92

A Pandemic of Bureaucracy

TE Creus

Some compare corona times to the novel 1984, but I thought that perhaps Terry Gilliam’s Brazil could be an even more apt comparison.

In that movie, the totalitarian nightmare is coordinated by bumbling and incompetent bureaucrats, who nevertheless never give up in their indefatigable pursuit of more paperwork.

If there was one thing that this damn pandemic sure increased was bureaucracy. To travel, to meet people, or even to have a cup of coffee somewhere, anywhere, now you need to show your “papers” — or, at any rate, a QR-code in your smartphone.

I traveled to Italy during the “first wave” of the pandemic — or was it already the second? It’s hard to recall, there were so many. At the time, the bureaucrats had invented some kind of contact tracing form that everyone needed to fill before boarding a plane, however there were four or five different forms available, and confusion reigned.

People weren’t sure which form to fill or how to fill it, and in the end, no one at the airport even checked the forms.

The procedure has been streamlined, and now they certainly check all forms and digital passes, but the confusion has only increased.

Italians initially had a “Green Pass”, then a “Super Green Pass”; now they seem to be inventing some kind of “Booster Green Pass”, and yet, predictably, none of it is reducing cases. It appears, go figure, that viruses and diseases are immune to paperwork.

On top of the passes, now they, like other European countries, also added an obligatory PCR test to all vaccinated travellers, however, the same test that is valid for the vaccinated is not valid for the unvaccinated, who are still banned from most social and economic life, even if they present such negative test. Unless they get a vaccine first. Then a booster. Then yet another PCR test. And of course all respective obligatory passes and forms.

But there is no reason to laugh at (or cry for) the Italians, as the same bureaucratic nightmare takes place basically everywhere.

Germany is not short of idiotic rules either. For instance, after a year of accepting surgical masks, now they are requiring FP2 masks on public transportation and even supermarkets. Is there any study that shows that FP2 masks work any better than surgical ones? Not really. It seems that the idea is that, since such masks make breathing harder, they are thought as more efficient.

Most cashiers, however, wear just simple surgical masks or no mask at all. I suppose they are immune to the virus. And of course, the German 2G/3G rules is a “vaccine passport” scheme with a different name, and just as useless.

Since none of that works, one would think that with such abysmal failure the pandemic bureaucrats would give up, but that is misunderstanding the issue. As a wise man observed long ago, a bureaucracy, like a virus, exists only to perpetuate itself.

People still have to take off their shoes and have them x-rayed before boarding a plane, twenty years after the only unsuccessful and very suspicious “shoe bombing” attempt, and they cannot carry a bottle of water through customs, even though no “water bottle bombing attempt” was ever recorded.

Now on top of the “war on terror”, we have the equally unwinnable “war on viruses”. And unfortunately, or unless we do something about it, its attending bureaucratic overload (“it’s for your safety!”) will probably last as long.

TE Creus is a writer, translator and filmmaker. He is the author of “Our Pets and Us: The Evolution of a Relationship” and the collection of short stories “The Sphere”. He’s the editor of Contrarium.

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Crisp Packet Jackets
Crisp Packet Jackets
Jan 11, 2022 11:20 AM

This process of ‘bureaucraticisation’ has been going on for decades, for instance, the same ‘use’ of terror and climate change measures has brought in all sorts of spurious rules that favour large corporations and I suspect they are behind much of the lobbying that goes on to persuade governments to impliment them, of course they are set up to deal with them and so they get a greater market share every time, alas, history is full of the same creeping controls, eg at the time of the industrial revolution and land reforms but what used to happen at a national level, in different parts of the world is now happening on a global level!

Peter Moritz
Peter Moritz
Jan 10, 2022 5:21 PM

Not really. It seems that the idea is that, since such masks make breathing harder, they are thought as more efficient.

Most cashiers, however, wear just simple surgical masks or no mask at all. I suppose they are immune to the virus.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
In this review, we did not find evidence to support a protective effect of personal protective measures or environmental measures in reducing influenza transmission. Although these measures have mechanistic support based on our knowledge of how influenza is transmitted from person to person, randomized trials of hand hygiene and face masks have not demonstrated protection against laboratory-confirmed influenza, with 1 exception (18). We identified only 2 RCTs on environmental cleaning and no RCTs on cough etiquette.

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817
Our results suggest that the recommendation to wear a surgical mask when outside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mask wearers in a setting where social distancing and other public health measures were in effect, mask recommendations were not among those measures, and community use of masks was uncommon.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0240287
Several previous observational studies at Hajj have failed to show the effectiveness of facemasks in preventing respiratory infections [50–52], possibly due also to poor adherence to instructions, although a recent study showed that changing facemask every four hourly reduced the chance of upper respiratory tract infections among Hajj pilgrims (adjusted OR 0.56; 95% CI 0.34 to 0.92; p = 0.02) [55]. In our cRCT, though pilgrims in both intervention and control groups were close to each other day and night, none wore a mask for 24 hours as advised. This may have been an unrealistic expectation. Mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of effective and realistic health messaging.

