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Posts Tagged ‘SOCIAL DISTANCING’

Another day, another bogus report from CDC seeking to entice the public to continue wearing masks – American Thinker

Posted by M. C. on June 17, 2020

If they wanted a legitimate story, they would have looked at cases in states without the face mask requirement to see how many cases they had from April 17 to May 9.  Instead of doing that, they just made numbers up, and the media, like puppets, repeat the bogus numbers to indoctrinate people into wearing masks.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/another_day_another_bogus_report_from_cdc_seeking_to_entice_the_public_to_continue_wearing_masks.html

The CDC now says it has proof that wearing face masks reduced COVID-19 cases in NYC by 66,000 from April 17 to May 9.

Face masks reduce New York coronavirus cases by over 66,000, study deems it most effective way to check spread

Health experts have been advising people to wear face masks in public to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and now numbers indicate that it works. A new study shows that wearing a face mask dramatically decreases a person’s chances of being infected by the new coronavirus. Researchers found that using a face mask alone reduced the number of Covid-19 infections by more than 66,000 in New York City from April 17 to May 9.

There is no way they would know this, and it is as made up as the modeling numbers that CDC put out in March that showed that hundreds of millions would get the disease and millions would die.  That is the study that destroyed the economy and caused governors throughout the country to require us to wear masks, social distance, and avoid large groups for the first time in our lives.

If they wanted a legitimate story, they would have looked at cases in states without the face mask requirement to see how many cases they had from April 17 to May 9.  Instead of doing that, they just made numbers up, and the media, like puppets, repeat the bogus numbers to indoctrinate people into wearing masks.

Here are more made up modeling reports, without scientific facts, that have destroyed the U.S economy and forced much of the public to wear face masks, social distance, and gather in small groups for the first time in most of our lives:

Could Coronavirus Kill a Million Americans?

COVID-19 predicted to infect 81% of U.S. population, cause 2.2 million deaths in U.S.

We were told that millions would die, and hundreds of millions would get COVID-19.  The death projections were over-projected by over 1,000 percent and cases by an exponential amount.  So far, six tenths of a percent of the population has tested positive, including people with no symptoms.

How many fewer deaths would there have been if idiotic governors like Cuomo hadn’t forced nursing homes to take in people they knew had COVID-19?

How many fewer deaths would there be associated with COVID-19 if the CDC didn’t politically dictate to medical professionals to count cancer, heart, stroke, lung, diabetes, obesity, kidney, and other deaths as COVID-19 if they happened to get COVID?  As far as I can tell, we have never had that mandate with the swine flu or seasonal flu.

How many fewer deaths from suicide, drug overdose, and other causes would we have if these bogus modeling numbers hadn’t been used to destroy the economy?

Can anyone imagine if millions of people with no symptoms went to the doctor or a clinic and demanded that they be tested for the flu?  When the medical professionals asked why they wanted to be tested, they would say because the media, bureaucrats, and politicians were demanding they be tested because they might be killing people.  The insurance companies and doctors would refuse to test, but that is what we are doing now to goose the daily numbers to scare the public.

Then the media widely regurgitated a made up report, with no scientific evidence, that said 200,000 people per day would be testing positive for COVID-19 and 3,000 people per day would be dying because, heaven forbid, people were going back to work and gathering a little bit.  The numbers were overestimated by 900% on cases and 200% on deaths, but the public was scared into submission.  The power-hungry governors really cared, but facts don’t matter.

Draft report predicts covid-19 cases will reach 200,000 a day by June 1

draft government report projects covid-19 cases will surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 deaths each day.

One of the most humorous made up reports that was also repeated, was from the brilliant, highly esteemed Columbia University that essentially blamed Trump for 36,000 deaths.  You see, according to their brilliant educators, Trump should have instituted strict policies while Fauci  and the CDC were saying it wasn’t very dangerous in the U.S.  The highly educated journalists just repeated what they were told with no questions.

U.S. Could Have Saved 36,000 Lives If Social Distancing Started 1 Week Earlier: Study

The U.S. could have prevented roughly 36,000 deaths from COVID-19 if broad social distancing measures had been put in place just one week earlier in March, according to an analysis from Columbia University.

Underlining the importance of aggressively responding to the coronavirus, the study found the U.S. could have avoided at least 700,000 fewer infections if actions that began on March 15 had actually started on March 8.

Here are some of the other hoaxes, lies, talking points and propaganda that most of the media, entertainers, bureaucrats have used to indoctrinate the public into submission on COVID 19 and to destroy the economy:

  • President Trump never said that COVID 19 was a hoax, but we still hear that Democrat talking point. Trump was one of the first to react with his China travel ban and much of the media and other democrats called that racist, xenophobic and an overreaction. He’s called a racist and xenophobe no matter what he does.
  • That the disease wouldn’t spread human to human: by WHO, Bill Gates among others. Those were the people spreading a hoax, not Trump.
  • That the mortality rate was much higher than the seasonal flu.
  • That millions of asymptomatic people were spreading the disease. A spokesman at WHO recently said that there was no scientific evidence this is true but the next day caved and said we misunderstood so the lie continued.
  • That the hospitals would be overwhelmed. Most hospitals have been underwhelmed and are starving because politicians deemed elective medical care as non-essential.
  • That children would spread the disease to Grandparents and kill them.
  • That COVID 19 is easily spread off surfaces. After months, we were told by CDC that this wasn’t true.
  • That children at schools were very vulnerable. Schools that remained open are fine.
  • That states that had less strict shutdowns would be a disaster and wanted people to die.
  • That rates would skyrocket because of the reopening.
  • That the disease is racist. It kills people who are less healthy no matter what race they are. Why don’t we ask why minorities are more vulnerable since the Democrats have been taking care of them for fifty years with Medicaid and other great society programs? The disease is also not sexist even though it kills more men and women.

We are now getting daily reports that states that have reopened and are less restrictive are having huge problems to scare the public. We are told that is why the stock market is plunging

The actual numbers are readily available, but we won’t see them because the public wouldn’t be scared.

Here are some actual numbers through June 14th:

States with very strict restrictions:

  • New York, Population 19.5 million, deaths 31,662 Last seven-day deaths 507.
  • New Jersey, Population 8.9 million, deaths 12,625 Last seven-day deaths 449.
  • Illinois, Population 12.7 million, deaths 6,308 Last seven-day deaths 404.
  • Michigan, Population 10.0 million, deaths 6,016 Last seven-day deaths 364.

States that are less restrictive and more open:

  • Florida, Population 21.5 million, deaths 2,931 Last seven-day deaths 231.
  • Texas, Population 29.0 million, deaths 1,973 Last seven-day deaths 158.
  • Georgia, Population 10.6 million, deaths 2,451 Last seven-day deaths 271.
  • Colorado, Population 5.8 million, deaths 1.348 Last seven-day deaths 74.
  • Arizona, Population 7.3 million, deaths 1,186 Last seven-day deaths 142.

In all these cases the states that are less restrictive have better results from the start, including the last seven days yet that is not the story the media is presenting. Facts don’t matter.
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/another_day_another_bogus_report_from_cdc_seeking_to_entice_the_public_to_continue_wearing_masks.html#ixzz6Pcq8i7Qp
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Be seeing you

 

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Social Distancing for Animals? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 8, 2020

The reason the bossy humans don’t try to control animals is because
controlling a virus or a bacteria or a parasite was never their intent
or never something they thought was a practical goal in the first place.
Their intent was always only to dominate those of their own species.
Human tyrants want to control other humans to serve their own interests.
It doesn’t serve their purposes to go to endless lengths to keep rats
at least 6 feet apart from each other. Why even start that discussion
if it can’t result in control over humans?

