The Great Leveling

 

My previous post (“The Long Game”, June 13) dealt with the ruling elite's campaign to turn the U.S. into a new and improved version of the Soviet Union – “new and improved” for a number of reasons, including:

1. Universal surveillance. The KGB of old could only dream of what our rulers already have at their disposal – GPS tracking, social media (the great seductress), and data bases (FBI, IRS, Social Security, health insurance, facial recognition, banking and credit cards, as well as any number of “non-governmental” and “non-profit” data collection centers). And it's not as if those in charge constantly track every movement and transaction of every citizen, but they could if the need arises. Clearly, the ultimate tool of control for any totalitarian state is universal surveillance (one dystopian film showed a TV in every room – it broadcast propaganda and spied on the inhabitants at the same time). I've always said that one reason the Soviet Union collapsed of its own weight was that half the population was employed in spying on the other half. But that was a relatively crude, ham-handed operation. If they had had the automation, artificial intelligence, and analytic capability that we now have, they'd still be in business. (As a side note, I love these news reports of some crime which include “security footage” which typically shows a pretty lousy, low-resolution picture of the “perp” – as if we didn't have image capability way in advance of any of this! But this is very much the same strategy we always used during the Cold War – show the “other side” what we have in the way of technology, but never show them the most advanced stuff. Let them think they're ahead.)

2. Public education – which uses much of the same technology, on top of good old, tried-and-true brainwashing and propaganda (sometimes termed “socialization”). The process is much less painful, and less likely to result in pushback, when it's started at a very young age (with or without the consent of the parents).

3. Communications media and “entertainment” – another arm of the propaganda apparatus, again a quantum improvement over the relatively crude resources of the Soviet Union, e.g. film, radio, newspapers, posters, and very limited television.

4. “Games and circuses” as a form of mass anesthesia, along with a vast array of new and ever more powerful drugs (all the Russians had was vodka).

5. Most importantly of all – the shift from fear as the prime motivator to techniques based on the pleasure principle – sex, addiction, entertainment, sloth, gluttony, as well as envy and hero worship (this time a cultural phenomenon, including professional athletes, rather than the more typical Soviet worship of military heroes and cosmonauts – although, to their credit, they did consider master chess players to be heroes as well).

So if the totalitarian revolutions of old were invariably bloody and took a great death toll, the ongoing revolution of our time is more about appealing to primitive drives and impulses, and what amounts to mind control. Add super-powerful drugs and even mind control isn't that challenging – or perhaps we should call it “no-mind control”.

But my emphasis in the previous post was on this country, by and large, although I did mention Davos and related conclaves as the fountainhead of these ideas and strategies, including the abolition of property rights and of property altogether. But again, the plan is to pull this off in as non-violent and subliminal a way as possible (under normal circumstances, allowing for the occasional riot during election season). Simply talk people out of their rights, or of caring about them – offer them something better, like the all-hallowed “security”, and some of its features like a guaranteed income and the plethora of new “rights” that dominates our public dialogue. What's significant about this is that these new “rights” will eventually take the place of all of our traditional rights, like the ones mentioned in the Constitution. This is already well underway. These will be the “rights” of a defeated, anaesthetized, passive, dependent populace – totally unlike the citizenry of the Founding Fathers' day. But again, to quote one of the Davos speakers, “You'll own nothing, and you'll like it.”

But the U.S. is not, after all, “an island, entire of itself”. It shares a planet with countless other countries, nationalities, kingdoms, creeds, tribes – where do they fit in with all this? First we have to think about globalism as a concept, and as a fact. Where, and when, did it begin? Well, when you consider that globalism, collectivism, and secular humanism are highly correlated if not identical, you might ask where, and when, humanism became dominant in a government, and I would say the French Revolution is as good a place as any to start – and yet that event was highly inspired by the American Revolution, which may not have been explicitly secular, and was certainly not anarchistic, but which nonetheless bore the seeds of humanism. And a bit less than a hundred years later, Karl Marx appeared on the scene with Das Kapital. (And in the meantime, we had the widespread revolutions of 1848 in Europe, and the Paris Commune of 1871.) So the collectivist/totalitarian idea was born (or, let's say, grew to full size, since there had been minor, local collectivist movements up to that point, especially – note! – in the United States, almost always connected to a religious movement or cult – but they were voluntary, unlike the collectivism that stems from humanist politics).

