“In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life. This is much more than a simple conflict between two identities. It is something far worse: it is a challenge to the very notion of identity itself.” ― Václav Havel
This past year-and-a half, did you “merge with the anonymous crowd” and “flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life”? Did you follow the flotilla of Pied pipers mesmerizing you with “the science”?
Did you socially distance, put on a mask, and have your business and office and church shut down? Did you believe that the PCR tests are accurate (Guess why there are so few cases of the flu reported)? Did you submit your body to be a lab experiment for the mRNA vaccines?
Did you go along with “the science” to get along? Did you go along with “the anonymous crowd” because, per the head mocker of the Biden regime, “if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were,”.
Do you now equate the loss of freedom and choice as a loss of your identity as a human? Or, are you still wanting “to flow comfortably along with it (the loss of your identity) down the river of pseudo-life”? Are you OK with diktats and lacking individual will? Are you OK supporting the automatism of a totalitarian system?
Now, you may say to me “it was out of fear of COVID that I persuaded myself to follow the mandates”, or, “It was out of fear of giving someone COVID that I submitted to the mandates’, or, “it was out of fear of litigation that I shut down my business, my church.”
Or, was it out of fear of thinking for yourself, acting individually, and rebuffing the diktats coming down from the bio-medical regime through the state media?
*****
The alignment of the power – globalists, oligarchs, techno-utopians, politicians, the media, the Pope, and the forces of evil – against the powerless has been the impetus for my dissenting posts over the past year and-a half. I have opposed the schizophrenic CDC guidelines. I have opposed authoritarian mandates. I have opposed tyranny – including medical tyranny. I have opposed the lies being fed us. I have opposed the sowing of fear. And, I will oppose the Great Reset mandates – from the powerful to the powerless – coming our way.
What is coming our way is a thousand times more tyrannical than what we’ve seen the past year. The “river of pseudo-life” will flow with blood. If my words have seemed harsh, critical and uncompassionate, if it appears that I am calling out people for their past behavior, then please understand. This post is meant to be a wakeup call. It is meant to shake you out of a COVID-induced paralysis to face the growing nightmare.
*****
As a nation, we didn’t start out stupefied and powerless. But over time we gave in to soft tyranny (Tocqueville). Out of fear, we have exchanged our freedom (and our identity) for false security.
Last century, for example, we accepted the New Deal and the tyranny of centralized planning – the welfare state and overreaching government. Wasn’t New Deal tyranny acceptance based on (economic) fear? Wasn’t New Deal tyranny acceptance also a “well-meaning” acceptance by the people?
Today, fearful and well-meaning people, have become OK with the hard-core tyranny of censorship. Those behind the Great Reset love these people. Behind the fascia of Build Back Better is (1984’s) Room 101: Besmirch Bludgeon Begone.
As we have seen, much of the country has fallen prostrate before mandates and “guidelines” out of fear of a so-called “public-health crisis”. Yet, COVID19 is a variation of the common cold and has a recovery rate of over 99.8 % for most people. Early outpatient treatment is recommended.
The American Journal of Medicine now (Jan. 2021) now (finally!) recommendsHydroxychloroquine,Azithromycin, and Zinc for the treatment of Covid 19 outpatients. Had this been the protocol used in Jan. 2020, many lives could have been saved. But the powerful – Anthony Fauci, the CDC, Francis Collins and the NIH, Bill Gates, and big pharma – had other plans for the American people.
There has also been fear of litigation if not abiding by the mandates and “guidelines”. Behind all the fear is the fear of disobeying the powerful alignment that stands against the powerless.
To assuage fears, there are those who have chosen to “merge with the anonymous crowd” and have chosen to live the (COVIDian) lies given them. They have chosen “to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life”.
The COVIDian lies include the following:
Mask wearing is effective to stop the spread of COVID; not wearing a mask puts yourself and others at risk; children must wear a mask to school.
A group of physicians from Germany, Poland and Austria, concluded that the wearing of nose and mouth coverings by children leads to an increase in carbon dioxide levels in both inhaled and exhaled air while wearing a mask.
“We suggest that decision-makers weigh the hard evidence produced by these experimental measurements accordingly, which suggest that children should not be forced to wear face masks.”
Social distancing works to stop the spread of COVID; shutting down businesses and churches stops the spread of COVID.
(Idiotic. Distance yourself from the CDC.)
You need the vaccine to protect you from COVID. It is safe and effective.
"95% of the severe patients are vaccinated". "85-90% of the hospitalizations are in Fully vaccinated people." "We are opening more and more COVID wards." "The effectiveness of the vaccine is waning/fading out"
December, 1989. Václav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia. On New Year’s Day, 1990, he gave his first “state-of-the-nation” address to the country on national television.
“New Year’s Address to the Nation,’ January 1, 1990
“For forty years on this day, you heard, from my predecessors, variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many millions of tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspective were unfolding before us.
I assume do did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.
Our country is not flourishing. . ..
But all this is not the main problem. The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we got used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore each other, to care only for ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility, and forgiveness lost their depth and dimensions. . .. The previous regime . . . reduced man to a force of production and nature to a tool of production. . .. It reduced gifted an autonomous people to nuts and bolts in some monstrously huge, noisy, and stinking machine, whose real purpose was not clear to anyone. . ..
