Zombie Shuffle USA
Monday, 6/14/2021 09:01
How to avoid Covid permanently...
TALK about transformations!
gasps Bill Bonner in his Diary of a Rogue Economist.
The whole of US society is being zombified...turning into a slouching wreck...
...with a hollow-headed, self-serving elite at the top – enriched and corrupted by three decades of stimmy money and fake interest rates...
...and the masses below, rendered nearly brain-dead by social media, TV, fake news, fake money, stimmy checks, and fraudulent politics.
And look at this.
Remember how airline travel was transformed in the early 2000s? We recall from the 1980s and 1990s that taking a flight was a pleasant adventure back then. We even looked forward to it.
Suspected terrorists might occasionally be stopped and searched. Everyone else got on board like civilized people...saying goodbye to their friends at the gate. And mostly, we arrived at our destinations in one piece.
Now, everyone is considered a threat. We've taken hundreds of flights over the past 20 years. And we've been x-rayed and frisked many times. But not once did we intend to blow up a plane.
Sure, once or twice, we considered hijacking a plane to take us to Cuba – who hasn't? – but never did we pose any real threat to commercial airline traffic.
As far as we know, there are no more people today who want to blow themselves up in the business section than there were in the 1980s.
Yet, like zombies, we all shuffle through "security," removing belts and shoes...emptying pockets...obeying shouted orders – all to prove that we are innocent of a crime we've never even contemplated.
Back then, it was the fear of terrorism that led to the transformation. Now, it's the fear of a virus.
Sick people used to be told to stay in bed. "Doctor's orders," they told their employers.
Now, the doctors are giving orders to healthy people, too.
Doctors used to make suggestions. Perhaps you should give up smoking...or maybe lose weight.
But now – backed by armed police – they insist. They tell us when we can go outside...when we have to cover our faces, like bank robbers...and when we need to close the schools, the churches, and the shopping malls.
And without their approval – their passepartout vaccine – they and their "follow the science" politicians threaten to block you from going to the theater...entering a public building...flying on a commercial airline...or crossing a border!
Note that we're talking about public policy, not private policy.
If you don't want to get a communicable disease, there is no mystery. Get a vaccine. Go to an uninhabited island. Put on a face mask and latex gloves. Stay there.
You may want to slit your wrists out of boredom or loneliness. But you won't get Covid-19!
In private policy, people check the odds and take their chances. In public policy, they get in line...and follow orders.
That is, they are zombified.
All we know is what we read in the papers. But on the evidence so far, the public policies designed to contain the wicked virus have failed.
Looking at the vaccines first, CNN Health presents the rates of vaccination for most of the world's countries. There we find that the US has administered 89 doses of vaccine per 100 citizens. Sweden has given only 52 per 100. Uruguay, which we will look at more closely in a minute, 82. And Nicaragua has hardly vaccinated anyone – just 3 per 100.
Which of these countries has the lowest reported rate of Covid-19 deaths?
Nicaragua, with fewer than 3 deaths per 100,000 of population.
But maybe Nicaragua is an outlier...a weirdo.
Even so, there is no correlation between vaccination rates and deaths. The US has a death rate of 183 (per 100,000). Sweden, 142. And Uruguay...126.
As a matter of curiosity, in a few countries, the death toll in the Plague Year was actually lower than other years. According to the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, and Norway all had fewer deaths in 2020 than in a normal year.
Uruguay and Sweden are worthy of a closer look because they followed radically different public policy approaches. That is, one zombified; the other didn't.
In the wake of the initial terror, in March of last year, Uruguay went into Full Lockdown mode. Face masks, closures, contact tracing, social distancing, roadblocks – the works.
And guess, what? It was a great success. At least, that is what the New York Post reported in June 2020:
"Uruguay and Paraguay achieve near-total victory over coronavirus"
And here's the Latin America Report a month later:
"Uruguay has recorded the lowest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths per capita in South America, if not the entire western hemisphere. The small but progressive country has done that despite sitting right next door to Brazil – which has the world's second-highest number of Covid-19 infections and fatalities behind the US."
And here's the Open Journal of Political Science in January 2021, announcing the victory of "the science":
"Until now in Uruguay, Covid-19 has been very much under control. Evidence-based policies, a strong public health care system, and scientific innovations are believed to be the main factors of success. Uruguayan evidence-based policies consider several inputs, including scientific, medical-epidemiological, economic, and educational aspects."
But wait...What's this? Barely two weeks ago, The New York Times reported:
"For most of the past year, Uruguay was held up as an example for keeping the coronavirus from spreading widely as neighboring countries grappled with soaring death tolls."Uruguay's good fortune has run out. In the last week, the small South American nation's Covid-19 death rate per capita was the highest in the world."
At the end of the day...it didn't seem to matter how many evidence-based policies you followed...or whether you danced to the tune of your scientific experts or not.
Uruguay delayed the virus...but it could not stop it. Its final death toll will, most likely, be little different from any other country.
The same lesson might be learned by looking at the US states.
In February 2021, Iowa lifted its Covid-19 restrictions, including the use of face masks, social distancing, and limitations on social gatherings.
Michigan did not. Dr.Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer, that she was a "really good governor," because she was "following the science".
Of Iowa, The Washington Post did the talking for the political/health/media elite. "Welcome to Iowa," its editorial declared, "a state that doesn't care if you live or die."
Wrong again!
The Covid-19 death rate in both states had been going down. But after Iowa opened up in February, the number of Covid-19-related deaths reported daily went down...while Michigan's went up, leaving the latter with a slightly higher body count (per million).
Meanwhile, how did those face masks work out for you?
In April 2020, Georgia lifted its Covid-19 restrictions. Amanda Mull at The Atlantic was aghast. An "experiment in human sacrifice," she called it.
Then, in July 2020, Alabama ordered a cover up. Everyone had to wear a mask. In Georgia and Florida, they didn't. Again, the know-it-alls were sure the two non-mask states were flirting with disaster.
Well, guess what the experiment showed? The virus must not have been reading the mainstream press. It didn't know it wasn't supposed to treat people in Alabama any differently from those in Georgia or Florida.
In the end, the death toll in Alabama was higher than either Georgia or Florida, with 2,277 deaths per million, compared to 1,965 and 1,719, respectively.
What a fascinating episode in human history! Surely, it will be studied, dissected, and analyzed thousands of times.
But we will give you our preliminary findings here:
Zombifying the US in the name of "keeping us safe" – whether from terrorists or viruses – is a scam.
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