MONOLOGUE WRITTEN BY CLYDE LEWIS
I know that it seems that for every two years the media has cried wolf about several diseases and so when the wolf arrives many people are harshly skeptical to a fault. However, it is becoming difficult to separate the political overreach from the very important vigilance against getting COVID-19.
All over the Western world the response of most governments is the slow and deliberate atrophying civil liberties are facing a final assault from draconian authoritarians sensing or creating bigger problems ahead.
It seems many people in the United States are being treated to what appears to be martial law; albeit, without full takeover of the military. It is hard not to think that martial law has been declared when you are in lockdown and you see military vehicles in the area.
Secret emergency plans” for a military government in the event that Washington DC is undefineddecimatedundefined were recently leaked” to Newsweek.undefined
They are so secret that under these extraordinary plans, undefineddevolutionundefined could circumvent the normal Constitutional provisions for government succession, and military commanders could be placed in control around America.
Back in January I reported that various state legislatures were having secret meetings with the Department of Homeland Security about undisclosed security issues. Kansas Legislators were put on National Guard buses and briefed on an undisclosed topic. It was also Nebraska Legislature did the same thing, but they just tried to keep it quiet.
Other state legislatures were briefed about a possible major event by the Department of Homeland Security regarding the continuity of government.
Continuity of government and protection of the presidency began in the Eisenhower administration with the possibility emerging that Washington could be obliterated in an atomic attack. The need to plan for a nuclear decision-maker to survive even a direct attack led to the building of bunkers and a maze of secret procedures and exceptions, many of which are still followed to this day. Congress was also folded in – at least Congressional leadership – to ensure that there would always be a Constitutional successor. And then the Supreme Court was added.
Before 9/11, continuity and emergency programs were broadened beyond nuclear war preparedness, particularly as hurricanes began to have such devastating effects on modern urban society. And because of the advent of pandemics, broadly beginning with the Avian Influenza, civil agencies responsible for national security, such as the Department of Health and Human Services, which is the lead agency to respond to coronavirus, were also brought into continuity protection.
With policies leaning towards martial law – we will have to endure the possibility that civil rights are going to be swamped.
Big corporations and states alike are setting boundaries on individual rights on a flimsy pretext with no exit strategy and no sunset clause.
I get angry when I hears the phrase “we are all in this together” because it has become its own form of newspeak because we are being told to separate and become socially distant.
It is right up there with Orwell’s “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.undefined Saying that we are all in this together when we are told to be separated is the worst form of psychological warfare and creates double-think.
While statistics of the dead and infected are growing, the stench of agenda is also evident and while I have received many e-mails suggesting that I don’t see it – believe me I do but this does not diminish the importance of being mindful of what is transpiring.
Saying that there is an agenda of overreach is an understatement but using it as an excuse to negligent is dangerous.
The time we are under lockdown is time to think about the stakes after all of this has past. Looking at all of the other countries under lockdown we are seeing that the disease is peaking—so now is the time to start asking the questions about an exit strategy.
When this is all over – then what?
What guarantees do we have that what has been taken will be given back? If the country is forced into emergency socialism – how do, we recover or do we ever recover?
When the agenda outstrips the statistics, we need to start speaking up. We are vulnerable now and there are enemies within that will most certainly exploit their positions and we need to be aware of what is happening.
That would be actual fascism. Not the pretend type that the anti-Trump “resistance” has been parroted by the extreme left for three years.
The special powers the various state governments have been given will not go away unless we demand it. We have given them permission under duress to act in the public interest and due to self-preservation and appropriateness we have tried to abide by their laws.
In some cases, if you violate your “stay at home” order you would face a class C misdemeanor, heavy fines and possible jail time.
We rely on the government to be the wolf patrol enforcing the security theater so that when everything calms down, they can be hailed as the reason everything is calm.
The calm won’t last if the wolf patrol continues to enforce their special powers after the virus subsides.
Pandemic or no pandemic, you can’t just shut your eyes to the world being re-shaped. That’s what world governments are doing, all world governments.
We all know that we have to lockdown in some areas because of COVID-19 but we still don’t know how any of this will unfold. We can all rightfully hope that all the drastic measures we now seen undertaken will get this virus under control and hopefully in a few weeks’ things can return to normal. It’s an absolute human tragedy that is unfolding in places such as Italy and each death is a travesty. And we don’t know how long or deep this will go. Nobody does.
