By Steve Apfel, AMERICAN THINKER
To fight a pandemic responsible for fewer deaths than the Asian flu of 1957-58, we’ve been schooled to think and behave like the abject oppressed of North Korea.
- We let bureaucrats decide for us what businesses are more important than others to society.
- Without a squeak we acquiesce to being put under de facto house arrest.
- We hardly blink when troops are deployed to enforce lockdown.
- People believe they’re doing their duty by reporting on neighbours.
- Passively we observe our right to protest neatly cut off when public gatherings are outlawed in the name of social distancing.
- We accept the obligation to go bankrupt and hungry as the cost of beating the virus, but don’t expect our law-makers to make the same sacrifice that they imposed on us.
- That the chance of death in lockdown due to hunger, addiction, depression, violence, neglect, etc, may be higher than dying from the virus, matters not one iota to the commissars of lockdown.
- With bovine servility we greet every inroad into private lives by law-makers who too often have a rotten past.
- We are blind to the political basis of the divide between those who advocate keeping the economy closed until the cows come home, and those desperate for the economy to reopen.
- Though we may see it, we fail to grasp that deliberate destruction of the socio-economic fabric is about exercising power over people instead of a life or death imperative.
- Bureaucrats blame the pandemic for threatening untold lives: “The World Food Programme suggests that 130 million people around the world could be pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Wait a minute! “As a result of”? Covid-19 causes sickness and death, mostly of miniscule proportions. It took just 1 in 1 million Indians to die to panic bureaucrats to lock up a billion people. What virus ever caused people to starve? Lockdown policies did that. The dire condition of our world is no fault of a virus. It was man-made. More to the point it was expert-made and government-administered.
Yet all of the above are details in the greater scheme. Where for example is the goalpost? For bureaucrats to give our lives back how flat must a curve made by someone’s model be? When will the time come to remove our shackles,tolet us live normally? No answers come. And that’s important.
No goalpost means that the elect are free to grab powers of their dreams. The Bolshevism of Stalin and the National Socialism of Hitler worked in that way, giving tyrants unlimited slack. Hannah Arendt in her great work, Origins of Totalitarianism, explains what use they made of it. “From day to day it was impossible to predict what new canard or atrocity (the slack) might inspire.” Hence the more ill-defined the objective, the more scope our bureaucrats get to control a fear-ridden populace.
It could be the most diabolical blueprint ever. Leon Trotsky, Commander in Chief of the Red Army and the ablest man in the Kremlin, might well be speaking to the architects of lockdown. Yet he does not talk about containing a pandemic. Saving lives is the last thing on Trotsky’s mind. Humans indeed are dispensable for a greater cause. Yet what the Bolshevik has to say would resonate with the commissars of our time. He does not speak about protecting life and liberty. Instead he hints at treating both with contempt when stating: “The end may justify the means, as long as there is something that justifies the end.” If the end motive behind locking down society and closing down the economy involves grabbing unconstitutional powers, the Trotsky lesson has been well taken.
Know it or not, our heads of state and gods of science have a rock-solid philosophical case. A constitutional system looks out for the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The utilitarian ideal of JS Mill and J Bentham is that liberty may go so far and no further. People are free to do as they like until they harm others. The elect are not only allowed but are duty-bound to deprive people of liberty for the protection of society. Lockdown is a good thing to do, and moral into the bargain.
However sound the case in theory, applied to handling the pandemic it flatters to deceive. If you let the best end possible, the saving of human life, justify the means, you entitle bureaucrats to rule with an iron fist. Even if (a big if) lockdown had a proven link with lives saved it would not make dictatorship worth bearing. How many lives saved is like being sold an outfit. Want a grim projection for Covid-19 deaths? Take this model. Or how about this other one for not a very scary picture?
We’ve been told lies into the bargain. By all the evidence Covid-19 can never be contained however much testing and contact tracing are done. Experts worth their salt would know that the horse already bolted. The virus is too widespread to be brought back. Bureaucrats need to come clean with us.