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19-face-masks-community-first-update.pdf
 “The evidence regarding the effectiveness of medical face masks for the prevention of COVID-19 in the community is compatible with a small to moderate protective effect, but there are still significant uncertainties about the size of this effect. Evidence for the effectiveness of non-medical face masks, face shields/visors and respirators in the community is scarce and of very low certainty

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/
It would appear that despite two decades of pandemic preparedness, there is considerable uncertainty as to the value of wearing masks. For instance, high rates of infection with cloth masks could be due to harms caused by cloth masks, or benefits of medical masks. The numerous systematic reviews that have been recently published all include the same evidence base so unsurprisingly broadly reach the same conclusions. However, recent reviews using lower quality evidence found masks to be effective. Whilst also recommending robust randomised trials to inform the evidence for these interventions.

https://www.cochrane.org/CD006207/ARI_do-physical-measures-such-hand-washing-or-wearing-masks-stop-or-slow-down-spread-respiratory-viruses
Seven studies took place in the community, and two studies in healthcare workers. Compared with wearing no mask, wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness (9 studies; 3507 people); and probably makes no difference in how many people have flu confirmed by a laboratory test (6 studies; 3005 people). Unwanted effects were rarely reported, but included discomfort.
N95/P2 respirators
Four studies were in healthcare workers, and one small study was in the community. Compared with wearing medical or surgical masks, wearing N95/P2 respirators probably makes little to no difference in how many people have confirmed flu (5 studies; 8407 people); and may make little to no difference in how many people catch a flu-like illness (5 studies; 8407 people) or respiratory illness (3 studies; 7799 people). Unwanted effects were not well reported; discomfort was mentioned.

https://escipub.com/irjph-2021-08-1005/
Results: Earlier mask mandates were not associated with lower total cases or lower maximum growth rates. Earlier mandates were weakly associated with lower minimum COVID-19 growth rates. Mask use predicted lower minimum but not lower maximum growth rates. Growth rates and total growth were comparable between US states in the first and last mask use quintiles during the Fall-Winter wave. These observations persisted for both natural logarithmic and fold growth models and when adjusting for differences in US state population density.
Conclusions: We did not observe association between mask mandates or use and reduced COVID-19 spread in US states. COVID-19 mitigation requires further research and use of existing efficacious strategies, most notably vaccination.

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0057100
The results show that a standard surgical and three-ply cloth masks, which see current widespread use, filter at apparent efficiencies of only 12.4% and 9.8%, respectively. Apparent efficiencies of 46.3% and 60.2% are found for KN95 and R95 masks, respectively, which are still notably lower than the verified 95% rated ideal efficiencies. Furthermore, the efficiencies of a loose-fitting KN95 and a KN95 mask equipped with a one-way valve were evaluated, showing that a one-way valve reduces the mask’s apparent efficiency by more than half (down to 20.3%), while a loose-fitting KN95 provides a negligible apparent filtration efficiency (3.4%).

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data
Cloth masks are ineffective as source control and PPE, surgical masks have some role to play in preventing emissions from infected patients, and respirators are the best choice for protecting healthcare and other frontline workers, but not recommended for source control. These recommendations apply to pandemic and non-pandemic situations.
Leaving aside the fact that they are ineffective, telling the public to wear cloth or surgical masks could be interpreted by some to mean that people are safe to stop isolating at home. It’s too late now for anything but stopping as much person-to-person interaction as possible.
Masks may confuse that message and give people a false sense of security. If masks had been the solution in Asia, shouldn’t they have stopped the pandemic before it spread elsewhere?

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2006372
We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to Covid-19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a patient with symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (and some say more than 10 minutes or even 30 minutes). The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.

https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577
Conclusions This study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection. Further research is needed to inform the widespread use of cloth masks globally. However, as a precautionary measure, cloth masks should not be recommended for HCWs, particularly in high-risk situations, and guidelines need to be updated.

Tanis
Tanis
Jan 12, 2022 11:43 AM
Reply to  Peter Moritz

Nice work. Great Post.

Lost in a dark wood
Lost in a dark wood
Jan 10, 2022 10:26 AM

Epidemic Preparedness Map

comment image

https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-our-public-health-problems
Ron Unz • January 10, 2022

In late 2019 international organizations had ranked our country as the best prepared in the world to handle any epidemic outbreak, but the reality proved quite different.
From the beginning, the public health measures America adopted to combat the Covid outbreak were extremely divisive, but I think that all ideological camps can agree that our national performance has been absolutely disastrous, leading to a combination of many hundreds of thousands of deaths, year-long lockdowns in much of the country, and the continuing severe disruption to the daily lives of our entire population. By any reasonable standard of success, America’s public health system has completely failed.

Alternatively, each country was assigned a role in the scamdemic, and the “preparedness” was a measure of how ready they were to fulfil that role. The role of the US, particularly states like New York and New Jersey, was to create high death counts.

The Coming Revolution
The Coming Revolution
Jan 9, 2022 10:31 PM

Democracy by Bureaucracy by Well-Funded NGO Hypocrisy – by Alan Watt, 2008:

[archiveorg id=alan-watt-cttm-liveon-rbn-97-democracy-by-bureaucracy-by-well-funded-ngo-hypocrisy-apr-042008 width=500 height=140]

The Coming Revolution
The Coming Revolution
Jan 10, 2022 12:20 AM
Jojo
Jojo
Jan 9, 2022 8:03 PM

This should have been headlined across the MSM!
————
CDC: 61% of Teenagers Hospitalized for COVID-19 Had Obesity
A new study of 915 childhood COVID-19 hospitalizations found that most involved underlying conditions.
1.3.2022 10:02 AM

One of the only silver linings of the pandemic has been that young people are less affected by COVID-19 than the elderly. In fact, the most vital indicator of negative COVID-19 outcomes is age: Unlike the Spanish flu, which ravaged armies that were overwhelmingly comprised of otherwise healthy young people during World War I, COVID-19’s death toll is dramatically skewed toward those who have already lived many years. (For context, the average age of death from Spanish flu was 28.)

