Monday, March 30, 2020

Two Narratives and Three Coping Strategies for these Frightening Times

There are two distinct narratives about the coronavirus pandemic lockdown circulating in mainstream and social media.

One is the official line – that a deadly virus is threatening humanity and responsible governments around the world have locked down citizens and all normal life to stop the spread.



This narrative evokes three psychological reactions as coping strategies:

1.    Emotional reaction. Many people have become extremely fearful of catching and spreading the virus and are following the self-isolation and social distancing directives to the letter. They trust the government, the same governments that lie and manipulate people and enact harmful legislation. They have started to distrust other people around them and get angry at those who break the rules and selfishly venture outside their homes. They are living in hope that a vaccine will be developed soon.



2.    Practical action. Many people such as medical doctors and nurses and hospital staff, community workers and volunteers and good neighbours are swinging into action to help and care for the sick and vulnerable. They are heroic and genuine people who have risen to the challenge of helping others in this crisis.



3.    Positive Mental Attitude. Many other people are practising self-care while confined to their homes – healthy eating, exercise, meditation, yoga, being creative with music, poetry, art and humour and sharing videos on social media encouraging and supporting others. Others offer spiritual comfort and prayers. They are seeing the lockdown of human activity as positive for the natural environment and dreaming of a future when this ordeal is over and we have learned from the experience and create a utopian world.


Another Way of Seeing This  

The second narrative is that the coronavirus is less dangerous than the common flu, which has for many years killed multitudes of people.





 This view claims governments are using the Coronavirus Pandemic to justify shutting down normal life, putting citizens under house arrest and introducing an authoritarian police state to control ordinary citizens. Why? This narrative claims governments are puppets of greater powers, a hidden Ruling Elite, that has several agendas. There are many theories about what exactly these agendas are from bringing in harmful 5G technology, mandatory vaccines, depopulation and mass control.


This narrative claims governments have taken away our right to work and earn an income, our right to socialise and our freedom of movement. The Ruling Elite aims to deliberately trigger a global recession, or worse, a depression.



This narrative also evokes the three psychological coping strategies in those who believe this.

1.    Emotional reaction. Many people go into disbelief and denial. No rational person wants to believe their government is malevolent and capable of an elaborate, orchestrated deception with the intention of controlling and harming everyone. This would make those in power sociopaths!

Other people become outraged and want to fight back against the forces of evil. Some of us feel confident and empowered by seeing through the hoax and refusing to succumb to fear. Still others with fragile mental health can slip into paranoid obsessions about whacky conspiracy theories and suffer psychosis.

2.    Practical actions. Those who believe this narrative will research and gather information and share knowledge with others on social media. They will become activists and stage protests against the government and risk ridicule and hateful attacks from those who believe the official narrative and worse, punishment by the new police state.

3.    Positive Mental Attitude. Believers of this narrative have faith and hope in the power of the people to rise up and overthrow corrupt governments. They believe that when enough people know the truth, the majority will take back power and reinstate democratic governments that genuinely care about humanity, animals and the planet.

Your Choice 

Which narrative are you choosing to believe? Who’s telling the truth, who’s telling lies? The government and mainstream media mob or that crazy conspiracy theory mob? What coping strategies are you adopting?

While most of our choices have been taken away from us in this bizarre Orwellian far-fetched reality, we can still choose what to believe, who to trust and how to response.

I believe Narrative Two. And I’m choosing empowerment over fear, freedom over submission and spreading information as a coping strategy.







Friday, March 27, 2020

Coronavirus Lockdown on Human Rights, Governments Take Control through Mass Fear of a Pandemic causing “Panic-demic”


This is a long read. But if you’re in lockdown, you have plenty of time to read to the end and open all the links and consider this information.
I invite you to join me in questioning our current bizarre predicament.


I am deeply suspicious that the governments of the world are up to something with this Coronavirus Lockdown. Like most rational people, I find it hard to believe that our governments are malevolent and out to harm people. But history shows us a succession of atrocities committed by governments against the People. 

