidence is quite prominent. For those who can aptly read between the lines of history.

Other than that, just a club of good deed doers and very influential “philanthropists”.

IANA
IANA
Jul 1, 2020 12:21 PM
Reply to  John Ervin

Interesting there is a lot of occult and masonic significance around the Kennedy assassination from where it took place the ’33degree’ parallel to who owned and controlled Dallas and the Dealey plaza area. The first masonic lodge was sited there I believe. Also the strange and occultic memorial which bears no resemblance to anything obvious but does have occultic significance. Right out in the open.

Frank Underling
Frank Underling
Jun 30, 2020 10:48 PM

Check out the relationship between the UN and the Lucis trust ..
There’s a lot of very peculiar circumstances around all this “pandemic” hysteria .
 
 

IANA
IANA
Jul 1, 2020 12:21 PM

Yes Lucis trust were originally named Lucifer’s trust I believe.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 5:27 PM

It’s interesting, my father, besides having a number of 33° clients, like Burl Ives, Armand Hammer, etc., founded the L.A. chapter of the U.N. Assoc. He was literally assassinated a few days before he was to sign off on two films he produced under their auspices, on nuclear disarmament. Lacking his signatures, they were shelved and never released. His U.N. connections are mentioned in his L.A. Times obit by Burt Folkart, obituarist to the Stars (of Hollywood). Also something called Prabook as John Wesley Ervin. Scanty clues elsewhere, all gone in early 2000s in some vacuum of DARPA or whatever.

I mention it simply because it’s more clues that UN is a meticulously controlled entity, like all the Internationalist movements (apparently).

Hélas.

IANA
IANA
Jul 1, 2020 12:23 PM

Yes it was interesting that of all the statues felled Trump I think called for the reinstatement of Pike’s.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 2:01 AM
Reply to  IANA

I’ve seen it stated at one well-informed site that the only two U.S. Presidents without some close Freemasonry connection were:

Lincoln.

Kennedy.

Why does that not surprise?

Moneycircus
Moneycircus
Jun 30, 2020 9:19 PM

‘Bill Gates is not very bright. I like to follow him because, secretly inside, I am not bright either and I instinctively resent bowing down to people more intelligent than me.
 
Mark Zuckerberg is none too sharp and Elon is a picnic short of a sandwich… err… anyway I feel comfortable with them in charge, too.
 
If you tell me Bill, Mark and Elon are stupid, I feel personally offended ‘cos it reflects on me. I suspect you may be taking the piss. I identify with them. So I get angry and defend them aggressively like I am defending myself.
 
If Bill, Mark and Elon say that I should take the combo injection of Microsoft ID, Facebook wallet and Tesla keyless ignition, then who am I to say no? I’m on board, mate. I’ll take it all, and more.’

Lena Bloch
Lena Bloch
Jan 14, 2021 5:12 PM
Reply to  Moneycircus

Spot on, actually. ALL PEOPLE whom I heard calling for killing non-maskers and “follow the experts” are self-hating and believe themselves to be too stupid to think for themselves. Too stupid, too uneducated, too goofy, you name it. Pandemic for dummies.

hope
hope
Jun 30, 2020 5:45 PM

To the editors: please excuse me, but there appears to be a strange issue with my comment
It says, waiting for approval, and this both times. Id be thankful if you could let me know what is wrong with it.
 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 2, 2020 5:30 PM
Reply to  hope

Me likewise just now, on a short comment?

hope
hope
Jun 30, 2020 5:28 PM

This article excellently discusses what I now find to be the main issue: the insidious totalitarianism that has been put in place. There is the mask and social distancing, but also none of the usual human activities are allowed: no concerts, no cinemas, theatres, sport events, nowhere to go to continue any activity one did or would like to do, work places are a nightmare, or else you are forced to work from home, which is equally dehumanizing, life is via the internet, a virtual life, no real life, and for those of us who for whatever reasons have/ would like to spend time abroad, just forget it even more. Yet there is no protest: everyone has accepted this, every one, even us. Because we are all too scared to protest. Because we are all waiting for a Gandhi or a Luther King to lead us. But there is no one, its a complete silence. And even among those who did take a stand and did a lot and could actually continue doing a lot, some of the most outspoken have disappeared in the summer sunset, and dont even want to discuss the issues even more, or hear about them.
 
Past totalitarian attempts were highly repressive, but not dehumanizing. This is what people are not realising, and because of the insidiousness of the process no one is reacting against it.
Indeed the perseverance of sites like Off-Guardian and some other commentators is highly admirable, but they mainly appear to be in 3 countries: UK, US, Germany…
 
At this point, sincerely given the reaction of humankind, its of little relevance what happens to our species, of no relevance. We’ve become some pitiable monstrosity not worth saving.
The problem is those of us who simply wish to live as human beings. We’re caught in this dystopian scenario despite us and there is nowhere to escape.
 
Long ago when I was a student I had had a nightmare. It was so vivid that I still remember.
All was bright red (possibly a nuclear war: the main threat we’ve lived with in our lives until now) and I was at first scared. Then someone said you dont need to be scared because you and your friends have been given a space ship to escape. So all then seemed personally ok until I realised, yes but escape where, there is nowhere to escape. Until today I used laugh about this nightmare.

Alan
Alan
Jun 30, 2020 5:03 PM

Superbly written. Well done.

Kitty
Kitty
Jun 30, 2020 4:28 PM

Prof Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said he did not understand why the government had only ordered masks to be used on trains, tubes and buses in England.
“I don’t understand why it is not official policy.

I was interested to see who funds this organisation and surprise, surprise ,a quick looked confirmed that they are indebted to the Gates Foundation. Is there any company or organisation in the World that is not influenced by this cabal .

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 30, 2020 10:57 PM
Reply to  Kitty

Wow . Maybe it would be good if OG or friends could compile a list of benefactors to the large institutions talking trash, and give us some diagrams of the money flow.

That might say a lot more even than satire, as good as it has been here.

The Dude Abides
The Dude Abides
Jun 30, 2020 4:08 PM

If any of you have seen the many many videos of adults throwing temper tantrums,hitting employees, spitting, tossing merch on the floor all whilst yelling and screaming bloody murder because they were told to wear a mask, you’d realise what a PR nightmare all of this is for those of us who would like to wake up the moderates.
 