That said, about 600 Americans under the age of 18 have died of COVID-19 during the pandemic. A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took a closer look at young people who were hospitalized for COVID-19 in July and August, while the delta variant wave took hold, and largely found that healthy young people continue to mostly evade the worst of COVID-19.

The study found that most young people who suffer severe COVID-19 outcomes had underlying health conditions. The most common, especially for teenagers, was obesity.
….
https://reason.com/2022/01/03/cdc-covid-19-children-hospitalization-obesity-teenagers/

Matt
Matt
Jan 9, 2022 6:23 PM

Imagine the minds that are stirred, inspired, motivated and led by the slogan

“The Great Reset”

A vision of cultural and social evolutionary dynamism reduced to pushing a button or selecting a drop down menu option on a computer screen as the aim and the epitome of it’s own self-congratulatory, collective aspirations.

Mark Martens
Mark Martens
Jan 9, 2022 7:04 PM
Reply to  Matt

Matt, that’s a beautiful thought.
Kudos.

Matt
Matt
Jan 11, 2022 3:36 AM
Reply to  Mark Martens

Thank you for mentioning. All the very best to you, Mark.

Brian
Brian
Jan 9, 2022 5:48 PM

Amen – death by a thousand paper cuts.

Alt: The Amish seem to be doing just fine.

Zen7
Zen7
Jan 9, 2022 5:08 PM
Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 5:05 PM

A little something to add to the already existing insanity sweeping the world – and to remind optimists to be wary of their Pollyanna view of the world.

Pills Equipped with Sensors to Digitally Track When and If You Took the Drug Approved by FDA in 2017 – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

I should add that I recommend this article be taken with a smidgen of salt and further researched.

fame
fame
Jan 9, 2022 2:53 PM

Great article. With the rampant pedophila and child trafficking which gets very little attention and not a “problem” they attempt to solve, WEF style, except by changing the narrative, the same way they are changing the narrative of heartattacks in kids, I think the film, “The City of Lost Children”, strongly resembles what is happening in our society today. In the film, children are abducted, their dreams taken away to further the cults fantasies of advancement, We see the same is happening today as we mask the children, keep them from touching other kids and adults, inject needles into their arms to achieve the ends towards a “better” transhuman world where a child’s right to not be sexually and physically exploited will be taken away for the greater good. The identity of a child, boy or girl, will be transformed into a non-gender robot without the ability to dream or critically think. The attempt to take over children’s minds has already begun with the babysitter screens grabbing the attention. Quick changing screens, virtual world reality, repetition of buttons or keys to push and click on are just a surface of the mind control techniques used to steal the minds of the children. “Unless we do something about it” this is the non-future of our children.

Dosamuno
Dosamuno
Jan 9, 2022 2:51 PM

“No one speaks English, and everything’s broken…”

—Tom Waits, “Tom Traubert’s Blues”

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 3:13 PM
Reply to  Dosamuno

So true. And the abominable “Texting” belongs right up there with face masks, social distancing and jabs of poison. Just another way to put children on the front line of the “new” incoherent culture being created.

Sgt Oddball
Sgt Oddball
Jan 9, 2022 10:33 PM
Reply to  Dosamuno

…’God’s Away On Business‘ is another apt disection of our present times from the great man…

…- “Who are the ones that we kept in charge?…”

Edwige
Edwige
Jan 9, 2022 12:57 PM

In the same vein as the Fraud and autoimmune disease:
https://inews.co.uk/news/health/nhs-staff-quit-record-numbers-ptsd-covid-pandemic-trauma-1387115

No other reason a large number of staff might be quitting the NHS?… Mandatory vaccines might not have something to do with it?….

Still, if they have PTSD they can get some medicinal magic mushrooms which are now a “safe and effective” treatment!

The magik number just happens to be 27 which is 9+9+9 or three cubed.

Edwige
Edwige
Jan 9, 2022 12:15 PM

Corporate-state media suddenly discover interest in damaging health effects of Western diet:
https://dumptheguardian.com/science/2022/jan/08/global-spread-of-autoimmune-disease-blamed-on-western-diet

No other possible cause of increasing autoimmune disease suggests itself?….

It is particularly cute how they take the actual cause and spin more of it as the solution.

Gosh, it’s almost like it is the terrain after all! (TBC I’m obviously not saying the Western diet isn’t unhealthy – however this will be used to change it to something even worse or unhealthy in different ways. When the people who created the problem bring the solution there’s no reason to believe it).

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 3:23 PM
Reply to  Edwige

Given the unending assault on the body’s organs – especially the liver – by big Pharma, it’s a wonder anyone can still walk from the kitchen to the dining room or push themselves away from the table.