I am not a conspiracy theory nutter. But I have a nose for political and media BS and I smell a rat.

I don't know all the answers but as a good journalist I’m asking questions.

Is the coronavirus extremely dangerous?

YES, the virus is a threat to human health. Daily news reports tell us that hundreds of thousands are ill from the virus and thousands have died from this infection in countries around the world. Hospitals, medical staff and volunteers are doing heroic work in helping patients.

However the UK Government declared on their official website Gov.UK that:
"As of 19 March 2020, COVID-19 is no longer considered to be a high consequence infectious diseases (HCID) in the UK.
The 4 nations public health HCID group made an interim recommendation in January 2020 to classify COVID-19 as an HCID. This was based on consideration of the UK HCID criteria about the virus and the disease with information available during the early stages of the outbreak. 
Now that more is known about COVID-19, the public health bodies in the UK have reviewed the most up to date information about COVID-19 against the UK HCID criteria. 
They have determined that several features have now changed; in particular, more information is available about mortality rates (low overall), and there is now greater clinical awareness and a specific and sensitive laboratory test, the availability of which continues to increase.
The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) is also of the opinion that COVID-19 should no longer be classified as an HCID."

This downgrading of the danger of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) came four days before Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared a Lockdown of the entire country. Link to Gov.UK

William Schaffner, a vaccine expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, claims the virus is not nearly as deadly as the common flu. 





Animal Connection

Some experts have pinpoints the source of the virus as the “wet markets” in Wuhan, China. It's believed the Coronavirus was caused by a virus that spread via captive wildlife, killed in wet markets, to people. The scale of the trade in wildlife is being revealed in China as 20,000 wildlife farms have been shut down. 

These gruesome markets are called ‘wet’ because animals are often slaughtered in front of customers. Animals are skinned sending an explosion of microorganisms into the air.


The dreadful mix of wild and domestic terrified creatures with throngs of people choosing their victims was a pandemic in the making. The coronavirus is said to have jumped from bats to pangolins to humans.


Deadly viruses since the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 have been linked to intensive animal agriculture and human consumption of wild animals.

However other investigative journalists claim the virus was deliberately “released” in key locations to mask the health effects of rolling out 5G technology. 
Please take the time to read this carefully: State of the Nation article

Political journalist, Mikki Willis cautiously talks about what’s really going on in this video  Mikki's message

And Bill Gates, relaxed and talking unscripted, reveals his Dr Evil-style vision for global mandatory vaccination, depopulation and control of movement. This video is essential viewing

How dangerous is coronavirus?

Like many viruses, if it enters the airways, this new virus can cause pneumonia and lung damage (fibrosis) and in some tragic cases, cause death. Experts say that for most people who are infected, the virus stays in the throat, causing mild symptoms, and is flushed by warm fluids into the stomach and killed by stomach acid.

My next question is,
Are governments around the world over-reacting by imposing crippling lockdowns on work and all activities and enforcing “social distancing” and “self isolation”? These bizarre new words have suddenly been adopted into our global lexicon and mass psyche as the “new normal”.

Do governments panic and take drastic action about the following list of frightening global threats?:  

*thousands of children, women and men being relentlessly bombed daily, killed or maimed and left homeless and starving in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and other war torn countries. There’s no government action to  stop the travesty of war, possibly because the manufacture of bombs and weapons is a lucrative business for big corporations. 

*millions of people dying from malaria;

*millions of children and adults suffering from trachoma, an agonising disease that attacks the eyes and causes blindness; prevented by low-cost antibiotics.

*the lack of clean water and sanitation in countless poor communities causing daily suffering and disease;

*millions of children dying of starvation from lack of food every day

*millions of people in developed countries like the UK living in abject poverty and homeless, sleeping rough on the streets

*millions of children and women being trafficked and abused in the depraved sex trade 

*millions of children and adults who are exploited in slave labour to manufacture clothing and cheap household goods. Kids who are forced to work in cobalt mines in the Congo, to make batteries for smart phones and electric cars.