As I have observed the growing fascism under the alignment of the powerful with the Biden regime and its invocation of dystopia and dehumanization akin to what Havel described in his address, the title of Václav Havel’s 1978 essay, The Power of the Powerless, intrigued me.
The essay, among others found in The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe, explain the features of Soviet-type totalitarian systems of power as compared to the West (A comparison soon to be invalid if people continue “to flow comfortably along . . . down the river of pseudo-life).
Havel’s description of “the post-totalitarian system” he is witness to is shockingly similar to current state of affairs in the U.S.:
“The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his or her ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.”
Havel’s “post-totalitarian state” of 70’s Communist Eastern Europe was totalitarian but radically different from the totalitarian dictatorships of Hitler and Mao. Havel’s biographer, John Keane, described Havel’s “post-totalitarian state” this way:
Within the system, every individual is trapped within a dense network of the state’s governing instruments. . .themselves legitimated by a flexible but comprehensive ideology, a “secularized religion”. . . .it is therefore necessary to see, argued Havel, that power relations. . .are best described as a labyrinth of influence, repression, fear and self-censorship which swallows up everyone within it, at the very least by rendering them silent, stultified and marked by some undesirable prejudices of the powerful.
Keane’s description brings us back to the epigram of this post. The “willingness to merge” statement is from The Power of the Powerless. It follows from the shop-keeper example and questions Havel poses:
The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? Has he really given much thought to how such a unification might occur and what it could mean?
What if the shopkeeper takes down his sign (takes off his mask) and begins to speak up?
Havel explores the potential of the “powerless” with an examination of the nature of power. Havel speaks of a profound crisis of human identity brought about by “living within a lie.” He speaks of political import: the individual’s moral choice for truth and in the creation of an independent life – a sphere of truth – for society even as every individual is trapped within a dense network of the state’s governing instruments. (I would add: The center of power is not the center of truth.)
(This essay has much to consider at this moment in time. It is available for download below.)
“If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living the truth. This is why it must be suppressed more severely than anything else.” ― Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless
*****
“In an era when metaphysical and existential certainties are in a state of crisis, when people are being uprooted and alienated and are losing their sense of what this world means, this ideology inevitably has a certain hypnotic charm. To wandering humankind it offers an immediately available home: all one has to do is accept it, and suddenly everything becomes clear once more, life takes on new meaning, and all mysteries, unanswered questions, anxiety, and loneliness vanish. Of course, one pays dearly for this low-rent home: the price is abdication of one’ s own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher authority. The principle involved here is that the center of power is identical with the center of truth.” ― Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe
“Truth must be integrated with love; morality is not whole without it. Love is the greatest strength of the powerless. Unity founded on love will never be coercion; power guided by love will never be violence. Love is all-powerful and will even overcome hatred. And only love can do this!” ― Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe
*****
This week I received the following message from my Illinois state representative:
Yesterday, Governor JB Pritzker issued a statewide mask mandate for K-12 students. In doing so, he superseded the decisions being made at the local level, and silenced the voices of students, parents, educators and administrators.
This authoritarian mandate is the latest attack on truth and humanity. As most people now know, masks are ineffective against the spread of COVID. Worse, as detailed above, masks are dangerous for children to wear. Do not send your children to school in masks. Masks are physically and emotionally harmful for children to wear. Defy the lie.
*****
Other lies we are told to accept:
Critical Race Theory (CRT)
America is a racist country.
If you are white you are racist.
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion. ((DEI) is meaningless virtue signaling of Woke ‘virtues.’ Consider that Chicago elected a DEI intersectional black-gay-woman as mayor. Chicago is referred to nationally by the shooting and killings that take place in its city limits. Chicago’s mayor Lightfoot, in her DEI capacity, absolves herself of any responsibility by saying “All roads lead to COVID.” Others like her say, “All roads lead to climate change.”
DEI is a tyrannical imposition on people and business and, for the most part, is racist in its application.)
The hugely priced Infrastructure Bill is about physical infrastructure. (The bill contains massive amounts of tax-payer money for social engineering. Its passage will place America’s children and grandchildren under a huge burden of debt, devalue the dollar and will expose America to its number one enemy – China.) Also, are you OK with having your mileage taxed?
The infrastructure bill imposes massive transportation penalties on Americans.The Infrastructure Bill is a 2700 Page DisasterFrance is flooded with people fighting for freedom, and Lindell calls out Kemp
Did the media just elect Geritol-ad Joe Biden as president-elect of their sock puppet theater?
Does the media care whether your one vote is disenfranchised by two illegal/invalid votes?
Did illegal votes pour in just like illegal aliens poured in at the behest of Democrats?
Are you buying the narrative that by not conceding to the main stream media/Democrats and by demanding a thorough investigation into alleged election corruption you are delegitimizing Democracy?
Was the NYT headline of Nov. 11, 2020 American Democracy DEMANDS every legal vote to be counted and the rest tossed? Or, was it Election Officials Nationwide Find no Fraud?
Should we just get on with our lives and assume that what the NYT and the media tells us (“Nothing to see here.”) is “good enough for me”?