Almost every medicine prevents the liver from doing something it’s genetically designed to do, to the point it can no longer help regulate the body’s hormonal balance. The well oiled machine the body is supposed to be has been turned into a cranking, rickety nearly broken hulk trudging its way from one day to the next.

And they scratch their heads trying to figure out where all the autoimmune disorders and prevalence of Hepatitis comes from. Don’t they know the Tooth Fairy brings them?

Dosamuno
Dosamuno
Jan 9, 2022 4:40 PM
Reply to  Howard

“Almost every medicine prevents the liver from doing something it’s genetically designed to do,…”

Yes.
Unfortunately, I can verify this from personal experience.
 

Sgt Oddball
Sgt Oddball
Jan 9, 2022 10:42 PM
Reply to  Howard

“The well oiled machine the body is supposed to be has been turned into a cranking, rickety nearly broken hulk trudging its way from one day to the next.”

…- Sorta like the Global Ponzi Financial System… – As above, so below is Their MO…

Reset the Diaboligarchy
Reset the Diaboligarchy
Jan 9, 2022 11:17 AM

.jpg

covidiot
covidiot
Jan 9, 2022 2:24 PM

and a happy JPG to you too!

Sgt Oddball
Sgt Oddball
Jan 9, 2022 10:44 PM

…- Is lossy?…

George Mc
George Mc
Jan 9, 2022 11:03 AM

A Pandemic of Bureaucracy indeed. In my workplace, we have a data base which is supposed to contain details on current matters for each of our service users. Over the last year its contents have changed from e.g. accidents and doctor visits etc. to

COVID 19 UPDATE 3/12/2021

COVID 19 UPDATE 5/12/2021

COVID 19 UPDATE 8/12/2021

COVID 19 UPDATE 10/12/2021

COVID 19 UPDATE 13/12/2021

COVID 19 UPDATE 16/12/2021

COVID 19 UPDATE 19/12/2021

I have often wondered if the overlords are trying to BORE us to death!

mgeo
mgeo
Jan 10, 2022 7:57 AM
Reply to  George Mc

Once a big project at public expense has started, the propaganda effort changes to present it as hundrum though necessary; i.e., most of us should get back to “supporting the econmy”, consuming, etc. In the case of a war, we get interminable reports of purportedly devastating attacks on the inferior enemy, enumerating vehicles, stores, training camps, “staging facilities” and “compounds”.

NixonScraypes
NixonScraypes
Jan 9, 2022 10:27 AM

Yes, the war on terror is a war of terror, the war on virus is a war of virus, just as the war on drugs is a war of drugs. On,of,on,of,on,of, ad infinitum. One day there will be a bureaucracy to dedicated to stopping bureaucracies; it will be so large that the whole population of the world will be needed and everyone will starve to death.

covidiot
covidiot
Jan 9, 2022 2:22 PM
Reply to  NixonScraypes

US Government — The Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) is a law governing how federal agencies collect information from the public.

Sgt Oddball
Sgt Oddball
Jan 9, 2022 10:52 PM
Reply to  NixonScraypes

…Wait until the sheer amount of blockchain mining required to hash alla ‘Ihre papieren‘, for *Every Single Transaction* you and every other joe-blow has with some .gov flunky or other, takes over the *Entire* global energy supply… – Hope you like it ‘chilled’ in the winter time… 🙂

NixonScraypes
NixonScraypes
Jan 10, 2022 11:44 AM
Reply to  Sgt Oddball

Zero carbon for zero IQs

George Mc
George Mc
Jan 9, 2022 9:49 AM

As I recall, in Brazil, the Robert de Niro character (who is some kind of independant operator and therefore a sign of hope) is literally wiped away by billowing paper sheets. A perfect metaphor for bureaucracy!

covidiot
covidiot
Jan 9, 2022 2:16 PM
Reply to  George Mc

George Mc
George Mc
Jan 9, 2022 9:45 AM

With these issues you have to bear in mind what the rulers are aiming at: a world in which no-one does anything except hide under their beds with movement sensitive cameras trained on them 24/7. This is the only aim that makes sense of what is happening e.g. the bureaucratic shambles is not incompetence but is designed to induce despair which will further induce immobility. We are of no importance to the rulers – indeed we are a potential nuisance. They want to freeze us and thin us out. And that really is all.

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 3:27 PM
Reply to  George Mc

And the worst part is that so many people will get down on their knees before hopping under the bed and thank God for those cameras – because the cameras may pick up some threat in their homes they overlooked when they hermetically sealed their windows and doors for greater energy efficiency.

Einstein
Einstein
Jan 9, 2022 9:13 AM

Spot on!
We’re in Brazil.
And it’s only going to get worse because it’s run by those classic form-lovers “Public Health”. For your own good . . . of course.

Jojo
Jojo
Jan 9, 2022 8:23 AM

Currently in circulation:
——–
“This is the first time in history that people are blaming the failure of a vaccine on the people who didn’t take it.”