*That 8000 girls every day have their genitals cut in a horrific form of child abuse. If the practice of FGM is not stopped, 30 million girls and women will be afflicted in the next 10 years.

*That billions of innocent animals are abused and killed for food, clothing, cruel experiments and perverse entertainment. Watch the video Earthlings.
 
*That countless species of wild animals are becoming extinct every day due to human hunting and destruction of their habitat.

*That the planet’s beautiful natural environment is being viciously polluted, poisoned and destroyed by humans.

Is there outrage, mass panic and immediate government intervention to stop these horrific threats to humanity and the planet?

So why the mass panic over this virus? And why now?

Some investigative journalists claim this global coronavirus lockdown is about controlling people.

Who is controlling us? Governments are controlling us, with support from the mass media. But who’s pulling the strings of the politicians?

Why control ordinary citizens?

A desire by megalomaniacs, deranged dictators and the wealthy elite to control the masses and own the world’s wealth and resources is not new. Tyrannical abuse of power has sadly been going on for centuries.

A History of Political Control using Indoctrination

Acclaimed Journalist John Pilger in his book The New Rulers of the World  (2002) exposes how the US Ruling Elite after the Second World War in the mid 1940s, decided that continuous wars would be a great way to make loads of money. But to justify wars in foreign countries the ruling elite had to control the masses’ beliefs by creating a terrifying enemy.


He writes in the introduction: “When American Vice President Dick Cheney said that the ‘war on terrorism’ could last fifty years or more, his words evoked George Orwell’s great prophetic work, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
We are to live with the threat and illusion of endless war, it seems, in order to justify increased social control and state repression, while great power pursues its goal of global supremacy.”

Fear of Communists (Soviet Union and Chinese political systems) and nuclear war paralysed the population in the 50s, 60s and 70s. The invention of the Red Menace, the threat of communism spreading throughout Asia, and taking over the world, justified the tragic war in Vietnam, that killed 20 million people living peaceful peasant lives.

How does the Ruling Elite manipulate and gain control of people’s minds? Through the art of indoctrination using the mass media, spreading misinformation and damaging belief systems and harnessing emotions such as fear and distrust, hatred and rage, shame and blame, helplessness and despair as leverage.

War on Terrorism

When planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York on September 9, 2001, the historic event was quickly shorthanded to “9/11” and a new evil force to fight was invented; terrorism. Ordinary citizens were told by the media that this evil emanated from those strange people in the Middle East (where coincidently the world’s most lucrative oil fields are located).

Fear of “tearism” as President George Bush Jr. pronounced the threat in his bumbling, incoherent press conferences, justified the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by three governments: the Coalition of the Willing better named the Coalition of the Killing, a sinister alliance between America’s dopey President Bush, the UK’s zealous PM Tony Blair and Australia’s lapdog PM, John Howard led to one million deaths of innocent Iraqi people over five years of war.
Relentless bombing destroyed Iraq’s cities and communities and saw pretty little ‘cluster bombs’ blow the limbs off curious children.





Old News

But by 2020, after destroying a succession of Middle Eastern countries, and creating hoards of desperate refugees fleeing their decimated homelands, the War on Terrorism and memories of 9/11 were becoming old news in a social media world that thrives on fresh material to whip the masses into a frenzy.

A New Enemy

A virus is an ingenious way to terrify people, even more effective than the threat of nuclear explosions, communism and terrorism because it is invisible, insidious and indiscriminate.

This virus threat is coming for EVERYONE, rich or poor, white or black, in all countries, EVERYWHERE. (Not just those other people over there). Even Prince Charles tested positive for coronavirus. And later in the week the UK Prime Minister and Health Minister were ironically stricken with mild symptoms and "self isolating" as if to demonstrate to the citizens that even the high and mighty can be infected! 





