How Destroyed Does America Have to Be?

 

A bit over a month ago, I put out an update on Covid-19 (the rock star formerly known as “corona”), discussing the various theories as to its origin, progress, significance, impact (economic, social, political, etc.). I didn't claim that the story was concluded, and that we could say “case closed”, because we can't – and who knows when, if ever, we'll be able to? Covid-19 has turned out, truly, to be the “disease for all seasons”, and for all political, social, and economic agendas. It has become, in many ways, as defining a factor in the political life of the Republic as race, which is the sine qua non of American politics. As such it may turn out, in retrospect, to be more significant than the Great Depression, or World War II, or 9/11, in terms of the remaking of society (a process well underway at this point, and accelerating with each passing day). And this is all the more remarkable given that it was, as far as is known (or admitted), totally unpredictable and a complete surprise – although the conspiratorially-minded will beg to differ, and that's OK – they may be right. (Comparisons might be drawn to other plagues down through history – not in terms of severity so much as long-term impact in areas like economics, politics, sociology, international balance of power, etc.)

But operating in parallel with Covid, in a kind of bizarre symbiosis, was an outbreak of anarchy – or apparent anarchy – which, I would say, had few if any parallels in American history. Suddenly, major cities (and not-so-major cities – Kenosha? Give me a break!) erupted in violence, vandalism, arson, and a kind of bizarre no-show performance on the part of law enforcement – which caused certain “vigilantes” to take matters into their own hands. And the temptation was to think that, yes, this is it – the final reckoning – the beginning of the total breakdown of American society – Gog and Magog – the mother of all battles – etc. But then a funny thing happened. The minute Joe Biden was inaugurated it all stopped. No more riots, no more arson, no more “smash and grab” – it was as if someone had flipped a switch. Which is, of course, exactly what happened. (And, I might add, BLM demonstrations faded away as well, even though there had been no significant improvement in relations between the police and the black community.) (And Confederate statues – those few that remained – were no longer being torn down by angry mobs.)

So it was never about “racism” or “fascism” or anything else. It was about removing Donald Trump from office, and insuring that he would never again, and I mean never, attempt to intrude into the public sphere. Once that was accomplished – and Biden's inauguration was sufficient proof – all of these “anarchists” stood down, to a man (or woman, or whatever). There was peace in the valley. They were dropped off at wherever they called home, given a wad of cash or gift cards, told “well done, mission accomplished”, and that was it. Until next time. (Be assured, their cell phone numbers are on someone's speed dial. Watch for them to come back to life in certain select quarters during the mid-term campaigns.)

But in case you haven't noticed, what any of this has to do with authentic anarchy has yet to be determined. The few Antifa types that were rounded up by local law enforcement (prior to being released by left-wing prosecutors and judges) were, by and large, spoiled brats with suffocatingly middle-class backgrounds. Nary a wild-eyed, black-bearded, bomb-throwing anarchist of the old school could be found among them. They were, basically, rent boys (and girls) who were paid handsomely for acting out and throwing a tantrum suitable for a two-year-old. In this, they were truly rebels without a cause (as opposed to, say, demonstrators from the 1960s who may have been misled in some ways but who definitely had a cause – or, typically, more than one).

Find me an “anarchist”, anywhere on Earth, who doesn't dream of becoming the king/queen/whatever/ruler of a country/continent/planet populated by nameless, powerless slaves, whose existence is predicated entirely on their ability and willingness to cater to the ruler's every whim. No “Mad Max” scenarios for these folks – no way! Real anarchy is too chancy, too dangerous. No, this will be a highly-organized, exquisitely-refined utopia. (Think of one of our “social media” moguls being, basically, emperor of the world; that will give you some idea of what the garden-variety Antifa type aspires to.)

As I have said before, anarchy is totalitarianism in disguise. True anarchists are as rare as – oh, I dunno, albino chipmunks, or something. For all intents and purposes they don't exist. Because behind every impulse to destroy, there is an impulse to build – and to build according to one's specifications. Every man a Frank Lloyd Wright! Except without the creative genius. Wright built houses that people would want to live in – not everyone, but enough. They were willing to submit to Wright's sense of aesthetics, design, style, what have you – to suppress whatever atavistic notions they had been brought up with in order to conform to the vision of The Master. And frankly (no pun intended), one can imagine much worse masters – Frank (ditto) Gehry comes to mind, with his deconstructionist zeal. (When you live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house, you live with Frank Lloyd Wright, in a sense. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. When you live or work in a Frank Gehry building – well, let's say you're a good candidate for high-end therapy.)

The agenda, if you will, of the anarchist is to destroy all the old – all that which is – but not stop there. It must be replaced with something, because in their heart of hearts every anarchist realizes that total, complete, and perpetual anarchy is impossible. Order will sooner or later rear its ugly head – so the question then becomes, what sort of order, and – more importantly – whose order? The Bolsheviks had an answer for this, and it was put in place immediately – “Five Year Plans”, collective farms, spies on every street corner and under every bed, and so on (and the gulag – or a bullet in the head – for any naysayers). Anarchy giving rise to order – the important – nay, essential – thing being that the new order is built on a totally mistaken and delusional vision of human nature. So the agenda then becomes to – at all costs! – create a new version of mankind – the New Soviet Man, or, in the case of the Nazis, the Master Race. Which is followed, as the night the day, by a program of persecution against anyone who doesn't agree with the vision, or who actively attempts to thwart it. After all, when our leaders present a plan for Utopia – all set out in impressive 3-D models (“pedestrian-friendly”, “green”, "carbon-neutral", “sustainable”, etc.) – only an atavistic reactionary would dare to object. All traditional views of mankind – his purpose on earth, his destiny – have to take a back seat to the new vision, which is based solely on what can be seen and touched, i.e. “science”.

It has been said that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”. Well, in our time, when patriotism, however defined, is sadly dated and teddibly out of fashion, we have a new version, which is “science is the last refuge of the scoundrel”. “Science”, that is, as defined by whoever has the most political influence. So science becomes the fetish of our times – that without which nothing is valid or arguable, and with which nothing is invalid... or needs proof. Science becomes, in other words, what “dogma” was in past times – a matter of faith. But if science is a matter of faith, what happens to that which we used to call science? It disappears, basically. It no longer exists, because it does not receive the imprimatur of... science! Yes, “science” becomes self-certifying, and thus no better than a commercial product that advertises itself as “the best”, or “new and improved”, or “guaranteed”, etc.

