The Return To "Normal" Is A Lie
For Everything From COVID Policy, To War, To Economics, Another Propaganda War Is Being Waged, And All Of Us Will Be On The Loosing Side.
I don’t know about you, but as we move towards the advent of Spring 2022, I am struck that there is exactly zero resemblance to my existence two to three years prior. I’m not doing all that well, economically, psychologically, or mentally, nor am I in great physical health.
It is as if, in March of 2020, when I left the rhythm of hustling between jobs/gigs as a stagehand, semi-professional drummer, and building maintenance for a local business, I stepped into a Twilight Zone episode. It all disappeared, in some cases, even before the first wave of COVID hit. My return to work has been negatively affected by the reality of being an adult over 60.
I say this not to solicit sympathy, millions of Americans are in the same situation, or in even worse circumstances. I have retweeted and shared on Facebook, their pleas for assistance and dire need: for everything from money to pay rent so they aren’t thrown out on the streets, to begging for food assistance, to being under the weight of crushing medical debt due to severe illness or expensive medical surgeries and procedures.
I have donated small amounts when I could afford it, perhaps, if I am honest, from feeling guilty that I could very well be in a similar situation or worse. I want to do more, always, every single day, but I feel hopeless. I still avoid crowds. As a longtime friend said in a DM chat “No wonder we’re stressed, it’s been two years of trying not to die.” I was one of two people wearing a mask in the grocery store a few days ago. No one cares. They stare in puzzlement and pity.
To be objective, it’s fair to say that my perception that the “new normal” is completely abnormal, in the most deranged sense, is anecdotal, and is largely based on my Twitter algorithm. I have chosen both younger and older people to follow, that are politically independent, with a heavy dose of #MedTwitter, as the good data and information about the spread of COVID and the consequences of Long COVID have been systematically repressed.
As I have written previously, it is the official policy of the United States government, and now most Western governments, that COVID be deliberately sidelined, literally, a childish and selfish game of “pretend”. Public health is an irritating afterthought to be dispensed with. 600,000 deaths and climbing since Biden took office are the cost of doing business.
This is something Biden unquivocally said Donald Trump should resign for.
A polling firm called Impact Research told the party in power to “Declare Victory” and shape policy based on feelings. Millions of formerly healthy, and in many cases, young people, dying a preventable death, physically debilitated, and breaking down mentally and emotionally are NOT NORMAL. It is as far removed from normal as light is from the dark. It’s gaslighting the public in the most sociopathic sense.
It would appear the Biden administration is not only joining in disseminating propaganda about the COVID situation, but they are also contributing to a misunderstanding of what the consequences of the financial sanctions against Russia will be. I don’t have the depth of understanding or knowledge to even broach the subject. I usually defer to experts in the field like Professor Richard Wolff. You don’t need to be an expert, however, to know that the global economy is completely interconnected, in complex webs of monetary exchange and movement of goods. So, making any major move, as Biden has done with these sanctions, starts the dominoes falling and they can’t be reset. It’s like pulling a loose thread on a garment: the more you pull the higher the likelihood the entire garment falls apart.
In this video, Professor Wolff explains how the historically dominant American Petrodollar is now threatened by the inevitable resurgence of the Chinese Yuan. It’s worth watching this brief explanation, where Wolff specifically says Biden’s sanctions, ironically, are speeding up the importance of the Yuan, and American sanctions are undermining the future of the American economy.
The posture of the Biden administration in terms of explanations for everything from high gas prices to supply chain shortages is to blame Vladimir Putin, to a ludicrous degree. In an endless stream of professionally produced, taxpayer-funded social media propaganda, we see Biden taking credit for a “booming” economy, one that, if you were a worker fighting Amazon or Starbucks for a living wage and to be treated as a person of value is an illusion.
Biden takes a bragging posture about a historic decrease in unemployment numbers , and has for many months, but there is more to the story. I know this from personal experience. Many people who were receiving Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation were kicked off FPUC, and by default, the official statistics. The reason millions of unemployed were “disappeared” from official statistics is that none of them (including myself) had, ironically, earned enough money to requalify for the regular UI the States provide. That doesn’t mean the unemployed found suitable long, or even short term employment. NONE OF THIS IS NORMAL.
Adding to all this confusion are the US and NATO, along with compliant stenographers in the world of American corporate media, acting as propagandists without any pushback on the official narrative.
No one with any humanitarian impulses would support Putin’s invasion, or not have sympathy for the Ukrainian people that are its victims.
The fact remains, however, that, as with COVID, there is a large gap in getting credible information, and accurate perception, of what exactly is happening in Ukraine. The war seems to be moving a lot more slowly than most corporate media organizations can tolerate. The 24-hour news cycle is very expensive to maintain, the talking heads that largely form the alleged team of “reliable journalists” don’t work for pennies. As the censored journalist Chris Hedges said in a recent interview with Jimmy Dore: "Trust Me, I've Been A Journalist My Whole Life, You Don't Make Millions Of Dollars When You're A Real Journalist".
One of these million-dollar talking heads, Ali Velshi at MSNBC, drove thousands of people to his page sometime late Saturday to early morning Sunday with a sensationalistic announcement that will surely drive traffic to his show, when he claimsed melodramatically:
“The turning point for the west and NATO will come when the sun rises over Kyiv on Sunday, & the war crimes against civilian non-combatants becomes visible to all. There is no more time for prevarication. If “never again” means anything, then this is the time to act.”
The stellar, award-winning journalist Aaron Mate, is another of the very few journalists left that will actually pushback on corporate and government narratives responded:
“How do you propose the west and NATO act? What are you calling for?”
Velshi, unequivocally reponds:
“Direct military involvement”.
It should be obvious that ramping up direct military involvement is the dreaded point of no return that could amplify the conflict and ramp it up to a global and nuclear conflict. The bizarre cheerleading from corporate “news” spaces is NOT NORMAL. We’ve been here before with US involvement in previous wars. It’s NOT the “normal” role of a journalist to promote or advocate for war.
So far, monitoring this very important and alarming development in the prosecution of this war, as claimed by Velshi, has resulted in zero tweets supporting this accusation. I’m specifically talking about unequivocal consensus agreement in an evidentiary sense. Former US weapons inspector and military analyst Scott Ritter offered this:
“Re: Bucha. At a time when western public opinion is being shaped by an intense information warfare operation exclusively designed to paint Russia is a negative light, one would think objective observers would wait for the forensics before screaming “guilty”.
Of course, as I write this, the Politicians, C.I.A., NATO, and Military “experts” haven’t made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows. They are throwing crap at the walls to see what sticks. If you think this is strictly about morality, stopping war crimes, and posturing as defenders of democracy, I have a bridge to sell you.
The only way to survive is to remain perpetually skeptical, the world is changing, and none of it will resemble 2019 in the most remote sense.