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Authored by Ben Garrison

A PLAN YOU CAN’T TRUST!

For the past decade, Bill gates has been warning us about an inevitable pandemic. Conditioning us. Getting us used to the idea.

Last year, he even held a summit on the matter and ran computer simulations to predict outcomes. Why did a former computer nerd and mogul become so interested in vaccination and disease?

Possibly because he’s worth over $100 billion and thinks he owns the world. He also wants to make an impact on humanity. Getting rid of excess humanity, that is. Bill’s father was once the head of Planned Parenthood. He comes from a eugenics background. Gates frets about world population growth. Is it any wonder he pushes Monsanto’s GMO food as well as harmful vaccines?

Apparently Bill’s computer simulations discovered that people would easily fold under government pressure combined with an unseen enemy. Billions of people are under lockdown right now. Half the world is shut down. Gates must marvel at how easy it was to do it. Things are going according to plan. They can’t control us physically, but he can control us mentally through fear drummed into our brains 24/7 by mass media.

The coronavirus is real, but we’ve had many waves of flu viruses throughout the years. Many thousands die each year from the flu. Our elderly and infirm are the hardest hit.

This time the deaths are being magnified by the Fear Porn Channels. Statistics are controlled and manipulated to produce panic and hysteria.

The Democrats failed with their Russia collusion lie. They failed with impeachment. They are all for this hysteria because they can blame it all on Trump.

Trish Regan was just fired from Fox Business Network because she called out concerns that the Chinese coronavirus was just another attempt to impeach President Donald Trump.

That was too close to the truth for Fox. They fired her.

We now have social distancing to further divide the human race – as if we were all some sort of disease in need of eradication. The corrupt WHO and CDC have us controlled like puppets on strings. We obey without question. Citizens are not allowed to question medical ‘authorities’ without fearing censorship or ridicule. When the time comes for a mandatory vaccine, people will already have become conditioned to obey the medical ‘authorities,’ and it’s all going according to plan.

But some plans have a way of not working out as planned.

Never take your eyes off government in a crisis.

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) & the US’ Northern Command (NORTHCOM) held a Facebook Live town hall meeting on Tuesday, March 24, informing the public how their essential teams in charge of homeland security are isolating at the Cheyenne Mountain bunker in Colorado amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Air Force General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, who commands NORAD and NORTHCOM, told reporters on Facebook Live last Tuesday that essential staff is being moved from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado to the underground bunker complex that is 24 miles away in Cheyenne Mountain. The facility is more than 2,000 feet underground and can survive a 30 megaton nuclear explosion.

“To ensure that we can defend the homeland despite this pandemic, our command and control watch teams here in the headquarters split into multiple shifts and portions of our watch team began working from Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, creating a third team at an alternate location as well,” O’Shaughnessy said. 

“Our dedicated professionals of the NORAD and NORTHCOM command and control watch have left their homes, said goodbye to their families and are isolated from everyone to ensure that they can stand the watch each and every day to defend our homeland.

“It’s certainly not optimal, but it’s absolutely necessary and appropriate given the situation.”

NORAD and NORTHCOM have already used up about 30% of the underground facility, according to The Drive. O’Shaughnessy said with the increased personnel, his “primary concern was … are we going to have the space inside the mountain for everybody who wants to move in there, and I’m not at liberty to discuss who’s moving in there.”

If the staff at Cheyenne are infected, there is a third team of higher-ranking military officials operating at another facility that can remotely assume command. 

With the virus crisis deepening in the US, confirmed cases have now surged over 124,000, with 2,191 deaths (as of Sunday morning). President Trump signed an executive order Friday, allowing the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to activate National Guard and reservists to battle the COVID-19 outbreak across the US. 

We noted last week that the US is in the “acceleration phase” of the outbreak, which means the health crisis could get much worse in the coming weeks. 

How much worse?

Well, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has just warned that social unrest in major Western cities could develop in the coming weeks. 

The evolution of the virus crisis could be social destabilization, hence why the military is preparing. 