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/no_author/social-distancing-for-animals/

By Karen Hathaway

We have been told for decades that many viral, bacterial, and parasite-based infections in humans originate with animals. They have mentioned bats, birds, swine, sheep, cattle, rabbits, ticks, mosquitoes, and other creatures as being sources of harmful microorganisms that jump to humans and endanger us all.  We are often told that there will be mass deaths amongst humans from such things as swine flu, bird flu, bat viruses, blah, blah, blah if the government doesn’t take action. Basically, the sky is falling and we are all going to die unless we give up lots of money and freedom. It has been the same narrative my whole life.  But, my question is this: Why isn’t anyone putting tape on the forest floors or defining corridors in the sky to direct these inconsiderate or ignorant animals into more appropriate social behavior? Not just for the benefit of the humans, but for the benefit of the poor animals. Won’t anyone think about their plight?

Speaking of human infections; even if people were able to isolate themselves in a way that would prevent a disease from passing from one human to another, does that keep the disease from spreading between the animals that were the supposed source of the disease? Won’t the diseases that allegedly originate with animals continue to be passed from one animal to another in nature until natural immunities develop within that species? But, since natural immunities aren’t good enough for the powers that be, shouldn’t they propose doing something about this ever-present menace?

If social distancing between animals isn’t achievable (certainly they can try), then here’s an idea that should only cost about 30 trillion dollars: Maybe a pharmaceutical company could grow massive amounts of a targeted virus (enough to infect the whole world) and then undergo the standard vaccine preparation protocol by weakening it with radiation and then mixing it with powdered aluminum agitants and chemical immunosuppressants and then spray millions of gallons of it over all the forests of the world to give immunity to all the animals; picture Agent Orange. We could call this aerosol animal vaccine Agent Prophylactis. We could even mix in some antibiotics to deal with animal-borne bacterial diseases like Lyme Disease and pesticides to deal with animal-borne parasites that cause things like malaria in an attempt to get the perfect cocktail, something short of a mix that would kill every living creature. There would certainly be experts that would rubber stamp the need for, and the efficacy of, such a project if paid enough.

Social distancing or mass viral vaccinations for animals would be quite a chore, but certainly the all-powerful fear mongers would want to address this crucial animal issue; wouldn’t they? Although a daunting task, those public health heroes of the same political ilk as the global climate controllers would no doubt think themselves up to the task. If we can strive to control the world’s climate with money and political decrees, then we can certainly deal with all the animals of the world; if not their social behavior, then, at least, their vaccinations. Why don’t human authoritarians desire to even discuss the animal “socializing” threat since critters have been a key part of the never-ending panic narrative that has continued for decades?  Even if the mundanes (head nod to Will Grigg for that term) can’t understand it, why don’t the elite politicians and their subservient court intellectuals even want to discuss the notion of keeping birds and bats from touching each other or from crossing borders from one area to another and passing on cooties? We should at least attempt to control their socialization for the short term until the heroic pharmaceutical companies can produce Agent Prophylactis, shouldn’t we?

The need is clear, isn’t it? Even if a viral or bacterial infection “runs itself out” amongst infected humans during a “lockdown period,” wouldn’t the never-infected humans then be susceptible to infection from the pesky source animals once humans return to their normal lifestyles? The reason the bossy humans don’t try to control animals is because controlling a virus or a bacteria or a parasite was never their intent or never something they thought was a practical goal in the first place. Their intent was always only to dominate those of their own species. Human tyrants want to control other humans to serve their own interests. It doesn’t serve their purposes to go to endless lengths to keep rats at least 6 feet apart from each other.  Why even start that discussion if it can’t result in control over humans? The reason they don’t take scary snapshots of birds sitting together on telephone lines and then talk about “contact tracing” between the fowls of the world is because the engineered panic needs to relate to money and power in the human world. Estimating the distance between buzzards on a dead carcass or ticks on a deer doesn’t appeal to the libido dominandi.  Who cares about the buzzards when you are a human on a power trip. Getting another taxpayer on the hook or under your thumb is another subject entirely.

Maybe Agent Prophylactis is a different story. Maybe they would try that since it would be another way to rob the humans. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut.

 

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Will Americans Submit to a Second Lockdown? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on May 20, 2020

The political divide has already begun to appear.

The proponents of a second shutdown will be liberal governors and mayors, the mainstream media and the Nancy Pelosi wing of Congress.

It should not go unmentioned that the latter’s political interests are best served the longer the shutdown endures and the worse the economic situation on Nov. 3. If the economy has failed to begin a robust recovery by fall, the greater the odds that Joe Biden wins the White House.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/05/patrick-j-buchanan/will-americans-submit-to-a-second-lockdown/

By

On March 24, President Donald Trump said he wanted the country and the economy “opened up and just raring to go by Easter.”

Easter came and went. And Trump was mocked for being aspirational and unrealistic. Yet, with Ascension Thursday at hand, 40 days after Easter, the president seems to have been ahead of his time.

The country, as a whole, is, and has been, opening up. Sunday’s New York Times reports that, for weeks now, more than two-thirds of the states have been relaxing restrictions as Trump had urged.

The reasons: weariness with the lockdown and sheltering in place, a growing belief that the worst of the pandemic is behind us and undeniably positive news from several fronts in the coronavirus war.

“New Cases in U.S. Slow,” ran The New York Times top headline Sunday, adding the cautionary warning, “Posing Risks of Complacency.”

The facts suggest a positive trend. The number of newly confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. has been dropping for a month. The number of deaths has fallen from 2,200 a day in April to closer to 1,400 a day in mid-May. Several days last week recorded fewer than 1,000 deaths, an awful toll but a clear improvement over April.

As of Friday, the rate of new cases of the coronavirus was declining in 19 states and rising in only three. New Orleans and Detroit have seen sharp drops. The number of new cases in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island has dropped. New cases in Cass County, Indiana, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where meatpacking plants had seen outbreaks, have declined.

“On eight of the past nine days,” said the Times, “there have been fewer deaths announced than there were seven days prior, indicating that the virus toll appears to be easing. More than half of the 24 counties that have recorded the most coronavirus deaths, including Oakland County, Mich., and Hartford County, Conn., are seeing sustained declines.”

Still, the thrust of the Times article was about the new crisis we will be courting, should we try to resume normal activities too soon. Do that, says the Times, and we could easily forfeit all the progress we have made.

Message: Social distancing, sheltering in place, wearing masks, working at home — the practices that broke the back of the pandemic — should be sustained for those able to do so.

Clearly, the opening in many states has been driven by popular protest and public demand. Crowds have ignored social distancing to demonstrate for an end to the shutdown. Protesters have refused to wear masks and engaged in the time-honored practice since the ’60s of civil defiance and disobedience.

The protesters seem to be saying: We deplore the losses and know the risks, but we cannot live our lives behind closed doors in our homes until the elites tell us, as though we were children, when we may go out in the yard.

Hence, the next question we are all likely to confront:

If there is a sudden resurgence of the coronavirus, a second wave, and the media elite and blue state governors demand a new shutdown, a new closure of beaches, parks, shops, restaurants and churches, will the people of this republic comply with those demands or defy them?

Will the nation answer back to the elites: We did that. We sheltered in place. We wore the masks. We socially distanced. We stayed in our homes. We stayed home from work. We have done all we were told to do to contain the virus. But, now, with the shutdown having put 36 million Americans on unemployment and sunk our GDP to Depression-era levels, we’re going back to work.

