The Locked Down World

From my archived blog (April 2020) at donaldjeffries.wordpress.com

Note: This is another in a continuing series of previously published articles. Please subscribe to my primary Substack “I Protest” here: donaldjeffries.substack.com

Not much more than a month ago, the various countries of the world were meandering along, mired in corruption, poverty, injustice, unfairness, and all the other niceties of modern civilization. The gap between the rich and the poor was ever widening. Freedom was something America in particular boasted about.

But within the period of a just a few weeks last month, virtually the entire world went on lock down. No police were needed. No troops were needed. Not a single shot was fired. When the dust had settled, healthy people everywhere were being quarantined within their homes. Voluntarily. Businesses were forced to close. All events and activities- including professional sports- were cancelled. Untold numbers of businesses will never reopen. Millions will be thrown out of work.

The culprit is a particularly nasty Coronavirus strain, COVID-19. We were initially warned it could kill millions in this country alone. While the common flu kills an average of 56,000 in America every year, nothing has ever been closed or cancelled because of it. Everything has been cancelled, for over a month, for this virus. Despite numbers that reveal it to have killed less than half of what the flu does in an average season, businesses remain closed and people remain sheltered in their homes.

We know for certain that the official numbers are being artificially inflated to a significant degree. The World Health Organization issued a directive weeks ago, instructing hospitals to list the cause of death as COVID-19 even when the deceased had never been tested for it. The Centers for Disease Control issues a disclaimer, in each official release of COVID numbers, that they include “presumptive” cases in those numbers. In other words, untested and unproven cases. Dr. Deborah Birx, the Trump administration’s Coronavirus Response Coordinator, has admitted that when any patient has tested positive for the virus, the cause of death will be listed as being from that, even when it clearly is not.

Over the past week especially, the establishment has been backpedaling furiously away from the fear porn they were spreading nonstop to the public. Fox News asked, “how could the models and projections have been so wrong?” Even CNN admitted their numbers were dramatically overstated. No one is claiming other than that the “experts” were wildly wrong about this. And yet, we are all still urged to listen to these same “experts.”

So, surely since they are telling us things are “leveling off,” and that they were incredibly wrong to exaggerate the impact of this virus in the first place, people will be returning to work immediately, right? No more tickets for “social distancing” violations, issued by our policing for profit officers who are faced with the least busy highways, and thus fewest potential motorists to ticket for minor infractions, correct? Surely, we can go visit Grandma in the nursing home again, before she moves on to her eternal reward? Or hug the grandchild we’ve only seen on Skype?

Well, apparently not. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Frankenstein-like point man on the issue for the Trump White House, has said we may never be able to go back to shaking  hands. Our leaders seem to be insinuating that this draconian lock down could last months. Some scientists have said “social distancing” may have to last until 2022! There are ominous predictions from the same “experts” who were so gloriously mistaken before, that the virus could return in the Fall. Or maybe next Spring. Or it could always be there, an unseen enemy outside our doors. We are at war with the virus, some have said. We can’t let the virus win, can we?

This is not a dream. It is not a science-fiction movie or a dystopian novel. It is the reality we face today, in 2020. We have not been teleported in some way, into the pages of George Orwell’s 1984. Although the parallels with Orwell’s great work are many. There may not be a literal Big Brother, but the mentality of those who are buying this narrative is identical to that of the unquestioning residents of Oceania. The kindly neighbors reporting “social distancing” violators to the police mirror the actions of Oceania’s Anti-Sex League.

The uniformity of opinion among those who have a large public platform has never been so evident as now. Not a single “journalist,” politician, or celebrity is questioning this unprecedented authoritarianism. The celebrities in particular are such over-the-top cheerleaders that is nauseating to watch them; smiling vacuously as they host their shows or deliver state-approved messages from the comfort of their palatial estates.

But perhaps the celebrities have a right be concerned about this deadly virus. They have shown a remarkable propensity to contract it. CNN has been particularly hard hit. First, gangster wannabe Chris Cuomo announced he had it, and provided regular updates from his mansion. Then, fellow anchor Brooke Baldwin came down with it, and communicated nonstop with her adoring fans via Instagram. She recently announced dramatically that “I think I’ve nearly battled this beast,” whatever that awkward, ungrammatical phrase was supposed to mean.

