I have been continually amazed at my fellow citizens' willingness to believe in the existence of a ebola-level pandemic. Even though, if they were to honestly evaluate their day-to-day life over the past two years they should come to another conclusion...? I think these people would be prepared to continue to have hysterics about a cold, supplemented by faked statistics and biased reporting - probably for years.
We need to stand up and make our voices heard. The political class has every reason not to back down, but to keep pushing hard. Vaccine mandates, monthly boosters, lockdowns, quarantine camps, whatever it takes to keep control of the narrative and stay in power.
And the police in Germany cannot deal with hundreds of large and small protests occurring simultaneously on Mondays at 18:00 all over the country (thank you Saxony!). The protests are getting larger every week. It is truly invigorating to meet so many like-minded people from all walks of life.
Omicron has been almost like a blessing, as it truly is the end of the pandemic as a dangerous virus
On the other hand, containment hysteria continue unabated; and it seems most intensely in the places that least require it.
Schools? Universities? I never realized how much administrators actually hate young people; how they justify the imprisonment and misery just to pay homage to a virus which is harmless to the young. My kids are now in the state of mind that school is where they go to experience bullshit; they are not even 10 years old. They have said as much, and have lost respect for the institution. I have mixed feelings about this.
More travel measures. More testing. More masks. More more more. I'm slowly resigned to constructing my life in such a way that I no longer interact with the most corona-ed areas of society because this is going to be a long term thing. How, and why, many a dozen people who self-identify as "experts" because they have the right degrees and so called credentials are able to continue to exert such a power over the world, baffles me to no end, but then again, High Priests of all religions command great power - the Why is not relevant. There can be untold death and misery and somehow that cements their power rather than destroys it.
As for pushing back- this substack and a handful of others are where I go to get my daily dose of humanity and reason. I continue to try and do my part to resist all the insanity - but from time to time I wonder if it would just be easier to "drink from the crazy river" and to stop trying to scream at a hurricane
Dec 26, 2021·edited Dec 26, 2021Liked by eugyppius
I am in awe at how psychotic governments have been. Amazing that the biggest existential threat we all face is from our own governments.
Also that the mildness of Omicron has panicked policy makers. It’s too incredible. For me, at this point, the conspiracy is to believe that there is no conspiracy.
The trajectories in Denmark, the U.K., and S.A. certainly look good.
The fact that they've gotten noisiest and most desperate (unvaccinated WILL crowd the hospitals and die in large numbers!) despite the apparent mildness of omicron is hopefully also the final surge of tyrannical, anti-scientific lunacy.
How much tyranny we must withstand in the future depends on how many of us actually noticed what happened to our governments during covid: that they were willing to weaponize fear against their citizens in some sort of post-nationalistic, quasi-liberal form of fascism. (Someone who is a political scientist, help me out here, as my quest to make sense of it may have missed the mark.)
No politician will ever admit they are failures. As they always do, they will implement more nonsense to cover up their uselessness as leaders. These are mostly arrogant, self serving, power control freaks who consider themselves far above the people they seek to rule over.
Dec 26, 2021·edited Dec 26, 2021Liked by eugyppius
Can anyone please report what effect, if any, the (unreported in the US) mass protests in Europe and Australia have had on public policy? New strategy seems to be to allow the marches while parliament goes off to dinner, drinks, and music. With the news blackout here, one can’t know what is happening. If it’s as bad as it seems, exactly what and who will be initiating Nuremberg Two??