It is sad when science becomes a closed-off echo chamber, with no way in (for contradictory data), and no way out (for further investigation, with its inherent risks of contradicting what was previously considered “settled”). And yet, whenever anyone in government embraces what they call “science”, this is exactly what's happening. What they are embracing is, in effect, a new religion, and you'd better convert to it now or suffer the consequences. While at the same time, the remnant (those without fat government contracts and grants) practicing real science are ignored at best – or, at least as often, derided, scolded, shunned, and “canceled”.

(The irony here is that science – the real thing – and faith, i.e. religion – have not always been considered arch enemies. The Scholastics of the 13^th Century were perfectly at home with both, and in fact celebrated the fact that the sciences and faith were perfectly compatible – and not because they dealt with entirely different subjects with entirely different methods, but because they were in harmony, and could complement one another. This all changed, of course, with the so-called Enlightenment, which drew a line in the sand between “science” (read: materialism) and faith (AKA “superstition”), and woe unto he who attempts to cross it. This attitude persists to this day, needless to say.)

----- o -----

So far, we've dealt with, basically, the history of one year in the life of the Republic, namely 2020 -- a year to which even a master of the absurd, like Kurt Vonnegut, could not do justice. Covid-19 was exploited for totalitarian purposes, and at the same time an epidemic of “anarchy” was exploited for the exact same purposes. In both cases, it was about instilling fear in the populace – fear and helplessness – and causing them to flee, in panic, into the waiting arms of the ruling elite (cleverly disguised as a “democratically-elected government”). One could say, in imitation of Winston Churchill, that “never before was so much accomplished in so little time by so few”. The ruling elite made a killing (literally in some cases) and consolidated its gains – and, in case you haven't noticed, those gains are still in place. The Ministry of Fear (a new addition to the Executive Branch) is alive and well, and perking along like a well-oiled machine. “Monkey Pox”? That's so last week. Count on them to come up with something else within the next news cycle. The point is that Covid-19 showed the ruling elite what the populace is willing to believe – and the riots showed them what the populace is willing to put up with (but not without limit – at least so far).

Think of it as one vast experiment. Not necessarily planned (in the case of Covid) but when the “crisis” struck, the mechanisms were in place to take full advantage of it. (If it wasn't all planned, it sure felt that way, and no one can criticize any “conspiracy theorist” for believing that it was.) And the juxtaposition of Covid with the riots of Summer 2020 was the perfect formula to instill fear as well as demoralization and despair. Convince the American public that they have nothing to lose by choosing totalitarianism, and that's precisely what they'll choose. Peace at any price! Anything for (alleged) health! Better to exist as a pod person than to stand tall and with self-respect. And converting the populace to a state of servitude? All most of them will feel is a faint bump, since they are already thoroughly anaesthetized by the media and the “entertainment” industry. (Throw in professional sports if you like.) (Go Steelers!)

But now wait – if the Antifa types, and their sponsors and supporters and facilitators, were not genuine anarchists, but were just softening up the battlefield, what does that say about the agenda of the people who are really in charge? Do they really want anarchy? A Mad Max-type world, where warlords are fighting over gasoline? That hardly seems like the basis for world domination. To put it another way – how low can we go before someone hits the brakes? At what point do these clueless Antifa types outlive their usefulness and wind up exterminated like so many rodents, the way the Red Guard was after their mission for Chairman Mao was accomplished? Another way of putting it is this: Given that the revolution is under way, how far does it have to go before someone decides that it's gone far enough, and lowers the boom?

Consider, for a moment, the casualties (to date, or soon to come) of the revolution:

1. Honest and legitimate elections – already a thing of the past, at least on the federal level and on many state and local levels. You kind of get a glimpse of how this works when one of the two major political parties, i.e. the Republicans, are accused of being “domestic terrorists”.

2. The rule of law in general, vs. diktats from the White House and Congressional committees. “Equal justice under the law” is manifestly extinct (assuming it ever existed). And for all intents and purposes the law has been replaced by the regulatory state, supervised by non-elected bureaucrats who nonetheless have police powers (and police forces, in many cases).

3. The whole gender issue (who or what is a male or female, and do those labels mean anything, and if not should they be abolished, etc.)

4. Parental control over the education of their children – explicitly prohibited in many public school districts

5. Freedom of speech (without “being canceled” or losing one's livelihood)

6. Freedom of association (now referred to as “racism” and/or “sexism”) (The key concept here is that there is no longer such a thing as a “private entity”, which can be run in any way those in charge see fit. Every organization – commercial, social, religious, whatever – is now considered a public utility, and hence subject to any and all laws and regulations governing membership and how they are operated.)

7. Freedom of religion (without harassment or discrimination)

8. Privacy (vs. the government monitoring your every move and transaction)

And consider also the things that haven't changed. The United States, which is in decline in every way (economically, socially, politically, culturally, morally) is still expected to be the world's policeman, and to “spread democracy” like Johnny Appleseed, except with unlimited firepower – and to act, for all intents and purposes, as the armed forces of Western Europe, Israel, and Japan. How long anyone expects this to persist – or even be possible – is a good question; a lot of delusional thinking is going on in this area.

Just this much gets us into the territory of absurdity and farce. Then you have things like the national debt, which will never, i.e. never, never, ever, be repaid, which puts us firmly in the hands of our creditors, the most prominent being China. Then we have the latest war by proxy – Ukraine (our guys) vs. Russia (evil!). Our foreign policy – and its operatives – belong in a circus freak show. It does seem that, for all of our pretenses, we are actually in a situation not unlike that of a beached whale, to which anyone can walk up and cut off a piece of blubber. We are a blundering, staggering giant (albeit heavily armed, dangerous, and unpredictable), and the smart money is on whoever can manage to tie us up and put us in a cage like King Kong.

But is this all there is to it? Is this what the Davos crowd has in mind? Just to nibble away at the good ol' USA until there's nothing left but a hapless populace just waiting to do the bidding of whoever takes over? Are we really to become a colony of the E.U. or of other more vigorous powers (like, um, China for instance)? (And you know what being a colony means, historically – a source of raw materials, i.e. wealth which is always spirited away by the colonial power, and a source of cannon fodder for whatever wars are in fashion at the time.) (You might have noticed that the cannon fodder part of this has been underway for a bit over 100 years now, but has been more pronounced in recent decades. As I've said before, we just don't do war right – the least we can do is show a profit!)