And it hardly needs mentioning that major collectivist and totalitarian movements were almost invariably secular, and usually explicitly anti-religion, since religion – especially of the monotheistic type – naturally tends toward hierarchies. This is why “organized religion” and humanism/collectivism/totalitarianism are natural enemies and will ever remain so. It's ultimately about the world view, and the idea of the nature of mankind and of life in general.

So the globalist agenda, which, I would say, is centered in Western Europe with the American ruling elite as a subsidiary (since we're still a bit cranky about these things, and not as likely to rush into complete socialism as are the Europeans) is dedicated to not only humanism in the classical sense, but to a radical form of humanism which I'll call “leveling”, and which is to be accomplished by means of collectivism and totalitarianism, not just for one country but, ultimately, for the entire world. (Note that there was a debate in the early years of the Soviet Union as to whether to devote more resources to promoting international communism or to perfecting the Soviet version. As I recall, the local version won out as a starting point, with the international version being fully supported but not having priority – “first things first”, if you will. Note also that Trotsky disagreed, and wound up in exile where he could still not escape assassination by Soviet agents.)

And after all, if all men (oops, humans) are created (oops, I mean “evolved through random mutation and natural selection”) equal, then it makes perfect sense that all should enjoy the exact same “rights” (the new kind, not the old kind), and enjoy them to the same exact degree. There is nothing new about this, since when the Soviets collectivized agriculture it was declared to be “fair”, because no one would have any advantages over anyone else – not in terms of land, money, housing or any other resources. (The Chinese under Mao copied this idea almost exactly. If a poor farmer rented a shabby room to some laborer, he was declared to be a “landlord” and was thus subject to arrest.)

But even Russia in the old days was not an entirely peasant society. There was a huge industrial work force as well, and the military. So how does one achieve perfect equality, or “fairness”, when there are so many people with different skills performing a great variety of tasks at many skill levels? You simply declare that no one has any property rights, or property, and that no one is getting paid for their labor. You eat in the government cafeteria, you sleep in the government dormitory, your clothes are doled out to you by the government, and any tools you require are loaned to you, one day at a time, by the government. (And by the way, your children, if you have any, are taken care of by “experts”.) And as to your skills or lack thereof, the government will match you with the most appropriate job. Problem solved! So “equal rights” became, more often than not, equal misery – but at least it was fair!

Or was it? Well – a certain modicum of supervision had to be established, and political officers had to be sent out to every village and town (and military unit) in order to keep people thinking properly and staying with the program. And so these apparatchiks constituted a slightly higher class of citizens, in a way – but don't you dare ever point this out! They were loyal supporters of the revolution, and heroes (I mean, look at all the medals they got to wear). And they only enjoyed a slight degree of inequality for the sake of overall equality. Right, comrade?

And, as I pointed out previously, the elimination of the middle class is, and always was, the sine qua non of any revolution, so at best they could have been kept around in a more servile capacity until they had handed off all of their functions to “the people”. And there is nothing fictitious about this – it happened in Russia, and in China, and in any number of smaller (but in some cases even more radical) countries. And if it could happen there, it can happen here – and in fact is already happening, to a significant degree. (Note that, among other things, the middle class is the “cash cow” which supports the federal budget. So what happens when they disappear? Where's the money going to come from? Don't expect this to dawn on any of our utopian thinkers until it's too late.)