During the takeover of a country by the forces of a dictatorship, does the media ‘cooperate’ with the power they are in cahoots with?
Do you believe that the media has your best interest at heart?
Are you aware that the media and social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.,) pose the greatest threats to democracy?
Are you OK with and feel secure in Groupthink?
Are you Ok with the shadow government of Democrats/media operating to take down President Trump the last four years?
Is the Democrat/Progressive party the party of Bolshevism?
Are you OK with submitting your income, your rights, yourself and your country to Bernie Sanders, BLM and the Socialist spice girls (Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar)?
Are you OK with the intolerance of the Democrats/Progressives/media and their desire to cancel you (your thoughts, your words, your religion) out?
Are you OK with being reduced to the lowest common denominator of life because socialism/Marxism says it must be so for equality?
Are you OK with Biden rescinding, through executive order, the immigration policies put in place to protect the country?
Have you heard of any terrorist attack on U.S. soil during the last four years?
Have you heard of the U.S. starting wars the last four years?
Are you OK with Biden placing America – its resources, its tax revenue and its people – at the behest of the self-serving token Paris Accord (a Tower of Babel) while the American private sector, the last four years, has produced alternative green energy sources and has made America energy independent?
What really matters: numbers of cases and positivity OR deaths directly and solely related to COVID-19?
Are you OK with a state government that shuts down your business and your livelihood as it plays God seeking to control a virus?
Will state government shut down communities and businesses for climate change and racism and “gun control” calling each a “public health crisis?
Who is the “public” in “public health”?
Is the “greater good” proffered by the state as the reason for its coercive and overbearing control of your life really the greater good?
Do you agree with a member of Biden’s new coronavirus task force and lockdown enthusiast, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, that life is not worth living past 75?
Who should have the say about your health: the state or you?
Do you believe the state is the answer to healthcare and not yourself?
Are we to obey all laws?
Am I ready for civil disobedience?
Are you OK with increased cases of depression, drug use, suicides, and child and spousal abuse that the lockdowns have produced?
Are you ready to disobey all state orders that hinder human flourishing, that are antisocial and inhuman and, that produce the negative effects as mentioned above?
Should we obey stay-at home advisories and orders? And, why?
Should we “cancel Thanksgiving” as Chicago’s Mayor Lightfoot has strongly advised?
Who should be quarantined?
Who should not be quarantined?
Should you be quarantined?
Who should not be forced to stay at home and to cancel Thanksgiving?
When Democrats propose policies do you challenge them and ask economist Thomas Sowell’s questions: “Compared to what?” and “At what cost?” and “What hard evidence do you have?”
Are you able to challenge them or are you cut off because you are not making them look good and they don’t have the answers to your questions?
Do Progressives care more about their vision than about humans they want to impose their vision on?
Are the U.S. public health policies driven by China, as are Hollywood and pro-sports?
Will compulsory vaccines, contact tracing and vaccine cards become the means to separate who’s in and who’s out of the New Globalist World Order in the coming days?
Are you OK with abuse of power and a Stalinist type enemies list and another Great Purge?
Do you rant and rave, calling America “racist” and society “systemically racist”, because you grew up in a single parent home without a father and never learned how to succeed in the world?
Are you OK with the individual being crushed, worn down, and reduced to powder in the mortar and pestle of the totalitarian Progressive Left?
Are you concerned about and afraid of firearms because the TV has relentlessly told you that you should be concerned about and afraid of firearms, as it has with Covid-19 and climate change and healthcare and a host of other socialist initiatives to get you feeding from the same trough?
“For years, they’ve said Chicago ain’t ready for reform. Well, get ready, because reform is here,” announced Chicago’s first openly gay and African-American female mayor Lori Lightfoot during her inaugural address. Lightfoot defeated Preckwinkle in the runoff election, becoming mayor-elect of Chicago. on May 20, 2019.
Lori Lightfoot Mayor of
The mayoral election results confirmed that the threefer intersectionality of Lightfoot (black, female, lesbian) trumped the twofer intersectionality of Toni Preckwinkle (black, female) and that identity politics matters to Chicago Democrats. The election results confirmed that “change” was just one more label away.
“I campaigned on change. You voted for change. And I plan to deliver change to our government.”
In her latest attempt to “deliver change” and show Chicago that “reform is here”, Mayor Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, a former president of the Chicago Police Board and former chair of the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force, is taking steps to deal with the city’s crime and the coronavirus. “Change” is just a ticket and a mask away.
Mayor Lightfoot has proposed an intersectional two-fer to handle Chicago’s violent offenders and its budget crises: a city budget that includes speed-camera ticketing of drivers going over six MPH over the speed limit. If enacted, cars that speed away from drive-by shootings will be ticketed and the city will gain revenue. Reform is here. But, what about the city and state’s Covid-19 initiative?
Defeating Covid-19 and enforcing what some are calling “a culture of safetyism” are behind Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s latest mandate outlining new rules for restaurants, bars and social gatherings in multiple counties including Chicago’s Cook County. The rules included a decision to close indoor dining. The Governor, throwing the full weight of his office behind the new mandate, said Wednesday that he would send the Illinois State Police to the regions where restaurants and bars were defying his orders.