See, when I talk about the “ruling elite”, yes, there is that class in the U.S., but there's also that class elsewhere on the globe, and the question is which is dominant? Who controls whom? I think the answer, or part of it, is that our own ruling elite are not subject to old-fashioned feelings of patriotism, or even of nationalism; they would just as soon see us go down the drain as a culture if they can remain in control and in a symbiotic relationship with the ruling elite elsewhere. This is the globalist mindset, and it's no secret – it's preached to the rafters in confabs like Davos, not to mention other less-overt hideouts around the globe. (When certain members of the ruling elite go off radar for a while – days or weeks – you can be pretty sure they're having strategy meetings somewhere, and a major agenda item will always be “whither America?”)  (Up until now, their position has been that they can't live with us, but they can't live without us.  Watch for the day when they decide that they can, in fact, live without us.)

In other words, to the globalists, things like countries, nations, governments (“democracies” included – both the real kind and the make-believe kind) are obsolete and just get in the way of the agenda – as do things like tradition, ethnicity, religion, customs, etc. The ideal globalist is the person who has no roots anywhere on the globe – who is truly a “world citizen”, which means, basically, a citizen of nowhere. So how can you expect them to have any kind of loyalty to... pretty much anything? The American economy? Let it crash. American “values”, traditions, etc.? Please. (A significant milestone was reached recently when some domestic organizations and governmental bodies pronounced the American flag "racist” and a “trigger”.) The Constitution? That's a waste of perfectly good scrap paper – but it still serves as a fetish object, to preserve an illusion. The American citizens (or the pathetic subset called “voters”)? Perfect candidates for slavery and/or cannon fodder. And as for religion – well, we have camps for people who still subscribe to such nonsense.

Now, notice that in none of this do we find concern for things like “women's issues”, “gender issues”, “racial issues”, etc. Not even “climate change”, in fact. No – these are luxuries and hobby-horses – political clubs with which to smite one's opponents – and they will vanish the minute the consolidation is complete. No, the global elite doesn't give a rat's ass about your “identity” – they just push identity politics as a weapon – as a way of furthering the agenda. In the brave new world of their dreams, everyone will be equally oppressed and exploited – everyone will be equally part of a “victim class”, with only the rulers having any special privileges.

This is their dream. But is it possible here? One would hope not. One indicator is that it hasn't happened yet – and not for lack of trying. The left has been working on this since the Progressive Era – there have been advances and setbacks, but you can't say victory is complete – at least not yet. All communist revolutions are, allegedly, aimed at producing a “classless” society – which they do. Almost. What you wind up with are two classes – the oppressed slaves and the elite (in the Soviet Union they were known as the Nomenklatura). And actually, this is the real goal. The last thing on earth any good revolutionary wants is to wind up with a truly anarchistic society (a contradiction in terms right there). What they want is a society of serfs with them in charge – and please notice that, as always, the poor beleaguered middle class is nowhere in sight. It's not part of the plan, any more than churches showed up in Hitler's blueprint for a new, improved Berlin. If there's one thing all anarchists and totalitarians can agree on, it's that the middle class has got to go. (How one sustains a modern technological society with a complex economy without a middle class is a good question, which they never stop to consider, leave alone answer.)

----- o -----

So to return to the home front – American society is on the way down, in every discernible way. (Give me one example where it isn't. I'm waiting.) And yet, according to my preferred model, it's not just disorder and chaos. In fact, the disorder and chaos are only on the surface – they are allowed, if you will, in order to provide cover for the real agenda and for its promoters, as well as a distraction from the task of figuring out what is really going on, and doing something about it. True disorder and chaos – true anarchy – would not be something someone could turn on and off like a light switch, which, as I pointed out, is exactly what happened after the summer riots of 2020. And – just as “war is the health of the state” in the international arena, riots are the health of the state on the domestic side; they lead to ever more layers of law and regulation, which expands the administrative state, law enforcement, and the “corrections” (read: prison) industry.

So someone is in charge. Someone is pulling the strings, and they have their foot poised over the brake pedal, although they haven't touched it as yet. (They're still too busy flooring the gas pedal.) The question is, how much is enough? Or, how much is too much, at which point adjustments have to be made? (In the early days of the Soviet Union, those in charge eventually decided that a modicum of private property and private enterprise might not be such a bad thing, given that people were starving to death by the millions because of collectivization. Something similar happened more recently in China in the wake of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, which counted casualties in the tens of millions. This eventually led to a mash-up of communism and capitalism, which – incredibly -- actually seems to work, although purists would say that it's neither one.) (One could write a decent treatise on the conflict of visions between human nature as it is, and human nature as altered by revolution or by fiat. Human nature as it is tends to get in the way of Utopian plans – so annoying! But just try ignoring it. If there is one thing that is never learned throughout history, it is that human nature is the same – always and everywhere.)

To help answer the question of how low can we (should we, will we) go, we have to try to think about what the ruling elite (our own, and the globalists elsewhere) want. Obviously, they want control – and the more total the better. And they don't want any competition, e.g. loyalty to race, ethnicity, religion, language, tradition, etc. They are world citizens, and everyone else should be as well, and should like it – or be punished if they don't. But ultimately, a society composed of rulers and slaves can only be stable, and even productive, if the slaves are satisfied with their lot, or at least not inclined to open rebellion. Another way of putting this is that they have to be “deracinated” – made to forget (via propaganda, amusements, drugs, whatever) that there is such a thing as genuine identity rooted in the eternal verities – race, ethnicity, faith, gender, language, custom, tradition, etc.

This, by the way, is what “diversity” is all about. It's actually conformity in disguise, as in: You can be “diverse”, but only in approved ways, i.e. in some sort of artificial, play-acting, political sense. True diversity based on culture and tradition must be stamped out, and the memory of such things must be stamped out as well. I'm always amused at what happens when the “diversity” buffs find out what a given racial/ethic group really thinks of some other racial/ethnic group. You'll find them recoiling in horror! “Surely these nice people with their cool foods and quaint costumes and folk music can't be 'racists', or bigots, or 'haters'.” Right... (Back in 1966, a friend of mine and I drove through Yugoslavia, which was still one country at that point, and we were totally unaware of all of the visceral hatreds (going back centuries) that were lurking below the placid surface and just waiting for a chance to burst forth, as they wound up doing starting in 1991.)