And no, these aren’t doctored videos. These are grown ass men and women with anger issues who lack any sense of self control. They are making us look bad. And no, I don’t care what people think of me, I only care to wake the sheep up, and these incidents make it that much harder to do so. What can we do about that? The message is getting lost with the anti-mask movement. It should be the anti-covid nonsense movement!
 

rachel
rachel
Jun 30, 2020 4:24 PM

sounds like the sort of staged propaganda the cult would generate. anti is not much good. you have to be for health to undermine their narative eg. regenerative detox to improve kidney filtration, sunbating for vitamin d, love to protect against adrenal fatigue.

The Dude Abides
The Dude Abides
Jun 30, 2020 4:35 PM
Reply to  rachel

You’re just as bad as the gullible sheep if you think all these videos are staged by some secret cabal…

rachel
rachel
Jun 30, 2020 5:16 PM

your the one claiming there is videos whilst asserting you are opposed to “covid” whilst ignoring my hepful advice on being for health and repeating your claims as if they were someone elses concern or responsibility. injection cult do these poser comments all the time. disinfo is their only science apart from terror.

The Dude Abides
The Dude Abides
Jun 30, 2020 5:45 PM
Reply to  rachel

I’m not making claims, these are real incidents. I can’t claim that the sun rises from the east, because it’s a fact of nature. I’d suggest stepping outside of your echo chamber once in a while.
 
I read everything. Doesn’t matter if it’s Twitter / CNN / BBC / Fox News / The Guardian / Breitbart / Quillete / etc. There are many media channels out there, and if you had any kind of intellectual fortitude you’d understand where I’m coming from. How anyone could claim to grasp what’s going on in the world-what’s really going on-without a 30,000 foot view escapes me.
 
You should fire up SnapChat and TikTok as well. These are independent incidents that happen in everyday life in stores across America. Yes, they do happen, and no they’re not the majority, but they happen enough that the idiots in the MSM can blow them up to shove their narratives down our throats.
 
Don’t take my word for it. Go do your own research! Then come back and tell me these are all somehow paid actors. You can’t be serious in having such a small minded view of the world. If you did, you’re no better than the sheep gobbling up drivel from The Guardian.
 

rachel
rachel
Jun 30, 2020 6:28 PM

sounds like your trying to distract attention from focus on health. there is breathing excesises you can do if someone puts cnn on. calmly switch it off and keep it off.

The Dude Abides
The Dude Abides
Jun 30, 2020 6:40 PM
Reply to  rachel

It doesn’t matter what I choose to ignore. What matters is that CNN is watched by millions of gullible sheep who can’t think for themselves. It seems that you don’t actually care about waking people up…

breweriana
breweriana
Jun 30, 2020 7:16 PM

It seems that you don’t actually care about waking people up”
She tried her best with you, but no joy.

The Dude Abides
The Dude Abides
Jun 30, 2020 8:37 PM
Reply to  breweriana

So no to controlled opposition and false flags.

rachel
rachel
Jun 30, 2020 8:56 PM

we could have loads of parties. kissing. pass the wine bottle round. https://youtu.be/Oja97POVbM8 4th of july is in 0 seconds.

breweriana
breweriana
Jun 30, 2020 7:13 PM

 they happen enough that the idiots in the MSM can blow them up to shove their narratives down our throats.”
 
Never heard of store pranks, just to get attention?
 
MSM reporter:
“Hey, store guys, wanna earn big bucks real quick when your super’s on his lunch break?”
 
Store guys:
“Hell, Yeah!”
 
MSM reporter:
“Well, here’s what I want you to do…”

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 30, 2020 11:10 PM

Why not some cabal? That’s who they are, that’s what they do! Constantly.

And from their distorted perspective, this all makes sense, at least “staging” video evidence etc.

Nothing new, aeons old. Just more technocratic today.

It’s been proven about the Kuwaiti “princess” and the incubators. John Rendon of TRG boasted that the trashing of Saddam’s statue was his work. And the Jessica Lynch photo op was their psyop. Not just proven: they have BRAGGED about it, as did Kermit Roosevelt of CIA boasted of overthrowing Iran’s Mossadeq in 1953 as a staged, choreographed psyop, way back then. Or The Quiet American movie, of 2002, about Saigon 1952.

In essence, this is dyed in the wool SOP, so your shaming it puts you in a rather sketchy light. Actually. Just saying.

In fact, really the only other alibi for your comment is that you’ve been sketchily hiding under a rock for 70 years, more or less.

The Dude Abides
The Dude Abides
Jun 30, 2020 11:47 PM
Reply to  John Ervin

Because I live in reality and understand pulling off something like that would be logistically impossible.
Because I’ve been around long enough and am a rather normal person who doesn’t live in a hermitage isolating myself in some off-the-grid bunker eating spam waiting for the inevitable collapse to come, so I interact with enough people from all walks of life to understand how completely plausible these situations are as I’ve seen them myself more times than I’d care to remember.
What’s more plausible to me as a rational thinking man is that bad apples like these diaper wearing adults actually do exist, and that the real puppeteers use them studiously to push their own agenda. Denying actual video evidence (lots of it!) that doesn’t align with a narrow worldview doesn’t do you any favors. A spade is a spade. But take a step back and see the bigger picture in the context of world events and it might do you some good in fighting the real evil at our doorstep.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 12:33 AM

HEY DUDE! May you long abide, just not under the same rock. People “catch” bad things there.

Absent your patronizing take, very unwarranted given cold facts you seem to have missed, just watch “Psywar: the Real Battlefield is the Mind” at Youtube, from 10 years ago. Willem, frequent brilliant Dutch commenter here, thanked me yesterday for posting it a couple weeks ago, and it will quickly disabuse you of your ignorance of how easily and how often this has been done and proven. The beauty of it is that it gives chapter and verse, easily corriborated in books and hard copy, some of it decades old.

Before you post any more denials, maybe you might just try checking the documentation I’ve laid out here before you.

To say we live in our own worlds or some such, is an overly ostrich-ized way of ignoring non-MSM validated proofs. Head in “sand”.

It’s you who seem to have been living in some parallel MSM reality, notoriously (rich man) propaganda-rich.

Geez, “Dude”, find out about IT.

AJ Henson
AJ Henson
Jul 1, 2020 1:28 AM
Reply to  John Ervin

True that, phenomenal documentary. If only it were required viewing for every person in the U.S.
 
 

Carey
Carey
Jun 30, 2020 11:49 PM

> if you think all these videos are staged by some secret cabal…

Yeah, to think that things like that exist is just lunacy. /s

Nice faux-populist attempt w/ the screen name, BTW. you get 4 of 10.