Divide and Conquer

The theory of Divide and Conquer to defeat the enemy is an age-old strategy of war. And those of us in the Resistance, fighting for social change, know that “United We Stand and Divided We Fall.”
 
How clever is a virus to achieve mass division?

Instead of just hating and fearing other races, people of different skin colour and different cultures and religions, we now get to be fearful and distrustful and keep our distance from ALL other human beings. Pure genius!

How EASY it was for the governments of the world to take control and suspend our freedom of thought and our freedom of movement?

Not only is the government and media controlling our thoughts and emotions, they are now controlling our actions.

Someone dared to post on Facebook this subversive comment:

“And just like that the government controls all sporting events, concerts, jobs, colleges, medical facilities, whether or not you can leave your house, has depleted resources such as toilet paper and food, and controls travel.

“And you guys wonder why they develop and use viruses to scare the public. They control you and everything about your life. 

“See how easy it was? Mass panic, hysteria, complete control. Of, literally the world. Over a virus, one that the survival rates are even extremely high. All freedom has been limited overnight. See how easy that was?”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced an enforced, indefinite Lockdown of the UK, on the BBC on Monday night March 23, 2020. With his trademark smirk and twinkly eyes under his crazy mop of ash blonde hair, ‘Bo Jo’ inhabited, like a skilful actor, pretending he cares about others, the wartime persona of his hero Winston Churchill. He must have felt a secret tingling rush of sublime power as all his childhood fantasies came true.




We are being led by a League of Fools; Johnson, Trump, Morrison and various other elected leaders. But they have been handed the political power by voters; power to render us helpless and hopeless, childlike and dependent. Some of us will be obedient children, reinforcing the ‘messaging’ to Stay Home and Stay Safe and policing the rest. Others will be naughty and rebellious. Such is the effect of anxiety and uncertainty on different personalities.
Some of us, I hope, will question and analyse this scenario. 

The Impact of Economic Lockdown

Shutting down businesses and work and stopping the flow of income for more than a few weeks will have a devastating impact on individuals and families, who don’t have a savings buffer. Without income they will be unable to pay rent and mortgages or buy food and necessities and many will end up impoverished and possibly homeless. Half a million UK workers have applied for Universal Credit benefits but will they get them from a Tory Government famous for compulsive lying and broken promises?

Countless businesses, large and small, will crash. The governments of the world are forcing us into a recession, or worse, a depression.

Why? What’s their insidious motive for triggering a recession?

This mass loss of livelihoods and financial devastation will have a greater impact than any virus. This Lockdown is taking disempowerment of the population to a new extreme level.

Another good question everyone is asking: How long with this Lockdown go on for? How long can we last?

The Psychological Damage of Social Isolation

Just as we need to work and generate money, humans are social beings and we mentally and emotionally need to connect with family, friends and community. Our wellbeing and strength is nurtured through connecting with others.

For many, loneliness can be as profoundly frightening as a virus. Isolation can be traumatising. Humans need affection. Humans need touch. We need conversation. We need mental stimulation.

Thankfully, the positive side of human nature is erupting like fireworks in the humorous and caring posts on social media, uplifting music videos, comedy skits, Facebook Live coaching sessions, video calls between smiling faces.



We’re finding ingenious ways to reach out to support each other emotionally and say “I love you. I care. I’m here for you. We are still connected in our hearts.” Human beings are incredibly creative, adaptable and resilient; irrepressible in our quest for connection.

I’m an Aussie living in the UK with family and friends in Australia and friends in the US and Kenya. In these strange times, we are all hanging on by threads of social media connection and cheering up each other.

The Dark Side

On the dark side of human nature, sadistic prison systems have long used solitary confinement to break the human spirit. Convicts in colonial Australia preferred being lashed than confined in a dark, empty, silent cell.