Not only lied to, we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes. The first lockdown orders were imposed to buy time, to avoid overloading the healthcare system. As things turned there were not too many patients but too few. Empty hospitals all over America are letting staff go. So bureaucrats had to shift the goal. They did it while the locked up masses watched movies. We now have to stay home to prevent deaths. Overloading the healthcare system is old stuff. Saving life is the new thing.
If so, have we surrendered to tyranny for the sake of a commensurate number of lives saved? That’s a big question. Considering the price we’ve had to pay, the threat would have to be existential. Three-months of corona in America have left some 58,000 dead, half of those in metropolitan New York. Compare that with death from other diseases. In any given month some 157,000 Americans die from unsung health conditions including heart disease, cancer, emphysema, stroke, drug abuse, diabetes and the common flu. That’s 471,000 for three months. Who would dare call the proportion, 58/471 existential?
Some would – they who stand to gain by whipping up panic. The media definitely gains. Bureaucrats and epidemiologists who live for limelight have all to gain and little to lose. Our policy-makers don’t get hit in the pocket; it’s the common people who get hit when the policies turn belly-up. Those who made them are also protected by being well-versed at shifting blame.
It took a matter of a month for policy-makers to cost the livelihoods of 26 million American workers and broke employers. They had led them to believe that they’d save the lives of millions by posting, ‘Closed for business until further notice.’
Then you have the super-elite who live a world apart. Bill Gates writing in the Washington Post, the mouthpiece of owner Jeff Bezos, states that reopening the economy soon is not an option. Do Gates and Bezos have to work to support families? Do they face bankruptcy? Will they need unemployment support? Or line up at a soup kitchen? And they’re Democrats, remember. As Democrats they stand for nothing higher than the exercise of power over people, for Big Daddy government.
Wherever predictions and prognoses are made, they are hopelessly brave. Yet we continue to trust people who have nothing to lose. “Never let a crisis go to waste” was the advice given to Democrats by Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. America was being pummelled by the financial meltdown of 2008. They’ve not allowed the Corona crisis to go to waste. Indeed, from governments of the right and left, from networks and newspapers to desperados presiding over collapsed economies, the pandemic comes as a heaven-sent football.
Benjamin Franklin could have had a futuristic moment when he said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Photo credit: Sarah Murk
Steve Apfel is an economist and a cost accountant, but most of all a prolific author of non-fiction and fiction, published in many journals and sites. His books include: ‘The Paymaster’ (Fiction); Hadrian’s Echo (Non-fiction); ‘A bias thicker than faith’ (non-fiction, for publication during 2020), and Balaam’s curse’, a WIP novel.
Not to mention the Hong Kong flu of 1968-69. The country did not shut down and people were not ordered to stay home and people didn’t go around wearing masks etc. The Hong Kong flu killed 100,000 Americans. Political leaders back then treated Americans like adults, responsible for their own health and safety. Many states are now effectively under marshal law. As a supporter of the police, I’m very disappointed that police forces across this country are carrying out unconstitutional orders. OTOH, I’m heartened by all the protests and defiance taking place. We must be Americans again.
@ Reader:
I think you’ve gotten me way off topic. We were talking about COVID-19
@ Michael S:
I’ll (try to) answer you point-by-point and make it short.
1. The mere fact that both GW and DT were in real estate is not sufficient to say they were comparable people, also in today’s $$ GW was worth ~1/6 as much as DT
2. Lobbying means influencing politicians on an issue which is of interest to you. Do you think a politician will be more likely to be swayed by the likes of you and me or a giant corporation?
3. Trump knows which WORDS make common people tick. So far he has requested a large increase in funding for the military-industrial complex and a 10% cut in a health budget. I am sure “the common man” would cheer and gladly sacrifice for our defense as long as the servants of the people have their “platinum” healthcare plans. And Trump’s administration has been dismantling EPA regulations non-stop. M-m-m-m! Nice thick air!
4. Don’t pretend you don’t know what good cop-bad cop tactic is and that it doesn’t exist
5. Harry Truman was made vice-president “for his extreme anti-Soviet stance” – the casual words of my history professor.
His sweet Bess wouldn’t let a Jew cross her threshold.