The Dude Abides
The Dude Abides
Jul 1, 2020 12:25 AM
Reply to  Carey

Straight to ad-hom I see. Well, that speaks more about you than anything else.

I’d rather believe that the powers that be would have us draw lines in the sand and keep us from coming together instead of asking the real questions. Denialism gets us nowhere. Look at how partisan and black and white US politics are. Obama can do no wrong. Hillary is a saint. Meanwhile, Trump has his sycophants and acolytes. Are either side always wrong or always right? No. But that’s what they want us to think. And here you are falling for the same claptrap.

AJ Henson
AJ Henson
Jul 1, 2020 1:28 AM

He’s right, watch the movie.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 3:31 AM

Talk about “false flags”, but I’m going to take a break from feeding the trolls: so little time, so many conspiracies.

my dogs rough
my dogs rough
Jun 30, 2020 9:18 PM

Precisely planned – social engineers are clever aren’t they!
 
When you perfect your own calm then it projects and radiates from you by default.
Dont dispair – We are with you and face precisely the same challenge.
Calm and steady wins the day.
 
But do you have to use so many cuss words dude 😉

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 30, 2020 11:54 PM
Reply to  my dogs rough

Yes, “my dogs rough” the B. F. Skinner’s and their broid if vipers are
known for such idiotic “cleverness”.

And thanks for this:

“When you perfect your own calm then it projects and radiates from you by default.
Don’t despair – We are with you and face precisely the same challenge.

Calm and steady wins the day.”

Wisdom speaks! Thanks for this comment, so needed.

In my own travels, I get passionate, but anger and such are getting displaced now, simply since they, all on their own, displace way too much.

A good school of peace: I wrote a memo but hours ago: “In any ‘social interaction’ anger will change the context instantly and it becomes a different one, and often hard to return to the start. It has all been shifted.”

So, why be angry? Well, if you don’t ever express it, you may well go nuts for the effort. But now, I just displace it to another time, another place: I file it in my XFiles, lol.

Truth be told, not indulging it buys you the stable posture, time, sobriety, etc etc to see what is actually going on much more clearly.

Amazing.

£4£&$4$&€4€+my2¢~~~~~~~~~

“Anger is an acid that does more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

—Mark Twain

No comprom pa
No comprom pa
Jun 30, 2020 3:02 PM

After every storm the sun will smile… ☀️

Paul
Paul
Jun 30, 2020 3:00 PM

Even if you follow the official narrative which most people on here don’t or at least have serious doubts- how exactly have there been so many ‘cases’. Where exactly are people contracting it?

There have been no outbreaks linked to schools, shops, shopping centres, social justice protests, beaches, riots, takeaways, coffee shops, supermarkets or public transport. Also no reports of outbreaks amongst families.
So strange.

Where exactly are people contracting this alleged virus? It can’t be pubs, restaurants or hotels, gyms, barbers or swimming pools as they’ve all been closed.

Why does Coroni behave so differently in each country? The very places it should be rampant it seems to swerve or cause very little impact.

Just looking at Botswana with 1 death and Zimbabwe with 6 deaths. Coroni has apparently been in these countries for 3 months yet he behaves himself in these countries.

Arsebiscuits
Arsebiscuits
Jun 30, 2020 4:17 PM
Reply to  Paul

Yes in 4 months not one outbreak in lidl or aldi or any other not one outbreak.

Good observation.

JudyJ
JudyJ
Jun 30, 2020 4:31 PM
Reply to  Paul

And it was pointed out on yesterday’s UK Column broadcast that, bearing in mind that it seems to be generally acknowledged now – even by those promoting the official narrative – that the ‘virus’ has been around since November/December at least, why did it not appear to draw attention to itself by actually ‘killing’ people until just prior to lockdown in March when it suddenly decided to go berserk?

yorkshirelad
yorkshirelad
Jun 30, 2020 6:53 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

I think Del Bigtree has the answer :
 

JudyJ
JudyJ
Jun 30, 2020 7:54 PM
Reply to  yorkshirelad

Thanks for the link, yorkshireland. Can’t argue with that! I think I shall send it to my MP. I sent him the PCR article a few days ago so this will be a nice little addition for him.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Jun 30, 2020 8:18 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

You really haven’t grasped the concept of exponential have you?

JudyJ
JudyJ
Jun 30, 2020 10:48 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

I suggest you take it up with UK Column and Del Bigtree then ’cause they haven’t either.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Jul 1, 2020 2:57 PM
Reply to  JudyJ

I don’t sully myself with wrestling with dem pigs!

Didn’t we have this discussion about basic maths recently?

Scott Andrews
Scott Andrews
Jul 5, 2020 2:07 AM
Reply to  Dungroanin

I seriously doubt it’s possible for you to sully yourself any further.

Mike Ellwood (Oxon, UK)
Mike Ellwood (Oxon, UK)
Jul 1, 2020 5:58 PM
Reply to  Dungroanin

You really haven’t grasped the concept of exponential have you?

 
Why don’t you try explaining it to us lesser mortals?

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 30, 2020 4:52 PM
Reply to  Paul

India: 15,000 deaths, 10% of the U.S. CoronaCount, yet 4x the population. And “distancing” (“social” or otherwise) very rare as an option.

There was one avuncular Indian comment I saw here, that that stat is meaningless because the fringes of Indian society don’t report, or whatever.

Perhaps they don’t have a true count because they know it’s not a true crisis?

Or other equally good reasons?

In all, or any case, that stat would have to get up really early to be more meaningless than the “virus”.

Paul Vonharnish
Paul Vonharnish
Jun 30, 2020 2:44 PM

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed—and hence clamorous to be led to safety—by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

– H.L. Mencken –

(Henry Louis Mencken)

(September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956)

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 30, 2020 5:03 PM

Variation on a Propaganda (Core) Theme, courtesy of Hermann Göring at Nuremberg*:

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

*roughly, the same era as Mencken’s comment.

John
John
Jun 30, 2020 6:50 PM

Mencken is a bit second hand, voicing what already has been said in better ways.In fact, everything in the main article has already been described in a compressed manner.
 