Mayor Lightfoot and Gov. Pritzker
In the shadow of Gov. Pritzker, Mayor Lightfoot, on Oct. 1, 2020, offered her own tour de force – subjecting the Coronavirus to a triple threat of her intersectional power in super hero fashion. Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, donned “Rona Destroyer” costumes for a pre-Halloween press conference.
Lightfoot as Rona Destroyer
On May 20, 2019, Lori Lightfoot was awarded Chicago’s four stars. Elections have consequences. So, watch out Covid-19.
Intersectionality at the Crossroad
On Tuesday Oct. 27th, 2020, following a private ceremony in the Supreme Court’s East Conference Room, Judge Amy Coney Barrett officially became Justice Barrett. Chief Justice John Roberts administered the Judicial Oath to Barrett, as husband Jesse held the family Bible. Justice Barrett – wife, mother of seven, adoptive parent, lawyer, circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and, academic – became the ninth member of the Supreme Court.
Justice Barrett sworn in
Justice Barrett’s nomination was supported by every law clerk she had worked with and by all of her 49 faculty colleagues at Notre Dame Law school. The American Bar Assoc. Standing Committee gave her a “Well Qualified” rating. Colleagues and close associates lauded her as “Whip smart” “Brilliant writer and thinker” “Intellectual giant”.
Justice Barrett’s family
Justice Barrett revealed her legal aptitude and intellectual prowess during the senate committee’s questioning. Without notes, Judge Barrett answered each question with aplomb. And, unlike her activist predecessor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Barrett made it clear during the confirmation hearings that she would abide by the Constitution and not substitute her own views in rulings.
“A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policymakers, and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold.”
Yet, the recounting of Barrett’s positive recommendations and stellar qualifications and her adroit answers fell on some deaf ears. The Democratic senators wanted to be heard instead.
During Barrett’s confirmation hearing the Democratic senators decried the timing of the nomination to their GOP colleagues on the committee. They also repeatedly questioned Barrett hoping that she would reveal a bias against the policies and laws they favor. They pleaded with her to recuse herself from cases where they desired favorable rulings, including a probable election case. The Democratic senators then brought in “expert witnesses” to echo their concerns and to provoke an activist sympathy in Judge Barrett. The witnesses gave pro-emotive accounts of abortion and the Affordable Care Act. One of the witnesses spoke of the “real-world harm of ending the ACA”.
The media, along with the Democratic Senators speaking outside the hearing, presented Barrett’s intersectionality – her faith and the law – as a problem. As a Catholic, conservative and Constitution Originalist, Justice Barret is seen as a triple threat to LGBT rights, abortion rights and healthcare rights held sacred by Progressives. Social media echoed the main stream media’s negative take.
After Justice Barrett was sworn in, the Girl Scouts of America congratulated her on their Twitter and Facebook pages. But the posts were quickly deleted after social media erupted and began spewing vitriol against “the 5th woman appointed to the Supreme Court since its inception in 1789.”
Replying to the deletion, actress Amber Tamblyn tweeted “@girlscouts thank you for deleting the tweet. Be on our side – the side of girls who grow up to become women who fight for other women and girls and not the opposite.”
In my last post I mentioned that I voted early. There are issues of national and local importance on the ballot. I couldn’t wait to cast my votes. Here’s why.
God help us if the incoherent and rambling Joe Biden wins the presidency. I am not alone in my concern of a Joe Biden presidency:
“… no 77-year-old white man from Delaware has the right, authority or rationale to question my blackness or the blackness of millions of Americans exercising our God-given right to be free and exercise our constitutionally granted power to vote for whomever we want, even if they are Republican.”
“The black vote will be the swing vote this year. And right now, it’s looking like it’s Joe Biden’s for the taking. This is despite Biden’s history, which is riddled with policies that have historically and devastatingly disenfranchised African Americans.”
Biden has stated that as president he would enforce a national mask mandate. He also stated that he would raise taxes. Behind these statements is the predictable and reprehensible Democrat platform of controlling people and raising taxes. For Democrats, individual liberties are an impediment to building the progressive welfare state. Biden has his own impediments.
I don’t see Biden finishing the four-year term. He may resign for health reasons or because of his son Hunter and his dealings with foreign nations or because his synapses may completely stop firing. The extreme far-left ComaLol Harris would then become president. Our country will not survive the moral narcissism and value-meanderings of such politicians.
My vote was not based on rhetoric but on record: 47 years of swamp building vs. 47 months of retooling America; the economic stagnation of the Obama/Biden years and the stunning economic boon of the last four.
I voted on the macro-issue of the presidency and the nation’s well-being. I voted against the authoritarian Democrats and their everything-goes-anything-goes Progressive agenda. I voted to continue the good that started with the 2016 election – economic rebound, historic low unemployment, judges who abide by the Constitution, Black Americans being respected and not talked down to and, the peace efforts in North Korea and the Middle East.
On the micro level, I voted against the local Progressive Democratic candidates who promote socialism in the form of healthcare and are in bed with Mike Madigan “the man behind the fiscal fiasco in Illinois”. What is happening in Illinois should be a stark warning to Americans of what will happen if Democrats are elected on a macro level. Elections have consequences.