The political divide has already begun to appear.

Among those making the case for ending the shutdown and reopening the country and economy will be Trump, red state governors like Ron DeSantis in Florida and Brian Kemp in Georgia, conservatives in Congress and populists.

The proponents of a second shutdown will be liberal governors and mayors, the mainstream media and the Nancy Pelosi wing of Congress.

It should not go unmentioned that the latter’s political interests are best served the longer the shutdown endures and the worse the economic situation on Nov. 3. If the economy has failed to begin a robust recovery by fall, the greater the odds that Joe Biden wins the White House.

Yet, even if the pandemic returns in the fall, the establishment cannot keep the country closed indefinitely.

Prediction: If the people conclude they have done all they can do to mitigate the suffering from a virus they cannot eradicate, they will resist the imposition of another shutdown, and the establishment will have neither the will nor ability to push them back into their homes.

Ultimately, the people will decide when this shutdown ends, and when a plurality so concludes, the elites will be swept aside.

 

 

 

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What Did Society Benefit By Social Distancing? | The Libertarian Institute

Posted by M. C. on May 9, 2020

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/what-did-society-benefit-by-social-distancing/

by

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so.”- Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Despite the fact that there has already been ample writing, both in the mainstream and in alternative press, on this subject from authors who are both persuasive and amply qualified mathematically and scientifically, this author finds himself wanting to offer a brief entry. As someone who has spent the larger portion of his professional career designing experiments, analyzing data, generating graphs, and writing reports about all of it, articles featuring science, statistics, charts and graphs aplenty seems be natural for me. However, none of that is needed. Instead, let us confine ourselves to the most basic logic.

At present, the United States and the world are locked in the grip of the COVID-19 Pandemic. One might be inclined to call it, “The COVID-19 Panic.” If he did, this author would agree. To fight this threat to life and apparently our very existence on Earth as we know it, the public has been forced to abide by the edicts of mayors, governors, and other leadership, at the local and national level. Those edicts can be summarized via two hashtags that started to trend on Twitter about six weeks ago. To assure that we have the same understanding of these concepts, a couple of definitions are in order.

The concept of flattening the curve, represented by the hashtag #FlattenTheCurve, refers to a statistical approach to mitigating the virus’s impact on society, using what is called a normal distribution to model the number of cases over time. In real life, this type of distribution is a representation of an idealized histogram, that is, vertical bars representing the count of observations per unit time, and positioned on a graph next to each other. The unit of time could be days, hours, minutes, or anything like that. (As an aside, for the vast majority of phenomena observed in our daily lives, a normal distribution is applicable, as justified by the Central Limit Theorem. Why this is true could be the subject of another essay, or hell, an entire book.)

The basic premise is that the height of the bars—representing counts of observations—start out small, and get bigger and bigger, eventually reaching a maximum value or peak, and then returning to getting smaller and smaller. The tallest bar—or peak of the distribution—can then be thought of as the maximum number of individuals (per unit time) who actively have the virus. Let us term this ‘Maximum COVID-19 Patients’. The area under the curve, which is equivalent to simply adding up all the observations in each of the bars, is the total number of people who are stricken with COVID-19. Let us term this, ‘Total COVID-19 Cases’.

From the start of discussions of the pandemic and how to deal with it, this number—the total number of people who would be stricken with the virus, ‘Total COVID-19 Cases’—has not been the subject of major debate; that is to say, the area under the curve was not expected to change markedly. In fact, no one in his or her right mind thought that anything could be done to stop the spread of the disease via behavior. The best we could hope for would be to slow the spread, ostensibly so that the medical establishment—hospitals and other front-line structures—could deal with the onslaught. (One might, if he were optimistic, think that we could develop and distribute a vaccine quickly enough that lengthening societal exposure time was no big deal. That is, if he were an idiot.) That everyone, or effectively everyone, would eventually be exposed was not in doubt.

Flattening the curve could, at best, decrease that peak value, i.e., the maximum number of people exhibiting the disease at a point in time, in exchange for a longer timeframe of population exposure, what I will term ‘Societal Exposure Time’. In summary, ‘Total COVID-19 Cases’ (the area under the curve) would be unchanged, but we would exchange a lower ‘Maximum COVID-19 Patients’ for a longer ‘Societal Exposure Time’. Total number of deaths, unchanged. Length of time, extended. Put a pin in that point.

The concept of social distancing, represented by the hashtag #SocialDistancing, refers to the limiting interpersonal contact. Standing X feet from someone, or wearing a mask, or canceling events that are crowd-centric (such as basketball games or concerts) are all implementations of social distancing. The same is true of forcing the temporary closure of ostensibly “non-essential” businesses. So then, #FlattenTheCurve is the what, and #SocialDistancing is the how. No matter what methodology is utilized for social distancing, it is a means that has, as its raison d’être, flattening the curve. Put a pin in that point as well.

So then, flattening the curve via social distancing could produce, at best, one outcome: slow the progression of the disease so as to limit the loading on hospitals and treatment centers. In a perfect world, that outcome could also result in fewer deaths overall, i.e., a reduction in ‘Maximum COVID-19 Patients’ could, given limited medical resources, decrease the net number of deaths. As already noted, built into this approach is the secondary effect that it also must increase ‘Societal Exposure Time’. Slowing the progression of the disease means, automatically, that the disease is present in a society for longer, other factors being equal.

The direct outcome of government-imposed social distancing was a lock-down on businesses such as bars, restaurants, as well as sporting events and concerts, and on non-essential businesses. This led inexorably to limited or no income for certain sectors of the economy. That lack of income placed a huge strain on people who depended upon the “interaction economy,” such as hospitality and those non-essential businesses, to exist, i.e., people who are paid by or receive a large percentage of their income from those industries and industries related to or dependent upon them. The calculus of this lock-down on the economy generally, and these specific sectors of the economy in particular, was supposedly always a consideration, although it is becoming increasingly obvious that it was not given full examination by those with the power to impose the lock-downs. A simple trade-off was presented: “Put a little strain on a few industries now, and save lives as a result.”

However, and this is the worrisome case, if flattening the curve via social distancing does not result in fewer deaths, which it could only do in the event that hospitals were overwhelmed, then the best-case result of the approach is to only increase ‘Societal Exposure Time’. The net effect of supposedly flattening the curve, assuming the curve was actually flattened, could actually be looked upon as wasted time, while people dependent on the interaction economy and/or unlucky enough to work in an ostensibly non-essential sector have limited, reduced, or no income—along with all the related secondary and tertiary industries who supply or are served by them. From much of the reporting, the vast majority of hospitals were not overwhelmed.

One could even argue if the healthcare establishment would have been overwhelmed without ostensibly flattening the curve. While it is possible that in some places, such as New York City or Detroit, social distancing had some effect, it is equally likely, nay probable, that some social distancing, without lockdowns, would have sufficed almost everywhere else. Moreover, what if the progression of COVID-19 through the population was unaffected by social distancing? Every year the flu comes and goes and not everyone gets it. This, despite almost no social distancing practices and despite the fact that not everyone gets vaccinated, all without machinations such as lock-downs imposed on the public and marketed with puffery such as, “Stay Home and Save a Life.” By virtually any evaluation then, flattening the curve via social distancing had almost no net positive effect for the majority of the United States! Zilch. Zip. Zero. Bupkis.

