The government and media have dumped at the doorstep of the coronavirus many of the political, economic and social afflictions that are now ravaging much of the global population. In reality, they need to point the finger at themselves.
by Robert Bridge
As the mainstream media saturates the airwaves with a daily overdose of coronavirus fear porn, the majority of journalists have given their governments a free pass to enact any draconian measure they see fit. From the closure of public beaches to forbidding power boats on waterways, the insanity seems to have no limits or logic. And as the media would have us believe, it was the coronavirus that enacted these measures, as opposed to living, breathing, unthinking humans.
What dirty deeds does the new and improved villain of our times stand accused of? First and foremost, the coronavirus singlehandedly destroyed the global economy as only ‘essential’ businesses may continue to operate. Thus, thousands of small businesses have been ordered shuttered, de facto destroyed, while countless numbers of people around the world have been ordered to ‘shelter-in-place’ with dwindling financial reserves.
Again, this wanton destruction of a large swath of the economy is not due to bad government decision-making, at least according to the media, but Covid-19.
‘Jobless claims jump another 4.4 million — 26 million Americans have lost their jobs to the coronavirus,’ reported MarketWatch. ‘It could take two years for the economy to recover from the coronavirus pandemic,’ screamed another headline.
Perhaps it was also the coronavirus that decided that it would make perfect sense to keep abortion clinics and state-owned liquor stores open during the pandemic, while shutting down houses of worship and gun shops. Clearly, the coronavirus is an equitable and non-partisan distributor of pain and suffering!
As was the case when battling the evil forces of terrorism (which has been strangely quiet lately, by the way), simply uttering ‘coronavirus’ has the same numbing effect as reciting the name ‘Osama bin Laden.’ It justifies every means to an end – up to and including the destruction of civil liberties – without the need for any public debate on the matter. This is reminiscent of the hysteria, complete with mysterious anthrax attacks, which accompanied passage of the PATRIOT Act, the freedom-killing legislation that was rammed through Congress in the weeks following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 without a formal reading by lawmakers. And just like post-9/11, when people question the draconian coronavirus measures they are vilified and accused of being ‘conspiracy theorists’ and even ‘terrorists.’
The result of millions of people struggling to survive without employment and amid ‘shelter-in-place’ orders is a huge spike in the number of deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide.
“We see very troubling signs across the nation,” Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, assistant secretary at Department of Health and Human Services and head of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, told USAToday. “There’s more substance abuse, more overdoses, more domestic violence and neglect and abuse of children.
In other words, the death and destruction from the draconian measures enacted to defeat the coronavirus, which never came remotely close to being as deadly as the experts predicted it would be, will prove deadlier than the disease itself.
And the asinine regulations are not just being implemented in glorious nation America. Across the pond, Germans, for example, have watched in horror as their beloved Oktoberfest, the annual beer-drinking festival that brings in an estimated 1 billion dollars to the local economy, has been cancelled for the first time since World War II. That is something that not even Al Qaeda in its heyday could accomplish. Now it is all kaput as some 1,600 breweries in Germany are forced to lay off workers and slashed production as dire economic conditions roll across the entire EU. Of course, all of this is the fault of the coronavirus.
And much like the post 9/11 days, coronavirus has its own share of ‘covidiots,’ with people going to bizarre, even fascist lengths to enforce social-distancing guidelines. Back in the ‘sane’ days when the world was trembling at the mere sound of ‘Osama,’ some people actually sealed their homes in plastic and duct tape to protect against an anthrax attack that never materialized. Today, masked drivers are literally passing out behind the wheel, inside of locked cars, due to a lack of oxygen, if not brains.
But unfortunately, those aren’t the sort of ‘lawbreakers’ that the ‘Karens’ of our days will be snitching on, exactly as they were doing as we were trying to ‘bend the curve’ on terrorism. These days, members of the citizen Gestapo are peering through closed blinds, counting whether or not the neighbors have more than 10 people in their homes, which is enough to justify the police entering your home in New Zealand without a warrant. The dawn of this ‘snitch state’ largely began in the aftermath of 9/11 psychosis.
Now that the world is staring down the double-barrel of yet another economic depression and all of its attendant symptoms, fear and hysteria continues to be in the driver’s seat. Yet instead of being afraid of bad decisions by bad government officials, the same individuals who led the world on a wild goose chase known as the ‘war on terror,’ we continue to heed their advice, while believing that the coronavirus is responsible for the mayhem. It is not, no more than Osama bin Laden was ‘responsible’ for the destruction of our civil liberties post-9/11. We did that all by ourselves through our passive consent.