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
Jan 9, 2022 9:45 AM
Reply to  Jojo

COVID-19 update 9 January 2022 | SA Health As an example look at the South Australian media report that the media don’t bother to read. 176 in hospital, 102 double jabbed, 14 unjabbed or one jab, 60 we know must be double jabbed because they can’t enter hospital without a QR vax code

Jojo
Jojo
Jan 9, 2022 7:57 PM

Send emails to your local papers and rub their faces in it. I do this all the time.

richard
richard
Jan 9, 2022 1:45 PM
Reply to  Jojo

yep…

comment image

that’s right.

richard
richard
Jan 9, 2022 2:35 PM
Reply to  richard

https://brandnewtube.com/watch/the-endgame_VEmqoTz6UJjmmCX.html

Dave Cullen vid featuring a doc. whose name was hard to decipher…

The piece from 13:45 to 16:56 is v.good. C’mon – 3mins…

richard
richard
Jan 9, 2022 4:46 PM
Reply to  richard

courtesy of Jeff Berwick (Dollar Vigilante)

RealPeter
RealPeter
Jan 10, 2022 10:29 AM
Reply to  richard

Long ago, in order to test whether a person (usually a woman) was a witch or not, she was fastened to a stool and ducked in a lake or river. If she drowned she was not a witch and was therefore innocent; if she didn’t drown she was clearly a witch and therefore guilty, and was burned at the stake. This procedure was devised and carried out by experts, the finest, most prestigious, best-read and -educated minds of the time. In short, it was The Science – absolute, unarguable Truth.

But yesterday’s Truth is not today’s, and today is tomorrow’s yesterday. In early 2020, when the hysteria was starting, we were told that once a certain percentage (the figure varied: 40%, 60%, 70%…) of the population became immune to the Virus, it would no longer be able to circulate, and would die out. Vaccines, then in the future, were just going to help speed up the process and ‘flatten the curve’ (remember that?), along with temporary lockdowns. Now look where we are.

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 2:06 PM
Reply to  Jojo

Excellent meme, which requires a quick tweak: it’s no different from the tyranny of the Church in the Middle Ages: if the harvest was bad or if people got sick, it was the fault of those whose faith was found wanting.

Societies have always scapegoated those who have not sufficiently “gone along” with the program.

Jojo
Jojo
Jan 9, 2022 8:15 AM

Here’s a good Sunday read:
———
Despotism Is the New Normal: Looming Threats to Freedom in 2022
By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
January 04, 2022

   “Looking at the present, I see a more probable future: a new despotism creeping slowly across America. Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades. In efforts to enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended or unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment, the poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and, more important, the subversion of our constitution.—Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America

Despotism has become our new normal.

Digital tyranny, surveillance. Intolerance, cancel culture, censorship. Lockdowns, mandates, government overreach. Supply chain shortages, inflation. Police brutality, home invasions, martial law. The loss of bodily integrity, privacy, autonomy.

These acts of tyranny by an authoritarian government have long since ceased to alarm or unnerve us. We have become desensitized to government brutality, accustomed to government corruption, and unfazed by the government’s assaults on our freedoms.

This present trajectory is unsustainable. The center cannot hold.
…..
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/despotism_is_the_new_normal_looming_threats_to_freedom_in_2022

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 2:01 PM
Reply to  Jojo

It’s the age old “First they came for….” scenario. Poor people, in cities in the US, have literally lost their homes because of a parking ticket: the “judge,” working with the police, first incarcerates then imposes a bail upon the parking offender so high it cannot ever be paid – which allows the system to take the “felon’s” home (if he has one).

And all the while the good middle class folks could absolutely care less; so the “laws” allowing it remain on the books – just sitting there waiting to be used on bigger victims.

Oh dear, oh dear, what have they wrought upon themselves through their indifference to the suffering of their fellow man?

Lost in a dark wood
Lost in a dark wood
Jan 9, 2022 7:55 AM

Jack Lint as the epitome of technocratic evil

http://www.mustardweb.org/michaelpalin/index.htm
(Michael Palin interviewed by Alex Musson in 2005, 2008 and 2014)

You then went on to play Jack Lint in Gilliam’s dystopian masterpiece, Brazil. Where did you find the darkness to create this character?
Terry loved the idea of getting someone with my nice-guy image to play the character. We both felt that real evil isn’t people with scars on their faces, tattoos and narrow eyes. We thought it was a more original way of showing the face of a real torturer, who’s quite accepted in everyday life and completely charming.
I mean, I didn’t base it on the Nazis, but certainly the more I’ve read since then, the more I see the similarities. These people who had immaculate taste and wore fine suits, yet were the most incredibly cruel people. And, at the same time, very affectionate to their own children and family.
That kind of cruelty, that you can’t see on the surface, is more insidious. This character was a man at the top of his profession, pretty much unassailable, who had charm and got on with people, who had his trophy wife and trophy kids and all that.

In the following scene, where is the:
– Evil
– Sanity
– Insanity
– “Mental illness”
– Psychosis
– Health
– Normality
– Reality
– Delusion
– Detachment
– etc

Willem
Willem
Jan 9, 2022 7:39 AM

Bureaucrats can’t help themselves. Inventing paperwork is all they can.
Now bureaucrats consider themselves as problem solvers as they have been hailed as such by the State that call such people ‘Scientists’.

Scientists are everywhere. If you live in a city with more than 100 000 people, chances are pretty high that a whole industry of scientists are ‘working’ there in so called ‘science parks’. All they do there is making forms, filling in forms and discussing about forms (I know what I talk about…). At best, these forms have no meaning and at worst, well we know: at worst is what we’re experiencing now.

We always talk about solutions to ‘the problem’ but one can only talk about solutions if the problem is known.