Even if these draconian lock-downs did have a positive effect, (and that is a big-assed IF) the time for them is long over. The increased ‘Societal Exposure Time’ has turned directly into massive negative economic impact across multiple sectors of the economy. And let us be clear, this negative economic impact is not about rich dudes going on fewer vacations, it is about the people who previously depended upon the interaction economy—that ecosystem of businesses, one of them the hospitality and restaurant sector and another of them the supposedly non-essential sector—for income to eat and pay bills. Those people are part of the over twenty-five million people who have gone from working to unemployed over a few weeks as a result of those lock-downs.

Will they find new employment quickly? Will businesses closed in the wreckage of bungled government approach to COVID-19 rapidly re-open? Who knows? Doubtful on both counts. Built into the supposed calculus of flattening the curve via social distancing was the horribly simplified and sound-byte-ready idea and/or belief that “saving lives trumps worrying about any negative economic effects.” The negative side of that calculus was evidently never fully grasped, particularly in the event that flattening the curve via social distancing did not result in markedly fewer deaths, which it did not.

This is exactly where we are today in the United States: massive negative economic impact and still no obvious plan to immediately remove the government-imposed lock-downs. Little (if any) benefit, but all the pain—with more pain on the horizon. The fact that many government leaders are taking a measured, pensive approach to ending the lock-downs and thereby un-doing what they did with knee-jerking half-assery is laughable. The government-mandated lock-downs should end just as quickly as they were implemented. That none of the losers who imposed them is likely to apologize for any of the irreparable damage done to society is par for the course.

Wilt Alston

 

 

 

 

Be seeing you

 

 

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Notes From the French Confinement – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 22, 2020

I have watched several hours of coverage of Covid-19 on French television, including speeches by President Macron and Prime Minister Philipe, and interviews with many, many doctors and scientists. I have not seen a single mention of natural immunity; not a single mention of diet, supplements, nor sunshine. Perhaps of all the literal crimes committed by the authorities, this crime of omission by them, the healthcare community and by the media could be the worst.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/ira-katz/notes-from-the-french-confinement/

By

I am in confinement in France. There has been so much written about the Covid-19 crisis there hardly seems anything new to write about. Certainly most of what is presented in the mainstream I disagree with compared to the excellent reporting found on LRC. I also learn a lot from others such as James Corbett, Robert Wenzel and the Bionic Mosquito. But here I report on my observations from France that might be of interest to the international LRC audience.

First a positive story. The word for a crow (the black bird) in French is corbeau. But in familiar French a corbeau is a person who makes an anonymous denunciation to the authorities. In the context of the Covid-19 crisis this practice consists of calls to the police to report on people violating social distancing rules. In the US just look at Mayor de Blasio of New York. However, in France there is a vastly different approach. As this article from the newspaper Le Monde reports, due to the lasting memories of the denouncements of Jews and the resistance during the German occupation there is social pressure not to denounce people. But officially, even the police have stated they do not want to receive these calls; noting that it is often neighbors who already have had problematic relations who denounce each other. Some hard lessons are learned.

Living just outside Paris I have a lot of experience with extremely dark winters. Paris is very far north, at latitude 48.8566N similar to Montreal. In January I often arrive at work in the night and leave when night has returned. Furthermore, the sun hardley shines in the winter due to the maritime climate in Paris during this season. I had been convinced many years ago by the LRC writers Sardi, Brownstein, etc. that improving immunity by taking vitamin D is the key to preventing the flu. In France vitamins are not readily available over the counter. I need a prescription from a doctor to get my vitamin D. My current doctor prescribes for me one dose of 80,000 IU every three months. It is in liquid form and comes in an ampoule (glass bulb).

My practice, in spite of the doctor’s prescription, is to take an ampoule the fist of December, January, and February for protection during the winter. Since I started this practice about five-years-ago I have hardly had a sniffle. This year I continued in March to daily take 2000 IU tablets I had purchased in the US. That is until the weather turned to glorious spring sunshine. So now I sit on the balcony in the sun in lieu of the tablets. About four weeks ago my wife started to have symptoms of Covid-19 (or the flu, see below) consisting of a slight fever and diarrhea. I gave her my extra ampoule of vitamin D, and the tablets daily. Her symptoms were gone after the first day. We did not quarantine her in our apartment as it was not feasible in any event. My daughter has a slight rash that could be symptomatic of the virus. I have been symptom free.

I have watched several hours of coverage of Covid-19 on French television, including speeches by President Macron and Prime Minister Philipe, and interviews with many, many doctors and scientists. I have not seen a single mention of natural immunity; not a single mention of diet, supplements, nor sunshine. Perhaps of all the literal crimes committed by the authorities, this crime of omission by them, the healthcare community and by the media could be the worst. It  would be so simple to help so many people by following the advice of a physician like Dr. Brownstein without changing any other practice and with only a tiny pittance of cost. Heck, just to advise, sitting on the balcony in the sunshine could do so much more for healthcare workers than clapping at 8 PM.

A particular problem in the US is the incredible divisiveness over Trump. An illustration of this from the French perspective is the media scrutiny of the chloroquine treatment. In this US article reporting negative results the lead is that chloroquine is “Trump touted.” Trump has nothing to do with this particular study or whether or not chloroquine is a good idea. As Trump is the worst possible leader to the resistance, Emmanuel Macron might be the best example of a modern, technocratic leader to the same people who hate Trump. Yet this article shows that Macron is perhaps much more enthusiastic about chloroquine than Trump. I think this kind of comparison could be helpful to treat otherwise intelligent and well intentioned people of Trump derangement syndrome.

By profession I am a research scientist/engineer. Thus, I am very comfortable researching scientific literature. When the Covid-19 crisis became imminent I did a brief overview and came across this apropos article in PLOSone from 2012: Characterization of Human Coronavirus Etiology in Chinese Adults with Acute Upper Respiratory Tract Infection by Real-Time RT-PCR Assays. The key line in the paper is “Undifferentiated human rhinoviruses and influenza (Flu) A were the most common viruses detected (more than 35%) in HCoV co-infections.”  And more, “Our study also suggested that all non-SARS-associated HCoVs contribute significantly to URTI in adult patients in China.” My takeaway was that coronavirus is understood to be part of the normal cold and flu season, coexisting with other viruses. In fact, to differentiate the symptoms of Covid, that is, what virus is causing what symptom, is very difficult to do. This paper led me to believe that most likely this was perhaps a bad year, but otherwise typical of the flu season that includes the various flu strains including corona viruses. While the ultimate data might change my opinion, up until now this view has been reinforced in the passing weeks.

I have mentioned in a previous LRC piece the French principe de precaution, which in effect has been the response of the world’s governments. What I have not heard is the classical, but seemingly forgotten, bioethics dictum, first do no harm. So we wait here, like people are waiting around the world, for the following waves of harm caused by government actions. President Macron has given us the target of May 11th for the end of the confinement period, but it will be a progressive restart. So we are still unsure what we will be able to do when, as far as work and school are concerned. And perhaps most important for the French people, what vacations will be possible!

Finally, my hope for the LRC community is to Stay Free while trying to Stay Safe.

Be seeing you

 

 

 

 

 

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950AD: “Viking sailing ships return to port; violation of social distancing” « Jon Rappoport’s Blog

Posted by M. C. on April 20, 2020

It doesn’t require putting your life on a  microchip.

It doesn’t require faceless bureaucrats justifying their jobs by issuing inane, unconstitutional laws.

It doesn’t require unmasked, blowhard politicians bloviating nonsense to justify their jobs.

It doesn’t require tracking your movements, recording your private conversations, controlling you nor controlling the minutia of your life.

It doesn’t require feeding $billions to medical and big pharma cronies.