Alarmism
The newspapers are the seconds-hand of history; yet this is often not only of baser metal, but is seldom right. The so-called ‘leading articles’ in the papers are the chorus to the drama of contemporary events. Exaggeration of every kind is as essential to journalism as it is to dramatic art; for as much as possible must be made of every event; and so by virtue of their profession all journalists are alarmists; this is their way of making themselves interesting, whereby they resemble small dogs who at once start barking loudly at everything that stirs. We accordingly have to regulate our attention to their alarm-trumpet so that they will not upset our digestion; and we should know generally that the newspaper is a magnifying glass, and this even in the best case; for it is very often a mere phantasmagoria.” Schopenhauer
 
Government/deception
One of the advantages of democracy, from the governmental point of view, is that it makes the average citizen easier to deceive, since he regards the government as his government.” Bertrand Russell
 
It is very necessary that a man should be apprised early in life that it is a masquerade in which he finds himself. For otherwise there are many things which he will fail to understand and put up with, nay, at which he will be completely puzzled, and that man longest of all whose heart is made of better clay. Such for instance is the favour that villainy finds; the neglect that merit, even the rarest and the greatest, suffers at the hands of those of the same profession; the hatred of truth and great capacity; the ignorance of scholars in their own province; and the fact that true wares are almost always despised and the merely specious ones in request. Therefore let even the young be instructed betimes that in this masquerade the apples are of wax, the flowers of silk, the fish of pasteboard, and that all things—yes, all things—are toys and trifles; and that of two men whom he may see earnestly engaged in business, one is supplying spurious goods and the other paying for them in false coin.” Schopenhauer
 
Journalism/media
It was a fatal day when the public discovered that the pen is mightier than the paving-stone, and can be made as offensive as the brickbat. They at once sought for the journalist, found him, developed him, and made him their industrious and well-paid servant. It is greatly to be regretted, for both their sakes. Behind the barricade there may be much that is noble and heroic. But what is there behind the leading-article but prejudice, stupidity, cant, and twaddle? And when these four are joined together they make a terrible force, and constitute the new authority.” Oscar Wilde
 
Fascism/The people (the people are the biggest most ubiquitously present dictator)
Their authority is a thing blind, deaf, hideous, grotesque, tragic, amusing, serious, and obscene. It is impossible for the artist to live with the People. All despots bribe. The people bribe and brutalise. Who told them to exercise authority? They were made to live, to listen, and to love. Someone has done them a great wrong. They have marred themselves by imitation of their inferiors. They have taken the sceptre of the Prince. How should they use it? They have taken the triple tiara of the Pope. How should they carry its burden? They are as a clown whose heart is broken. They are as a priest whose soul is not yet born. Let all who love Beauty pity them. Though they themselves love not Beauty, yet let them pity themselves. Who taught them the trick of tyranny?” Oscar Wilde
 
One could go on and on, nothing new under the sun. But contemporary writers must earn some bread and have something to write about I guess. All articles in this and other non compliant media are essentially valuable only for the reason that they communicate that not all people are compliant and fooled.
 
Enjoy the contemporary Theater of Mass man versus The Elites.
Stay safe, you heretics and unbelievers, not from the corona virus, but from being trampled on and crushed by either one of them, if not both.
 
 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 12:45 AM
Reply to  John

Mencken could be quite penetrating, love him or hate him, he was relevant and timely in much, not second hand.

So what’s your point in dissing him?

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jun 30, 2020 2:42 PM

I don’t buy into the Covid hysteria but I don’t buy into the anti-mask hysteria either.
 
I wonder how many anti-maskers go along to their local swimming pool and start yelling “These swimming trunks are COMPLETELY unnecessary and they serve NO purpose and NO FASCIST is going to make ME wear swimming trunks and I’M NOT GOING TO WEAR THE FUCKIN SWIMMING TRUNKS!!!”
 
Somewhere between none and zero I guess.
 
As far as I’m concerned wearing a mask is about as much of an imposition on my freedom as wearing a pair of swimming trunks.
 
I’m aware of the stories of “studies by scientists” showing that masks don’t make any difference (or at least the “meta-analyses” of the studies), but so far I’ve only had time to read one actual study. Somebody on Craig Murray’s blog directed me to an article by a Doctor in the USA, who referenced a study from South Korea. So it had certainly done the rounds.
 
This “study by scientists” was ludicrous, risible bullshit on stilts. I’m not a scientist but even I could see what a joke it was. It made me rather sceptical about the worth of these “studies”. It has now been retracted. I have to hope that the other studies which have been so diligently “meta-analysed” by mask sceptics are a bit more robust.
 
Against that, masks seem to have done a pretty good job in China, not only at protecting the 99.9% of the population to whom Covid poses no threat, but also the 0.1% to whom it does. So I’m happy to go with common sense and wear my mask, until such times as I get round to reading a proper scientific study that shows that they genuinely make no difference.
 

Stevia Thoreau
Stevia Thoreau
Jun 30, 2020 2:47 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

You obviously haven’t been reading anything at this site. The masks are harmful to human health and don’t stop the spread of influenza.

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jun 30, 2020 3:13 PM
Reply to  Stevia Thoreau

I told you what I’ve read. I’ve read one actual study. I’m not interested in blogs or sites or meta-analyses or other people’s opinions of studies. I’m interested in actual robust studies that show that masks don’t make a difference. If you have read one – an actual stuidy not a “meta-analysis” or a blog – then you can save me some time by posting a link.
 
“Masks are harmful to human health…” Yeah yeah I know. So are swimming trunks. Swimming trunks are harmful to human health if you wear them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and never take them off. Nobody should wear swimming trunks and we should fight the fascists making us wear swimming trunks…

rachel
rachel
Jun 30, 2020 4:41 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

masks are signs of a lock down. they could be considered aiding and abetting in the crime of genocide. there has been reports of people being murdered with vents, increased suicide etc.

Dungroanin
Dungroanin
Jun 30, 2020 7:20 PM
Reply to  rachel

‘Genocide’!!

Holly molly – as much as shovelling people into care homes?
As much as forcing people to wear jew stars to be shipped off to death?

You guys… have lost whatever plot you thought you had and jumped into alt-right bs! Just venting furiously as at burka wearing.

😤😤😤

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 4:29 AM
Reply to  rachel

They’re actually the opposite of a lockdown. In China there has been very little need of lockdowns – they have been targeted and much shorter – because people have worn masks. As a result, there haven’t been nearly so many people suiciding out of despair in their lockdowns, and a far smaller number of people have become infected, so fewer people have been genocided by being put on vents.