Also on the ballot was the proposed amendment to the Illinois constitution. The amendment would change the state’s tax structure by removing the current flat rate provisions and changing it to allow a progressive income tax.
There is a TV commercial running constantly In Illinois. It promotes the amendment as a “Fair Tax”. The Orwellian Newspeak “Fair Tax” ad should be warning enough that what it is being sold is deceitful: the rich will be taxed more and that most Illinoisans will have lower taxes as a result. But, once a graduated tax is in place, Illinois pols – Democrats – will undoubtedly move the tax brackets down to collect revenue. People are leaving Illinois in droves now. The rich will leave when their taxes go up. They will take their business and jobs elsewhere. Soon, I will retire and move to Tennessee. Who pays the bills then? Whoever is left in Illinois.
The amendment is being touted as a means to fix Illinois’ disastrous fiscal mess. The Democrats in charge refuse to amend the constitution to fix the pension crisis. They want taxpayers to fix the problem they created and refuse to remedy. Will you receive an annual pension of over $100k? I won’t. I struggle to finance my own retirement after taxes.
(There is a glaring omission to what is pushed as “social justice” today: When a person provides for him or herself and for their family and also helps their neighbor, they take the burden off of society and government for their financial and emotional well-being and the well-being of others. This is a socially just use of one’s income.)
I voted “NO” on the proposed amendment. Reasons for my “NO” vote are included in the links below:
“Coroner Richard Jorgensen issued a warning Thursday that the number of suicides in the county between Jan. 1 and June 30 rose from 44 in 2019 to 54 in 2020, a 23% increase.
…This year overdose deaths are 52% higher than the same time last year, with the majority occurring after the COVID-19 measures were implemented in the state.”
“The fallout of what happened with the quarantine is going to be pretty bad … for people’s mental health and people’s livelihoods, and that is not a good recipe.”
Above are just two local headlines. One can extrapolate the local effects of the COVID-19 mitigation to a national scenario.
At the beginning of the lockdown the messaging coming down from our overlords was that hospitals and medical resources would be overwhelmed if we didn’t obey the stay-at-home orders. Yet, we who are locked down (those at risk and the healthy) were not told that we would be overwhelmed. That was not in their consideration. As indicated above, there has been an increase of depression, anxiety and substance abuse leading to overdoses and death. Who would have thought that imposing social isolation, mask muzzling, loss of employment, loss of one’s business, etc. would have had such a devastating effect on humans? Our nanny overlords did not.
If it bleeds it leads. I have no doubt that the 24/7 news coverage of cases and deaths related to COVID-19 (Tales from the Crypt) exacerbates mental health problems, especially for those with pre-existing mental health problems. That coverage and the constant PSAs telling us to wear masks and stay home has got almost everyone spooked.
The line for early voting yesterday morning was outside the door, down the sidewalk and down another sidewalk. Some sixty people, standing apart in the UV light of the hot sun, were wearing a mask. I did not. I did wear one inside the county building to cast my vote. I didn’t want create a scene.
(There is no medical science behind wearing a mask outdoors. Yet, medical-scientism demands, like its counterpart climate-scientism, mindless herd-submission to its specious dogma.)
Personally, I am infinitely more concerned about the effects of the lockdown on humans than about the effects of COVID-19. More and more COVID-19 cases are reported. So what? More and more people are being tested. People get it and build immunity to it. Deaths are reported but are the deaths only caused by COVID-19 or by pre-existing conditions and COVID-19? We are not told.
We all know that those with pre-existing conditions -respiratory illness, compromised immune systems, the elderly and, the obese, like Illinois’ governor J.B. Pritzker – should be quarantined. The rest of us should be set free. The lockdown should have ended two weeks after it was started.
Along with the excuse given for the lockdown: “to keep from overloading the hospital and the essential workers” (“workers”, a term used by Marxist sympathizers), was the “flatten the curve” excuse. The conditions for ending the lockdown were mutating. It mutated again with “we’ll wait for a vaccine”. We don’t need to wait for a vaccine to end the restrictions. The only vaccine I want is one which inoculates me against contracting bureaucrats into my life.
People need to get back to their livelihoods. Restrictions need to be lifted off of businesses and churches. No one should be deprived of a right to earn a living and to be fruitful. Kids need to be in school *(God protect them from the Progressive/Marxist/BLM indoctrination virus.) The paranoia imposed on us from the media and the overlords must stop. End the lockdown now! We are a free people who know how to protect ourselves and others. We’ve made it this far. Stop the spread of fear. Flatten the rhetoric.
It is not good for man to be alone. The COVID-19 mandates and our inability to cope with isolation creates a public mental health crisis. Mitigate this.
We need to protect the vulnerable – that is all of us – from the exasperating fear foisted on us by the “If it bleeds it leads” media and the tyranny of isolation imposed by the overlords who continue to de-humanize the population with their mandates.
“I am a left-leaning New York City public defender who voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries and Hillary Clinton in the general election. I have never voted for a Republican candidate. I chose my career because I wanted to help those most defenseless in our society: indigent people accused and convicted of crimes and facing the awesome power of the state.
Until I saw the catastrophic effects that the lockdowns were having on the very people I sought to help…”
In a radio interview discussing her article, Ms. Younes, a lifelong Democrat, said she is voting for Trump based on the COVID-19 restrictions the Biden/Harris ticket would impose if elected.