One came to see Truman and had to talk to him in the street. Nice of him to recognize Israel especially after the US together with Great Britain helped trap the prewar Jews in Europe.
@ Reader:
Hello, Reader. You said some interesting things:
1. Comparing the Founders to Donald Trump. George Washington was a surveyor who made his fortune in real estate. He went to William and Mary College, but only to get a Surveyor’s certificate. Trump also made his money in real estate; and his business degree from U Penn was a far cry from the Harvard and Yale Law School snobs who preceded him. He was the first US president, to my knowledge, since Ronald Reagan, who had any inkling of things that matter to the common man.
2. What is lobbying about? What IS lobbying about — you tell me. I imagine it’s something people with special interests engage in — inside the “Beltline”, in a place called “Foggy Bottom”. My father was a self-taught electrician, the son of a logger from the northern forest. I’m familiar with building tradesmen and the like, but not lobbyists. You say it’s legalized bribery, and I’ll take your word for it.
3. Trump is a multi-billionaire, who seems to know EXACTLY what makes common people tick. That’s why we voted for him. Let me check, to see what a “billion” is worth. Here’s from Forbes 400:
a. Jeff Bezos is worth 114 billion.
b. Bill Gates 106 b.
c. Warren Buffet 81 b
d. Mark Zuckerberg 70 b.
e. Larry Ellison 65 b.
f, etc. (400 people)…
Donald Trump is not on the list, nor any Kushner. This is NOT their class of people. He’s able to make deals with them, but I doubt that they consider him as part ot the same species.
4. Good Cop, Bad Cop, yada yada. I grew up around policemen. They seem like pretty ordinary people. The “Fonz” of our playground gang grew up to be a Vice Squad detective. Another schoolmate took over his father’s engine repair shop, etc. No lobbyists, politicians or “gentlemen” (Edgar G’s favorites), I’m afraid. You’re simply talking about a different world there.
5. Truman inherited the war from Franklin Roosevelt. During the war, EVERY major power was crushed, except the US and a devastated USSR. Truman set about to rebuild the economies of Europe and Japan, and established NATO to keep the peace. In Korea, he fought under the banner of the UN, and resisted advice to use nuclear weapons against PR China. Monday-morning quarterbacking is easy in politics; but I think Harry Truman can be credited with preventing World War III.
Truman was a businessman and farmer, by the way. His previous political experience was as a county commissioner. I think he must have had a hands-on understanding of the men who had to serve under him. I’m told his wife Bess was also a real honey — as, in my opinion, is our Melania.
I’m told Truman used cuss words. That might put some people off.
5. Harry S. Truman.
@ Michael S:
Michael, could you, please, enlighten me on how Harry S. Truman peacefully settled WWII.
It wasn’t when he nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to scare the Soviets after Japan surrendered, was it?
@ Michael S:
The United States is no longer the same country it was even a 100 years ago.
You must be kidding if you compare the Founders to Donald Trump and the like.
The government was taken over a long time ago. Maybe it wasn’t designed for it – which government is?
Then what lobbying is all about?
Basically, it is legalized bribery of politicians.
Trump is a multi billionaire – do you expect his heart ache for the common people?
They are just playing the good cop-bad cop game to confuse the masses.
They just gave 25 billion $$ to the airline industry.
When this thing is over how many people are going to be able to afford an airplane ticket?
Ted, please detrash my comment, just written a few moments ago, about a new study by three Israeli scientists who think that Israel’s total lockdown is unnecessary and will destroy the country’s economy.
@ Reader:
Hmmm. You seem to think the goal of the “sinister forces”, shall we call them, is
“A world ruled exclusively by the US government which (the government) would be owned by the largest business monopolies in the world.”
You must certainly know that the US Government, carefully crafted 230 years ago by mostly God-fearing, literate, wise men, is not designed to be taken over by an oligarchy of monopolist capitalists. It is said that there have been conspiracies, ever since the conception of this nation in the vision of my Pilgrim fathers, wanting to bring about this internationalist scheme
because God has raised up leaders to oppose them, e.g.