This new virus has caught the world by surprise. Is it a one off that science will manage to control, or are we looking at a paradigm shift here? A virus that, like the flu, will now be around and mutating each year, but unlike the flu is much more aggressive, deadly and more difficult to combat? We can’t know yet, the prospects are daunting and humanity will have to adjust big time if this is the case.
We may all be living in our own bubbles of existence but I actually caught myself talking to my wife while shopping telling her over the phone that certain items were not available.
I said “I guess this is how we shop in an apocalypse.”
Stores that were still fully stocked last week were suddenly void of any supplies.
To all of the people in the conspiracy theory circles that are saying that they are surprised that people like me are obeying the authorities at the moment – I say to them “Things are real, they are immediate and very urgent.”undefined
However, even though I urge people to listen to the authorities I am very much aware of the government overreach and how fear is a great tool to exploit people and to hang something over them like a viral sword of Damocles.
Do not think for one minute that those who are implementing these harsh measures are going to give up their power once the worst is over.
I am not asking you to fear or panic – I am asking you to be prepared for phase two where after this appears to be over – there will be government elites asking you to sacrifice and act like a good peasant for the betterment of the world.
We’ll get through this ultimately, but it won’t be easy and the immediate concern is a complete collapse of the economic and financial backbone of our way of life.
I always look ahead and it has been my charge as a talk show host – to predict outcomes as a futurist. Using history as a guide you may want to acquaint yourself with the aftermath of past pandemics.
You can expect new public health campaigns to exhort people to register and apply for identification that includes your health record so that it can be easily scanned by doctors and paramedics.
It may also be required for job rehires and it will be a requirement for many events including smaller events like church gatherings, weddings, funerals, school functions.
This may include mandatory vaccines.
I remember eating the sugar cube when I was a kid and getting the scar on my left arm from the vaccine gun. Back then I did not have a choice in the matter and perhaps in the immediate future you won’t either.
I know that many news reporters have compared the corona virus with what happened in 1919. But perhaps it would be easier to look back at 1957 where a pandemic that began in Hong Kong was handled and stopped.
The first case of the pandemic had appeared in the Guizhou Province of southwestern China in February 1957. By the time the doctors in the United States were able to write about it in their journals.
The New York Times reported that an estimated 250,000 Hong Kong residents or 10 % of the region’s population were receiving treatment for it.
The military missed it, and the World Health Organization missed it.
Sound familiar?
One thing that happened that is not happening now is that we are not being told that the COVID-19 strain is not being compared to other strains and that when we hear of safe treatments in the pharmacies that show promise – the media wishes to diminish hopes in order to push fear and hopelessness.
Doctors and scientists first developed viable flu vaccines in the 1940s, so they were not starting from scratch when they went to work on the 1957 flu vaccine.undefined
Neither are weundefined because we have heard of viable and safe drugs that can be used to develop a way to curb the effects of coronavirus.
The antiviral drug, called Favipiravir or Avigan, showed positive outcomes in clinical trials involving 340 individuals in Japan and China. The drug also seemed to shorten the duration of a patient’s fever from an average of 4.2 days to 2.5 days, according to Pharmaceutical Technology.
Meanwhile, Remdesivir, which was created by Gilead Sciences, has been reported as the most promising possible treatment for the virus because it is a “broad spectrum” drug that has shown effectiveness against various viral targets in lab testing.
President Trump mentioned in a press conference yesterday that he was briefed about another promising drug that also is used to treat Malaria. Trump said that the use of hydroxychloroquine, looked promising to him as a drug that might help.
The media of course has decided to run horror stories about side effects of Chloroquine.
They however have not reported that side effects of a vaccine that has already been tested on a volunteer.
In the 1950s, doctors who claimed to have drugs and vaccines that they believed would work against the Hong King flu had to bypass regulatory agencies because they were bogging down the process and were also reporting the worst case scenarios as well.
When the new flu strain hit the United States in September of 1957, many doctors were all prepared with their ideas for effective antivirals and vaccines.
The virus, dubbed the “Asian flu,” killed an estimated 70,000 Americans and one to four million people worldwide.