Authored by Mike Whitney via The Unz Review,

Vladimir Putin has decided how Russia is going to pay for the corona-virus… He’s going to tax the rich.

It’s a remedy that most Americans would support if they were given the choice, but they weren’t asked. Instead, Congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus package for which the American taxpayer will be held entirely responsible. Even worse, the new legislation contains a $500 billion allocation (another corporate giveaway) that the Federal Reserve will use as a capital base for borrowing $4.5 trillion. That massive sum of money will be used to buy toxic bonds in the corporate bond market. Just as Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) were used to fleece millions of investors out of their hard-earned savings in the run-up to the 2008 Financial Crisis, so too, “toxic” corporate bonds were the weapon of choice that was used to pilfer trillions of dollars from investors in the run-up to today’s crisis. (Same scam, different instrument) The virus was merely the proximate cause that tipped the sector into meltdown. The problem had been festering for years and everyone in the financial community (Including the Fed, the BIS and the IMF) knew that it was only a matter of time before the market would blow sky-high. Which it did.

What every American needs to know is that our crooked bought-and-paid-for Congress just passed a bill that transfers the credit risk for $4.5 trillion of corporate sludge onto the National Debt. A bailout of this magnitude could impact the nation’s credit rating (Fitch has already issued a warning), send interest rates to the moon, dampen economic activity for years to come, and pave the way for a long and painful slump. The much ballyhooed $1,200 checks for unemployed workers are merely a tactical diversion that’s being used to conceal the giant ripoff that is taking place right under our noses.

In contrast, Putin has settled on a more rational and compassionate plan. He’s going to launch a relief program that actually focuses on the people who need it the most. Then, he’s going to cover the costs by taxing the people who are most capable of shouldering the burden. His intention is not to “soak the rich” or to redistribute wealth. He simply wants to find the most equitable way to share the costs for this completely unexpected crisis. In short, Putin was presented with two very bad options:

1– Let the Russian people huddle in their homes (“shelter in place”) until the food runs out and the bills pile up to the ceiling.

2–Or tap into a temporary source of revenue that will help the country get through the hard times.

He wisely chose the latter option not because he’s a fiery leftist who hates the “free market”, but because he realizes that in a time of national crisis, the people who are more able to pay, should pay. It’s a question of fairness.

And who are the people who will benefit from Putin’s plan? Well, he named them in a speech he delivered to the nation just last week. Here’s a clip:

“We also need to take additional steps, primarily to ensure the social protection of our people, their incomes and jobs, as well as support for small and medium-sized businesses, which employ millions of people….

First, all social protection benefits that our citizens are entitled to, should be renewed automatically over the next six months… if a family is entitled to subsidized housing and utility payments, they will not need to regularly confirm their per capita income to continue receiving this state support…all payments to war veterans and home-front workers timed to the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory, 75,000 and 50,000 rubles, respectively, should be made before the May holidays…

Second, it is essential to support families with children……..Third, we need to support those on sick leave and people who have lost their jobs.” (Putin’s Address to the Nation)

See? No big payouts to failing corporations, no welfare checks for Wall Street, and no tax breaks for fatcat bankers and their crooked friends. Just money for the people who desperately need it: Families with children, veterans, home-front workers, the sick, the unemployed, and the homeless. Simple and fair.

The strategy is aimed at everyone who is impacted by the virus, not just the people who filed taxes last year like the Trump Plan, but anyone who needs public assistance. At the same time, financial support will be provided for small and medium-sized businesses, incomes will be protected, jobs will be guaranteed. and mortgage payments will be suspended. It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s fairly comprehensive and targets the people that are most vulnerable. It also underscores the primary responsibility of government during times of crisis, that is, to ensure the health, safety and security of its people. That is Job 1.

The Putin plan also provides support for medical personnel, doctors, nurses, emergency staff, hospital employees, health care workers and first-responders. Here’s Putin:

“We have mobilized all the capabilities and resources for deploying a system of timely prevention and treatment. I would like to specially address doctors, paramedics, nurses, staff at hospitals, outpatient clinics, rural paramedic centers, ambulance services, and researchers: you are at the forefront of dealing with this situation. My heartfelt gratitude to you for your dedicated efforts.”