I think the most interesting question is indeed what comes next from a political science perspective, i.e. what's next in the world of Corona containment. I am periodically swinging between two different viewpoints
1) Most governments are eager to phase out all measures to be able to be the ones claiming victory and gain re-election. I am saying this because, directionally, many of the measures seem to have a negative return in the long term. For example, consider vax passes & the fact they "expire" after X months. In Italy, 6 million eligible people are without them, including many teenagers. Even assuming an extremely high adoption rate for the 3rd dose in the next 6 months or so (say, 90%), there would be 4 million more people (10% of ~40 million vaxxed) that end up without a "pass". Every single multistep process has some "loss" at each step (in tech this is akin to the "purchase funnel"). Bringing this loss to zero is unbelievable. How is this eventually sustainable if you fast forward this process 12-24 months out? Because of this, governments must be thinking of how to look for an out & and for a victory lap
2) Governments in general are enjoying the level of control they can subject the population to through mass media conditioning, including pointless measures that create a false sense of "doing something". For example: masking outdoor, masking kids in school, "passes", the testing theater and so on. Because of this, they will keep these measures for years, or decades, until they are just inbuilt in the fabric of society like the "no smoking" in public places and so on. In addition, letting go of these measures could be construed by the opposition as a sign of weakness towards protesters / "no pass" / "no vax" / whatever, and governments don't want to look weak against some enemy. It will not matter who wins elections, no-one will remove many of these measures, and any chance will occur only on the scale of decades as some people emigrate etc
I really can't settle between these two extremes. Due to my personal story, I follow a handful of regions pretty closely (Italy, Catalunya/Spain, USA with all of its differences, and to some extent UK and Germany). The signal that comes from these places randomly points to either 1) or 2).
Eugyppius's point about liberal democracies' demise is well taken but I think somewhat overplayed (but would be glad to discuss).
On one hand, there has been a sort of demise since the end of the cold war because the fundamental dynamics of conflict between capital and labour have changed. Politics has moved in many countries more towards a sort of "technocratic center", and in some countries (eg Italy) you can argue you've had many more "technocratic governments" than not (Monti, Draghi). So, for example, "austerity" policies that have benefited the German or Northern Italian economic elite to the detriment of Southern Europe through the introduction of the single currency have just been a fact of life, happening outside the space of liberal democracy.
On the other hand, though, none of that had to do with freedom of movement at macro or micro level or generally bothering people in their daily lives (masking, kids, etc). In fact, bothering people at micro level seems contrary to the general objectives of capital against labour.
Anyway, a bit of a digression but hopefully some food for thought
I hope you're right but just wait. South Africa is a low vax country. UK is not. ADE OAS and a whole.host of other issues could take the vaxxed by storm. Also the all causes death rate in Germany etc is alarming high. They will blame something on this. Make everyone take heart tablets or something. I cannot see this going quietly into the night.
Panics are never punished. No apologies, no regrets, no firings. They just fade away, leaving new bureaucracies in place that will help to run the next panic. Bush's 9/11 "threat" created the bioterror agencies, which stayed in place through later administrations, planning and scheduling the "virus" "threat." Bush also created TSA, which is now the major sustainer of the muzzle mandate for the "virus" "threat".
The bulk of the tyrannical responses to COVID were based on mere possibilities. Emergency powers were invoked for imagined future occurances. The very word emergency was essentially redefined by the wannabe dictators and an important task in the hoped-for aftermath will be to drastically reform those emergency laws.
If we don't, as eugyppius suggests, the hysteria will be ramped up again; hysteria about an imagined climate "emergency", a gun "emrrgency", or a white supremecy "emergency", all of which will be chsracterized as matters of public health.
Let's indeed hope were nearing the end of the viral pandemic. But the hardest work, implied in eugyppius' final paragraph, will be ahead of us. It is not easy for people of good will to hold others harshly accountable, but the times call for it, just as they did at a point 80 years ago.
The medical system and physicians have been as bad as the bureaucrats and public policy makers - it is the opioid crisis all over again with the lack of critical thinking by the very people who are supposed to protect the health of the populace
In most of the US people are ignoring the powers that be, including the local powers that be. Blue cities live in panic. My purple city has had an indoor mask mandate since August , which is mostly followed in the “in” parts of town but nowhere else. And no one says a word to me (or anyone else) who doesn’t wear a mask. There is a clear “whatever” vibe - authorities aren’t messing with it, staff are done confronting people over it, and more people are realizing they don’t have to actually do it. The rest of our state (except one other city) is red and you’d never know anything is or has been going on for at least the past year. Media is totally tuned out, as are most politicians. I don’t think they can make it stick here, regardless of what tantrums Lord Fauci has.
I have been continually amazed at my fellow citizens' willingness to believe in the existence of a ebola-level pandemic. Even though, if they were to honestly evaluate their day-to-day life over the past two years they should come to another conclusion...? I think these people would be prepared to continue to have hysterics about a cold, supplemented by faked statistics and biased reporting - probably for years.
