@fire with fire

and energy to answer one comment, so i'll choose yours for now. but yes, i was thinking aldous huxley of course:

"When the Warden started booming, she had inconspicuously swallowed half a gramme of soma, with the result that she could now sit, serenely not listening, thinking of nothing at all, but with her large blue eyes fixed on the Warden's face in an expression of rapt attention."

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. "Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does."

They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”

~ Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

when wearing masks indoors in one's own house is mandated, couples are busted on park benches in NYC of 'failure to social distance', the most famous doctor in the world, bill gates, posits that museum may never open again, looks toward health passports to travel,
but now says 'we may turn the corner by the end of 2021'...wth?

and he says he's so misunderstood! he's not profiting on vaccines, he's just given $350 million to research them! (as one of his chose ones is being tested in seatlle...)

i don't know the truth of the numbers of 'death by Covid-19' nor what it actually signifies as numbers are adjusted, readjusted, but i also sense a certain sick glee about the headlines that can act as MacGuffins, as what's inside doesn't always support the headlines. but admittedly, i try not to read much about the coronavirus, and really only took note, as you had, when people started hoarding toilet paper and tissues, then any shelf-stable foods.

but i do thin that if our rulers on either aisle of the aisle gave a fuck, they wouldn't have taken a month's summer vacation. but oh: the Speaker says she might call the House back in session soonish, and DT says he 'might pardon ed snowden', both bogus campaign rhetoric in a bottle.

so yes, what professor crutchfield wants is a psychoactively drugged populace that can be generous enough to work toward the common weal...even through the ravages of covid and climate. a major twist on jem bendell's 'Deep Adaptation', i reckon. and that Uni pays him to spout this shite? lord luv a duck.

sorry, all; this one's really got my knickers in a knot. wonder if he's gotten bill gates' and the WEF's approval?/s

The Dystopian Trifecta.

Soma, Victory Gin and the Ludovico Technique. Controlling the masses through chemistry. Alphas, the Inner Party and the 2001 Space Odysee Government setting policy and then manufacturing "reality" to fool the masses. And, now, over the objections of General Ripper, they are going to destroy our Purity of Essence by putting a mind controlling chemical in the water supply.

Wow.

Setting aside the dark speculation about motivation and ultimate aims for this bizarre mix of policies and public exhortation in support of universal compliance with the rules laid down by "science," I have begun to marvel at the boldness and the infinite hutzpah of the mentality behind "shelter in place" from the outset. Before we get to any questions about the ethics or the efficacy of the strategy, contemplate the presumption of power that goes into an Order to Every Fucking Buddy to stop your life and abandon all your freedom of action. Meanwhile, you tell about One Fourth of Every Fucking Buddy to give up your job, your home and your future.

The premise is by analogy to war. With lives at stake, "we" cannot afford the luxury of democratic debate or individual liberty. Like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, his ordering a fatal Code Red was necessary because it saved lives.

The logic is impeccable, if the asserted facts are true . . . .

I will never forget the first week of this War Against the Invisible Enemy. On March 10, during a nationally televised basketball game, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver ordered the end of all NBA games, effective at the final buzzer. Two days later, before Trump declared a National Emergency, toilet paper disappeared from grocery stores and hoarding turned shopping into a Third World dystopian ordeal. At that point, there was no governmental order -- just panic. "If there is no more sports, something really BIG must be going on!"

From then to now, a hodge podge of orders, reversals and resumptions of various policies have materialized from a bewildering parade of politicians, bureaucrats and designated experts who appear on TV almost every day to reveal the latest numbers, curves, surges, spikes, waves, explosions and wildfires that show that whatever we have done so far to stop the virus has not worked.

My favorite example of what passes for public discourse is the Case of Sweden. Some voices early on touted Sweden for taking a more realistic approach. Then other voices, including some guy in the Swedish government said -- Lookie There! More people dying from this shit in Sweden than even here!

Uh, it is too early to make a meaningful comparison about strategies, because OUR DEATH COUNT AIN"T OVER YET.

After all this plays out, a few months or a few years or a few decades from now, then we can know whether the idea of allowing the virus to play itself out was smarter or dumber than the idea of trying to keep the virus from spreading by shutting down almost all human interaction.