1. Elder William Brewster, most respected member of the Mayflower expedition, did not opt to start some sort of “mini kingdom” in the New World; but instead, drew up the Mayflower Compact to govern affairs of the expedition according to mutually agreed-upon written principles.
2. George Washington, called “His Excellency” by his country, was expected by all the world leaders to declare himself king. Instead, he surrendered his commission and political career to the Continental Congress. He went further, to warn against international entanglements, a central bank, and other things that would ultimately render us slaves of the London banking and commercial establishment.
3. Abraham Lincoln put down a bloody rebellion, literally “with malice to none”, and resisted attempts to create a central bank.
4. When Woodrow Wilson abandoned the constraints of his predecessors, when he established the Federal Reserve, entered World War I and went on to try to establish One World Government (the “League of Nations”), the US people and Congress opposed him and, under William Gamaliel Harding, returned the nation to normalcy.
5. Harry S. Truman, controller of the most awesome power ever known to man, peacefully settled WWII and was instrumental in the establishment of Medinat Israel. His predecessor, a Democrat like Wilson, had already established (1944) the World Bank and declared (1942) the United Nations.
And now, we have
6. Donald J. Trump, who has thrown so many monkey wrenches into the works, every Globalist is after his blood. I believe he is the one mentioned in the Bible,
2 Thessalonians:
7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
Donald Trump, for all his admitted human frailties, has been embodying the spirit of Middle American Christian culture. In the rantings of the media culture, I see continual, unveiled threats to “take him out of the way”. He has opposed various unequal treaties, WHO and other globalist institutions.
What we are seeing today is NOT the typical politicking of an opposition party trying to win an election. Instead we are seeing a blatant conspiracy of the media, Hollywood, the major newspapers, social networking platforms, etc., all trying to excite a crisis to (1) lead to the overthrow of President Trump, and (2) put our country and the world under unbelievable debt. Those wanting to accomplish the first are clearly monopoly globalists like Jeff Bezos; but those wanting to accomplish the second are clearly the monopoly bankers like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, etc.
As I have said, though, this push toward One World Govenment began long before people like Jeff Bezos and Jamie Dimon were even born. There is an underlying principle, deeply imbedded in human nature, that is driving it.
@ Michael S:
“a totalitarian One World Government”. Not exactly.
A world ruled exclusively by the US government which (the government) would be owned by the largest business monopolies in the world.
Ideally, for the rulers, every person in this world will be under constant control and surveillance which would have no limit.
There is no Deep State which hates the poor, innocent Trumpie-Pooh. Trump does what he has to and what he is told to do by his advisers, otherwise he wouldn’t be (s)elected. He is a big businessman himself.
Big business taking over governments is a known phenomenon which always ends badly for the state.
I am not saying that the “pandemic” is completely phony.
In my opinion, it’s vastly overblown to promote the above mentioned AI concentration camp and the “one government” government.
@ Shmuel Mohalever:Shmuel, you said,
“Whether the pandemic is real, as you believe, or mainly hyped, as I believe, it is accomplishing the goals of the ‘artificial intelligence” oriented Deep State.”
I’m glad you understand this. I would go further, to say that “Deep State” is not awfully fond of Donald Trump. What I’m not sure either you, Ted or Reader understand, is that trying to say this deadly pandemic is phony plays right into the hands of the “Bleach-drinker Libel” crowd. Our president has been accused of all sorts of extremist positions; but by the grace of God, he has successfully deflected all these accusations by demonstrating his ongoing concern for the American people. He has called for a GRADUAL re-opening of America; and we should be supporting him in this. Advocating “herd immunity” and other Yahoo false solutions is counter-productive.