It doesn’t offer a diversion nor excuse for the coming recession.

It doesn’t offer “if it bleeds it leads” headlines.

There is a reason keeping your body and your immune system in good working order is never mentioned.

https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/04/17/950ad-viking-sailing-ships-violation-social-distancing/

Jon Rappoport

…George Carlin, 1999: “What we have now is a completely neurotic
population… Where did this sudden fear of germs come from in this
country? Have you noticed this? The media, constantly running stories
about all the latest infections – salmonella, e-coli, hanta virus, bird
flu – and Americans, they panic easily so now everybody’s running
around, scrubbing this and spraying that and overcooking their food and
repeatedly washing their hands, trying to avoid all contact with germs.
It’s ridiculous and it goes to ridiculous lengths… bunch of goddamn
pussies! Besides, what do you think you have an immune system for? It’s
for killing germs!… Let me tell you a true story about immunization
okay? When I was a little boy in New York City in the 1940s, we swam in
the Hudson River and it was filled with raw sewage okay? We swam in raw
sewage! You know… to cool off! And at that time, the big fear was polio;
thousands of kids died from polio every year but you know something? In
my neighbourhood, no one ever got polio! No one! Ever! You know why?
Cause we swam in raw sewage! It strengthened our immune systems! The
polio never had a prayer; we were tempered in raw shit! So personally, I
never take any special precautions against germs. I don’t shy away from
people that sneeze and cough, I don’t wipe off the telephone, I don’t
cover the toilet seat, and if I drop food on the floor, I pick it up and
eat it! Yes I do. Even if I’m at a sidewalk café! In Calcutta! The poor
section! On New Year’s morning during a soccer riot! And you know
something? In spite of all that so-called risky behaviour, I never get
infections, I don’t get them, I don’t get colds, I don’t get flu, I
don’t get headaches, I don’t get upset stomach, you know why? Cause I
got a good strong immune system and it gets a lot of practice…”

Be seeing you

Conformity Isn't a Recipe for Excellence: Wisdom from ...

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Under order, face masks mandatory for workers in PA

Posted by M. C. on April 16, 2020

Why wait until we are at/past the peak?

Why do I see no masks?

Why do all three of these people need to be there in a group? Aren’t they special!

I guess the point is to make the unwashed masses think you know what you are doing.

https://www.wkbn.com/news/coronavirus/under-order-face-masks-mandatory-for-workers-in-pa/

by:

Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine, flanked by Gov. Tom Wolf and Department of Education Secretary Pedro Rivera, provides an update on the coronavirus known as COVID-19 on Thursday, March 12, 2020.

Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine, flanked by Gov. Tom Wolf and Department of Education Secretary Pedro Rivera, provides an update on the coronavirus known as COVID-19 on Thursday, March 12, 2020. (Joe Hermitt/The Patriot-News via AP)

HARRISBURG (WKBN) – Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced an order Wednesday, requiring those who work in the state to wear masks and take other social distancing actions in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Pennsylvania Department of Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine signed an order that directs businesses that have maintained in-person operations to protect their workers by providing face masks and making it a mandatory requirement at the worksite. Businesses also must stagger stop and start times for employees, when able to, to prevent gatherings of groups…

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Calls for Central Planning in the COVID-19 Panic Are like the Calls for the “War Socialism” of Old | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on April 14, 2020

The opposite is true. It is the private economy that wins wars. The private economy is yielding more goods and services to alleviate the corona epidemic. The efficiency of private companies these days is amazing. Uncounted solutions are coming from the private sector, which is switching to the production of masks, medical suits, drugs, ventilators or coming up with safe new ways of delivering goods and services to consumers.

https://mises.org/wire/calls-central-planning-covid-19-panic-are-calls-war-socialism-old?utm_source=Mises+Institute+Subscriptions&utm_campaign=acaee256f8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_21_2018_9_59_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8b52b2e1c0-acaee256f8-228343965

In dark hours, when people fear for their lives, they eagerly deliver their freedom to the state. Many want the government take control of their lives, because they think it will be better for them. Ludwig von Mises has written extensively about the erroneous belief that in an emergency the state must take control of the economy because the market economy supposedly fails. Specifically, Mises dealt with this subject in his writings on war socialism.

In Human Action, he writes about the reasoning in favor of state planning:

The market economy, say the socialists and the interventionists, is at best a system that may be tolerated in peacetime. But when war comes, such indulgence is impermissible. It would jeopardize the vital interests of the nation for the sole benefit of the selfish concerns of capitalists and entrepreneurs. War, and in any case modern total war, peremptorily requires government control of business.” (1998, p. 821).

In Nation, State, and Economy Mises similarly remarks:

So-called war socialism has been regarded as sufficiently argued for and justified with reference mostly to the emergency created by war. In war, the inadequate free economy supposedly cannot be allowed to exist any longer; into its place must step something more perfect, the administered economy. (2006, p. 117).

The similarity between the reasoning in favor of war socialism and the arguments that have been brought forward during the corona emergency is striking. Today war rhetoric abounds. Emanuel Macron explicitly stated, “We’re at war,” and sent, as in Spain, the military to the streets. US president Donald Trump similarly speaks of “Our Big War” and invokes the wartime authority of the Defense Production Act. We hear the slogan “We are in this together” all the time.

Mises discusses German war socialism during the First World War in detail. He points out that Emperor Wilhelm II basically lost all powers to the General Staff. General Ludendorff “became virtually omnipotent dictator,” he explains in Omnipotent Government (1985, p. 42), and subordinated everything to the war effort.

Winning the war was thought to be the outstanding goal, which could only be achieved by centralizing all powers. These powers were given to the military. After all, they were the experts in military matters.

Today, we face a similar tyranny of experts, to borrow a term from William Easterly. In the medical emergency, enormous power lies in the hands of doctors such as Anthony Fauci in the US or Christian Drosten in Germany. These experts advise governments what to do—for instance, which size of gatherings shall be prohibited (events of 1000, 100, or 3 persons), if and for how long economies shall be locked down, and if the wearing of masks shall become mandatory. And politicians follow the advice of the doctors. After all, they are the experts.

The similarities to war socialism do not end there. Indeed, to different degrees we are experiencing war socialism, because the war against the virus involves a massive central invasion of private property. Almost all economic activity has become subordinated to the war effort. In many countries businesses not considered essential to the war effort are forced to close down, such as retail stores, gastronomy businesses, or hotels. Others are forced indirectly to close, as their customers are confined.

In a sense, the whole population has been conscripted in the fight against the virus. Some people are allowed to continue producing, because it is considered worthwhile. Other people have been conscripted and ordered to fight the war on the home front. They are not allowed to leave their homes, as the experts consider this the best way to fight the virus and win the war. Even children are forced to contribute to the war effort by staying home. The central planners also decide when it is worthwhile to leave the home trenches, i.e., to walk the dog or buy groceries.

As in other wars, borders are temporarily closed and the international division of labor is severely hampered. War is financed in three main ways (Mises 2006, pp. 136–42).

First, goods and services are confiscated. In the corona war, medical material is being seized. Companies are closed and individuals confined. They shift their “production” toward the war effort. They produce “social distancing,” which is considered the main “good” necessary to win the war against the virus. Second, taxes are increased. Indeed, war profit taxes are especially popular. We are already hearing the first proposals in that direction. Third, the printing press accelerates, which we are experiencing as well.

In sum, the government interventions in the corona epidemic can be considered as a form of war socialism.

The next question is: is war socialism true socialism?