Now, it would be too simplistic to claim that the U.S. is nothing more than a “test case” for globalism. There are plenty of nations far more socialistic, and collectivized, than ours. But the U.S. is the sine qua non. Globalism can only go so far, and will eventually fail, unless the U.S. is fully committed to the idea and acts accordingly. And this has to do with our remaining economic power and influence (even though we're bankrupt and in hopeless debt) as well as our usefulness as a scapegoat. The globalist narrative – quite explicit at times – is that the U.S. is, in fact, the Great Satan, and that if it weren't for our imperialism, aggression, threats, and pushing our weight around, the world would be a much better place. So the U.S. has to be subjected to the globalist agenda through diplomatic and economic incentives, but it also has to have a ring put in its nose so it can be humbled, and pacified, and led around by its masters in Brussels, Davos, Martha's Vineyard, etc.  (A major piece of this humbling process, by the way, is the increasing tolerance -- nay, encouragement in some cases -- of crime, up to and including murder, in many of our large cities -- the ones in which the mayors, district attorneys, prosecutors, and judges have been replaced by globalist pod people.)

So while one can claim that globalism, in applied terms (the philosophical basis having been firmly established generations earlier), originated with the League of Nations (the “beta version” if you will) and really blossomed with the establishment of the U.N., and while the U.S. was the prime mover in each case, it has been taken over by visionaries and utopians who owe no allegiance to any nation. They are the true “rootless cosmopolitans”, but this is their strength since they are not held back by any traditional ideas, values, customs, or loyalties, so they can devote all of their energies to one thing, which is to do away with nations and nationalities, as well as with ethnic, racial, and religious loyalties – not to mention a sense of place, or belonging.  (A "world citizen" is a citizen of nowhere, in other words.)  The idea is that to belong to the grand collective is enough, or ought to be – and if anyone disagrees, we have many means of reeducation at our disposal.

Another way of putting it is that the American Empire (economic, social, political, military, diplomatic, geographic) is gradually being taken over by the Global Empire, the way a young, ambitious son will take over the family business from a doddering, aging parent. (We see this playing out quite literally at present.) The globalists are already busily expropriating our best resources and the best of what we have created, leaving the rest behind to rot on the vine, if you will. (Consider that among the losers in this whole process are the labor unions – ironic, since they have always been the darlings of the old Left and have been its unstinting supporters. Union members who wander off the reservation and start supporting Trump are called sell-outs, traitors, and worse. But he sees what is going on, even if the union leadership doesn't – or, more likely, doesn't care.) (And recall that, in my previous post, I pointed out that union labor is properly considered middle class, which means it has that target on its back as well.)

But wait a minute – all well and good if we're talking about Western Europe and the U.S., along with other English-speaking countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They can form an empire to their hearts' content, but it can hardly be called “global”, since the bulk of humanity is not involved. Well, consider, for one thing, the new colonialism – not military this time, but economic – which has put sub-Saharan Africa firmly into globalist hands, and is a major factor in East and Southeast Asia as well – not to mention military occupations of varying degrees in the Middle East. And consider also that Eastern European countries, still fresh from throwing off the Soviet yoke, are eager to join the club, except for holdouts like Hungary which still believe in national sovereignty.

Then you have Latin America, which is also a victim of the new colonialism, especially the “non-European” countries. By this time we're talking about most of the world except for Russia, China, and the other two BRIC nations, India and Brazil. The battle lines are most obvious in the war in Ukraine, which is basically the globalists, as represented by the U.S., NATO, and the E.U., against Russia. China is an interesting case, because although they are officially our economic “rival” if not a declared enemy, they have managed to take over large chunks of the American economy -- with the full blessing of the ruling elite, or at least their benign neglect. So is there a battle line running through the U.S. between the globalist faction and China? If there is, our home-grown globalists don't seem to be taking it very seriously. If the marriage of the U.S. to the global empire brings with it a fat dowry, and the Chinese are taking possession of more of that dowry every day, you'd think this would be a basis for a major confrontation – and yet I don't sense that one is happening, or even likely. And yet the globalists are not just going to walk away and leave the U.S. to the mercies of China, are they? Unless... a deal has already been worked out, the way the old time Mafia dons would divvy up a city.  But then why can't they work out a deal with Russia as well? I guess you call these growing pains on the road to a globalist Utopia.

But back to the Great Leveling. Let's say that, as an interim goal, the target average household income in the U.S. should be equal to that in Western Europe, i.e. in the E.U. This would not shake the economic foundations of any of the nations involved (although the E.U. did suffer some inconveniences when the financially incompetent Southern European countries were yoked to more sober Northern Europe).  (In fact, many Americans would be far better off if this were enacted!)