Will Putin and his advisors make mistakes in containing the virus and ending the contagion as swiftly as possible?

Probably, but it certainly looks like they’ve got their priorities right. Putin seems to understand that the health and welfare of the Russian people has to be put before the stock market, finance capital or the voracious corporate kingpins. In contrast, Trump wants to put more people at risk of infection by sending them back to work after Easter. That’s just not the way responsible leaders behave, not if they really care about the health of their people. Here’s more from Putin:

“There are two more measures I would like to suggest. First, all interest and dividend income that flows from Russia and is transferred abroad into offshore jurisdictions must be taxed properly….I suggest that those expatriating their income as dividends to foreign accounts should pay a 15 percent tax on these dividends….

Second, many countries levy income tax on interest earned by individuals from their bank deposits and investments in securities, while Russia does not tax this income at all. I propose that people with over 1 million rubles in bank deposits and debt securities pay a 13 percent tax on this income…. I propose using the budget revenue from these two measures to fund initiatives to support families with children and help people who are unemployed or on sick leave.”

What does it mean?

It means that Putin is closing tax havens and tax loopholes so he can get the money he needs to pay for the epidemic. It means he’s taking on the wealthiest and most powerful people in Russia so he can provide relief for the people who are stuck in their homes trying to survive. It means he’s risking his own political future in order to do the right thing. Here’s Putin:

“People of Russia, we need the state, society and the people to work together.. We have to be mindful that we bear personal responsibility for our close ones, for those who live near us, and who need our help and support….It is our sense of solidarity that underpins the resilience of our society, as well as an unwavering commitment to mutual assistance and the effectiveness of the response we come up with to overcome the challenge we are facing.”

Shared sacrifice, solidarity and brotherly love. That’s what he’s talking about, isn’t it? The threads that bind a disparate group of people into a sovereign nation.

In America, we make the working poor pay for the excesses of the crooked rich, while in Russia, the wealthy are asked to make sacrifices for the sake of the country. Which approach do you think is better?

Cody Wilson, the self-described anarchist and leader of the 3D-printed gun movement, is absolutely bat sh*t crazy. He released a new promo video, highlighting several ghost guns, himself wearing a 3M N-95 virus mask, and at the end of the video, Wilson takes a bow at the Fannin Memorial Monument in Texas. 

Wilson has pioneered the technology and know-how behind developing plastic guns with three-dimensional printers, something gun-control advocates and the US government are absolutely terrified about.

He is the founder of “Defense Distributed” and “Defcad,” which have had many legal disputes with the federal government over not just the production of the 3D printed weapon parts, but also the right to share the blueprints online. 

For the third time, Wilson has released 3D weapon blueprints to the public: 

“This was the third time he [Wilson] has released such files, but the first time he has abided by US foreign export controls online, using what he said are digital verification tools to ensure legal file downloads,” The Wall Street Journal said. 

Wilson told The Journal that the latest release of blueprints for 3-D weapons would be “impervious” to legal challenge and would allow the public to access the files for a small fee. 

For a yearly subscription fee of $50, or about $4.16 per month, anyone can have access to the “Netflix for 3-D guns” service. This means anyone with a 3-D printer can print a weapon in their garage.

The debut of Wilson’s “Netflix for 3-D guns” service comes as gun stores across the country are seeing a massive influx of people who want guns and ammunition amid a pandemic that is worsening by the day. Reports have indicated that specific weapons and a wide range of ammo have sold out as states are shuttering stores.

Gun advocates have denounced Wilson’s latest move, saying it will lead to the proliferation of 3-D printed weapons. Guns that are printed don’t have a serial number and are considered “ghost guns,” mostly because the government cannot track them. 

“The biggest concern with 3-D-printed guns and the technical data for them is that they’re not traceable,” said Kelly Sampson, counsel at Brady: United Against Gun Violence, a gun-control group. “It’s a huge loophole and opportunity for people who would otherwise be unable to access firearms to be able to do so.”