“As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.”
Good. I’ve brought you back in time to grade school and to poem recitals mumbled and fumbled on a small wooden stage festooned with branches, hot klieg lights, coaching teachers and anxious whispering parents ready to breastfeed sweet flowing praise into their little sapling.
Saturday, in beastly 90 degree Northern Illinois late summer heat, I decided to trek once more through my childhood and teenage and adulthood forest. I call it “my forest” because I like to think of it as “my Illinois” before “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Start the music: As I walked through the “most ancient of conditions” those formative memories of my youth, Joni’s song resounded in some distant glen, somewhere within the silent swish of stately trees and near the stealing bases Blue jays and close to the ever-present droning life support system of the Illinois Toll Way.
A “tree museum”? Now I have to rest from my labors and ponder: after all the recitals and all of the seasons of my life, does my life’s mustard tree end up in the same place as it has for these trees-in a tree museum?
One good thing: it is clear to me that when I die I am recycled. You know, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. But this parking lot to parking lot stuff has got to stop. A bittersweet experience, this “tree museum” business is, on Labor Day weekend.
Encompassing the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois is industry and business of mankind’s doing. I expect that. I just didn’t want all that.
I want Illinois, Northern Illinois back. I want “The Prairie State” back.
So, I came. I saw trees and tall grass. I smelled musty earth and cedar mulch and the decay of rotten wood. I sweated profusely to feel alive once more within the epiphany of nature.
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
And they charged all the people
A dollar and a half to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And they put up a parking lot
…
Hold on to your charm bracelets! Without further ado, here is a portion of my photographic record of The Trek (looking for Ents, basically, to resolve the pavement problem).
Here’s what a photographer might say: “These photos were taken during hazy midday. I prefer morning or late afternoon lighting because the contrast is more interesting and diffuse.”
As you will see, I’m no Ansel Adams or Elliot Porter but I am a visual learner. So…
… sweat glands and all I focused my attention on flora, glen and meadow, Ash, Maples, Oaks and, well, you go there. And, besides, interior forest pictures are well lit during midday. That’ll be my excuse. (Please forward all complaints about out-of-control pavement to your congressman.) Let’s WordPress on. (No parking lots were abused in this filming.)
The Morton Arboretum’s Visitor’s Center
The Morton Arboretum’s Visistor Center w/restaurant facing Meadow lake
A view across Meadow Lake towards the Visitor’s Center
Interior Forest #1
This little fellow wouldn’t give me his name. He had a mouthful of acorn.
Woodland Trail #1
Acorn on the lookout for squirrels.
Berries du jour
Trail #2
Open prairie meadow
Meadow
Meadow flora
Illinois-Wilderness at Your Doorstep
Woodland Interior #1
Woodland Interior #2
Avant garde tree
Woodland Interior #3
Spot the Spider?
Mushrooms a la dead tree
Forest glen #1
Forest glen #2
Morton Arboretum brochure
Fall fashion?
Forest flora
Wetlands
Homage to Eliot Porter
“No Running” Bugs have “The Right of Way”
“If a tree falls in the forest…”
Japanese tree? How multicultivating!
Stonehenge Green?
Jesus: “I am the True Vine and you are the branches.”
Tanyosho Pine-Japanese Red Fir
“A Walk In Paradise Garden”
In case you missed plastic during this montage here is a Lego Bird scuplture by Sean Kenney.
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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“Mask Wearers of the World, Unite!”
August 8, 2021 Leave a comment
This past year-and-a half, did you “merge with the anonymous crowd” and “flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life”? Did you follow the flotilla of Pied pipers mesmerizing you with “the science”?
Did you socially distance, put on a mask, and have your business and office and church shut down? Did you believe that the PCR tests are accurate (Guess why there are so few cases of the flu reported)? Did you submit your body to be a lab experiment for the mRNA vaccines?
Did you go along with “the science” to get along? Did you go along with “the anonymous crowd” because, per the head mocker of the Biden regime, “if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were,”.
Do you now equate the loss of freedom and choice as a loss of your identity as a human? Or, are you still wanting “to flow comfortably along with it (the loss of your identity) down the river of pseudo-life”? Are you OK with diktats and lacking individual will? Are you OK supporting the automatism of a totalitarian system?
Now, you may say to me “it was out of fear of COVID that I persuaded myself to follow the mandates”, or, “It was out of fear of giving someone COVID that I submitted to the mandates’, or, “it was out of fear of litigation that I shut down my business, my church.”
Or, was it out of fear of thinking for yourself, acting individually, and rebuffing the diktats coming down from the bio-medical regime through the state media?
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The alignment of the power – globalists, oligarchs, techno-utopians, politicians, the media, the Pope, and the forces of evil – against the powerless has been the impetus for my dissenting posts over the past year and-a half. I have opposed the schizophrenic CDC guidelines. I have opposed authoritarian mandates. I have opposed tyranny – including medical tyranny. I have opposed the lies being fed us. I have opposed the sowing of fear. And, I will oppose the Great Reset mandates – from the powerful to the powerless – coming our way.