We need to stand up and make our voices heard. The political class has every reason not to back down, but to keep pushing hard. Vaccine mandates, monthly boosters, lockdowns, quarantine camps, whatever it takes to keep control of the narrative and stay in power.
And the police in Germany cannot deal with hundreds of large and small protests occurring simultaneously on Mondays at 18:00 all over the country (thank you Saxony!). The protests are getting larger every week. It is truly invigorating to meet so many like-minded people from all walks of life.
Omicron has been almost like a blessing, as it truly is the end of the pandemic as a dangerous virus
On the other hand, containment hysteria continue unabated; and it seems most intensely in the places that least require it.
Schools? Universities? I never realized how much administrators actually hate young people; how they justify the imprisonment and misery just to pay homage to a virus which is harmless to the young. My kids are now in the state of mind that school is where they go to experience bullshit; they are not even 10 years old. They have said as much, and have lost respect for the institution. I have mixed feelings about this.
More travel measures. More testing. More masks. More more more. I'm slowly resigned to constructing my life in such a way that I no longer interact with the most corona-ed areas of society because this is going to be a long term thing. How, and why, many a dozen people who self-identify as "experts" because they have the right degrees and so called credentials are able to continue to exert such a power over the world, baffles me to no end, but then again, High Priests of all religions command great power - the Why is not relevant. There can be untold death and misery and somehow that cements their power rather than destroys it.
As for pushing back- this substack and a handful of others are where I go to get my daily dose of humanity and reason. I continue to try and do my part to resist all the insanity - but from time to time I wonder if it would just be easier to "drink from the crazy river" and to stop trying to scream at a hurricane
I asked Santa for tribunals. 🤞
I am in awe at how psychotic governments have been. Amazing that the biggest existential threat we all face is from our own governments.
Also that the mildness of Omicron has panicked policy makers. It’s too incredible. For me, at this point, the conspiracy is to believe that there is no conspiracy.
Arrest, indictment & imprisonment would be kind compared to what they deserve.
The trajectories in Denmark, the U.K., and S.A. certainly look good.
The fact that they've gotten noisiest and most desperate (unvaccinated WILL crowd the hospitals and die in large numbers!) despite the apparent mildness of omicron is hopefully also the final surge of tyrannical, anti-scientific lunacy.
How much tyranny we must withstand in the future depends on how many of us actually noticed what happened to our governments during covid: that they were willing to weaponize fear against their citizens in some sort of post-nationalistic, quasi-liberal form of fascism. (Someone who is a political scientist, help me out here, as my quest to make sense of it may have missed the mark.)
No politician will ever admit they are failures. As they always do, they will implement more nonsense to cover up their uselessness as leaders. These are mostly arrogant, self serving, power control freaks who consider themselves far above the people they seek to rule over.
Can anyone please report what effect, if any, the (unreported in the US) mass protests in Europe and Australia have had on public policy? New strategy seems to be to allow the marches while parliament goes off to dinner, drinks, and music. With the news blackout here, one can’t know what is happening. If it’s as bad as it seems, exactly what and who will be initiating Nuremberg Two??
PS love the new edit option. ‘Bout time! 😊
I think the most interesting question is indeed what comes next from a political science perspective, i.e. what's next in the world of Corona containment. I am periodically swinging between two different viewpoints
1) Most governments are eager to phase out all measures to be able to be the ones claiming victory and gain re-election. I am saying this because, directionally, many of the measures seem to have a negative return in the long term. For example, consider vax passes & the fact they "expire" after X months. In Italy, 6 million eligible people are without them, including many teenagers. Even assuming an extremely high adoption rate for the 3rd dose in the next 6 months or so (say, 90%), there would be 4 million more people (10% of ~40 million vaxxed) that end up without a "pass". Every single multistep process has some "loss" at each step (in tech this is akin to the "purchase funnel"). Bringing this loss to zero is unbelievable. How is this eventually sustainable if you fast forward this process 12-24 months out? Because of this, governments must be thinking of how to look for an out & and for a victory lap
2) Governments in general are enjoying the level of control they can subject the population to through mass media conditioning, including pointless measures that create a false sense of "doing something". For example: masking outdoor, masking kids in school, "passes", the testing theater and so on. Because of this, they will keep these measures for years, or decades, until they are just inbuilt in the fabric of society like the "no smoking" in public places and so on. In addition, letting go of these measures could be construed by the opposition as a sign of weakness towards protesters / "no pass" / "no vax" / whatever, and governments don't want to look weak against some enemy. It will not matter who wins elections, no-one will remove many of these measures, and any chance will occur only on the scale of decades as some people emigrate etc
I really can't settle between these two extremes. Due to my personal story, I follow a handful of regions pretty closely (Italy, Catalunya/Spain, USA with all of its differences, and to some extent UK and Germany). The signal that comes from these places randomly points to either 1) or 2).