But thinking ahead – and don't forget the drive right here in the U.S. for a “guaranteed annual income”. Where is that going to come from? Well, from people who have a higher income than the guaranteed one, of course. So this would be a leveling process, but not radically different from the one already in force by way of the income tax and welfare systems, just turned up a few notches. (Note that the “poverty line” is also the income level at which people don't have to pay income taxes.)

But what if this were to be applied on a truly global basis? What if the median income in, say, Burundi was mandated to be equal to the median income in Luxembourg? Any chance that would create some economic upheavals? And yet it's the logical reductio ad absurdum of utopian thinking – the kind of thinking that attracts “itchy ears” in places like Davos and Ivy League faculty lounges. But again, it's not really “income” we're talking about, is it? Because those same idealists want to do away with money, i.e. currency, altogether. It's more about standard of living, or quality of life – and how one goes about equalizing that among billions of people without undreamed-of coercion is beyond me. But the current administration is making a significant start by letting millions of immigrants into the country to share in our so-called prosperity. So their standard of living increases dramatically, while for the rest of us it's slowly eroding. This is, if you will, an exercise in global leveling, and it's already happening right here.

But even the globalists are patient, in their own way. They're playing the long game – but then so is China, and so is Russia (or trying to, at least). Each generation will have to judge its own accomplishments while setting the stage for what follows, just as one presidential administration in the U.S. spends enormous amounts of time and energy on its “legacy”, and on paving the way for even more of... whatever... by those who follow.

The only thing that refuses to die in all of this is the globalist dream – and that will hold much of humanity in chains until something better comes along (something, perhaps, more – gasp! – traditional, like a newfound respect for eternal verities like race, ethnicity, tribe, family, gender, culture, and religion – and sense of place).

Plus, there has never been a truly global world empire, outside of science-fiction novels. There have been great empires, certainly – and one recalls Rome, the Ottomans, the British, the Soviets, and many more both ancient and modern – but they have all collapsed of their own weight, or have been over-extended, or have been pecked away at by rivals or local rebellions. Or – they have rotted from within, when the levels of competence that were required to build the empire were no longer there to even sustain it (this, by the way, being a major reason for our shift from being our own empire to being a part of the global empire).

Here we run into human nature, as usual (unless they want to change the human genome – well, I'm sure they're working on it) – can a global empire fare any better in the long run? Perhaps we expect it to be run by aliens from another world, with super-sized brains. Well, dream on. Our salvation is not in men, or in aliens either.

The Long Game

 

The conventional wisdom among the conservative commentariat regarding Biden's open borders policy (which is, in effect, a no-borders policy) is that it's all about (1) adding more Democrat voters to the voter rolls; and (2) enjoying cheap, i.e. below union scale, labor. And this is certainly what it looks like on the surface. But consider this:

1. If it's all about jobs, why aren't there countless job recruiters setting up shop right at the border? I mean, even the least skilled immigrant can be taught how to operate a leaf blower in five minutes. Is it possible that our business sector sees the “new immigrants” as being either unemployable or potential troublemakers, and thus not worth the bother? (What happens when a guy who works at a chicken factory tries to break into an Army base?) Or have they just adopted a wait-and-see attitude? Let the government support these people for a few months, or a few years, then hire the cream of the crop.

2. If it's all about votes, then we have to consider the very real possibility that our electoral system is already deeply flawed and rife with corruption, and that it may not be long before the people in charge won't even bother counting votes any more. They'll just announce the winner, and anyone who objects will be threatened with jail time. (They'll be called “election deniers”.  Welcome to the Soviet Union!) So, basically, the notion of “more voters” doesn't really mean anything – or, very soon, won't.

So if it's not about jobs, or votes, what is it about? It's about changing America permanently – an idea that at least some of the aforementioned commentariat are willing to entertain. But if that's the case, how? And why?