What is coming our way is a thousand times more tyrannical than what we’ve seen the past year. The “river of pseudo-life” will flow with blood. If my words have seemed harsh, critical and uncompassionate, if it appears that I am calling out people for their past behavior, then please understand. This post is meant to be a wakeup call. It is meant to shake you out of a COVID-induced paralysis to face the growing nightmare.
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As a nation, we didn’t start out stupefied and powerless. But over time we gave in to soft tyranny (Tocqueville). Out of fear, we have exchanged our freedom (and our identity) for false security.
Last century, for example, we accepted the New Deal and the tyranny of centralized planning – the welfare state and overreaching government. Wasn’t New Deal tyranny acceptance based on (economic) fear? Wasn’t New Deal tyranny acceptance also a “well-meaning” acceptance by the people?
Today, fearful and well-meaning people, have become OK with the hard-core tyranny of censorship. Those behind the Great Reset love these people. Behind the fascia of Build Back Better is (1984’s) Room 101: Besmirch Bludgeon Begone.
As we have seen, much of the country has fallen prostrate before mandates and “guidelines” out of fear of a so-called “public-health crisis”. Yet, COVID19 is a variation of the common cold and has a recovery rate of over 99.8 % for most people. Early outpatient treatment is recommended.
The American Journal of Medicine now (Jan. 2021) now (finally!) recommends Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin, and Zinc for the treatment of Covid 19 outpatients. Had this been the protocol used in Jan. 2020, many lives could have been saved. But the powerful – Anthony Fauci, the CDC, Francis Collins and the NIH, Bill Gates, and big pharma – had other plans for the American people.
There has also been fear of litigation if not abiding by the mandates and “guidelines”. Behind all the fear is the fear of disobeying the powerful alignment that stands against the powerless.
To assuage fears, there are those who have chosen to “merge with the anonymous crowd” and have chosen to live the (COVIDian) lies given them. They have chosen “to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life”.
The COVIDian lies include the following:
Mask wearing is effective to stop the spread of COVID; not wearing a mask puts yourself and others at risk; children must wear a mask to school.
A group of physicians from Germany, Poland and Austria, concluded that the wearing of nose and mouth coverings by children leads to an increase in carbon dioxide levels in both inhaled and exhaled air while wearing a mask.
“We suggest that decision-makers weigh the hard evidence produced by these experimental measurements accordingly, which suggest that children should not be forced to wear face masks.”
Experimental Assessment of Carbon Dioxide Content in Inhaled Air With or Without Face Masks in Healthy Children: A Randomized Clinical Trial | Pediatrics | JAMA Pediatrics | JAMA Network)
Social distancing works to stop the spread of COVID; shutting down businesses and churches stops the spread of COVID.
(Idiotic. Distance yourself from the CDC.)
You need the vaccine to protect you from COVID. It is safe and effective.
You need the vaccine to protect yourself even if you have acquired immunity.
(The CDC and Big Pharma won’t talk about acquired immunity. They have a vaccine to sell.)
You need the vaccine to protect yourself. Other protocols don’t work.
(UK Researchers: Cheap Cholesterol Drug Reduces Covid-19 Infection by 70% (thegatewaypundit.com))
(Here’s the most effective protocol — Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin and Zinc — for the treatment of Covid-19 patients. | SOTN: Alternative News, Analysis & Commentary (stateofthenation.co))
You need the CDC to tell you how to think about COVID.
You need Vitamins C and D, the mineral Zinc, exercise, sunshine and a good CDC-free doctor.
Do you realize that you now spend every waking hour thinking about what government wants and how it effects your freedom?
Coronavirus Likely Originated in A Chinese Lab…But The Real Villains Are Right Here In America – Revolver
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December, 1989. Václav Havel was elected president of Czechoslovakia. On New Year’s Day, 1990, he gave his first “state-of-the-nation” address to the country on national television.
“New Year’s Address to the Nation,’ January 1, 1990
“For forty years on this day, you heard, from my predecessors, variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many millions of tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspective were unfolding before us.
I assume do did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.
Our country is not flourishing. . ..
But all this is not the main problem. The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we got used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore each other, to care only for ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility, and forgiveness lost their depth and dimensions. . .. The previous regime . . . reduced man to a force of production and nature to a tool of production. . .. It reduced gifted an autonomous people to nuts and bolts in some monstrously huge, noisy, and stinking machine, whose real purpose was not clear to anyone. . ..
As I have observed the growing fascism under the alignment of the powerful with the Biden regime and its invocation of dystopia and dehumanization akin to what Havel described in his address, the title of Václav Havel’s 1978 essay, The Power of the Powerless, intrigued me.
The essay, among others found in The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe, explain the features of Soviet-type totalitarian systems of power as compared to the West (A comparison soon to be invalid if people continue “to flow comfortably along . . . down the river of pseudo-life).
Havel’s description of “the post-totalitarian system” he is witness to is shockingly similar to current state of affairs in the U.S.:
Havel’s “post-totalitarian state” of 70’s Communist Eastern Europe was totalitarian but radically different from the totalitarian dictatorships of Hitler and Mao. Havel’s biographer, John Keane, described Havel’s “post-totalitarian state” this way:
Keane’s description brings us back to the epigram of this post. The “willingness to merge” statement is from The Power of the Powerless. It follows from the shop-keeper example and questions Havel poses:
The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? Has he really given much thought to how such a unification might occur and what it could mean?