In other matters, I’m amazed that both you and Reader see that the hidden agenda of the MSM, the Liberals and the Deep State is, if I read you correctly, a totalitarian One World Government. This is exactly what John said in Revelation 13:
Revelation 13:
[15] And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
[16] And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
[17] And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
[18] Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
“6-6-6”, of course, are the alignment markers on the UPC pricing code, which can be used to contain the personal identity (SSN) numbers required of every American. Higher tech improvements on this code can be implanted as a chip, etc., in people (as is already being done in places); but the ID numbers and the processing infastructure, the most difficult link in the chain, is already in place across the world. The process started long ago, and continues under the Trump administration. This pandemic, which is being treated as such by probably every country on earth, is merely a “push” to get the final product over the finish line.
The above does not need to be the eventual outcome of the current crisis; but ultimately the world is bound to WILLINGLY accept “One World Government”; not because some conspiracy bamboozled them into it, but because it MAKES SENSE to the godless human who believes that humans, and man-made laws, ought to stand in the place of reverence and authority now occupied by the God of the Bible. You must realize what this implies, concerning who has sovereign authority to determine the existence and boundaries of Israel. This is a world-wide conflict, which can only result in victory for one side; and this battle is essentially being waged in peoples’ minds.
@ Shmuel Mohalever:
You understand this perfectly.
@ Michael S: “All we need, is a crisis that is dangerous to make us all want this ultimate solution.” Michael–that crises has already arrived, is in progess, and is having all the results that you predict. It is the coronavirus panic. Whether the pandemic is real, as you believe, or mainly hyped, as I believe, it is accomplishing the goals of the ‘artificial intelligence” oriented Deep State.
@ Michael S:
The article explains (indirectly) WHY they are milking that coronavirus thing for all it’s worth. This is its value to me.
They are doing this to COPY and EXCEED the surveillance system of China in the name of AI competition.
All this talk about “democracy” and “freedom” is meaningless.
If you are OK with this, what can I say?
@ Reader:
Hi, Reader. I just looked up your reference to AI, in the Zero Hedge article by Thomas Durden. Here’s the opening:
“LAST YEAR, A GOVERNMENT COMMISSION CALLED FOR THE US TO ADOPT AN AI-DRIVEN MASS SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM FAR BEYOND THAT USED IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN ORDER TO ENSURE AMERICAN HEGEMONY IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. NOW, MANY OF THE “OBSTACLES” THEY HAD CITED AS PREVENTING ITS IMPLEMENTATION ARE RAPIDLY BEING REMOVED UNDER THE GUISE OF COMBATING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISI”
The title of the article called the system “Orwellian”, which it is in some ways. In other ways, it better resembles “The Last Enemy”
https://youtu.be/RRa113Vg6pE
I got a glimpse of pervasive surveilence, both human and electronic, in China. “The Last Enemy” is not science fiction, nor is it particularly futuristic: It’s a peek at the surveillance capabilities ALREADY IN PLACE (2008) in the UK.
Just as in Durden’s piece, this technology is shown to have many “positive” features (combatting terrorism, etc.) that the populace, driven by fear of violence, sickness and death for them and their children, will ASK FOR.
If you are part of the small minority that doesn’t go along with the crowd on this, bravo! You say you don’t want it, but let me check to see if you’ve objected to this program as it’s developed, step by step, over the years:
1. Did you oppose Social Security, which gave us those identity numbers?
2. Did you oppose the widespread introduction of television, which placed a foreign cultural presence in everyone’s living room?
3. Did you oppose the coming of the computer age, which led the way to the creation of the Cloud and AI?
4. Did you oppose the coming of digital camera technology?
5. Did you oppose the launching of communications and geopositioning satellites?
6. Did you oppose smart phones, which allow any hacker to know where you and yours are located at any time?
What’s being talked about here isn’t acceptance or rejection of some complete package deal; we are talking about an insidiously introduced and accepted progam, the vast majority of which you (and most of us) have already embraced.
All we’re really talking about, is who, if anyone, should have “Administrator” rights over this beast.
@ Michael S:
Part 2:
– the US politicians don’t get their “lobby money” and perks from the “banksters” but from BIG BUSINESS and the Wall Street Democrats/Republicans.
Bloomberg just handed 18 MILLION $$ to Biden’s presidential campaign (and this is just one example).