I don’t believe that people are afraid of ‘the virus’ anymore. I think that people, and here I talk about bureaucrats, are afraid of knowing the truth. Truth is that most bureaucracy that we know today is meaningless/harmful. If we want to get rid of that, we have to think about how we can ‘get rid’ of bureaucrats without inducing a war.

Even if all this nonsense would end today, there is no chance that we will return to a pre 2020 situation. It’s become too obvious that bureaucracy has become a cancer in a society where nothing is invented anymore and progress is stalled. But unlike cancer cells, we cannot kill bureaucrats as a means of getting rid of bureaucracy. The idea that one can is precisely the reason why bureaucrats are scared of the truth.

The solution we need to talk about is how to give meaning to bureaucrats in a post covid society. Being a bureaucrat myself, I know a solution that would work for me: leave me in peace so I can mind my own business. But currently I am not even given that chance as bureaucrats need to be involved in everyone’s life including the life of the bureaucrat. Bureaucracy is like a snake that in order to grow needs to eat it’s own tail.

It has become obvious by now that we talk about a pretty big snake…

Lost in a dark wood
Lost in a dark wood
Jan 9, 2022 8:26 AM
Reply to  Willem

But unlike cancer cells, we cannot kill bureaucrats as a means of getting rid of bureaucracy.

Most of them are double-jabbed and boosted. As the plan says, it’s going to be Biblical !

Jesper
Jesper
Jan 9, 2022 9:26 AM
Reply to  Willem

I would say the bureaucrat is a manifestation and representation of our beloved system. And as such they’re quashing (human) nature. Apologies.

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 3:39 PM
Reply to  Willem

I don’t believe that people are afraid of ‘the virus’ anymore.

Perhaps where you live this is the case – if so, you’re lucky. Where I live just the reverse is occurring. I see far more masked people – even when they’re alone in their own cars – than I did a year and a half ago when it was mandatory (in Maryland, USA).

People here are terrified – which is what one would expect when nothing has happened to alleviate their terror (i.e., nothing they would accept). Until Tony Fauci – “America’s Doctor” – tells them the “virus” has gone back to his lab in Wuhan and it’s safe to come out from behind their masks, they will continue to tremble in terror.

Dosamuno
Dosamuno
Jan 9, 2022 4:45 PM
Reply to  Howard

The same is true in New Jersey.

I go down to Inverness, Florida twice a year to bicycle along the 46 mile long Withlacoochee Bicycle Trail.

It is a great relief to be with people who are strong and healthy and unmasked. —And who don’t buy into the Covid silliness.

Martha
Martha
Jan 9, 2022 11:24 PM
Reply to  Howard

Yes, I feel quite alone in questioning the narrative and not wearing a mask here in Rhode Island.

dr death
dr death
Jan 9, 2022 6:57 PM
Reply to  Willem

Indeed…. and by way of another of the reformed..

Before 2012; real science was dead. So the self-styled “science” that had replaced real science was not itself real… so what was it?  

The new not-real science was (just) a bureaucracy – with all the generic features. 

Self-styled Science was not merely real science that had become bureaucrat-ic; instead ,what we had was just-a-bureaucracy. An system that used some of the language, rituals and forms of real science – but was by intent and at root: just-a-bureaucracy.  

The new ‘fake’ bureaucracy-that-called-itself-science was indeed Not Even Trying to seek or to-speak truth. The new not-real fake-science was instead ruled by… well, whatever ideology dominantly ruled the larger bureaucracy at any particular time. 

So, early 2020 marked the advent of a global and essentially-complete totalitarian bureaucracy, that included the sub-bureaucracy which had replaced the activity that used-to-be real science. 

Therefore: 

Follow The Science means nothing other than Obey The Global Bureaucracy. 

https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2022/01/follow-science-obey-science-when.html

NickM
NickM
Jan 9, 2022 6:55 AM

An astute insight by TE Creus. The film Brazil saw deep into modern Britain, but “the British disease” now seems to have engulfed the entire affluent liberal democratic freedom loving “West”: paralysis of the state machinery by a geriatric ruling class of uncles and aunts served by a civil service stuffed with obsequious and incompetent nephews whose only way to assert authority is via torture. And that masterly, ambiguous ending: “We’ve lost him”.

Did he die and go to a heavenly Brazil or did torture merely drive the victim to escape via madness into fantasy land?

Penelope
Penelope
Jan 9, 2022 6:00 AM

September 9, 2021 Biden’s mandate for the vaxx affecting companies of more than 100 employees first came down. 4.4 million employees quit their jobs that month– which is 200,000 more than the previous one and the exodus is continuing.

“Institute for Corporate Productivity, found that 72 percent of organizations with a thousand employees or more say that they anticipate a moderate talent exodus to continue. The exodus is happening across verticals and at every level of employment, from entry-level workers up to C-suite executives.

“According to Workday, a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. . . the “Great Resignation” trend could just be getting started.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/sponsored/the-great-regeneration

Reuter’s explains it as burnout. Hmmph.

Lots of reports of disruptive airline passengers– in their 1000s–about compelled masking. Seems some passengers have a sense of “entitlement.” Yesss.

Love it.