In any case, it seems that the revolution is already well along – not just starting, which is how it appeared in 2020. Problem is, there are pockets of resistance – big ones, and they are deep. So let's say that that resistance, however it is manifested, eventually winds up successfully co-opted, suppressed, pacified, rendered impotent. It may still be there, but it won't count. And this is, in fact, becoming the position of the “deplorables” at this time – the ruling elite is content to, basically, ignore them, unless they start to wander off the reservation (like “attacking the Capitol” for instance). But will this sort of bizarre peaceful coexistence continue? Remember that to the totalitarian, just lack of resistance is not good enough – your very mind has to be cleansed of any negative thoughts (the nearest lobotomy clinic is as close as your TV set). The media are, of course, at the forefront of this effort, but there are still holdouts, and will they be tolerated or will they be hunted down the way the Biden administration has vowed to hunt down “domestic terrorists”, AKA Trump supporters, with the help of the military? It remains to be seen.

So we will go down, because we're already going down – but hitting rock bottom? Not on the agenda, in my opinion. After all, the ruling elite have to have something to rule, right? This post-nuclear, dystopian image of the isolated fortress on a mountain in the midst of a blighted wasteland – all very picturesque, but unrealistic. I suppose one possible turning point will be when there is no longer any resistance – and once again, the major communist countries did arrive at that point eventually (although it can be argued that the Third Reich didn't – but 12 years is not really a fair test). The price to be paid was, of course, gulags – prisons – killing fields – concentration camps – and so on. (Cambodia is my favorite example, because half the population had to be slaughtered by the other half before peace could break out. But once it did, by gosh, it was the real thing!) And ironically, it almost seems that the relative lack of resistance to the revolution that we see in America today might serve to prevent things from going that far. So far, in the relativistic sense, our revolution can be considered “soft”, and it may well stay that way. I mean, if the most prominent locus of resistance is outfits like the Proud Boys, we hardly have to worry about the military splitting into two warring factions (as it did in post-revolutionary Russia), or a significant counter-revolutionary force along the lines of the War in the Vendee (France). It would seem that brute force is not the first choice of our current revolutionaries, who are more technocrats and bureaucrats than soldiers (imagine Bill Gates, in a suit of armor like Joan of Arc, leading an army) (oops, sorry, I didn't mean to say that just as you were sipping your coffee). But they have weapons that armies down through history could scarcely imagine – TV, film, the social media, communication in general, and the surveillance state, which is now firmly in place.

Please note that, in terms of popular entertainment, there are two basic types of dystopia – the less-than-completely-successful kind, where there is still significant resistance (armed and otherwise), and the successful kind where drugs, brainwashing, catering to every carnal whim, etc. have done their work. Those among us who are gearing up for a good fight might actually wish for the former kind, but my bet is that the latter is far more likely – especially since most of it is already firmly in place.

(Next up – political and historical significance)

A Disease for All Seasons

 

It seems like only yesterday that... no, actually, it seems like it's been ten years since... I put out a blog post entitled “Conspiracies on Parade” (April 19, 2020 – still available!) inspired by the -- at that time – new and springtime-fresh plague that was well on its way to making a shambles of the economy and of society in general – not that plagues do this unaided, but that the “policies” imposed and enforced by totalitarian means to “manage” the plague had appeared almost overnight – which kind of makes you wonder, were they already set up in advance and only had to wait until the “balloon went up”, as the saying goes? (File this under the heading of “suspected, but unproven”. More to come.)

If you have the time and the inclination, I urge you to re-read (OK, read, whatever) the post in question in order to set the tone for the present discussion. In some ways, it's incredible that this problem is still with us – whatever happened to “15 days to slow the spread”? (That was the 2020 version of “duck and cover” – reassuring until people realized that it was totally absurd.)

So – using the 4/19/20 post as a baseline, I'm going to take advantage of the breather that has been bestowed upon us by Vladimir Putin, who, merely by invading Ukraine, has managed to drive all competing stories off the mainstream print and broadcast media and the Internet. We can argue all day as to what this means, as in – does it mean that Covid, nee Corona, was never real to begin with, and as such cannot hope to compete with events that are very real? Or does it mean that Covid entering Year 3 has become a bit shopworn, so even if it is genuine it's no match for newer and more exciting current events? Or is it just the MSM chasing the newest butterfly, and Covid will circle around eventually and become, once again, the Big Story?

I guess we have both Covid and Ukraine to thank for reminding us that “the news” is not necessarily what's actually most important at the time (or possibly at any other time as well), but is the result of a selection process by the collective organs of propaganda designed to maximize and accelerate the cycle of fear, and thus create, in the citizenry, despair of ever truly exercising their rights as free citizens, but to substitute an even more intense feeling of helplessness and willingness to submit to the government, AKA the ruling elite, for all their needs (including all the things they've been convinced, by the advertising industry, that they need). If fewer people than ever distrust “the news”, and government in general, that could be considered at least a thin silver living to the cloud that has been looming over us for two-plus years.

So – let's get started. The most obvious initial question is, is (was) Corona/Covid a hoax? Is it really a “novel” virus of murky origins that has attacked, without warning, the global population and necessitated a total reset of national economies and people's life styles? I admit that I haven't studied the matter in detail, but it appears that there actually is a virus out there, and that it is “novel”, in that it exhibits new qualities and new combinations of qualities (including symptoms and responses to medication and treatment), and that it's not “just the flu” as some have claimed (for one thing, it doesn't seem to exhibit the same seasonal cycles as the typical flu virus). And it appears that it does, indeed, mutate – thankfully from more dangerous to less harmful versions, but – this time more like the flu – it comes along in waves, and it will be a long time, if ever, before we will see the end of it. And the fact that it can attack people of all ages, all races/creeds/colors, in all climates, of all social and economic conditions, etc., indicates that it is robust and adaptable, even if the more serious cases seem to correlate with preexisting conditions like age, general health, obesity, life style, whether or not they watch TV (not a complete joke), and so on.

I present the foregoing as an unproven basis of reference for what follows. (For those who believe it truly is/was a complete hoax, don't touch that dial, because I'll be discussing ideas that you will find appealing aside from the hoax question.)