Just so everyone knows – that is if you want to learn some history - governors did not call out the National Guard, and political panic-mongers did not blame it all on President Eisenhower.undefined
College sports events were not cancelled, planes and trains continued to run, and Americans did not regard one another with fear and suspicion, touching elbows instead of hands.undefined
For those who grew up in the 1930s and 1940s, there was nothing unusual about finding yourself threatened by contagious disease. Mumps, measles, chicken pox, and German measles swept through entire schools and towns.undefinedPolio took a heavy annual toll, leaving thousands of people (mostly children) paralyzed or dead.
We need to do some heavy thinking while we are in lockdown.
I have suspected and secretly have concluded that the reason why we are all afraid is because of politics.
Again relying of politicians, and lacking faith in our medical system puts us at odds with an invisible invader.
No one wants to be giving dangerous and irresponsible adviceundefined but there is nothing wrong with asking why in the face of death do we still have those who wish to lecture, browbeat, intimidate, or evade vital information about a potentially dangerous microbe?
When the coronavirus finally runs its course, one of the most important tasks for health-care officials will be to determine whether the preventive measures we’re taking today were effective.
Did deploying the National Guard save lives, or did it simply expose the soldiers to an infection that, in the end, could not be stopped? Did we pay too high a price for tanking our economy and disrupting our society?
Did we get it right, acting quickly and decisively to slow the virus, shutting down possible pathways of infection? By comparing the 2020 data with information from 1957—there is a discrepancy and it does not take a genius to point out that we are definitely being toyed with by state and federal governments.
Chuck Schumer does not care about your family, Nancy Pelosi does not care about your family, and President Trump has no choice but to listen to the WHO and the CDC because he still can’t escape the political bullying that does not accomplish anything except ignorant messages on Twitter and Facebook.
When the people grab their torches and pitchforks they need to remember who created the virus. It was a result of bioweapons research. It originated in China and if China can’t get their proverbial fecal matter in check then perhaps it is time to embrace populism in the face of this virus.
America needs to stop relying on the global plantation to fill its supply chain especially with a country whose government has abused its position and has told us that it’s government model will be the norm for the world.
The virus came from Wuhan and for some reason, perhaps out of respect we are calling it COVID-19 and now we are questioning if this is appropriate—does this help anyone?
Following a media narrative that President Trump is “racist” for calling COVID-19 the ‘Chinese virus’, the New York Times has now deleted the word ‘Wuhan’ from its coronavirus tracking map.
Meanwhile editors over at Wikipedia are desperately trying to change the name of the 1918 Spanish influenza article to remove the word ‘Spanish’ despite it being commonly known as that for over a hundred years.
By removing the word ‘Spanish’, editors obviously hope they can convince the public that naming viral outbreaks after the region in which they originated is not normal, even though it has been the case since records began.
Who does this benefit when people need information about a disease that is about to change their paradigm?
It appears that the fear associated with the coronavirus, is now becoming an effective tool for government overreach. Whether you agree with it or not is not the issue – the issue is what is the sunset clause with such controls.
Authorities are using fear to justify expanding control, and is the chief catalyst for driving decisions in much of American local, state, and national governments.
Our Government is now limiting international travel, prohibiting people from eating or drinking in restaurants and bars, imposing curfews, ordering “nonessential” businesses shut, and banning gatherings of more than a certain number of individuals are among the mandates governments have put in place in the name of fighting coronavirus.
While the people are being given this security theater, there is no established extraordinary danger with COVID-19 - only the death tolls as proof that you better be vigilant, which of course it what ethical Americans are compelled to do.
Government overreach, draconian measures and other danger warnings will eventually carry some health dangers of their own and many services are not keeping up and are still conducting business as usual all but with a few restrictions.
Many of these restrictions and rulings tend to not be helpful for countering other dangers associated with coronavirus.
The mental health of the nation is certainly going to be a looming problem, and the feeling of desperation in the face of scarcity is also going to create problems for the country. This is where we are going to have to concede that the government may be locking you down for safety but they will weigh you down with a lot of violations of human rights to maintain the continuity of government.
The pandemic is revealing to all what many of us have known for a long time: the status quo wasundefineddesigned to failundefinedand so its failure was not just predictable but inevitable.
Listeners to my show, have certainly been aware of what was coming and as I have said there is somewhat of a novelty to treating what I talk about as “what ifs” but I was slowly becoming the talk show host that not only talked about the “what ifs” but also the “what now’s?”
I am not only saying “what now?” but “what then?.”
No one is giving the answers to what do we do now and when it ends - what then?
We need to not look to the government to unlock their chains on us - we need to plan for the better future we need and deserve.