Grafter
Grafter
Jan 9, 2022 11:30 AM
Reply to  Penelope

Reuters 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

jas
jas
Jan 9, 2022 3:12 PM
Reply to  Grafter

+1

wardropper
wardropper
Jan 11, 2022 2:44 AM
Reply to  Penelope

The names of the millions of job quitters will be entered into a database of those who will be first into our new “Here’s Where Your Protest Ends” machine….

After all, those millions actually have to be dealt with – we can’t have them pretending they’re on ‘welfare’, when there isn’t any welfare….

(Sorry, I was just trying to imagine what it would actually be like to BE Klaus Blob…. I won’t do that again in a hurry….)

Captain Birdheart
Captain Birdheart
Jan 9, 2022 5:07 AM

Hi kids,

Where do you live ?

Some watery space ball going thousands of miles an hour ?

Far out !

FreeMason Land

is where you live.

Johnny
Johnny
Jan 9, 2022 4:48 AM

The thing with bureaucrats is, they know WHAT to think, because they’re told.
They just don’t know HOW to think.

wardropper
wardropper
Jan 9, 2022 3:54 PM
Reply to  Johnny

⬆︎
A very important distinction.

Knowing what to think is, by definition, not thinking at all.
It’s only the how that matters.

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 3:14 AM

When a bureaucrat tells you to get your car fixed or else – we give him the finger.

When he tells you to get your child vaxxed or else – we salute him.

Moral of story: if only we cared half as much for our kids as we do our cars, what a wonderful world this would be.

Clive Williams
Clive Williams
Jan 10, 2022 4:53 AM
Reply to  Howard

Explain why parents annually inject themselves and children with flu jabs?
What is the flu jab mandate at School before SARS2.
Just sticking to ” better to be Safe, than sorry attitude in case of catching cold/flu”
Because it’s an health issue, what difference does it make how old People are?
How many people over the last 30 yrs have been physically damaged by flu jabs. Yet they still injected their own “kids”. Why?
WHY the fuck would people annually inject themselves ” in case of the flu”.

James
James
Jan 10, 2022 4:06 PM
Reply to  Howard

That would make a great meme!

Charles Homer
Charles Homer
Jan 9, 2022 3:12 AM

No matter how badly the bureaucracy may want it, this recent study from Canada show how ineffective their precious vaccine is against the latest virus:

http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2022/01/how-effective-are-current-covid-19.html

As some of us have known for the past two years, this was never a war on a virus. Sadly, the vast majority cam simply not see this.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
Jan 9, 2022 7:38 AM
Reply to  Charles Homer

Yeah but it’s premised on viruses variants that do not exist.

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 4:01 PM

But that’s nothing new. The “ruling elites” always use non-existent and therefore non-traceable things to frighten the people: terror, the “red menace,” the devil.

The only sensible people were the cavemen, who were frightened by thunder and lightning and wild animals. (OMG, I just googled lightning to make sure I spelled it correctly – and the first thing that came up was some shit about ice hockey!)

Sgt Oddball
Sgt Oddball
Jan 9, 2022 11:14 PM
Reply to  Howard

…- Yup, Tampa Bay lookin’ good for the Stanley *Again*… 🙂

S Cooper
S Cooper
Jan 9, 2022 2:28 AM

“Happy or sad WE OWN YOU.”
comment image

“KISS OUR MASTER RACE UBERMENSCHEN CORPORATE FASCIST NAZI behinds”
comment image

“Those were not questions. They were orders.”

Johnny
Johnny
Jan 9, 2022 7:26 AM
Reply to  S Cooper

They do love to dress up don’t they?
Do you think they’ll ever reach adulthood?

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 4:04 PM
Reply to  Johnny

To answer your question: no. People who think they “own” you are incapable of ever growing up.

An infant “owns” his mother’s breast. Power mongers are people stuck in the oral phase of maturation.

S Cooper
S Cooper
Jan 9, 2022 12:48 AM

“Now a message from “THE SQUAD(SotomayorFreislerReineckeLautz) down at the Nazi Kangaroo Court Association.
comment image
comment image

“You untermenschen useless eater plague rats are ARE THROUGH…. THROUGH. Corporate Fascism forever. Heil Billy Eugenics!

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 3:18 AM
Reply to  S Cooper

I remember the run-up to Sonia Sotomayor’s anointment as Justice Sotomayor. There had been a case where a defendant in a capital case was a day late getting vital exonerating evidence to the Court, and Sotomayor refused to consider it.

All Hail The Rules! What good is life without Rules? A day late = a life short.

PeterPan
PeterPan
Jan 9, 2022 12:07 AM

The technocrats are running the show

wardropper
wardropper
Jan 9, 2022 5:05 AM
Reply to  PeterPan

Only as long as we let them.
Sotomayor is as unremarkable as anybody else when she isn’t surrounded by spineless Washington drones.

Yes, her early life had its struggles, and she certainly came through.
But then comes the point when ‘coming through’ is no longer enough.

Then the notion of “entitlement” enters the immature mind, along with other notions of revenge, delusions of grandeur and compensations for earlier losses.
“Being tough” becomes the goal-in-itself.
It’s part of the absolute corruption which absolute power brings in its wake.

So here’s a question for you, Justice Sotomayor:

“Why would a worker, hitherto with reasonable grounds for trusting the health authorities claiming to represent his best interests – a worker undoubtedly already vaccinated with the standard jabs given to all our young people – refuse be be jabbed with this particular experimental, rushed-through-under-extreme-pressure, and inscrutably mysterious substance…?