Indigenous Australians knew that social ostracism would kill a tribal member if they had the bone pointed at them.

The impact of closing high schools on students who have been studying hard for years to do they final exams and go to universities is a devastating setback in their goals and dreams for their futures. With nurseries and primary schools closed, the impact on parents caring for young children at home is extremely stressful. For some volatile households, the impact of domestic incarceration can escalate to abuse.

Shutting down all public places such as cafes and restaurants, pubs and shops, flights, trains and transport systems, stopping cancer treatments and other medical procedures, cancelling all cultural and sporting events, support groups and meetings and banning social contact, even casual gatherings in parks, smacks of a dictatorship. Giving police the power to break up socialising, impose fines and enforce isolation is a serious violation of our freedom.

Amnesty International UK said: “As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, people across the world face the devastating impact it is having now on families, friends and communities, and will continue to have long into the future. This is a human rights crisis in the most immediate sense – and a reminder of our common humanity and that we are all equal in dignity and human rights.”



For the elderly and the vulnerable (and most of us humans are quite fragile underneath our facades) this forced isolation will impact mental health, causing anxiety and depression in many people and eroding confidence and capability and making us more compliant.

Political Control Aims to Disable Dissent

Did you notice that Movements for Social Change had been gaining momentum over the previous two years? With unrestricted access to information through the worldwide web, we, the People, have been winning support and growing in numbers despite the Ruling Elite’s best efforts at control and suppression.

The timing of this new crisis at the start of 2020 has us all reeling. Countries have lurched from one crisis to the next, without drawing breath. As everyone keeps saying, this is “unprecedented”. Never before have countries simultaneously been locked down and normal life brought to a standstill.

How did we get here?

Just to recap. For the past four years in the UK since the 2016 Referendum to Leave or Remain the European Union saw disgruntled voters, scapegoating migrants and ignorant of the damaging consequences, vote to dismantle a complex political system. EU membership gave us all numerous benefits such as the cherished freedom to travel, live, work, study and fall in love in other European countries. Leaving the Union meant the entire UK economy would be destabilised as we cut adrift from EU legislation protective of trade, the environment, workers’ rights, and human rights.

For three solid years the British public endured a daily dose of disturbing news reports, harangued until our collective brains were numb by endless debates and ugly parliamentary infighting about Brexit bloody Brexit ad nauseam – another new buzz word invented by the masters of spin.

Brexit hijacked all other issues of concern to ordinary citizens and cost taxpayers £200 billion, that could have been spend on life enhancing programs for everyone.

Then came a General Election right before Christmas, spoiling everyone’s festive fun with massive doses of party politics beamed into our living rooms. Next, the shocking result; a Conservative Party victory. Labour, Green and Lib Dem voters watched in disbelief as traditional Labour seats fell. Voters in the north of England, manipulated by a slick targeted social media ads and blatant press bias, put their trust in an entertaining buffoon who consistently told outrageous lies.

The public chose the self-serving Boris Johnson over the genuinely caring Man of the People, Jeremy Corbyn, who the trash press vilified as a dreamer with his idealistic manifesto of social care, education, health services, support for small businesses, environmental protection and raft of innovations.

The detestable Tories conned the public; those caricatures of English toffs with their Born to Rule mentality, Sense of Entitlement and their lack of empathy and concern for others, formed by their training in private school boy cruelty and arrogance, enabled by the female politicians who emulate them.

Our Brexit masters succeeded in marching us minions off the cliff into the disaster of leaving the EU, unleashing a rock fall of hardships in the years to come. 

Bo Jo honoured his slogan and ‘Got Brexit Done’ by January 31 2020, just in time to avoid the EU legislation on taxing the off shore bank accounts of the wealthy. Bo Jo’s cronies would have been proud of their old chum and toasted him with the finest champagne! He pulled off Britain’s exit just in time so the likes of the insipid Jacob Rees-Mogg and other Bad Boys of Brexit would be spared paying tax on their millions.