– since the $ is the world (and oil) currency, the US can afford to print it and hand it out as loans to other countries who will be bankrupted soon by the “pandemic”.
@ Michael S:
Part 1:
– I WILL NEVER WANT IT
– it would be nice if you actually read the article about the coming AI concentration camp that I was referring to in one of my comments here before giving me your explanation about AI. The article has the answer about the coronavirus “mystery”.
– “debt” is also other people’s (countries) money. The US government has accumulated tens of trillions of $$ of nearly free cash (so-called debt) which it is not planning to repay and which it’s been using to further its aims of world domination (and it’s been doing very well with that, thank you).
@ Michael S:
My replies to you keep getting trashed.
I’ll try splitting my reply into several parts.
@ Michael S:
1) I WILL NEVER WANT IT
2) it would be nice if you actually read the article about the coming AI concentration camp that I was referring to in one of my comments here before giving me your explanation about AI. The article has the answer about the coronavirus “mystery”.
3) “debt” is also other people’s (countries) money. The US government has accumulated tens of trillions of $$ of nearly free cash (so-called debt) which it is not planning to repay and which it’s been using to further its aims of world domination (and it’s been doing very well with that, thank you).
4) the US politicians don’t get their “lobby money” and perks from the “banksters” but from BIG BUSINESS and the Wall Street Democrats/Republicans.
Bloomberg just handed 18 MILLION $$ to Biden’s presidential campaign (and this is just one example).
5) since the $ is the world (and oil) currency, the US can afford to print it and hand it out as loans to other countries who will be bankrupted soon by the “pandemic”.
@ Reader:
“Both parties are owned by big business – not the “banksters” as some like to say but BIG BUSINESS and the SUPER RICH.”
The Matrix has you too.
When you get so deeply in debt, you have no recourse but to sell your soul to your creditor, what difference does it make, whether the debt collector is Agent Smith (the bankers) or Agent Jones (the “super-rich”, as you call them). The problem isn’t the agent, but the fact that you are in debt.
Before the current crisis began, the US was ridiculously in debt. Now, with Steve Mnuchin writing more checks in 14 days than the Treasury wrote in the previous 14 years, the US is ludicrously in debt — and the US is us. I would say we are months at the least, or a couple of years at the most, when — for our own good, of course — we are all tagged with our electronic identity numbers and tied into “the cloud”.
Didn’t someone here mention “AI”? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an algorithm, programmed by an individual or team, interconnecting the massive database which will have accumulated in the cloud concerning every aspect of our lives — our bank ledgers, our health records, our criminal records, our religious and political affiliations, a record of our comments and points of view, our friends and relatives, what we love, what we hate, what we most fear (“Room 101” of 1984), pretty much our heart and soul. This will all be accessed by an impersonal algorithm programmed according to the reasoning of the typical godless, hedonistic mind of modern man. With your personal identity imprinted on you, you will be assimilated into the system. The technology is here. All we need, is a crisis that is dangerous to make us all want this ultimate solution.
— and you WILL want it.
@ Shmuel Mohalever:
I suspect that in Japan they have more grey matter per capita than here.
@ stevenl:
Don’t fool yourself by trusting “savior” politicians.
This is a one-party system.
Both parties are owned by big business – not the “banksters” as some like to say but BIG BUSINESS and the SUPER RICH.
It started a long time ago.
FDR said that presidents are selected, not elected and it is NOT a fake quote.
@ stevenl:
The problem is already Deeper than you State. It’s Rev. 13. The Matrix has you.
@ Shmuel Mohalever:
“has anyone suggested” YES!!! Please read my previous comment about AI.
I forgot – not only no more cash but no cards either.
Interesting that the Japanese are more protective of their civil liberties and more reluctant to give up their personal freedoms to their government than Americans are. People still remember what it was like to live under a fascist government. Or their parents and grandparents have told them about it.