According to Mises, true socialism exists when there is a “transfer of the means of production out of private ownership of individuals into the ownership of society. That alone and nothing else is socialism. (Mises, 2006, p. 142).

Mises declares: “the measures of war socialism amounted to putting the economy on a socialistic basis. The right of ownership remained formally unimpaired. By the letter of the law the owner still continued to be the owner of the means of production. Yet, the power of disposal over the enterprise was taken away from him” (2006, p. 143).

In socialism, the central authority decides what is produced. In corona socialism, the government indirectly does that also: it decides which businesses are allowed to open and which are not. Thus, it decides what can be produced (masks, ventilators) and what will not be produced (tourism or sporting events).

Mises clarifies: “War socialism was by no means complete socialism, but it was full and true socialization without exception if one had kept on the path that had been taken” (Mises 2006, p. 144). Of course, corona socialism, as an instance of war socialism, is considered to be temporary, as “exceptional provisions for the duration of the war” (Mises 2006, p. 146).

But does war socialism achieve its aim? The defenders of the centralized effort claim that “the organized economy is capable of yielding higher outputs than the free economy” (Mises 2006, p. 117).

The opposite is true. It is the private economy that wins wars. The private economy is yielding more goods and services to alleviate the corona epidemic. The efficiency of private companies these days is amazing. Uncounted solutions are coming from the private sector, which is switching to the production of masks, medical suits, drugs, ventilators or coming up with safe new ways of delivering goods and services to consumers.

Private companies swiftly shift their production efforts due to anticipated profits. In a market economy, it is profits that direct production, quickly taking all human needs into account. In contrast, the medical production czars tend to have only one end or human need in mind. They want to slow down infection rates at all costs. They disregard other human ends, such as creating successful businesses and enjoying a vast array of goods and services such as vacationing or other leisure activities. When these ends cannot be reached, there may be other health problems, such as heart diseases or psychic issues. The forced lockdown brings economic misery. A general fall in living standards ensues with all its consequences.

The central medical planning focuses only on measurable variables such the infection rate. By not taking into account other ends (and not being able to do so), this planning exerts enormous harm from the point of view of voluntarily interacting individuals. In contrast to the central planning approach, which focuses on one end, all ends in human society are taken into account in the market economy through (expected) profits. Production is adjusted swiftly and efficiently toward the changing ends of consumers.

It is entrepreneurial profit seeking that unleashes human creativity and genius and thereby satisfies human needs as efficiently as humanly possible. The right answer to a war, and to the corona war as well, is therefore to eliminate all barriers to entrepreneurship:

For anyone of the opinion that the free economy is the superior form of economic activity, precisely the need created by the war had to be a new reason demanding that all obstacles standing in the way of free competition be set aside. (Mises 2006, p. 117)

In other words, in order to win the corona war, government should cut taxes and regulations vigorously. Unfortunately, governments around the world have opted for the opposite path, namely war socialism. If they do not quickly rectify their responses and end their war, the socialization of our economies will continue. Mises warns: “in the long run war and the preservation of the market economy are incompatible” (1998, p. 824).

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God Help Us All: Dr. Fauci Knows Exactly What He’s Doing – American Thinker

Posted by M. C. on April 9, 2020

Dr. Fauci, in particular, is guaranteed never to miss a penny of his very nice salary since he’s the most “essential” bureaucrat of all.  His three decades of no experience whatsoever outside the federal bureaucracy means that neither his record of wildly exaggerating the threat of AIDS nor the disastrous job he did crafting a response negatively affected his career.  In fact, results matter so little for “essential” people like Dr. Fauci that he still openly brags about his risibly false prediction that “AIDS would not stay confined to the populations where it first appeared” and become “a disaster for society.”  

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/04/god_help_us_all_dr_fauci_knows_exactly_what_hes_doing.html

By Michael Thau

Last Thursday, the scientific mastermind behind the economic carnage and spirit-crushing isolation now constituting the two main pillars of America’s ingenious new public health strategy delivered some bad news.  Dr. Fauci says we’ll have to keep living like this until the virus is eradicated.

Even if “virus” isn’t his nickname for the American people, following his advice still means a long, grueling haul.  The economic shutdown and social confinement oppressing us have to continue for at least the minimum estimated 18 months it will take to develop a vaccine for COVID-19.  Longer, since the stipulation that our rights don’t get restored until new infections cease means we have to manufacture and distribute enough to inoculate 60% of the population.  All told, we’re talking God only knows how many years.

No remotely similar brutal experiment in tough love has ever been tried.  So it’s anyone’s guess how bad things will get.  The Great Depression saw just three consecutive years averaging around a 9% decline in GDP.  Unemployment peaked at 25%.  Much worse is already projected in just the coming months.

But even if our hardship snowballs into a catastrophe rivaling the crash of ’29, we’re at least likely to avoid its infamous breadlines.  Impoverished people lining up for food would wreak havoc on Dr. Fauci’s social distancing scheme.  So he’s likely to insist that any rations be delivered.  The upside to house arrest during an economic meltdown is not having to wear the malodorous rags to which your clothes will be reduced in public.

Nor, thankfully, will you have to worry about how Dr. Fauci is faring.  Rest assured: his high-level position in the federal bureaucracy provides ample insulation from any hardship inflicted on you.  He’s already acquired a security detail because some ingrates reacted to a suspension of our most basic rights, which makes the taxes George III imposed on our founding fathers look utterly minor, by subjecting poor Dr. Fauci to the same threats and insults literally every public figure gets.  If things get bad, his new bodyguards will make sure he enjoys the decent food he’s bound to have first dibs on undisturbed.  That’s probably why he remains so disturbingly cheerful whenever he has to push our faces a little farther into the dirt for our own good.

You needn’t worry about Dr. Fauci missing any paychecks as so many Americans already have, either.  Unlike us, in times of crisis, bureaucrats get to declare themselves “essential.”  No matter how much misery they rain down, we never have to worry they won’t be compensated.

Dr. Fauci, in particular, is guaranteed never to miss a penny of his very nice salary since he’s the most “essential” bureaucrat of all.  His three decades of no experience whatsoever outside the federal bureaucracy means that neither his record of wildly exaggerating the threat of AIDS nor the disastrous job he did crafting a response negatively affected his career.  In fact, results matter so little for “essential” people like Dr. Fauci that he still openly brags about his risibly false prediction that “AIDS would not stay confined to the populations where it first appeared” and become “a disaster for society.”  Dr. Fauci’s bold lack of concern for epidemiological reality is exactly what’s needed to guide us through this crisis.

He’s also understandably proud that, after years of being vilified by AIDS activists for “killing people with red tape,” he eventually realized that “much of their criticism was absolutely valid” and held off on killing any more.  Who said noblesse oblige was dead?

Dr. Fauci’s completely bogus scare-mongering and deadly policy recommendations the last time he directed our efforts against a new pathogen aren’t the only reason we need to blindly follow his advice about this one.  Though curing AIDS was his number-one priority, it was left to scientists in Europe to discover an effective treatment.  But you know what they completely failed to do?  Spend unimaginably large sums of money.  Their successful treatment barely cost a dime compared to the tens of billions of your tax dollars Dr. Fauci pried from Congress to fund his failure.  That’s the true measure of success for any “essential” bureaucrat.

Without Dr. Fauci, who’ll save you the next time some computer model produces scary numbers that its designers explicitly admit depend on “very large uncertainties”?  Who’ll destroy the economy and confine you to house arrest based on the work of people explicitly warning that it’s “not at all certain” such measures will even accomplish anything?