  • Not because he is scared of being jabbed. He has followed the advice of medical professionals often enough before.
  • Not because he sees people around him dropping like flies because ‘the viral pandemic’ is so incredibly lethal. He doesn’t see any such thing.

It is because ‘the authorities’ have made what should be an ordinary health issue into A Battle of Wills, using moral blackmail, high-school-level bullying, other coercive fear tactics, and confusingly incompetent science which is pushed, pushed, pushed into our faces every single day by the media.
What intelligent person would not want to know what is going on here?

If you really “don’t know how unjabbed workers are different from machinery spewing toxins”, then you haven’t done your homework – which is a very serious, and dangerous, flaw in a prominent Justice.

I’ll do that bit of homework for you:
1) The unjabbed workers are human beings.
2) The machines are machines.

I wonder exactly what ‘science’ you think you are following in even raising such a question?
The children currently being jabbed are not even old enough to give informed consent.
But, in any case, consent to what? Consent to tinkering with their biological future – when they are not even at risk from this disease…?

Is your view of the scientific necessity for this scandalous coercion an informed view?
If so, who, or what, informed you?

At best, this is cheap ‘media science’.
At worst, it is murderous malignancy.”

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
Jan 9, 2022 7:41 AM
Reply to  wardropper

Don’t for forget the Supreme court under the supposedly brilliant Oliver Wendel Holmes voted to allow forced sterilisation of women if they were considered to be less than normal, the test case was a young Jewish woman considered an untermenschen by the Gates/Rockefeller eugenics foundation of America.

wardropper
wardropper
Jan 9, 2022 3:45 PM

⬆︎
Aren’t they repulsive…
Really makes you wonder who is the “Untermensch” here…

I think the best translation from the German in the Gates/Rockefeller case is the literal one: “Sub-human”.

Xavier Delacroix
Xavier Delacroix
Jan 9, 2022 9:08 AM
Reply to  wardropper

The perspicacious are to be selected. A priori, they will not take the jab. Because they must lose everything, it will be taken from them slowly, piecemeal – perhaps to reduce the shock – because they would lose it in any case.

People who’ve lost everything are better adapted to survive in a situation where everything has been lost – owning nothing, being happy.

wardropper
wardropper
Jan 9, 2022 3:40 PM

Which would seem to indicate that Klaus Schwab will not survive…

If he lost everything, he would not be happy.
A jellyfish on dry land…

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 4:09 PM
Reply to  wardropper

The ultimate irony here is that the Supremes (that’s what Americans call them – but not to confuse them with the Diana Ross group which has performed some pretty worthwhile numbers) seem unwilling to lift a finger to stop machines from spewing toxins.

So what can we deduce from this? Oh, right: the unvaxxed are worse than toxic!

Lizzyh7
Lizzyh7
Jan 9, 2022 6:20 PM
Reply to  wardropper

+10

Lilly Otasevic
Lilly Otasevic
Jan 9, 2022 12:05 AM

Perhaps one of the greatest proofs of the pandemic of bureaucracy is the latest boo-boo with Novak Djokovic’s visa. Although it is more of a highly political nature, not just plain bureaucracy.

Docannon
Docannon
Jan 9, 2022 3:07 AM
Reply to  Lilly Otasevic

It obvious that Novax handed Murray the 2013 Wimbeldon title..after a 77 year wait, on the Seventh day of the Seventh month….but question is, did he alone, design it ?

Vagabard
Vagabard
Jan 9, 2022 12:05 AM

Brazil (1985) is an apt film.

The slogan “We’re all in it together” appears within it. Used both officially and by the rebel Harry Tuttle.

I sometimes wonder if that’s where they got the idea for it from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)

wardropper
wardropper
Jan 9, 2022 5:13 AM
Reply to  Vagabard

I must watch that again.

Bob the Hod
Bob the Hod
Jan 9, 2022 9:16 AM
Reply to  wardropper

I showed it to my other half early on in the scamdemic while I was still in the process of convincing her that the whole thing was a load of bollocks, we were both in tears by the end of it. It’s a great film.

Sofia
Sofia
Jan 9, 2022 6:19 AM
Reply to  Vagabard

I always thought that Brazil was a take on 1984?

Dale
Dale
Jan 9, 2022 3:38 PM
Reply to  Sofia

I think 1984 was a take on 2020-22.

Howard
Howard
Jan 9, 2022 4:15 PM
Reply to  Dale

Like Kryten from Red Dwarf, I’ll now go into smug mode. I’m rather proud of myself that in a sophomore Poly Sci class in college in 1966 I opined that “1984” was most likely a tale about what was happening in 1948.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Cancel smug mode.

Vagabard
Vagabard
Jan 9, 2022 3:53 PM
Reply to  Sofia

It is a different story, but 1984 would undoubtedly have been an influence on it

Alongside a bit of Kafka (a man lost in large anonymous corridors of power), perhaps a bit of Fahrenheit 451 and other dystopian works.

Brian of Nazareth
Brian of Nazareth
Jan 11, 2022 2:41 PM
Reply to  Sofia

It is…and the film also serves as a prophecy of the “war on terror” with frequent bombings for which no culprits are found…and the normalisation of the terror threat (scene in restaurant)