“TOKYO — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other hard-hit Japanese prefectures to fortify the fight against the coronavirus outbreak. But this is no European or Wuhan-style lockdown. A look at what Japan’s state of emergency entails:
Q. WHY DID ABE DECLARE A STATE OF EMERGENCY?
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A. Abe was facing heavy pressure to declare a state of emergency after the number of new cases in Tokyo began doubling every several days in late March. The city of 14 million had 1,339 cases as of Wednesday, up from about 600 a week earlier. Japan focused on dealing with clusters of infections and selective testing for the virus, a strategy that has failed to curb its spread. Experts found that one-third of Tokyo’s recent cases were linked to hostess clubs and other night entertainment districts where cluster tracing is difficult. Meanwhile, compliance with calls for working remotely and other social distancing has been weak.
———
Q. IS ALL OF JAPAN AFFECTED?
A. The state of emergency announced Tuesday applies to only Tokyo, neighboring Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama, Osaka, and Hyogo in the west and Fukuoka in the south. That is only seven of Japan’s 47 prefectures. Residents are requested to avoid nonessential trips within and outside the designated areas, but there are no restrictions on travel. Some Tokyo residents drew criticism for rushing to escape from Tokyo to the countryside.
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Q. DOES A STATE OF EMERGENCY CAUSE A TOKYO LOCKDOWN?
A. No, Abe and officials say Japan cannot legally enforce hard lockdowns. Public transportation is operating as normal. Most state of emergency measures are requests and instructions. Violators cannot be punished unless they fail to comply with orders related to storage or shipment of emergency relief goods and medical supplies.
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Q. WHY IS JAPAN NOT IMPOSING A HARD LOCKDOWN?
A. Japan’s history of repression under fascist governments before and during World War II has left the public wary of government overreach. The country’s postwar constitution lays out strict protections for civil liberties. Abe’s government was reluctant to risk severe economic repercussions from more severe measures.
————
Q. WHAT MEASURES ARE TAKEN IN A STATE OF EMERGENCY?
A. The state of emergency allows prefectural leaders to ask residents to stay home. They can also request closures of schools, some child and senior care or community centers, and stores and businesses that are considered nonessential. They can advise organizers to cancel or postpone events. The governors can also request use of private property to build hospitals and other medical facilities.
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Q. WHAT ARE ESSENTIAL ACTIVITIES?
A. Essential activities and facilities, including banks, grocery stores, postal services, pharmacies and utility companies, remain open. Some retail stores and entertainment venues such as movie theaters, concert halls and amusement parks can be asked to shut down. Public schools in Tokyo and some neighboring prefectures already are closed until at least early May.
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Q. CAN PEOPLE STILL GO OUT?
A. Yes, residents can go out for purposes considered essential, including work, hospital visits and grocery shopping, according to a Cabinet Office statement. Residents in designated areas can still go out for a walk, a jog or other individual exercise.
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Q. HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE MEASURE?
A. Abe on Wednesday repeated his request for the people to stay home and reduce interactions with others by up to 80%. But in Tokyo’s downtown Shibuya district, business was almost normal. Rush hour trains were still crowded and commuters were heading to work, though fewer people were seen in other areas of the capital. Akihito Aminaka, an education industry worker, said heeding Abe’s request was difficult because “to me, it sounds like they’re saying, ‘Please don’t go out, but we won’t help you.’”
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Q. WHAT’S THE POTENTIAL ECONOMIC IMPACT?
A. Abe also announced an unprecedented 108 trillion yen ($1 trillion) stimulus package, equivalent to about a fifth of Japan’s annual GDP, to pay for coronavirus measures and protect businesses and jobs. It includes 300,000 yen ($2,750) cash handouts for some hard-hit households. A monthlong state of emergency in the Tokyo area could cause consumer spending to fall nearly 2.5 trillion yen ($23 billion), according to Nomura Research Institute.” From ABC News,April 8.
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Elito-Klepto-socialsim is already here but Trump put a STOP on it. For how long? After Trump if he wins another president like-minded needs to follow him.
Where did my comments go?
PLEASE READ: COVID-19 is paving the way to the AI controlled way of life drastically different from everything that we are used to (based on a US government document). Ostensibly, it is done in order not to let China “leap ahead” of the US:
– AI surveillance (facial recognition, phone tracking, 5G, etc.)