OK. The first theory I discussed in the previous post was:

Yes, it originated in China, but it was no accident. It was an intentional biological attack on the U.S. in retaliation for economic and trade sanctions, our position on Taiwan, our positions on currency manipulation, intellectual property, etc. As such, it was intended to be a “shot off our bow”, i.e. get out of our face or else (it could be worse).

Discussion: The China origin theory is still in question – by China. Again, choosing probability over proof (which is impossible at this point), I would say that China is the culprit. But then, was it intentional? And the first argument against this would be – if it was, why wasn't it aimed at the U.S. in a more precise, “surgical” manner? Why let it out of a lab in a city no one had ever heard of up to that point, and let it run amok in the local population, when it could have simply been shipped over here and added to the water supply in certain major cities? Answer: Can you say “plausible deniability”, class? If the first victims were Chinese citizens, that would tend to derail any notion that the virus was aimed at the U.S. – and as for any notion that normal human compassion would have prevented the Chinese government from doing such a thing, just take a weekend off some time and read up on Mao's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution for a taste of how highly the Chinese government values human life.

Having said that, as retaliation for economic and trade sanctions, something that pretty much trashed the world's economy and brought world trade to a halt for a time would seem to be an odd way of going about this. (They would have been much better off demanding that we pay off their share of our national debt.) And as for Taiwan, the Chinese are playing the long game, and sure enough, it's already paying off with our response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese are seeing what Russia can and can't get away with, and they may be perfectly willing to commit to the same outcome for the sake of reclaiming Taiwan. (But it wouldn't be as severe, because China has a much firmer foothold in the U.S. economy than Russia ever had.)

And as for currency manipulation, guess who just put the ruble on the gold standard. That's sending more shock waves through global monetary systems than anything China ever did.

Intellectual property? The Chinese are buying so much of it up on the global market that they scarcely have to steal it any longer.

To sum up, the predictable outcome of a global pandemic would have been seen as “overkill” when it comes to getting our attention – not that China is incapable of any sort of blackmail and extortion, nor do they have any qualms about doing so. It's more a proportionality question. But before we leave this idea totally, consider Variation 1:

Variation 1: It was a probe – a test case – to see how effective biological warfare would be, what our response would be, etc. Corona was never intended to be the ultimate weapon, in other words; that's still under development.

I'll use the “precision” argument again on this one. You can test biological warfare agents in a smaller area than the entire planet. However, having said that, even if the release was not intentional it did indeed serve as a test case, which could serve quite well if, in the future, China decides to resort to biological extortion. (This falls under the heading of “unintentional consequences which turn out to be beneficial” – at least in one respect.) And yes, anyone who doesn't see Covid as the beta version of something much worse is dreaming. But then how about:

Variation 2: The intention was not only near-term but long-term. By bringing the U.S. to its knees economically, China would be assuring its ascent to the position of leading economic power on the planet – and, soon to follow, leading military power.

This is actually a more likely motive. Any plague that impacts the entire globe will impact the U.S., and more severely in some respects, since we have the most complex, multi-layered, interdependent economy on earth – a benefit of our technological and logistical sophistication, but also an Achilles' Heel, as was brought out in sharp relief in the first few months of the pandemic. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall” could have been coined to describe what happened to the U.S. economy – true no matter what one thinks of the motives of the authorities. Could China have predicted a total lockdown of the U.S. economy? Seems unlikely, but who can say? They may have actually been pleasantly surprised at the readiness with which our officials committed economic suicide. In any case, it did serve to weaken us on both an absolute scale and also relative to other less complex, less “developed” economies around the globe.

I say this is more likely, but I would still not give it a very high grade, for the simple reason that China already has a virtual stranglehold on large sectors of the U.S. economy, and why “blow it” by causing unneeded distress, chaos, and destruction? Leave the heavy-handedness to others. Remember, when it comes to China, the long game and patience are the watchwords, as they have been throughout their history.

OK, then – but how about:

Variation 3: The focus was on causing major damage to our military, which has turned out (no surprise, if you know anything about history) to be particularly vulnerable to viral infections and epidemics. If you can sap the strength of the U.S. military, and get it to stand down, it's much easier for China to continue its high jinks in the South China Sea unimpeded. (If the military was the prime target, then the civilian population counts only as “collateral damage” – something that aggressors are always willing to accept.)

I think we can safely dispense with this one. Our military turned out to be quite robust in its response to the pandemic, and the fact that military personnel tend to be young and healthy, and in good physical condition, was probably the best preventive one could hope for. And yes, disease has ever been the enemy of armies – but they didn't have the resources we have, and Covid turns out to be much less deadly than most of the traditional, “old-fashioned” diseases that armies are prone to.

However, this does not mean that something much more lethal couldn't be unleashed, in a more precise fashion, on our military, either in garrison or in war zones – and this is the very reason that the military has long been heavily involved in research and prevention when it comes to biological warfare. So from that point of view, the “test case” theory – even if unintentional – gets high marks.

Then there's the footnote to the preceding scenarios:

China has decided that a direct military confrontation with the U.S. would be costly, and they might not even win. So they had to come up with something completely different (if not totally unexpected – after all, we've been studying the biological warfare issue since before World War II).

Again, Covid turned out to be a dud in this respect, but it may have paved the way for something worse – something that could turn the tide in a military confrontation. But this assumes (1) conventional forces rather than air power only (or nukes); and (2) solving the precision issue (recall how mustard gas attacks in World War I often backfired when the wind shifted). So this is certainly a reason for vigilance.

That was the first scenario with variations. Now we shift gears a bit:

It was a false flag operation on the part of the globalists and their collaborators in the U.S. (including no small portion of the Deep State). See that China gets the blame, while in fact they are creating a crisis in order to (1) cut the U.S. down to size, and (2) increase the power of central government exponentially, which will, in turn, (3) increase the power of the globalist elite once they consolidate their control over the U.S. government, which will, at that point, become a mere proxy or shadow government for the globalist empire, the way most Western European governments already are.