Tom Hanks was fittingly the first celebrity to contract the virus. As a loud supporter of the totally discredited Warren Commission, and known to tweet out bizarre images of lone shoes and gloves he supposedly finds on the sides of roads, he was a perfect choice. Hanks’ tweet, in which he informed his fans that his wife, actress Rita Wilson, was beating him by 201 points in gin rummy, with a picture of his beloved Corona typewriter in the background, was full of symbolism. Why include a random number like 201? “Conspiracy theorists” quickly caught the less than subtle reference to Bill Gates’ Agenda 201. And then attention whore Madonna tweeted out a picture of her pecking away on her own Corona typewriter that same day. Who would have thought that two fabulously wealthy celebrities bother with heavy, antiquated typewriters in the age of IPads and lap tops? And oh yes, one of the things Madonna was typing about was pasta. You’ll have to read some of the Podesta emails published by Wikileaks to understand the significance of that.

But perhaps the most ridiculous celebrity turned out to be “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling. She breathlessly announced that she’d had “all the symptoms” of COVID-19, but hadn’t been tested. Still, the mainstream media reported her triumphant “recovery” from a virus she’d never been tested for, as if she’d just beaten stage 4 breast cancer. Now former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos is said to be recovering from the virus as well. Who knows how many of these celebrities really had anything, even a common cold? No one likes to jump on the bandwagon of popular movements more than they do. And right now, having tested positive for this thing is evidently very popular.

What will the fallout from all this be? Will the growing “incel” (involuntarily celibate) community become a majority in this country, or around the world? They haven’t outlawed sex with your spouse yet, but since many lonely men in this country struggle to find dates, let alone sex, you can imagine how much more difficult this will become with “social distancing” rules in place.  Porn is going to be more popular than ever. And “social distancing” may end the world’s oldest profession as well. Maybe they’ll come up with some kind of creative virtual prostitution.

The lonely elderly spending their final days in nursing homes already were largely neglected, not only by uncaring staff members, but by their own families. Now, with visitation forbidden, how many children or grandchildren who do care will miss the opportunity to spend a precious few minutes with their loved ones, before they leave this mortal coil? How many older grandparents will die before having the chance to hold their infant grandchildren?

The shutdown of businesses now has been going on for more than a month. How many of the dwindling small businesses left in our casino economy have already closed down forever? How many mid-sized ones will ever be able to reopen? How many millions will be furloughed, laid off, fired- however they word it- because of this draconian reaction? How can an economy based on commerce exist without commerce? The fact that the business community is accepting all of this passively can only fuel more suspicion that the entire thing was contrived for nefarious purposes. A plandemic, not a pandemic.

Montgomery County, Maryland has already issued a decree that everyone must wear masks in public. Look for other areas to follow suit. Walking around in public, watching the nervous, masked figures, scurrying quickly by at an appropriate distance from each other, is like being on the set of a science fiction film. Are we all crisis actors now? Recent protests in Ohio and Michigan, as well as the refusal of Brazil and Sweden to go along with the program, provides us with some hope. Perhaps the natives will eventually get restless.

The best outcome we can hope for is a return to some semblance of reality, with our rigged economy and dysfunctional culture. At worst there will be rolling shortages- they are already announcing that food may be in limited supply, along with power outages, etc. All attributed nonsensically to the “virus.” We may regularly go back into “lock down” status, for whatever excuse our leaders devise. The majority have shown that they won’t question any measure, if it comes from our corrupt authorities. No church on Easter Sunday? The mind still reels that they were able to pull that off, without a bunch of renegade pastors refusing to comply. And where are all the gun rights activists? Apparently, they are just fine with tyranny, as long as they can keep their guns. Just don’t use them to reign in tyrannical leaders.

76% of those in my state of Virginia support Governor Ralph Northam’s actions in a recent poll. There will be no protests here. I would be shocked if the majority of states don’t reflect this as well. As Thomas Jefferson said, “When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” There should be no question at this point about who fears who.