Mishko
Mishko
Jul 2, 2020 11:14 PM
Reply to  David F

“Masked cruisaders, fighting crime, overtime!”
Link to M.A.S.K. intro: https://youtu.be/o2Z1yLO9C-Q

David F
David F
Jul 3, 2020 7:41 AM
Reply to  Mishko

Mmm… MASKs
 
Working hard… successful… efficient… effective!
 
I love it…

breweriana
breweriana
Jun 30, 2020 4:55 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

I’m interested in actual robust studies”
Try linking to one that shows the virus actually exists, then, before ranting about use or non-use of face nappies.
 
Oh, and stop commenting in the manner of a sanctimonious prig – it does not further your argument one bit.

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 4:42 AM
Reply to  breweriana

Try linking to one that shows the virus actually exists…

I’m gradually coming round to your view that the virus doesn’t exist. But there is something there that behaves almost exactly like it would if it was a virus, even though in reality it’s probably just quantum-charged nanoparticles of tinfoil. So let’s just agree to call it a virus even through viruses don’t exist.

…before ranting about use or non-use of face nappies.

I wasn’t ranting. Nothing in my post looks remotely like a rant.

Oh, and stop commenting in the manner of a sanctimonious prig…

I’ll do a deal with you breweriana You don’t tell me I’m a sanctimonious prig, and I won’t tell you that you’re the most ludicrous tinfoil bampot on OffG.
 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 30, 2020 5:20 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Gosh, you just had to go and be doubly dumb. You should have quit while you’re ahead.

Comparing mask fascism to swimsuits is maybe the worst visual to show up here, twice. Even trolls would know better.

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 3:37 AM
Reply to  David Ferguson

David Ferguson? Any relation to (Dr.) Neil ..

Thanks, I thought so.

😎😇

kevin
kevin
Jun 30, 2020 3:04 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Bear Patrol has also been very effective in China.

Ort
Ort
Jun 30, 2020 9:19 PM
Reply to  kevin

FWIW, I’ve posted this clip too. Possibly in response to the same proud Defender of the Mask. I’m sure he owns a magic rock that keeps away tigers, unless he accidently threw it away during a bout of bumptious stone-throwing! 😉

kevin
kevin
Jul 1, 2020 5:06 AM
Reply to  Ort

I may have first seen it from your posting.

Ort
Ort
Jul 1, 2020 7:58 PM
Reply to  kevin

I’m pleased to hear it.
 
You may be familiar with the film “A Clockwork Orange”; if not, beware of spoiler. 😉
 
The protagonist, Alex, is subjected by authorities to an aggressive form of aversion therapy called “The Ludovico Technique”, ostensibly to cure Alex of his predilection for engaging in anti-social ultra-violence.
 
There’s a harrowing scene of Alex fitted up in a chair equipped with full body restraints, including nasty hooked gizmos attached to his eyelids to keep them open as “therapeutic” images flash before him on a viewscreen.
 
This setup is probably a long way to go, but this Simpsons video is ideal to challenge Megadeath Virus of Doom “public-health measures” True Believers. I feel conflicted in wishing to impose non-consensual, coerced draconian “cures” upon anybody, but I’d like to plop those True Believers into that barbarous Ludovico Chair and play this video over and over until they’re finally cured.

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 6:57 AM
Reply to  Ort

And a rousing thanks to both of you! It was just as funny and original the millionth time of posting as it was the nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety ninth!

Howard
Howard
Jun 30, 2020 3:12 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

I cannot imagine any way anyone anywhere could have placed a stronger exclamation point at the end of Mr Hopkins’ article. Did he plant you here just to underscore everything he said?

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jun 30, 2020 5:04 PM
Reply to  Howard

Thsi is what you said:
 

I cannot imagine any way anyone anywhere could have placed a stronger exclamation point at the end of Mr Hopkins’ article…

This is what he said:
 

It was always going to come to this … mobs of hysterical, hate-drunk brownshirts hunting down people not wearing masks and trying to get them fired from their jobs…

Nothing that I said bears any resemblance to this. I’m not in the least bit hysterical about Covid and I’m not in theleast bit hysterical about masks. If you had been able to take off your impenetrable lead-lined smugturd blinkers before you read my comment you might even have noticed that.
 

breweriana
breweriana
Jun 30, 2020 7:28 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

impenetrable lead-lined smugturd blinkers”
And finally the frustrated martinet finishes with a hissy fit, oh, and probably:
 
“I’m reporting you to the (bus/train etc. driver) – just wear your f****ng mask, now!”

Howard
Howard
Jun 30, 2020 10:12 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

As you’ve no doubt noticed, I was certainly not alone is perceiving your original comment as a definitive objection to just about everything C J Hopkins had to say.
 
And no matter how you sugar coat it, when you refer to the critiques of forced mask wearing as “anti-mask hysteria” you have thrown down a very challenging gauntlet. It is not hysteria, but rather a rational combination of expert opinion (which far exceeds one questionable “study” out of South Korea) and just plain common sense.
 
The only people who would benefit from wearing masks – and even that would be temporary – would be anxiety prone people who hyperventilate. They would benefit from the recycling of CO2. Period.

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 5:09 AM
Reply to  Howard

As you’ve no doubt noticed, I was certainly not alone…

What I actually noticed is that you were not alone in being unable to direct me to a single robust study you have read – among all the hundreds or thousands or possibly even millions that have now been published – that shows that masks don’t work.

It is not hysteria, but rather a rational combination of expert opinion…

How could you possibly know that the “expert opinion” you’re so keen to kowtow to is “rational”? You have not read a single one of the studies on which this these opinions are based. And neither have any of the other 52 (and counting) people who downvoted my comment. Not one single one.
 
In what way do any of you imagine that you’re different from the mask-fascists on the other side of the divide that you’re so keen to ridicule? You let someone else do all your thinking, choose your side, and then start cheering for your side and abusing the other.

Howard
Howard
Jul 1, 2020 3:19 PM
Reply to  David F

As somebody else pointed out early on in this thread: the burden of proof lies with those who promote a different way of doing things – not with those who question the validity of the different way.
 
There’s something you may not be aware of: surgical masks and other types of face coverings have been around for a very long time – and have been extensively observed to determine their effectiveness. It has long ago been established that face masks protect against a surgical team accidentally “spitting” or sneezing directly onto the patient. That’s what they were designed for in the first place.
 
So as to specific formal studies with double blind testing to prove or disprove the effectiveness of masks, it’s very doubtful if such studies have ever been conducted. But when health practitioners with years, even decades, of experience offer assessments of facial masks, such assessments can be cited as strong evidence.
 