– smart cities
– self-driving cars with NO individual car ownership
– no more cash (it has GERMS!)
– no personal shopping (online, drive-by, or delivery only)
– telemedicine (no personal doctor visits)
– etc., etc.
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/techno-tyranny-how-us-national-security-state-using-covid-19-fulfill-orwellian-vision
My comments were eaten by Ted’s system.
“Where for example is the goalpost? For bureaucrats to give our lives back how flat must a curve made by someone’s model be? When will the time come to remove our shackles,to let us live normally? No answers come. And that’s important.”
The only “goalpost”, is that we need to get President Trump re-elected, along with Republican control of both houses of congress. Anything less than that spells anarchy and insanity for the US and the world.
The virus is not a hoax; it is deadly. The people (on Israpundit and elsewhere) playing with the numbers are playing with people’s lives.
As for the media and hollywood, they are not in cahoots with the enemy; they ARE the face of the enemy. Their aim is to create a panic and magnify this very real crisis, until they will get the world under so much debt, we can no longer breathe. Then the big bankers in The Federal Reserve and their backers will amass a derivatives empire, the likes of which has never been known.
When President Trump gleefully announced that Steve Mnuchin had written out more loan OKs in 14 days than had been issued in the past 14 years, that should have turned on lights in lots of heads: The debt debacle has ALREADY begun, and nothing can stop it.
Does anyone here read the Bible? Look over the story of Joseph, and of Pharaoh’s dream. Egypt went through not a six-month pandemic, but seven years of famine. In response to it, Pharaoh fed the masses in return for their becoming his slaves. For anyone here who actually BELEIVES the Bible, note the proverb that “The borrower is the slave of the lender”.
Put two and two together, and you can see who the intelligence is behind the media/Hollywood image: It is the world’s chief bankers; and the debt relief scheme up their sleeves is One World Government.
Enough.
Obviously, as Ted has pointed out, we could save several tens of thousands of lives every year by banning travel on highways. But has anyone ever even suggested this?{ Except, apparently, now in Israel, for a different reason). Buzz says that he feels safe walking the streets in Chungking, and that there is much less street crime in China than in the West because of the tough law enforcement there. He even says that is why he prefers living in China rather than in a Western country because he feels safer there.
Yet has anyone suggested that the US should replace our legal system, which allows hundreds of thousands of dangerous criminals to go free, with the Chinese legal system, which makes it nearly impossible for anyone accused by the police of committing a crime to avoid conviction, imprisonment, and sometimes the death penalty? In which the state makes the family of an executed individual pay for the bullet used to shoot him?
We could save thousands of lives by “isolating” HIV-positive people in internment camps. We could even save some lives by closing down all “gay” bars. But can you even imagine the howls of protest if anything even like that were seriously proposed in the United States?
WE could save even more lives by “isolating” all drug addicts and suspected drug-dealers (in separate camps) indefinitely. But again, no one has ever even seriously proposed this.
Why then, do we accept compulsary internment and “isolation,” “social distancing,” etc. to stop the spread of a virus that may turn out to be no more deadly than the flu, or even the “common cold?” Madness.
Excellent article by Steve. A few caveats: there is no hard evidence at this point that the coronavirus is the cause of most of the deaths attributed to it. It is becoming increasingly obvious that inferior care of patients in hospitals by doctors and nurses panic-stricken of contracting coronavirus themselves, the prevelance of antibiotics-resistant bacteria in the hospitals to which SARS-CoV-2-poiitve patients are sent, the neglect, often deliberate of patients in nursing homes or private residences, “secondary infections” such as bacterial pneumonia, “underlying conditions” such as cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s, and even other primary infectious diseases, such as influenza, are responsible for the overwhelming majority of deaths and serious illlnesses attributed to “COVID-19,” not the novel coronavirus itself. The panic created by WHO, the CDC, and innumerable government “disease control” bureaucracies has killed far more people than the virus itself.