One shudders to think what someone lacking Dr. Fauci’s expertise might have done upon learning that the predicted number of hospitalizations solely responsible for generating the scary death rate he’s putting us through hell to avoid were inflated almost tenfold.  A lesser man might stupidly think eliminating any rationale for the misery he’s inflicting on us means we need to reverse course immediately instead of wisely insisting that his pointlessly destructive policies continue indefinitely.

Besides, despite Dr. Fauci’s lack of candor, the open-endedness of the dystopian nightmare he’s inflicted on us has always been clear.  Though who had time to bother looking carefully at the justification for peremptorily shutting down our businesses and confining us to our homes once we were given an awesome slogan like “flatten the curve” to mindlessly regurgitate?  Not since “Where’s the beef?” appeared to challenge and transform our conceptual framework has American intellectual life been so enlivened.  But if we hadn’t been diverted by the essential task of relentlessly barking “flatten the curve” at each other like trained seals, we might have noticed something.

Normally, this new coronavirus should start disappearing after a few months.  When the percentage of people who’d been infected, recovered, and gained immunity got high enough, there would no longer be enough carriers for it to spread.  So even those who hadn’t acquired biological immunity nonetheless would become protected through herd immunity.

Remember those researchers whose computer model is motivating Dr. Fauci’s restrictions?  You know, the ones who said their projections could be totally wrong, and, even if not, the certain misery Dr. Fauci is inflicting on us still might not accomplish anything?  Well, they’ve also repeatedly said one consequence of successfully slowing down the infection rate is preventing herd immunity.  Hence, they warned that restoring our rights before herd immunity is artificially created through vaccination would put us right back where we started, rendering the hardship caused by suspending them in the first place pointless.

Another related consequence Dr. Fauci has been careful not to mention is that, because we’re making the virus linger for many years instead of mere months, despite slowing down how fast it spreads, the restrictions strangling our lives won’t decrease the number of people ultimately infected.  We’re only decreasing your chances of becoming infected now.  Your overall chances of getting the virus at some point aren’t any lower than if we’d let the infection rate remain high and not vastly increased how long the virus will be active by treating it like the severe flu Dr. Fauci admits it’s likely to clinically resemble when addressing his peers

But perhaps your unaware that on March 26, Dr. Fauci himself said in the New England Journal of Medicine that “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%).”

So, don’t let what Dr. Fauci tells the inessential people he’s inflicting misery on fool you.  He’s known from the beginning that the measures he allowed us to believe might be short-lived make sense only if they’re maintained for at least several years and that they weren’t going to reduce anyone’s chances of catching COVID-19.  He’s fully aware that the projections about hospitalization rates justifying their implementation proved to be completely bogus and that we’re barreling toward an economic catastrophe because of a virus akin to a seasonal flu.

Dr. Fauci may have completely bungled our response to AIDS through incompetence.  But this time, he knows exactly what he’s doing.

God help us all.

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Ground Control to Planet Lockdown: This Is Only a Test — Strategic Culture

Posted by M. C. on April 4, 2020

The absolutely key issue is how the West was caught completely unprepared for the spread of Covid-19 – even after being provided a head start of two months by China, and having the time to study different successful strategies applied across Asia.

There are no secrets for the success of the South Korean model.

South Korea was producing test kits already in early January, and by March was testing 100,000 people a day, after establishing strict control of the whole population – to Western cries of “no protection of private life”. That was before the West embarked on Planet Lockdown mode.

Forced vaccination and ID implants

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/02/ground-control-planet-lockdown-only-test/

Pepe Escobar

As much as Covid-19 is a circuit breaker, a time bomb and an actual weapon of mass destruction (WMD), a fierce debate is raging worldwide on the wisdom of mass quarantine applied to entire cities, states and nations.

Those against it argue Planet Lockdown not only is not stopping the spread of Covid-19 but also has landed the global economy into a cryogenic state – with unforeseen, dire consequences. Thus quarantine should apply essentially to the population with the greatest risk of death: the elderly.

With Planet Lockdown transfixed by heart-breaking reports from the Covid-19 frontline, there’s no question this is an incendiary assertion.

In parallel, a total corporate media takeover is implying that if the numbers do not substantially go down, Planet Lockdown – an euphemism for house arrest – remains, indefinitely.

Michael Levitt, 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry and Stanford biophysicist, was spot on when he calculated that China would get through the worst of Covid-19 way before throngs of health experts believed, and that “What we need is to control the panic”.

Let’s cross this over with some facts and dissident opinion, in the interest of fostering an informed debate.

The report Covid-19 – Navigating the Uncharted was co-authored by Dr. Anthony Fauci – the White House face of the fight –, H. Clifford Lane, and CDC director Robert R. Redfield. So it comes from the heart of the U.S. healthcare establishment.

The report explicitly states, “the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.”

On March 19, four days before Downing Street ordered the British lockdown, Covid-19 was downgraded from the status of “High Consequence Infectious Disease.”

John Lee, recently retired professor of pathology and former NHS consultant pathologist, has recently argued that, “the world’s 18,944 coronavirus deaths represent 0.14 per cent of the total. These figures might shoot up but they are, right now, lower than other infectious diseases that we live with (such as flu).”

He recommends, “a degree of social distancing should be maintained for a while, especially for the elderly and the immune-suppressed. But when drastic measures are introduced, they should be based on clear evidence. In the case of Covid-19, the evidence is not clear.”

That’s essentially the same point developed by a Russian military intel analyst.

No less than 22 scientists – see here and here – have expanded on their doubts about the Western strategy.

Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, Professor Emeritus of Medical Microbiology at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, has provoked immense controversy with his open letter to Chancellor Merkel, stressing the “truly unforeseeable consequences of the drastic containment measures which are currently being applied in large parts of Europe.”

Even New York governor Andrew Cuomo admitted on the record about the error of quarantining elderly people with illnesses alongside the fit young population.

The absolutely key issue is how the West was caught completely unprepared for the spread of Covid-19 – even after being provided a head start of two months by China, and having the time to study different successful strategies applied across Asia.

There are no secrets for the success of the South Korean model.

South Korea was producing test kits already in early January, and by March was testing 100,000 people a day, after establishing strict control of the whole population – to Western cries of “no protection of private life”. That was before the West embarked on Planet Lockdown mode.

South Korea was all about testing early, often and safely – in tandem with quick, thorough contact tracing, isolation and surveillance.

Covid-19 carriers are monitored with the help of video-surveillance cameras, credit card purchases, smartphone records. Add to it SMS sent to everyone when a new case is detected near them or their place of work. Those in self-isolation need an app to be constantly monitored; non-compliance means a fine to the equivalent of $2,800.

Controlled demolition in effect

In early March, the Chinese Journal of Infectious Diseases, hosted by the Shanghai Medical Association, pre-published an Expert Consensus on Comprehensive Treatment of Coronavirus in Shanghai. Treatment recommendations included, “large doses of vitamin C…injected intravenously at a dose of 100 to 200 mg / kg per day. The duration of continuous use is to significantly improve the oxygenation index.”

That’s the reason why 50 tons of Vitamin C was shipped to Hubei province in early February. It’s a stark example of a simple “mitigation” solution capable of minimizing economic catastrophe.

In contrast, it’s as if the brutally fast Chinese “people’s war” counterpunch against Covid-19 had caught Washington totally unprepared. Steady intel rumbles on the Chinese net point to Beijing having already studied all plausible leads towards the origin of the Sars-Cov-2 virus – vital information that will be certainly weaponized, Sun Tzu style, at the right time.