One thing that comes to mind is simply that these immigrants are, by and large, totally ignorant of American history, and of the basic ideas, ideals, and premises on which this country was founded. And the few that might have some inkling of these things simply don't care. They come from places that are, typically, ruled by a single strongman, who has life-and-death power over his hapless subjects... and the pity is, they see this as the natural order of things. (And an argument can be made that this IS the natural order of things, if we allow history and anthropology to have any say in the matter. By the standard of world history, “democracy” and “republican government” are freakish, fragile, and an exception to the rule – not to mention a hopeful plea against fallen human nature.) Also, they are not “political refugees” or “seeking protection from persecution”, except in very rare instances. They're simply seeking their fortune, as the old saying goes – thinking they can get a better deal here than they could where they came from. And the thing is, they're absolutely right! – at least for now, in the short run. But they don't know anything about the long game. If they see America as the “gold mountain” they haven't yet encountered the wide moat that separates them from said mountain (and no, I don't mean the Rio Grande – this moat really is nearly impossible to get across, because it divides the haves from the have-nots (and the never-will-haves)).

Another way of putting this, as I've said in previous posts, is that as water seeks its own level, people also seek their own economic level – or the one to which they aspire – or at least one which is superior to the one they are turning their backs on. And who can blame them? If life in a shabby apartment with ten other people, and a leaf-blower job, is better (in their eyes) than life in Guinea, well, so be it. (Apparently they're also perfectly content with moving to a completely different culture, with a new language, strange customs, new rules, and new economic realities. Or if they wind up regretting their decision – well, let's put it this way – how many wind up wading back across the Rio Grande? I rest my case.)

But consider this. These people have already been exploited. They've been charged exorbitant fees by the cartels for their transportation to entry points. Many have been abused. Women have been raped. And yet they show up – show up, in fact, praising Joe Biden for being so kind and generous as to let them in. They will vote for him at the earliest opportunity! But, since they've been exploited already, won't at least some of them wake up to that fact and be waiting in fear of encountering some new form of exploitation? I think that's a pretty good bet. When you're accustomed to being a victim, victimhood becomes a part of your identity and your way of relating to the world.

And yet they will stay. By the thousands and millions. And will, in fact, remake the country, starting with the fact that they don't share any of our traditional values, ideas, and ideals – and customs – and sense of identity. But what is in store for them (and for the rest of us)? This is where the long game comes into play, and it's being played by the “usual suspects”, i.e. the ruling elite, who exert iron-fisted control over our government from the presidency on down, and over the mainstream media, and our academic institutions, and pretty much everything else right down to the grass roots (did I mention public schools and libraries?).

So, given that these are the people who are in charge, and they are perfectly content with the country having no functioning borders, what do they want? First, consider that they are promoting totalitarianism (call it Marxism if you like) on all fronts and with a thousand voices – with academics in the lead, followed closely by the mainstream media, “entertainment”, social media, and all other cultural trendsetters right down to the most local level. They have created a propaganda machine for this purpose that surpasses anything the Soviets or the Nazis ever came up with or even dreamed about, the idea being to have (as much as possible) a “bloodless revolution” where no one actually gets hurt, but the world is remade before our eyes, and there's nothing we can do about it. (And this process is not only well under way, but is getting very close to being complete. In other words, the “long march through the institutions” is nearly at an end.) (Exercise: Name me one institution of any significance that has not succumbed to the siren song of “wokeness”. I'm waiting... )

So where does uncontrolled and unlimited immigration come into this? For one thing, given that the new immigrants don't share our (traditional) “values”, they are unlikely to object to, or be disappointed with, pretty much anything the government (federal, state, local) does. In other words, they are “toughened up” vis-a-vis relations with authority. They know that the best strategy is to keep one's head down and stay out of the way. And if they can make $1 more per hour here than they could in Tajikistan, they're satisfied, and feel that it was worth the trouble. So they become, if you will, the new proletariat – the new working (or non-working) class, with the difference that they are satisfied with their lot. They may be exploited – slaves, for all intents and purposes – but they won't mind, because they refuse to believe they've made a horrible mistake by leaving their village in Botswana. (Cognitive dissonance triumphs again!)