Wilson said he’s fighting the government’s attempt to limit freedoms of Americans and expects anyone that agrees with him to download weapon blueprints not necessarily to print the guns, but “as a form of internal resistance.” 

“For me, this is a political battle,” he said.

Wilson has been in a protracted legal battle with the federal government, and in 2018 won the case when the State Department authorized him to distribute 3-D weapon blueprints online by issuing Defense Distributed a license to do so.

Another lawsuit was brought against Wilson by the Seattle federal court last year, which recently forced Defense Distributed to offer the blueprints behind “four levels of security, including IP geolocation and proxy detection and technology developed for credit bureaus and anti-money-laundering specialists” on the website, the Journal noted.

“The internet is not an airtight, hack-proof system,” Sampson said. “Even some of our most secure databases are vulnerable. It’s not quite living in reality to assume that you can 100% secure information that’s online.”

Wilson said his new “Netflix for 3-D guns” service is “complaint” with the federal government but can’t prevent people who downloaded blueprints from sharing them online. “I can only tell them that it’s against the law to do so,” he added.

On Wilson’s Defcad website, 5,872 files have been made available, with over 30,585 downloads from 14,016 users.

One weapon that a millennial in their parent’s basement can print is called the FGC-9. The gun is a “9x19mm pistol caliber carbine that is made mostly out of 3D-printed components, utilizes an AR-15 or airsoft M4 rifle fire control group, is compatible with Glock magazines and offers a truly effective, simple to build and reliable tactical option for self-defense and more,” the website said. 

Another weapon to print is the M4A1 Carbine. 

The next big trend that could soon be underway in a pandemic is people printing guns at home. 

As New York deals with its worsening coronavirus outbreak in real time, “terrified” 911 operators find themselves having to make life-or-death decisions on a whim, on a daily basis. 

“It’s all a war zone,” one paramedic said.

 “I’m terrified. I honestly don’t know if I’m going to survive. I’m terrified of what I’ve already possibly brought home,” Phil Suarez, an Iraq war vet who is a paramedic, added.

In fact, some patients are being left behind in their homes as the healthcare system becomes overwhelmed with calls relating to the virus, according to the New York Times. 

The 911 system that generally fields about 4,000 calls per day was swamped with over 7,000 calls last Thursday. It is a volume of calls that the city hasn’t seen since September 11, 2001. 

The volume has put Emergency Medical Personnel in the position of having to determine which cases should receive time-consuming medical measures, like CPR and intubation, and which cases are “too far gone”. 

And many of these workers are doing it without the proper protection. Meanwhile, New York remains on a trajectory to pass Wuhan in terms of the severity of its outbreak, assuming you take China’s numbers at face value. 

One paramedic told the New York Times that a woman had “drank a liter of vodka” to try and commit suicide after her cancer treatments were delayed because hospital beds were being occupied by coronavirus patients. Another paramedic said that the battery on her defibrillator died from responding to so many cardiac arrests on one shift. 

The paramedic said: 

“It does not matter where you are. It doesn’t matter how much money you have. This virus is treating everyone equally.”

Frank Dwyer, a Fire Department spokesman, commented: 

“Our E.M.T.s and paramedics are on the front line during an unprecedented time in the department’s history. They’re doing it professionally, and they’re doing it because they care about their patients. They care about this city.”

The department has said that it is rationing protective gear to try and prevent shortages. 

“The department is carefully managing and monitoring usage of personal protective equipment and critical supplies to ensure we have what’s needed for this long-term operation,” Dwyer continued.

Paramedics said that weeks ago, coronavirus calls were mostly for respiratory distress or fever. Now many of these same patients are dealing with organ failure and cardiac arrest after being sent home from the hospital. 

One Brooklyn paramedic said:

 “We’re getting them at the point where they’re starting to decompensate. The way that it wreaks havoc in the body is almost flying in the face of everything that we know.”