As it stands, the sustainability of the complex Eurasian integration project has not been substantially compromised. As the EU has provided the whole planet with a graphic demonstration of its cluelessness and helplessness, everyday the Russia-China strategic partnership gets stronger – increasingly investing in soft power and advancing a pan-Eurasia dialogue which includes, crucially, medical help.

Facing this process, the EU’s top diplomat, Joseph Borrell, sounds indeed so helpless: “There is a global battle of narratives going on in which timing is a crucial factor. […] China has brought down local new infections to single figures – and it is now sending equipment and doctors to Europe, as others do as well. China is aggressively pushing the message that, unlike the U.S., it is a responsible and reliable partner. In the battle of narratives we have also seen attempts to discredit the EU (…) We must be aware there is a geo-political component including a struggle for influence through spinning and the ‘politics of generosity’. Armed with facts, we need to defend Europe against its detractors.”

That takes us to really explosive territory. A critique of the Planet Lockdown strategy inevitably raises serious questions pointing to a controlled demolition of the global economy. What is already in stark effect are myriad declinations of martial law, severe social media policing in Ministry of Truth mode, and the return of strict border controls.

These are unequivocal markings of a massive social re-engineering project, complete with inbuilt full monitoring, population control and social distancing promoted as the new normal.

That would be taking to the limit Secretary of State Mike “we lie, we cheat, we steal” Pompeo’s assertion, on the record, that Covid-19 is a live military exercise: “This matter is going forward — we are in a live exercise here to get this right.”

All hail BlackRock

So as we face a New Great Depression, steps leading to a Brave New World are already discernable. It goes way beyond a mere Bretton Woods 2.0, in the manner that Pam and Russ Martens superbly deconstruct the recent $2 trillion, Capitol Hill-approved stimulus to the U.S. economy.

Essentially, the Fed will “leverage the bill’s $454 million bailout slush fund into $4.5 trillion”. And no questions are allowed on who gets the money, because the bill simply cancels the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for the Fed.

The privileged private contractor for the slush fund is none other than BlackRock. Here’s the extremely short version of the whole, astonishing scheme, masterfully detailed here.

Wall Street has turned the Fed into a hedge fund. The Fed is going to own at least two thirds of all U.S. Treasury bills wallowing in the market before the end of the year.

The U.S. Treasury will be buying every security and loan in sight while the Fed will be the banker – financing the whole scheme.

So essentially this is a Fed/ Treasury merger. A behemoth dispensing loads of helicopter money – with BlackRock as the undisputable winner.

BlackRock is widely known as the biggest money manager on the planet. Their tentacles are everywhere. They own 5% of Apple, 5% of Exxon Mobil, 6% of Google, second largest shareholder of AT&T (Turner, HBO, CNN, Warner Brothers) – these are just a few examples.

They will buy all these securities and manage those dodgy special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) on behalf of the Treasury.

BlackRock not only is the top investor in Goldman Sachs. Better yet: Blackrock is bigger than Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank combined. BlackRock is a serious Trump donor. Now, for all practical purposes, it will be the operating system – the Chrome, Firefox, Safari – of Fed/Treasury.

This represents the definitive Wall Street-ization of the Fed – with no evidence whatsoever it will lead to any improvement in the lives of the average American.

Western corporate media, en masse, have virtually ignored the myriad, devastating economic consequences of Planet Lockdown. Wall to wall coverage barely mentions the astonishing economic human wreckage already in effect – especially for the masses barely surviving, so far, in the informal economy.

For all practical purposes, the Global War on Terror (GWOT) has been replaced by the Global War on Virus (GWOV). But what is not being seriously analyzed is the Perfect Toxic Storm: a totally shattered economy; The Mother of All Financial Crashes – barely masked by the trillions in helicopter money from the Fed and the ECB; the tens of millions of unemployed engendered by the New Great Depression; the millions of small businesses that will simply disappear; a widespread, global mental health crisis. Not to mention the masses of elderly, especially in the U.S., that will be issued an unspoken “drop dead” notice.

Beyond any rhetoric about “decoupling”, the global economy is already, de facto, split in two. On one side, we have Eurasia, Africa and swathes of Latin America – what China will be painstakingly connecting and reconnecting via the New Silk Roads. On the other side, we have North America and selected Western vassals. A puzzled Europe lies in the middle.

A cryogenically induced global economy certainly facilitates a reboot. Trumpism is the New Exceptionalism – so that means an isolationist MAGA on steroids. In contrast, China will painstakingly reboot its market base along the New Silk Roads – Africa and Latin America included – to replace the 20% of trade/exports to be lost with the U.S.

The meager $1,200 checks promised to Americans are a de facto precursor of the much touted Universal Basic Income (UBI). They may become permanent as tens of millions of people will be permanently unemployed. That will facilitate the transition towards a totally automated, 24/7 economy run by AI – thus the importance of 5G.

And that’s where ID2020 comes in.

AI and ID2020

The European Commission is involved in a crucial but virtually unknown project, CREMA (Cloud Based Rapid Elastic Manufacturing) which aims to facilitate the widest possible implementation of AI in conjunction to the advent of a cashless One-World system.

The end of cash necessarily implies a One-World government capable of dispensing – and controlling – UBI; a de facto full accomplishment of Foucault’s studies on biopolitics. Anyone is liable to be erased from the system if an algorithm equals this individual with dissent.

It gets even sexier when absolute social control is promoted as an innocent vaccine.

ID2020 is self-described as a benign alliance of “public-private partners”. Essentially, it is an electronic ID platform based on generalized vaccination. And its starts at birth; newborns will be provided with a “portable and persistent biometrically-linked digital identity.”

GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, pledges to “protect people’s health “ and provide “immunization for all”. Top partners and sponsors, apart from the WHO, include, predictably, Big Pharma.

At the ID2020 Alliance summit last September in New York, it was decided that the “Rising to the Good ID Challenge” program would be launched in 2020. That was confirmed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) this past January in Davos. The digital identity will be tested with the government of Bangladesh.

That poses a serious question: was ID2020 timed to coincide with what a crucial sponsor, the WHO, qualified as a pandemic? Or was a pandemic absolutely crucial to justify the launch of ID2020?

As game-changing trial runs go, nothing of course beats Event 201, which took place less than a month after ID2020.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with, once again, the WEF, as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, described Event 201 as “a high-level pandemic exercise”. The exercise “illustrated areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences.”

With Covid-19 in effect as a pandemic, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health was forced to issue a statement basically saying they just “modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction”.

There’s no question “a severe pandemic, which becomes ‘Event 201’ would require reliable cooperation among several industries, national governments, and key international institutions”, as spun by the sponsors. Covid-19 is eliciting exactly this kind of “cooperation”. Whether it’s “reliable” is open to endless debate.

The fact is that, all over Planet Lockdown, a groundswell of public opinion is leaning towards defining the current state of affairs as a global psyop: a deliberate global meltdown – the New Great Depression – imposed on unsuspecting citizens by design.

The powers that be, taking their cue from the tried and tested, decades-old CIA playbook, of course are breathlessly calling it a “conspiracy theory”. Yet what vast swathes of global public opinion observe is a – dangerous – virus being used as cover for the advent of a new, digital financial system, complete with a forced vaccine cum nanochip creating a full, individual, digital identity.

The most plausible scenario for our immediate future reads like clusters of smart cities linked by AI, with people monitored full time and duly micro-chipped doing what they need with a unified digital currency, in an atmosphere of Bentham’s and Foucault’s Panopticum on overdrive.

So if this is really our future, the existing world-system has to go. This is a test, this is only a test.

 

Be seeing you

 

 

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