“False flag?” That's exactly what the Chinese are claiming, and they haven't given up on that story. My sense is that the preponderance of evidence indicates that the origin was in China and connected to a Chinese military research facility. But again – was it “an ill wind” that provided unexpected benefits to those with globalist tendencies? Certainly. When you see the ease with which the U.S. economy was, for all intents and purposes, nationalized (the government not taking over, but regulating, down to the most minute detail, businesses from the largest to the most minuscule) – and the ease with which virtually all other human activities were either locked down or closely monitored (schools, shopping, dining, live entertainment, etc.), the results could only have warmed the hearts of globalists and totalitarians everywhere. If America, the land of the free, can be turned into a land of helpless victims, paralyzed by fear, almost overnight, then there is no limit, is there? If it can happen here it can happen anywhere (and has, by and large – especially (ironically) in the other English-speaking countries).

Now... if you've noticed an apparent contradiction between the agenda of cutting the U.S. down to size and increasing the power of central government, allow me to clarify. We get cut down to size on the international/global/diplomatic level (well under way with Biden in charge), but on the domestic level become more totalitarian (ditto). The result is that the citizenry become acclimated to big government that meddles in every aspect of their lives, but at the same time the global elite are consolidating their reach and their power, with America as first prize. So the transition from what we have now to one-world government would be painless, if even noticeable. (This is assuming it hasn't already happened, which is a point worth debating.) I think this is the long-term plan with or without China, and with or without Covid – just that Covid has served to accelerate the process and provide a convenient rationale for measures which would otherwise have looked obviously tyrannical.

So really, the question of whether or not to “blame” China has faded into obscurity at this point. The test case was created, intentionally or not, and it had results... data were gathered... and the outlines of what global tyranny would look like became shockingly clear. Shockingly – because of how easy it was. We thought we valued freedom, but the next minute we were locking ourselves indoors for months at a time, then marching off, robot-like, to vaccination centers, with “smiley faces” everywhere you look. The wonderful world of George Orwell is here! It's no longer a threat, or a distant possibility.

I would say that of all the “benefits” of the plague – looked-for and otherwise – this has to stand as the one that will be seen to have made the most difference in the long run. The global elite has the citizenry by the – well, you know – and half the citizenry doesn't care, and the other half are reduced to bootless protests for which they are promptly punished.

And again, the U.S. was more severely impacted simply because of the titanic structure of our economy and the social mechanisms that go with it, and this did indeed cut us down, not quite to size, but enough to provide welcome data for the global elite's future planning. The U.S. will not be a pocket of resistance, in other words – we will not be the Ukraine to the global elite's Russia. There will be resistance, for sure; there already is. But the main elements have been shown up in all of their weakness and vulnerability – the ready demoralization of the populace is now a historical fact – and we have, when you run the numbers, many more who comply, and cooperate, and follow the crowd off the cliff than those troublemakers who believe in liberty and self-sufficiency. And don't think any of this has gone unnoticed. It will come back to haunt us, and sooner than we expect.

OK then... how about this:

It was cooked up by the vaccination industry and lobby in order to demonstrate, once and for all, that vaccination is the only way to survive, and that vaccinations for every conceivable ailment, up to and including toenail fungus, should be mandated by the government, and anyone who objects should be arrested and jailed because their reckless ideas threaten public health.

This is another case of a “discovered benefit”. I don't think the vax people started it, but the way they jumped on it indicates that it was, for them, a blessing in disguise – not only because it freed up unlimited funding, but it gave them time (nearly a year) to work up the narrative that vaccination was the only thing that was going to save the human race from this plague – and that any alternative treatments were unscientific, dangerous, and should be banned. And this is still the basic narrative, although things have loosened up a bit with regard to therapeutics, owing largely to the pressure of public (1) skepticism re vaccination and (2) demand for alternatives. And of course, the counter-narratives about the dangers of the vaccines, side effects, unexplained deaths, etc. added to the mix. As did, of course, the passage of time, which showed that refusing to be vaccinated was not a death sentence, and that the “unvaxed” were not an army of Typhoid Marys out to infect and kill everyone else.

Another contributing factor – and perhaps the most important one – has been the complete and utter politicization of the whole thing. First it was “Trump's vaccine”, which no self-respecting liberal would submit to. And then the instant Biden moved into the White House it became “Biden's vaccine”, which acquired sacramental status among liberals, but caused skepticism and downright paranoia among Trump supporters, conservatives in general, libertarians, and pretty much anyone else who could be described as anti-establishment.

So what are we to make of a medical treatment that is accepted or rejected based almost solely on one's political position? There are other things in medicine that show a similar phenomenon, and things in the food and beverage industries as well, but this seems like an extreme case, which is odd since we're supposedly talking about “science” here, right? Isn't that one of the few areas of life in which we can find general agreement? Well... no. The lesson is that when science is corrupted by politics it ceases to be science, for all intents and purposes. It becomes a battleground and a political cause instead – and given what has been going on for many years with “global warming”, AKA “climate change”, this should not have come as a complete surprise.

And this phenomenon is not limited to the “unwashed” by any means. Scientists themselves tend to become defensive at the drop of a hat, as witness the grandiose statements by Anthony Fauci. (Didn't he, at one point, say “I AM science”, or something to that effect? And here I thought Louis XIV had retired.) But this is because they have, at some point, left science behind and opted to become media stars (Fauci again) – and once this happens there is no turning back, because your credibility is in the dumpster.

(And don't get me wrong. I'm a trained scientist myself – but I think I know where science leaves off and politics (and personal agendas) begin. Science is supposed to be self-correcting; in fact, that's one of its essential qualities, without which it devolves into belief and opinion. When the self-correcting function is disabled (as it was with much of the media coverage of the pandemic and the treatments) then whatever remains is untrustworthy and deserves all the skepticism it attracts.)

Try a thought experiment here. What if the space program – not the funding priorities but the actual technology – had turned into a political battlefield? We'd never have even gotten into orbit, leave alone to the Moon (relax, Moon landing skeptics – I'm just trying to make a point here). It's interesting that when it comes to rocket science, which very people understand (hence the meme), politics tends to take a back seat – or no seat at all. But when it comes to medicine, which everybody thinks they understand to some extent (especially media talking heads and entertainment types), politics can take over with no trouble. Oh, but – you might say – medicine is an inexact science compared to the pure physics of rocketry; there is plenty of room for opinion and debate. Fair enough, but that opinion and debate should still be confined to the sphere of science rather than becoming raw meat for the media, Internet, and late-night talk shows. Covid seems to have turned the entire populace, from the lowest to the highest, into medical experts, whereas it more likely just accelerated and amplified the pre-existing level of ignorance.