So they become, by and large, the new lower class – the bottom level of the American pyramid. But wait! What happens to the people who have, up until now, been on the bottom? What happens to all of their claims... their “rights”... the victim status they have become so accustomed to, and even profited from in a way? At the very least, they will have to get used to sharing whatever it is they've enjoyed for many generations now with the newcomers. They are going to have to share that pie, which – by the way – is getting progressively smaller, thanks in no small part to the money the government keeps flushing down the toilet marked “foreign aid”. And what are they going to think about all of this? And will it matter? After all, the newcomers are the ones with all the benefits and preferences, and our traditional lower class is going to have make way (and they already are, in “sanctuary cities”). Any chance this is going start creating indignation, protests, and violence? (It's ironic that people will be fighting for privileged status on the bottom rung of society – but that's what we've come to at this point in our history.)

So when you let millions of newcomers in, it tends to dilute, in a way, the influence of those who are already here -- the “traditional” lower class. They find they're outnumbered, and no one has any more patience with their complaints, because there are all these new people to deal with, and they have rights too (more than the old lower class does, in fact).

But let's turn now to another familiar victim class – namely, the middle class. “Victim” you say? Well, consider that the middle class has, historically, been the declared enemy of most totalitarian movements, and the governments they succeed in taking over, going all the way back to the French Revolution. This is always the case with communism, and is an article of faith in Marxism. The erosion of the American middle class has been underway for a couple of generations now, and the primary tools used against it have been taxation and inflation (to which I will add the gobbling up, by multinational corporations, of small businesses and family farms, the economic and psychological mainstays of the middle class). And we also have to include the ongoing propaganda and social pressure against “bourgeois” values and “family values”, and “squares”, and “conformists”, and people who are selfish enough to want to hold on to their own hard-earned income. That's just “hate”, right? And to this one might add what I'll call cultural erosion – attacks on morals, values, even the arts, not to mention public education. The cards have been stacked against the American middle class, I would say, since the mid-60s, when everything changed.  (Heck, the middle class has even been shamed into not reproducing!  There's a long-term plan for you.)

But the main point when it comes to the middle class is that doctrinaire collectivists don't think the middle class is even necessary – that it's an encumbrance, and the sooner we get rid of the “bourgeoisie” the better. Now, as I've said on other occasions, find me a successful advanced society that didn't, or doesn't, have a middle class. Soviet Russia had a kind of pseudo-middle class, consisting of government employees, who were, arguably, better off in some ways than the hapless peasants or the factory workers – but economically, they weren't much better off; they still had to stand in line for bread for hours each day. China under Mao did its best to eliminate its middle class (such as it was), but it came back with a vengeance when Mao's successors decided to give capitalism a try – you know, just a little bit – just a smidgen – and now they have more billionaires than the rest of the world combined, and are making major inroads into the American economy. And a new middle class has been created out of, basically, nothing, in order to keep the machine running. It's housed in countless high-rise apartment complexes in the large cities, while the countryside stands deserted.

And speaking of China – it's been noted that a considerable number of “new immigrants” (formerly “illegal immigrants”) are, in fact, Chinese – and overwhelmingly men of military age. Now think about it. China is, unlike us, serious about its borders. It's tough to get in, and it's tough to get out – and you can bet than any Chinese citizen who leaves the Middle Kingdom for any reason needs (1) permission to leave, and (2) permission to go wherever they're going, and (3) they must have a purpose (or maybe a mission) in mind. So these guys are all here with their government's permission and blessing. And what is their mission? Who knows? One thing you can bet on, they won't be walking around with leaf blowers or flipping burgers.

But this is all realism – so annoying! – and it doesn't faze the idealists, those who dream of a “classless society”, which really means a vast army of slaves, but with them in charge. This is their dream – their ideal – that which they live for, and they have said as much, right out in public, in confabs like Davos (“You'll own nothing, and you'll like it.”). It's the ultimate goal of our ruling elite – continue to peck away at the middle class until it ceases to exist for all intents and purposes, and at the same time populate the lower class with countless new immigrants who, let's say, don't believe in “ideas” any further than their own immediate material well-being. And they will, in fact, be slaves – but happy, or at least not violently malcontented. (Drugs enter in here, as part of the plan – any relation to legalization of marijuana, maybe? Therapeutic psychedelics? Think “soma” as in Aldous Huxley's “Brave New World”.) And the Soviet Union is the best model for this. They had a ruling elite, government and business had merged and become one body, and everyone else was a worker bee.