But yes folks, the corruption of Brexit is old news. In that same month of January 2020, the world watched as Australia was devastated and traumatised by the Bushfire Crisis, with 25 tragic deaths, 2000 homes razed, over one billion animals killed and over 25 million acres of forests destroyed.

Experts warned that the catastrophic fires were caused by Climate Change. But the inept and intransigent Scott Morrison Government was exposed as having vested interests and deep links with the Adani coal mine, set to produce high levels of global warming carbon emissions. Dirty Power


Good people around the world rallied to support Aussies and native animal injured in the fires, pouring donations into charities to ease the collective trauma.   


And just as the last fire in the great Australian bush was barely extinguished by exhausted fire fighters, and life was getting back to normal, suddenly in February 2020 news of the coronavirus in China grabbed global headlines. 


Disruption and Distraction from all global issues

Now the Coronavirus Pandemic has obliterated all other global issues and hijacked all public debate.

I wonder about all the harmful post-Brexit legislation that can be slipped through parliament while we’re all distracted and fear-stricken about the coronavirus pandemic.


We saw the birth of the Climate Change youth activists led by courageous Swedish champion Greta Thunberg.

We saw city streets overtaken by Extinction Rebellion protests.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was gaining ground in protesting trillions of taxpayer pounds being spent on the nuclear warship, Trident, instead of health, social care and education.

The vegan movement had grown into a Vegan Revolution as millions of people made the connection between meat, fish, eggs and dairy they consume, and the mass cruelty and killing of innocent animals, the destruction of the environment and harm to our health. Mainstream supermarkets, restaurants, fast food outlets started offering a vast range of vegan options and suddenly it was cool, not weird, to eat a plant-based diet.

Passionate naturalist and TV presenter, Chris Packham has led the campaign to stop the exorbitant High Speed Rail HS2, set to destroy ancient woodlands and precious habitat through the English countryside.

People, thanks to social media, were becoming aware of the dangers of 5G technology.

Iconic BBC presenter, Sir David Attenborough, turning 94 this year, had become a revered Elder and leader of the younger generation in the movement to save the planet.

A gala event with Sir David speaking at the World Premier his latest film, a witness statement and vision for the future, called A Life On Our Planet was to held on April 16 at the Royal Albert Hall and streamed to cinemas nationwide.




Now this dynamic activism against the Ruling Elite has been stopped in its tracks.

As a member of many charities and causes, I’m receiving daily emails about how they’re all closing down their activism, and placing campaigns on hold.

What impact will the Coronavirus Lockdown have on the US Presidential election later this year? Maybe my American friends who have suffered under hideous Trump’s destructive, repressive regime for the last three years, can speculate on the implications?



Consider what  the Lockdown is doing to your life and your activism?

And by the way, I suppose a vaccine for the coronavirus will generate billions for the manufacturers. And why not make it compulsory, now that our rights have been removed?

To me it’s clear we’re being manipulated and controlled by this ‘panic-demic’.
Knowledge is the key to fighting back.

And now the ExCel Centre in East London has been converted to a makeshift hospital and morgue in readiness for the next wave of the "coronvirus" My question, Is London going to be the next location to install 5G?

People, now is the time to get informed and take action. Knowledge is empowering. 

Daily Mail article


Be Optimism. Be Reassured by Nature. Be Empowered
  
Through all this man-made madness, Nature is oblivious to the human drama.
The sun is shining and spring flowers are blooming. The reassuring daily cycles of sunrise and sunset and the reliable rhythms of ocean tides and the beautiful changing seasons continue. 

Early this morning I woke up to watch from my bed, two beautiful foxes basking in the sunshine in my garden, feeling momentarily relaxed and safe in their risky urban habitat, with dangerous humans lurking behind windows.

These crafty foxes made me feel empowered with renewed confidence, reminding me that together we can outsmart the dangerous humans.