And then we have –

It was a false flag operation on the part of our own Deep State, which seeks (1) a death blow to the Trump administration, because all other efforts have failed; and (2) an exponential increase in the power and reach of the Deep State, with the ultimate goal of complete control of the citizenry, including monitoring all movements, transactions, and social contacts. (The totalitarian dream, in other words.)

This would make sense if one considers the Corona/Covid virus to be a complete hoax. I have allowed that there is “something” to it, just not as presented in the doomsday/end-of-the-world manner of the health establishment early on, and their facilitators in the media. But – never letting a crisis go to waste, the enemies of Donald Trump, which were (and continue to be) legion, jumped at the chance to accuse Trump & Co. of “not doing enough” – as if anyone knew, at the time, what should be done. The utter chaos that characterized (and continues to) things like masks, social distancing, isolation, etc. – recall that this was pre-vaccination – was happily used, by his enemies, as a mark against Trump. Another discovered benefit, in other words.

I think it can at least be postulated that, despite all of the efforts of the combined Deep State, the media, academia, the entertainment industry, Congress, the intelligence/law enforcement community, etc. to bring down Trump and his administration, it might have survived the election of 2020 if Covid hadn't been in the mix. But along with everything else, Covid became the poison pill that put Biden over the top. I can't prove this, of course, but I present it as a possibility.

As for the larger issue of increasing the power and reach of the Deep State, it certainly accomplished that to some degree, as any crisis will, which is why we now have, firmly established, government-by-crisis (being a perfect reflection of the media, for whom crises are their life's blood).

The biggest surprise, however, was the extent to which mayors and governors have absolute power – or, let's say, they can assume absolute power and no one can stop them. It turns out that mayors really do rule cities, and that governors really do rule states – to a much more thorough extent than anything the federal government is capable of at this point. In an ironic sort of way, this should have been good news to libertarians and fans of subsidiarity – but of course it depended on whether the officials in question had libertarian leanings, or whether they fancied themselves mini-Napoleons. Unfortunately, there were more of the latter type than of the former. But still, as a lesson learned, it was quite striking, and one should take it to heart whenever elections come around. Your vote might wind up electing the next tinhorn dictator – is that what you want?

Or –

It was a false flag operation on the part of our economic “planners”, political ideologues, “agents of change”, and the ruling elite. Getting rid of Trump is necessary, but it's only a first step. The main goal is to deliver the final death blow to the American middle class, and finally achieve what the elites have been dreaming of for generations – namely, a slave state made up of serfs and rulers, with the middle class eliminated as an economic and political factor. Note that:

• The titans of big business have no problem at all with the shutdown – in fact, they're urging Trump to keep it going indefinitely. That should be a clue right there. And with their cash reserves, they can weather just about anything while they wait for their “stimulus” check from the Treasury Department.

• The ruling elite and the working classes have recently discovered a common cause in demonizing the middle class and gradually eroding its resources and influence. This is exemplified in the makeup of the Democratic Party.

• The economic shutdown is having a much more severe effect on the middle class – in terms of employment, income, and small business – than on big business (an example being the DJIA, which took a major hit but is still alive and well, because it represents big business, which has sufficient reserves to ride this out, whereas small businesses are dropping like flies and unlikely to recover). (It's also possible that the scheme included letting the Dow take a hit as a cover – “See, we're suffering too”, etc. But see what recovers first when this is over with.)

Again, I don't trust the false-flag idea, but as a discovered benefit – sure. Who suffered the most from the lockdowns? Well, we know the answer – small business, i.e. an activity of the middle class. Small businesses of all sorts, with the possible exception of carry-outs, were indeed dropping like flies for many months – and Internet-based businesses (owned by oligarchs) prospered as never before. Which is to say that countless middle-class people took an economic hit and became no longer middle class, but members of the vast army of “service industry” wage earners.

So has this situation reversed itself to any significant degree? I don't have the numbers of this, but what I suspect is that people who became accustomed to buying via the Internet decided it wasn't a bad idea – kind of convenient, actually – a lot of choices, etc. Stuff gets delivered. And so on. So if there is a recovery, I suspect it's far from complete – and one could argue that there's nothing wrong with this, but that would be to say that small businesses ought to just go quietly away and leave it up to Amazon. Pardon me if I'm somewhat sentimental about “Main Street” and the people who work there (or used to).

I'm going to copy the footnotes to the above theory without further comment. I think they still have considerable general relevance independently of the Covid era.  (And please excuse the formatting issues -- they are beyond my total control.)

Footnote 1: Why is the middle class so despised and persecuted? (And why, for that matter, has this process been going on ever since the Progressive Era, although it has become much more blatant over the last 50 years?) For one thing, it tends to be, and vote, conservatively-- especially if you're talking about people in agriculture, small business, and the skilled trades. People who do meaningful work that has a well-defined product, and people with ties to the land, are naturally more conservative. It's the paper traders and parasites who tend toward the liberal side.

Footnote 2: What the people in charge of this project intend is for small business to vanish, and for all of those enterprises to be absorbed into vast industrial and commercial cartels which will eventually become synonymous with the State. Note that (1) this process is already underway, with predatory large businesses gobbling up small businesses at a rapid rate, and turning those business owners into franchisees at best, and wage slaves at worst; and (2) what we call “crony capitalism” will, in its ultimate state of evolution, become either business being a wholly-owned subsidiarity of the State, or vice versa. This will be a distinction without a difference. Whether those in charge are called CEOs or commissars will make no difference to the disenfranchised citizenry.




• Footnote 3: But how does a “modern, industrialized society” function without a middle class? We've had that discussion before. The answer is that it doesn't – not in the way we're used to. But the Soviet Union managed to pull it off for many decades. (China, on the other hand, was stuck in the stone age until they decided to try a bit of free enterprise and property rights. And apparently it worked.)

And finally...

It was a deal worked out between China – birth-control experts extraordinaire – and the ZPG cartel, to reduce populations worldwide because free and unrestricted abortion has failed to do the job (as has war).

It was an act of sabotage by the “greens” and eco-fanatics, who are already celebrating the improvement in air quality as the result of restrictions on commerce and travel.