I have no earthly idea how that grizzly accounting will come out and it is entirely possible that the shut down idea will prolong the lives of hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people.

Or maybe not.

A certitudinous attitude claiming that Science has already ruled on that question is a sure tell of what that person is all about.

The air of triumph coming from anecdotes and statistical reports showing deaths surging is unmistakable. It follows from a gruesome internet meme from last May when the wingnuts staged a bunch of anti-lockdown protests, chortling about all those idiots would soon be dying from the virus. It is also a major strand of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

.

One of the most plausible criticisms of my point of view is that we did not really follow a coherent lockdown regimen which explains the higher percentages of infection and death within the US than every other country on earth. I am sure that a better planned and better enforced campaign would have worked better than what we did.

Whatever made anybody think that the utterly corrupt USA could accomplish anything that required universal cooperation? Did anybody notice the last four years of American political history as the two major parties accused each other of treason? Non stop. With criminal investigations and impeachment.

If all those assholes were really afraid of the virus, they would have dropped their silly-assed perpetual game of The Dozens and pulled together to save our society. Instead, you see what they just did -- went home to campaign for reelection. During the ban on public events.

Yeah right.

I did not buy any of the various conspiracy theories when this shit started. I was skeptical of the Official Narrative, of course, but the bug really does make a lot of people really sick and kills too many. And I could not figure out how anybody can gain from starving your customers.

I still can't figure that out.

But I have now joined the group of utter paranoids who believes that the virus is being used in a war against the citizenry of the US. Nobody is so fucking dumb as to have just stumbled into this exercise in Civilizational Suicide.

Maybe it is Zardoz that explains it, and the various Elites are building their Vortex One through Ten . . . .

@NYCVG

Save the Post office diaries in the past couple months, so i do hear you. but it's been a very pointed duopoly scheme to undermine, then partially privatize, and now trump crony contributor DeJoy and the PO board of governors (#POSs) who appointed him.

but then i've been writing about it (Ringing the Red Alarm Bell) since 2011 when the Save the Post Office website came into being.

we won't do online billing but thanks for the suggestion. as far as meds: i think more aged and infirm than you might imagine can't get out to get their meds, including the massive numbers in lockdown who can't get their cancer treatments, dialysis, and so on. even though some might have family or other home health help...their time might be stretched pretty thin.

(I do not know if our response to the Covid-19 Virus was Too Big, Too Small or Just Right. I have some ideas that wearing a mask, avoiding crowded places and careful handwashing did work because New York State has less than a 1% infection rate and deaths in the single digits, statewide, for weeks.)

that's good to hear; this is their page about it. as a side note, some claim that not all test kits for covid and antibodies are equal, and many give both false negatives and false positives, or at least had in the past.

i gotta go see if i can find a used clothes dryer in zetroc (cortez spelled backward). the used appliance place is on Facebook, of all things. our died, and is so old there are no parts available. ; )

Time to ring the Red Alarm Bells for the Post Office debacle to come. A bit Off topic, but connected so I hope that this comment is okay.

(I do not know if our response to the Covid-19 Virus was Too Big, Too Small or Just Right. I have some ideas that wearing a mask, avoiding crowded places and careful handwashing did work because New York State has less than a 1% infection rate and deaths in the single digits, statewide, for weeks.)

It's very clear that while Democrats are yelling about saving the PO they went home for a month's vacation. So, whatever the Dems or GOP come up with, if they come up with anything at all, is likely to be too late.

We need to think about what is coming next and prepare ourselves if we can.

Many Americans get their prescriptions by mail. Maybe for some because they are old and feeble, but for many others because the by-mail companies allow a 3 months refill rather than a one month refill on many common meds.

This is a convenience and a time saver.

But now I think that everybody needs to change back to the safer in person prescription pick-up system as soon as they can.

In the same vein, if anybody here still relies on mail billing and sending a check back, this would be an excellent time to go to online bill paying.

The widespread tragedy of ruining the Post Office both for its vast work force and its even larger consumer base---the entire population of the USA--- is going to be a big challenge. It's possible that spreading the word that we can protect ourselves a bit by making a few changes in our ways of doing things, may ease some distress.