No formal study is needed to determine that, since humans breathe through their noses and/or mouths, covering these two orifices necessarily decreases the amount of oxygen one takes in. Nor has anyone to my knowledge ever conducted a study to determine if the amount of oxygen taken in with each breath is too little or too much.
 
 
 
 

SBH
SBH
Jun 30, 2020 3:20 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

It shouldn’t take long to find one. There’s so many about.
 
 

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jun 30, 2020 4:29 PM
Reply to  SBH

None of which you have read obviously since you haven’t bothered to post a link to any of the ones you have
 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 3:47 AM
Reply to  David Ferguson

The evidence is growing into a preponderance, that David Ferguson is Neil Ferguson’s **** twin?

I blush to be so crassly adhom, but, seriously, switched at birth??

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 5:23 AM
Reply to  John Ervin

John.
 
John. Imagine you had some mates. Then imagine you were in the pub with your mates. Then imagine you told your mates a mildly amusing and rather obvious joke. Then imagine a couple of minutes later you told your mates exactly the same mildly amusing and rather obvious joke…

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 7:40 AM
Reply to  David F

Like typing my name twice?

Redundant like that?

Or replying downthread thrice, each time with the same tip twice?

Obvious as that?

You seem to think I was trying to make a joke. Now that is a long shot.

I was only trawling4trolls.

“BINGO!”

“Next!”

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Jun 30, 2020 3:21 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

You are making the logical error in your placement of the burden of proof. The burden of proof lies with those who claim that face coverings (I use the term deliberately, as it is face coverings that the government has made mandatory on public transport) are an effective way of reducing the transmission of the virus.

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jun 30, 2020 5:12 PM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

I’m sorry. I didn’t get the memo about you being made emperor and getting to decide where the burden of proof lies.
 
If a scientist want to argue that masks don’t work – and there are plenty of them out there who do – then the burden of proof is on them to come up with a sound methodology and a robust study that proves it. Not rush to print with a load of risible nonsense that turns into arsewipe as soon as it’s subjected to a modicum of scrutiny.
 

rachel
rachel
Jun 30, 2020 6:14 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

if you want to prove masks first you have to prove there is a pathogenic virus. it is established that fear can cause adrenal fatigue so disprove the terror campaign did not cause deaths. telling people to stay indoors causes vitamin d deficiency a known factor in many health problems. drugging people with kidney problems causes death. you should come out with evidence on those putting you upto these crimes. they are going to blame you.

Carey
Carey
Jun 30, 2020 10:05 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

“David Ferguson”: head on over to (now gotten-to) Naked Capitalism; you’ll fit right in. And by the way, your fair-minded™ act isn’t gonna play well amongst those still thinking..
 
C.

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 6:47 AM
Reply to  Carey

I shall indeed, Carey, and with a right good will! And if you don’t mind me returning the favour, here’s a site that I think you will enjoy!
echochambers r us
 

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 3:54 AM
Reply to  David Ferguson

After so much effort on your part at dispassionate discourse, that’s the best we get, “memo …emperor” when he is using the standard language for anyone, any advocate, simply making a legal argument?

Your attempts at a prose that would deflect that is textbook churl (I’m stepping around the T word for the time being).

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 5:48 AM
Reply to  John Ervin

Up your game John. You forgot to mention the family connection with Neil.
 

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Jul 1, 2020 9:04 AM
Reply to  David Ferguson

It is not me who is deciding where the burden of proof lies. It is a simple rule of logic.

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jul 1, 2020 12:44 PM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

No Steve. The simple rule of logic dictates that the burden of proof lies with the person making the claim that flies in the face of reason. It stands to reason that less shit will come out of your mouith if you’re wearing a mask than if you’re not wearing a mask – something that has in fact been proved by the quality of arguments on this thread.
 
So if you want to claim that exactly the same amount of shit will come out of your mouth, then the burden of proof lies with you.

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Jul 1, 2020 12:52 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

The emotive tone suggests that you know you are wrong.
 
In addition the the rules of logic, there is also the obvious manner in which social change is conducted. In social change it is those asserting that people should change their behaviour (by wearing face coverings) who are clearly the ones who need to demonstrate the benefit of the change. Those who are merely advocating for liberty and the status quo are clearly not under any such obligation.

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jul 1, 2020 1:19 PM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

I’m not arguing with you about social change and whether people should change their behaviour and liberty and the status quo.
 
I’m arguing about a simple question of fact – whether masks reduce the spread of the virus or not. That’s all I’ve ever been arguing since my very first post. Your position – that they don’t – flies in the face of reason, so the burden of proof is on you.
 
But this whole “burden of proof” thing – which you raised – is a red herring anyway. I’m not challenging you to do a scientific study to prove your case. All you have to do is point me to a robust study with a sound methodology that proves that masks don’t work. One that has already been done. That’s all. Apparently there are loads of them.

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Jul 1, 2020 1:43 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Well, thanks for the clarification. I find it reassuring that you are not in favour of the social change of forcing everyone to wear masks. I am glad to hear that you are in favour of liberty.
 
As to your request for a study: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data

David F
David F
Jul 2, 2020 7:26 AM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

Thanks for this. I guess you’ve read the article. Have you read any of the studies referenced?

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Jul 2, 2020 10:12 AM
Reply to  David F

A couple. However, none of it is to the point as the government has mandated face coverings (rather than face masks) and what the government means by face coverings is clear from the guidance which advises people to cut up an old T-shirt, something that is beyond parody or caricature or satire.

David F
David F
Jul 3, 2020 7:52 AM
Reply to  Steve Hayes

I will look at some of these and get back to you on a later article if you are interested in an honest debate. But I’ll be reading them from a critical and sceptical viewpoint, not as if I was a Muslim who had just been given a copy of the Koran.

Roberto
Roberto
Jun 30, 2020 3:34 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

It’s not a mask, it’s a muzzle, a symbol of submission.

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jun 30, 2020 5:17 PM
Reply to  Roberto

And your trunks represent the strangulated yelp of the eunuch Roberto. What’s more, given that you’re a Latino, I’m betting yours are the tightest budgy smugglers you could find, just to show everybody how emancipated you are…

breweriana
breweriana
Jun 30, 2020 7:31 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

I’m betting yours are the tightest budgy smugglers you could find”
Well, we’re certainly finding out where your head is really at – 3rd mention, now?