As to the first, the birth-control movement always has a keen interest in anything that threatens to reduce global populations, whether by “natural causes” or otherwise. China has, of course, been on the side of radical birth control for decades; less so in the U.S., and here one notices that the campaign is typically aimed at certain selected minorities – the same ones that Margaret Sanger didn't think too much of. But as for a deal having been made, again I see what may have been an accident as a test case as well. I'm sure it got the attention, in particular, of not only birth-control advocates but ZPG types, and the even more radical element that wants to reduce global populations back to levels of a few decades ago. In the practical sense, using biological weapons as a shotgun approach to reducing populations would certainly raise containment issues. After all, we all breathe the same air (at least I assume the ruling elites do).

As for the “greens”, now that one of the benefits of working from home, or not working, has been brought out in sharp relief, you can expect them to continue to promote this as a good trend (and, having dealt with traffic on the D.C. Beltway for many years, I find it hard to disagree).

But speaking of biological weapons... the “elephant in the room” in all of this, and something that is completely suppressed by the mainstream media, is the question of what on earth we were doing not only working with the Chinese government on biological warfare research, but actually supporting it (Fauci again). I mean... OK, we've been experimenting with bio-warfare agents for decades, presumably in order to develop defenses in case the technology is aimed at us (either at our military or our population in general). And it wouldn't be all that scandalous if we were working with our allies on the same thing. But China? Our “enemy”, “rival”, “competitor for world dominance”? I mean, what's going on here? Maybe someone figured that the old saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” should apply to bio-warfare research. Or, maybe we were anticipating that someday we and China would be working together in order to... what? You can see why the MSM don't want to open this can of worms. And yet, I think it's the most important question that can be asked at this point. If we worked with China and funded this research and then something “escaped”, isn't that just as much our fault as theirs? In order to make any sense of this, you have to go way beyond the standard conspiracy model.

In a world of paradoxes, a few stand out when it comes to Covid. One is that there was a sudden and significant centralization of commerce (from “brick and mortar” to the Internet), but at the same time a decentralization of the workplace (office vs. home, school vs. home). Also, the pandemic was “managed” (so to speak) by the federal government in terms of distribution of healthcare resources and information (just kidding – it was the opinions of “experts” who changed their minds on a daily basis). But there was also considerable management – much of it way more effective than the federal variety – at the state and local level. Likewise, the more localized policy decisions tended to be more effective and less economically/socially disruptive than the diktats that came down from on high (Washington, D.C., that is). The “experts” on the federal payroll couldn't avoid contradicting each other (and themselves) on a regular basis, whereas there were some more level-headed types working things out at the state (some, not all) and local (ditto) level.

Another unanticipated consequence was the discovery – out of sheer necessity – of home schooling, by parents who had never considered it as a possibility up to then. In many cases they decided they liked it – and that it was, in some cases, worth giving up that second paycheck for – so they kept their kids home even after the schools opened up again – much to the dismay, I'm sure, of the teachers' unions and the boards of education. (And I'm sure the grass-roots movement against the teaching of CRT, and things like the transgender locker room issue, didn't hurt the cause either.)

And last but far from least, we have the most general phenomenon resulting from all of this, namely the ever-widening political and social gap in American society. It was there before, of course – it's been there pretty much since the Founding, but what was arguably a fault line in the 1960s has grown into a canyon, and you can credit Covid and the responses to it, along with the War on Trump, for the yawning abyss we see before us now. And yes, there was a lot more going on in 2020 than a new mystery disease, lest we forget; it was truly an annus horribilis. But some good has come from it as well, it seems to me. Another layer of our much-treasured American optimism and naivete has been chipped away – and I for one would rather see things more as they truly are than to cling to illusions. And anyone with a sense of history can at least appreciate the fact that so much has been brought out in sharp relief – mostly bad, but some good as well. As I've said before, no one wants to live in history – it's too messy, confusing, chaotic, and dangerous. Much better to sit back and view it from afar – in books, on Wikipedia, in movies, etc. But when you're in it, you're in it, and there's no sense in pretending things are any other way.

Thus, my take on Covid and some of the theories that were floating around early on – and continue to do so in many cases. I have chosen to argue against one major class of theories having to do with intentional release of the virus; the probability is still not zero, and never will be, but it just doesn't seem to fit into the big picture. However, the overall theme of “discovered benefits” – mostly negative in their impact on the plain citizen – can be found at every turn. “Cui bono?” And I would say, basically, the usual suspects – globalists, totalitarians, would-be dictators, population control advocates, the ruling elite, multinational corporations, anti-Americans everywhere (including here in America), Big Medicine, Big Pharma, the utterly shameless mainstream media, the Deep State, dictator wannabe's everywhere, population and environmental activists... but also China itself, and biological warfare specialists, all benefiting from the rich data base created by the pandemic.

Who, on the other hand, has suffered the most? Again, the usual victims – the beleaguered middle class, freedom and liberty in general, patriots, and those with a residual and naive trust in government. The good news is that many of these have put up a fight. They protested... they engaged in civil disobedience... the asserted themselves as citizens of a free (even if no longer free) country. The human spirit is not to be conquered by mere diktats or the pronouncements of tyrants – or of the increasingly transparent propaganda apparatus.

And of course there is always that first casualty of war (or any major crisis), namely the truth. We look in vain to find it in the “news”, the media, political speeches, and pronouncements of the current administration and many governors' and mayors' offices. It's truly a taste of what many people around the world had to put up for generations, and continue to do so in many cases – Soviet Russia and its clones come first to mind, but there are other guilty parties as well.

And dare we point out the serious damage this episode did to families, local organizations, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of medical choice, neighborhoods, and friendships? There are people to this day peering out from behind masks... at other people peering out from behind masks. (A better stage set for a dystopian drama, where individuality and personhood have been abolished, can hardly be imagined.) There are countless places one is not allowed to enter without a “vax card” (“Your papers, please” – says the guy in the trench coat with the Luger in his pocket). Paranoia has a new face, except that it's just half a face. The “unvaxed” have been made second-class citizens... no, worse – lepers! Unclean! Truly, the pod people have taken over in many parts of the country. And yes, the madness seems to be abating a bit, but there has been permanent damage, and the scars will remain – for a lifetime I imagine.

But to end on a more positive note – the eternal verities are still with us because they are indeed eternal. They may be attacked and persecuted by malevolent rulers, but they will not die because they are an essential component of human nature – and in this, at least, we may have hope.