Wait a minute! Doesn't that pretty much describe this country right now? Pretty much, except, again, for that pesky middle class which, among other things, believes in “American” values and ideals, and which – even more annoyingly! – persists in listening to Donald Trump. (Note that I consider “working class” people with steady jobs and decent incomes to be, for all intents and purposes, middle class, especially since white-collar salaries overlap, to a considerable degree, the incomes of skilled labor. Another way of putting it is that middle class people, regardless of occupation, are taxpayers, and lower class people are tax receivers.) And when Trump says “They're not after me, they're after you; I'm just in the way”, he is absolutely right. And if their hero should fall in defeat, that will be the end of the last, best hope for the real middle class – those who “cling” to traditional American values. All that will be left is policing up the battlefield, which the elite and its forces have already shown exemplary skill at (witness the January 6 prosecutions).

But hold on! Our conservative commentariat (them again!) are fond of saying that the “classless society” is an illusion, and an impossible dream... and that any attempts to create one have ended in catastrophe. Well... it depends on one's point of view. The Soviet Union lasted for 70-plus years, with all of its programs and its organizational structure remaining intact the entire time. And it was not terminated by means of revolution or conquest. In fact, American liberals are still mourning the demise of the USSR, and contend that it wouldn't have ended “if we'd just given it a chance”. (Seventy-plus years?? I'd say we gave it every possible chance.) And as for China, after the economic and social catastrophe under Mao, more sober heads prevailed, and what we have now is an awake (not woke, note) monster that is making daily inroads into our own economy and well as academics and social media.

So I guess, in a sense, totalitarianism, or collectivism, or communism, is a stage of development that a society can eventually grow out of – call it an adolescent tantrum, if you will. But the economic and social costs, not to mention the death toll, makes one wonder, couldn't they have just skipped that phase, and evolved in a different way? Why did Russia and the Iron Curtain countries have to endure all those years, and decades? But that would be to discount the revolutionary spirit which seems to be built into the human DNA – that, and the tendency for a new ruling elite to rise up and lay claim to the revolution and its results – or, in our case, for the ruling elite to actually create the revolution, in a top-down fashion, the way Mao's “Great Leap Forward” and “continuous revolution” were top-down phenomena. (Consider how the sporadic outbreaks of urban violence and rioting in the U.S. all seem to originate with wealthy sponsors, members of the ruling elite who have taken it upon themselves to take charge of the bottom-up dirty work while someone else takes on the top-down stuff, like elections for instance.)

But still, given the poor track record of totalitarian governments, you'd think our ruling elite would come up with something else – a third way, or something. But that would violate their most basic premise – that only they are worthy to rule, only they are wise, and only they have the will power to bring the fractious citizenry (AKA deplorables) under control. So they have to give it another try, because who knows, this time it might work! At least that's what the grizzled, dog-eared doctrinaire collectivists in Ivy League faculty lounges think. It will work, because it has to work. There is no other possibility. And no price is too high to pay for making it work by any and all means.

So... now we have the spectacle of another presidential race, with the entire apparatus of the federal government (and many state and local governments) lined up against one man, namely the former and would-be future president. When you consider what's at stake, and the odds, it seems impossible that he could actually win in November, even assuming we have an honest election. (As was said about an American politician some decades back, nobody likes him but the people.) And is Trump a perfect person? Heck, no. But he has become an unlikely hero – the last hope for a considerable portion of the population. Once he vanishes from the scene, who will be left to fend off the vultures? Some may try, but they won't have Trump's charisma, determination, or courage (or money). All they will have is their beliefs, their ideals, and their traditions, and it's hard to imagine those will suffice to withstand the onslaught. But time will tell.

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.