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 4:00 AM
Reply to  breweriana

You see, you bait the reactionary churl, and it’s almost magic: their egos are challenged and their nimble fingers take on a life of their own at the keypad, unrestrained by brain.

Wow, you could smell it coming: presuming that Roberto is de facto Latino, when he could be simply a screen name, or whatever.

Truly amazing.

Four stars given early were baitingly generous. Maybe more in negative asteroids ranking.

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 5:52 AM
Reply to  John Ervin

Neil. For god’s sake John. Remember Neil!

Mike Ellwood (Oxon, UK)
Mike Ellwood (Oxon, UK)
Jul 1, 2020 6:14 PM
Reply to  David F

More smoke; more mirrors. Distract from own goal.

David F
David F
Jul 2, 2020 3:49 AM

Since you have nothing of any value to contribute, “Mike Ellwood (Oxon, UK)”, arse off.
 
And what kind of pompous nonce puts (Oxon, UK) after their OffG monicker? Seriously? Who in the actual fuck do you imagine gives a toss about what university somebody went to who writes “More smoke; more mirrors. Distract from own goal”? Do you think it lends more gravitas to your inane platitudes? Is that the first thing you tell girls that you meet at parties? Take your “Oxon, UK” and shove it up your bottom orifice, you pathetic saddo.

Paul too
Paul too
Jun 30, 2020 9:38 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

And the spiteful bigot exposes his true self for all to see.

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 5:58 AM
Reply to  Paul too

That’s precisely what I don’t do Paul. I wear my budgy smugglers uncomplainingly…

Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards
Jul 1, 2020 9:51 AM
Reply to  David F

It’s “budgie”, idiot.

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 10:34 AM
Reply to  Cliff Edwards

Budgy Smugglers Swimwear
 
Find out why they called their swimwear “Budgy Smugglers” and not “Budgie Smugglers”
 
Then you too can look a bit less like a dickhead on the internet…

Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards
Jul 1, 2020 11:25 AM
Reply to  David F

Afraid not, drongo. That’s just a brand name, and they admit they stuffed up:
 
“The sad fact is that we only realised the incorrect spelling after we’d started making pairs and we haven’t been bothered to change it back.”
 
“budgie” is short for “budgerigar”. The Australian slang expression is “budgie smugglers”. Look it up, if you can spare some time from scratching your fat arse.

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jul 1, 2020 12:36 PM
Reply to  Cliff Edwards

That’s just a brand name…

Why do you feel the need to explain this to me, when it was me who gave you the link to their site?

“The sad fact is that we only realised the incorrect spelling after we’d started making pairs and we haven’t been bothered to change it back.”

Why do you feel the need to quote this to me, when I told you you would find it on their website?
 
Cliff, thank you for explaining things to me that a retarded baboon could have worked out I already knew. There are some extremely stupid people arguing with me on this thread. You were late to the party, but congratulations on not letting the side down.

Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards
Jul 1, 2020 1:13 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Hey Davey, why is it that when people see you in your swimming trunks they wonder if you’re smuggling a hummingbird?

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jul 1, 2020 3:42 PM
Reply to  Cliff Edwards

Cliff. Please. Give up while you’re ahead. I don’t think I could bear to see a grown man reduced to “Ya ya big fat smellyboots!”

Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards
Jul 1, 2020 4:28 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Which would require you to never read your own comments.

David F
David F
Jul 3, 2020 7:46 AM
Reply to  Cliff Edwards

Go and read a study Cliff. Just one study. Then get back to me.

Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards
Jul 3, 2020 9:18 AM
Reply to  David F

Nah, it’s up to you to lessen your bog ignorance. Not my job nor anyone else’s.

Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards
Jul 3, 2020 10:32 AM
Reply to  David F

Can’t say I’ve ever come across any studies on budgie smugglers. Feel free to post a link if you know of one.

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jul 3, 2020 1:46 PM
Reply to  Cliff Edwards

Well just to confound you here is one. And I’m surprised I have to point it out to you:
 
Male_attraction_tight_swimwear_au.edu

Cliff Edwards
Cliff Edwards
Jul 3, 2020 2:58 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Funny but when I hover the mouse pointer over that link text I can see that the link is to some website to do with “male-toys”. Whatever floats your boat, Davey boy. No wonder you’re so obsessed with the contents of budgie smugglers!

Kalen
Kalen
Jun 30, 2020 4:15 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

You are totally wrong, wrong on facts, wrong on logic, wrong on analogies and wrong on conclusions.

If you know that IFR is 0.1% or less why even bother not to get infected.

Instead of fearing infection get immunity in 7-9 days if you are younger and healthy as 99% of all infected have mild or no symptoms. Where is your logic to force 99% to avoid being infected regardless of masks efficacy?

In fact there is no avoiding virus infections except for full biohazard suits, and then you make your next flu like Illness worse.

Only those who are elderly, vulnerable should protect themselves, temporarily isolate themselves from contacts with members of vulnerable groups only and boost their immune system to handle future inevitable exposure.

Face Masks in China had zero effect may be except to limit inhalation of dust and heavy smog pollution particulates as lesser evil solution as breading in Wuhan and Beijing is .. TOXIC, immediately dangerous to people’s health and lives.

With or without masks in China it took average three days or more of infected people confined in small flat to get some elderly but not all in household infected under lockdown. Children were in fact never infected despite continuous kissing and hugging as they are highly resistant like many adults. Epidemic was under control when they eliminated massive nosocomial infections in hospitals ended use of ventilators and put all the asymptomatic people in separate quarantine in hotels so they create antibodies. And most of all they never introduced catch all definition of COVID deaths what was done in US to push hysteria.

WHO and CDC did not promoted or recommend masks for general population in all previous pandemics including SARS,MERS, swine flu in March 2020 WHO determined that masks for young and healthy provide not benefit limiting of any spreading viruses according to many decades of studies.

As far as trunks analogy goes put your trunks over your head (allowed under guidance) as it has the same effect on spreading viruses as face masks , ZERO. Regardless of cultural norms and conventions that are required in public, using masks is harmful and hence litany of common chronic diseases making many millions exempted for harm from guidance simple because SC2 is not as deadly as feared while making decisions, much less deadly than those exempted diseases.

But do not complain that you cannot talk or breathe properly through your trunks unless you have your psychiatrist written permission but then you are exempted from this mask fest anyway..