Eugyppius's point about liberal democracies' demise is well taken but I think somewhat overplayed (but would be glad to discuss).
On one hand, there has been a sort of demise since the end of the cold war because the fundamental dynamics of conflict between capital and labour have changed. Politics has moved in many countries more towards a sort of "technocratic center", and in some countries (eg Italy) you can argue you've had many more "technocratic governments" than not (Monti, Draghi). So, for example, "austerity" policies that have benefited the German or Northern Italian economic elite to the detriment of Southern Europe through the introduction of the single currency have just been a fact of life, happening outside the space of liberal democracy.
On the other hand, though, none of that had to do with freedom of movement at macro or micro level or generally bothering people in their daily lives (masking, kids, etc). In fact, bothering people at micro level seems contrary to the general objectives of capital against labour.
Anyway, a bit of a digression but hopefully some food for thought
I hope you're right but just wait. South Africa is a low vax country. UK is not. ADE OAS and a whole.host of other issues could take the vaxxed by storm. Also the all causes death rate in Germany etc is alarming high. They will blame something on this. Make everyone take heart tablets or something. I cannot see this going quietly into the night.
It won't end, not with the new Covid pills coming to market. They won't allow the market to wither when a new product is about to enter.
They're allowing EUAs on multiple products so don't expect any sense to emerge just yet.
-hey I just discovered an edit button! Woo!
Panics are never punished. No apologies, no regrets, no firings. They just fade away, leaving new bureaucracies in place that will help to run the next panic. Bush's 9/11 "threat" created the bioterror agencies, which stayed in place through later administrations, planning and scheduling the "virus" "threat." Bush also created TSA, which is now the major sustainer of the muzzle mandate for the "virus" "threat".
"Those are, however, mere possibilities."
The bulk of the tyrannical responses to COVID were based on mere possibilities. Emergency powers were invoked for imagined future occurances. The very word emergency was essentially redefined by the wannabe dictators and an important task in the hoped-for aftermath will be to drastically reform those emergency laws.
If we don't, as eugyppius suggests, the hysteria will be ramped up again; hysteria about an imagined climate "emergency", a gun "emrrgency", or a white supremecy "emergency", all of which will be chsracterized as matters of public health.
Let's indeed hope were nearing the end of the viral pandemic. But the hardest work, implied in eugyppius' final paragraph, will be ahead of us. It is not easy for people of good will to hold others harshly accountable, but the times call for it, just as they did at a point 80 years ago.
The medical system and physicians have been as bad as the bureaucrats and public policy makers - it is the opioid crisis all over again with the lack of critical thinking by the very people who are supposed to protect the health of the populace
I’ve got my popcorn ready for that third failure option
In most of the US people are ignoring the powers that be, including the local powers that be. Blue cities live in panic. My purple city has had an indoor mask mandate since August , which is mostly followed in the “in” parts of town but nowhere else. And no one says a word to me (or anyone else) who doesn’t wear a mask. There is a clear “whatever” vibe - authorities aren’t messing with it, staff are done confronting people over it, and more people are realizing they don’t have to actually do it. The rest of our state (except one other city) is red and you’d never know anything is or has been going on for at least the past year. Media is totally tuned out, as are most politicians. I don’t think they can make it stick here, regardless of what tantrums Lord Fauci has.