The first part of this post is about the last two sentences above, expressed as a personal experience here in France.
The Boy King Macron has just extended our locked-down, curfewed lives here until April 15th “at least”. I am allowed out once a day to shop (two hours maximum, one shop only, and a €1,000 fine if my “permission” to do so hasn’t been signed and dated by me when checked). By Last weekend, 94,000 had been fined; last night, the Prime Minister confirmed that this had risen to 260,000.
At my local épicerie/minimart, there are social separation lines stretching round the corner, the opening hours have been cut in half, every day the rules get stricter (it’s now three shoppers at a time, every transaction sprayed with medi60) but nobody seems to know why. Typically, the owner Valérie has extended her delivery capacity and made all of it free of surcharges. There is a new notice saying ‘We ask customers to stop behaving irresponsibly in this struggle against the virus’. Nobody understands that either.
Every face in the queue shows unease. Cough to clear your throat, and people turn to glare. We must enter the shop by the right, and leave only by the left -obeying the arrow-signs and crush-barriers provided. Where, we wonder, did they come from?
We are indeed, distanced, divided and distrustful…..suspicious inmates in a vast open prison. The interior of the shop has people surgically protected, rushing about to fulfil orders, Donalducking a response here and there like Daleks through every kind of mask. The silence beyond that is unnerving. I departed for my car as directed, feeling as if I’d just been in a scene from the movie Invasion of the Body-Snatchers. I won’t be going out tomorrow: I prefer Home Alone to creepy sci-fi.
I don’t know anyone who isn’t being frightened by all this: I’m having a bad bout of IBS, many admit to losing sleep, and telephone contact consists of conversations about boredom laced with lots of wondering: why is the information so contradictory, is there something truly horrifying about this Covid “thing” we aren’t being told, where’s my next paycheck coming from, and who’s going to pay for the economic damage being done?
To those who have studied social anthropology, the consequences of this apparent élite panic into solitary confinement are obvious: anxiety, obsession, disorientation, and then depression….a sort of lethargic institutionalisation. Totalitarian régimes learned quickly that those so imprisoned become both more servile, and willing to confess to anything rather be alone any more.
“But it’s for our own good!” the wishfully unthinking tendency explode. So many things now come under the same heading: surveillance cameras, reduced speed limits, higher taxes and so forth….and now, restricted movement. It’s just that rather too many of them end up being used to fulfil ECB euro rules, add liquidity to struggling markets, or bail out the Bourse-n-bank community.
For most people of my age, the fear is primarily one of death via an unpleasant drowning of the lungs. That said, even among the 72 year-olds like me, such is still only a 4% chance: among those under 50, it is at most 0.4%. But we’re dealing with emotions here: and when life, the élite and the media create a climate of terror and uncertainty, the Right knee-jerk always wins over the Left brain cortex.
I’m not a physically brave person: start pulling my teeth out, and I’d be the bloke yelling, “That’s Spartacus over there!” or “The Yiddishe girl is in the attic!”
Yet oddly enough, my fear of COVID19 is minimal: I have a much greater fear of what we may well be about to experience in the way of an Orwellian nightmare starring Peter Lorrie – directed by Franz Kafka, with additional dialogue by Aldous Huxley. My observation to date, however, is that I am in a tiny minority…..at least, for the time being.
More widespread where I live (in a rural community where the economy stands or falls on farming, casual labour, artisan skills and bar-restaurants) is a fear – among those who live at or near the hand-to-mouth existence – of how long they can last without more cash, strictly cash squire, saves on the paperwork, see.
Grass is growing again. If my mower fails, there’s no repair shop open – and casual labour’s wary of being stopped by troopers and asked to show they have a right to be outside the home. The forecast for next week is 24 degrees: those renting gites need the pools and outdoor furniture cleaned, lawns manicured, pathways weeded, sheets changed and stuff replaced or repaired. The shops catering to that need are shut. France is an economy that needs tourism, and Aquitaine in particular can’t survive without it. Gardeners, engineers, electricians, pool guys, cleaners, restauraters, barmen, waiters, barn restorers….the list is endless. The vacation cancellation rate in Lot et Garonne is running at 83%.
The Boy King in the Elysée Palace has a track record of offering jam tomorrow, and then withdrawing the Omega3 spread in favour of axle grease. His mentality ensures that he cannot understand the emotional loss of cameraderie, his profession demands that he create fiat money rather than economic or social wellbeing, and his personality promotes a need for glorious power with minimal opposition….all of it dedicated to the “reform” of a communitarian society in favour of a monetarist State machine. Emmanuel Macron views the citizenry thus:
Those on the left must be herded into pens and then told tall tales. Those on the right must be milked. Such are their only purposes. Entrepreneurs providing more than meat, wool, steak or milk are not required: the banks will replace all of them. Factories are just so yesterday – this is post-capitalism, get over it.
The aim of The Slog is to protect vulnerable new ideas from powerful process.
What we seem to be witnessing (not just in the light of the COVID19 pandemic, but as a form of opportunism using it) is an attempted coup – perhaps in stages, perhaps very quickly, perhaps patchy, perhaps rapidly global – designed to complete the domination of the liberal democratic elected State model by a process and discipline-obsessed unelected Corporacratic process-driven State model as the ruling norm. And to be clear, ‘corporacratic’ is not just another form of nutjob syntax designed to look impressive: it is the definition of a technocratic State in which there are constantly revolving doors between the buraucrats and self-appointed experts on the one hand, and the media>globalist>banking>NATO hegemony on the other.
It’s what Signor’ Benito ‘Il Duce Mussolini wanted. It’s what Whitehall wants, Brussels wants, China has, and – under the flag of public order plus “The President is Incapacitated” – the United States of America might be about to get.
The monitoring process continues here in the online community. In the meantime, enjoy your Sunday lunch.
The Slog 