David Ferguson
David Ferguson
Jun 30, 2020 5:52 PM
Reply to  Kalen

Look! Wonders will never cease! Here’s someone who’s actually interested in fact-based coherent arguments rather than screaming abuse from the heights of Mount Zealot.
 
But why do you say this:
 

breathing in… Beijing is … TOXIC, immediately dangerous to people’s health and lives.

Have you ever been to Beijing? As in some time in the last five years?
 
And this:
 

As far as trunks analogy goes put your trunks over your head (allowed under guidance) as it has the same effect on spreading viruses as face masks , ZERO…

Please give me a link to a study that proves this – one that you have read, not one that you have read about – that you consider to have a sound methodology and robust conclusions. If you haven’t read any, just say so.
 
What’s interesting about science is that for every force there’s a counter-force and for every action there’s a counter-action. And for every scientist that says something there’s another scientist who says exactly the opposite. I don’t care about the WHO advice – it’s a political organisation, and if it wants to take a position it can cherry-pick whatever studies back its position and ignore the ones that say the opposite.
 
What was interesting about the study I referred to earlier proving that masks are no use is that it was authored by 14 scientists – 10 MDs, 3 PhDs and 1 BSc. Twenty people had responded to the study. Every one of them rubbished it mercilessly. Not one responder supported it. And it has now been retracted. Which tells you something about science. And studies. And maybe even masks and how useless they are.
 
Another thing that is rather telling is that I didn’t give a link to the study and not one of my critics has asked me for it. It’s almost as if they would rather not know about it.
 

Carey
Carey
Jun 30, 2020 11:01 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

So, you have no time to look at any other studies; but plenty of time to dissemble
and play dumb here? Good to know..

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 6:05 AM
Reply to  Carey

So, you have no time to look at any other studies; but plenty of time to dissemble and play dumb here? Good to know…

When you’re at home Carey, do you ever tackle the housework? Like do the ironing, for example? Or is that something you just don’t do?

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jul 1, 2020 4:09 AM
Reply to  Kalen

KALEN: you say above:

“If you know that IFR is 0.1% or less why even bother not to get infected.”

That comment is the key argument in all this, simply because it’s now a global consensus that the case fatalities are extremely meagre (not to families of deceased, and I pay all due respects) in count, over 95.5 survive, so why not simply let the poor corona find its own way, run its course? Sweden did, without lockdown, and flattened the curve without even trying.

But that would be too simple for our fascist führers.

Not when there’s a trillion bucks to be turned.

breweriana
breweriana
Jun 30, 2020 4:49 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

If you look on murrays site you will get misinformed. Or do you do it on purpose?
 
Masks cannot save people from SO2 poisoning, which is what really killed in Wuhan, not some fake ‘virus’.

Tim Drayton
Tim Drayton
Jun 30, 2020 4:53 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Yes, but there is a symbolic aspect to it. If I wear a mask, I am capitulating to the narrative of fear. That is why I have been risking a 100 euro fine by travelling on the bus without one in Cyprus recently and I see others doing the same, either out of ignorance of the rule or consciously (although I am reducing the amount I use the bus as well to lessen the probability of being fined).

John Ervin
John Ervin
Jun 30, 2020 5:14 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Downvotes here = such an awkward and obtuse comparison, to swimming trunks?
For starters.

Harvesta Strong
Harvesta Strong
Jun 30, 2020 6:17 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Inviting total strangers to imagine your junk on a public policy discourse page is akin to the seasonal flasher.

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 6:12 AM

Quite. Which is why I wear swimming trunks and don’t make a great big baby fuss about it. Apart from that, good comment.

Roger Dixon
Roger Dixon
Jun 30, 2020 9:12 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Do you try to talk through your swimming trunks?

George Mc
George Mc
Jun 30, 2020 10:26 PM
Reply to  David Ferguson

Quite right David. I can’t tell the difference between masks and swimming trunks either. Every time I put on a mask, I strap trunks round my head. Oh how silly I’ve looked!

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 6:15 AM
Reply to  George Mc

You have indeed George. But it’s not because you’ve got a pair of swimming trunks on your head. It’s because you’re walking around the swimming pool with your cock and balls hanging out.

George Mc
George Mc
Jul 1, 2020 3:20 PM
Reply to  David F

Well you’re the expert on balls, of which you are a load, Dave.
 

David F
David F
Jul 3, 2020 7:46 AM
Reply to  George Mc

Go and read a study George. Just one. Then get back to me.

George Mc
George Mc
Jul 3, 2020 4:24 PM
Reply to  David F

Are you setting up a marking system then?

John
John
Jul 1, 2020 3:11 AM
Reply to  David Ferguson

“As far as I’m concerned wearing a mask is about as much of an imposition on my freedom as wearing a pair of swimming trunks.”
 
When having to wear a mask, ones outward condition is like the mindless animalistic fearful mobs in Asia. These modern consumerist work-slaves masses, unhealthy city-dwellers, locked up in big cities. One has to comply to mass fear, mass psychosis, mass stupidity, and governmental and institutional incompetence and corruption.
This is the symbolism.
 
Of course, besides that, you look stupid and dehumanized/de-individualized, not to mention the aesthetic side of it. What is generally valid, is that mask dehumanize, they make a significant part of your outward individual traits (which reflects you) disappear behind something general, and factually you get less oxygen, less breath of life… And, as decadent modern city dwellers, you are likely already to be disconnected from life and nature’s healthy and energy rich resources.
 
The mask is thus wholly symbolic for modern mass man, unnatural, decadent mass man the city dweller, fear, stupidity, incompetence, corruption, ghosts disconnected from life, technological slavery, dehumanization, etc.
 
Hu-man, or mob-man is the question…
 

David F
David F
Jul 1, 2020 6:40 AM
Reply to  John

When having to wear a mask, ones outward condition is like the mindless animalistic fearful mobs in Asia. These modern consumerist work-slaves masses, unhealthy city-dwellers, locked up in big cities…

I often muse on this sort of thing as I recline on the bed of ferns in my snug shelter of leaves and branches, using the bicycle-powered computer I fashioned for myself out of papier-mâché and recycled yogurt cartons to post comments on discussion forums…
 

John
John
Jul 1, 2020 3:17 AM
Reply to  David Ferguson

With the below I am pointing to wearing a mask in the situation when you act as a free individual. In cases of having to wear a mask for professional reasons, ones individuality is subjected to some degree of course, and at times for good reasons, but preferably only when it really cannot be avoided.

Michael
Michael
Jul 1, 2020 6:36 AM