What if the shopkeeper takes down his sign (takes off his mask) and begins to speak up?
Havel explores the potential of the “powerless” with an examination of the nature of power. Havel speaks of a profound crisis of human identity brought about by “living within a lie.” He speaks of political import: the individual’s moral choice for truth and in the creation of an independent life – a sphere of truth – for society even as every individual is trapped within a dense network of the state’s governing instruments. (I would add: The center of power is not the center of truth.)
(This essay has much to consider at this moment in time. It is available for download below.)
“If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living the truth. This is why it must be suppressed more severely than anything else.”
― Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless
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“In an era when metaphysical and existential certainties are in a state of crisis, when people are being uprooted and alienated and are losing their sense of what this world means, this ideology inevitably has a certain hypnotic charm. To wandering humankind it offers an immediately available home: all one has to do is accept it, and suddenly everything becomes clear once more, life takes on new meaning, and all mysteries, unanswered questions, anxiety, and loneliness vanish. Of course, one pays dearly for this low-rent home: the price is abdication of one’ s own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher authority. The principle involved here is that the center of power is identical with the center of truth.”
― Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe
“Truth must be integrated with love; morality is not whole without it. Love is the greatest strength of the powerless. Unity founded on love will never be coercion; power guided by love will never be violence. Love is all-powerful and will even overcome hatred. And only love can do this!”
― Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe
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This week I received the following message from my Illinois state representative:
Yesterday, Governor JB Pritzker issued a statewide mask mandate for K-12 students. In doing so, he superseded the decisions being made at the local level, and silenced the voices of students, parents, educators and administrators.
This authoritarian mandate is the latest attack on truth and humanity. As most people now know, masks are ineffective against the spread of COVID. Worse, as detailed above, masks are dangerous for children to wear. Do not send your children to school in masks. Masks are physically and emotionally harmful for children to wear. Defy the lie.
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Other lies we are told to accept:
Critical Race Theory (CRT)
America is a racist country.
If you are white you are racist.
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion. ((DEI) is meaningless virtue signaling of Woke ‘virtues.’ Consider that Chicago elected a DEI intersectional black-gay-woman as mayor. Chicago is referred to nationally by the shooting and killings that take place in its city limits. Chicago’s mayor Lightfoot, in her DEI capacity, absolves herself of any responsibility by saying “All roads lead to COVID.” Others like her say, “All roads lead to climate change.”
DEI is a tyrannical imposition on people and business and, for the most part, is racist in its application.)
The hugely priced Infrastructure Bill is about physical infrastructure. (The bill contains massive amounts of tax-payer money for social engineering. Its passage will place America’s children and grandchildren under a huge burden of debt, devalue the dollar and will expose America to its number one enemy – China.) Also, are you OK with having your mileage taxed?
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Mass Psychosis:
Mask Psychosis:
Mask Psychosis: NYT Confirms The Liberal Mask Cult Is Here to Stay – Revolver
“Corona Unmasked” by Sucharit Bhakdi and Karina Reiss | Algora Blog
Informed Dissent:
Israeli scientist says COVID-19 could be treated for under $1/day – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)
Covid-19 natural immunity compared to vaccine-induced immunity: The definitive summary | Sharyl Attkisson
Despite Deadly Results the FDA will Fast Track Pfizer COVID Vaccine Approval by Early Sept. — Will Allow States and Businesses to Begin their Forced Vaccinations (thegatewaypundit.com)
If They Want to See A COVID “Passport” – Show them This! – Granite Grok
Health Canada adds Bell’s Palsy warning to Pfizer labels, but says vaccine is safe – National | Globalnews.ca
Michael Mitchell: 65-year-old “Braveheart” actor receives both Sinovac injections, then third Pfizer “booster” shot, dead six days later – The COVID Blog
Back-to-school plans in DC, Maryland and Virginia: Where masks are required | WTOP
WOW: Moderna Calls for 3rd Shot of Vaccine to Protect Against New Strains — On Same Day Company Posts $4 Billion 2nd Quarter Profit on Vaccine (thegatewaypundit.com)
Fully vaccinated people who get a Covid-19 breakthrough infection can transmit the virus, CDC chief says – CNN
The Smoking Jab: Fauci and the NIH Knew Covid-19 “Vaccines” Could Lead to Antibody-Dependent Enhancement ~ (ghionjournal.com)
Here’s the most effective protocol — Hydroxychloroquine, Azithromycin and Zinc — for the treatment of Covid-19 patients. | SOTN: Alternative News, Analysis & Commentary (stateofthenation.co)
UK Researchers: Cheap Cholesterol Drug Reduces Covid-19 Infection by 70% (thegatewaypundit.com)
Dr. Ryan Cole — What the Vaccine spike protein does to the body… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
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Filed under 2021 current events, COVID-19, cultural Marxism, Culture, Human Rights, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, Technocracy, totalitarianism Tagged with COVID19, CRT, culture, DEI, fascism, Globalism, Great Reset, human rights, Illinois, mandates, masks, politics, progressivism, totalitarianism, Václav Havel