Another paramedic who had previously helped a 65 year old patient in Brooklyn was forced to tell them to stay home and call a doctor. A separate paramedic said that amidst a shortage of protective gear, they had been using the same N95 mask for days. 

And people are doing their best to try and help. The same paramedic said that after leaving a building with her partner after tending to one of its tenants, “the building’s supervisor — noticing the pair’s worn equipment — met them downstairs and shoved new N95 masks and a can of Lysol into their arms.”

Many healthcare workers are scared they have already been infected and have brought the virus home to their families. On March 18, three members of the Fire Department tested positive for the virus. On Friday, that number had grown to 206 people. 

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates was heard on CNN Global Town Hall on Thursday (March 26) as saying six to ten weeks of lockdowns across the country is now necessary to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. 

“It is super painful to drive this very high degree of social isolation I call shutdown. The middle course really isn’t there because it’s hard to say, oh, go back to the theater for a week maybe or maybe not you’ll be infected or infecting people,” Gates said.

“Until we get the certainty we’ve hit these low numbers, you know, I doubt even if you told people that they should be buying new houses and cars and hanging out in restaurants, I doubt they’re going to want to do that. People want to protect older people,” he said. 

“This is kind of the nightmare scenario,” he said as to what is currently unfolding across the US. As of Saturday morning, there are 105,000 confirmed virus cases and 1,711 deaths. The epicenter of the breakout is New York, with more than 46,000 cases. 

Gates said the response in the US was slow and chaotic. He said if the government would have “behaved a little bit like the countries that have done the best on this one” – then maybe the spread could have been suppressed. 

He warned that the “peak” in cases and deaths is not close, indicating that further lockdowns will be needed to flatten the curve and slowdown infections to avoid hospital systems from being overwhelmed. 

“This is kind of the nightmare scenario,” says Bill Gates, who warned about the dangers of a pandemic in 2015. “[I] talked about how we needed to invest in new platforms so that we could quickly make diagnostics, make drugs and make vaccines to stop an epidemic.” #CNNTownHall pic.twitter.com/xPW182yCSR

— CNN (@CNN) March 27, 2020

“Basically, the whole country needs to do what was done in the part of China where they had these infections,” he added.

And to Gate’s point about where the US is in the virus cycle. We noted last week that the US is in the acceleration period. 

Gates has been warning about a pandemic for years. Back in 2015, he told the audience at a TED Talk that his greatest fear wasn’t World War III, but rather a fast-spreading virus that would consume the world. 

Gates was a part of The Event 201 scenario in October (months before Covid-19) that modeled an outbreak of coronavirus across the world, killing 65 million people by month 18. 

His foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has been pouring millions of dollars into developing and distributing at-home testing kits for COVID-19.

So what do we expect after the nationwide lockdown? Well, Harvard researchers believe “intermittent lockdowns” and “widespread surveillance” of Americans could become the norm through 2022. 

Canada has over 6,243 confirmed coronvirus cases, including 64 deaths as of Sunday, which compared to the United States – at over 135,000 cases and rapidly growing – appears to be doing a much better job at fighting the spread. 

Though nationwide transport systems, including flights and trains, are still active, Canada announced Sunday that starting Monday any passengers showing symptoms related to Covid-19 will be banned from domestic flights and trains. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the new nation-wide rule from his residence in a press briefing, which reads “people showing any signs whatsoever of Covid-19 will be denied boarding on all domestic flights and intercity passenger trains,” according to Politico.

Trudea said that measures to contain the disease are “beginning to work” but still said individuals “need to continue to do what is necessary to prevent the spread of Covid-19.”

The new measures will likely involve more invasive temperature scans and symptom monitoring checks by authorities at transport hubs. But the language of the new order puts the onus on the train and airline companies to monitor and enforce the mandate among their passengers.

Thus far Canadians who are returning from travel abroad are under legal mandate to self-isolate for 14 days upon return.

Trudea’s own wife previously tested positive for coronavirus after a trip to London, and has since been in self-isolation for two weeks, but recently announced her doctor said she was in the clear.

Neither Trudea nor their children have shown symptoms, but over the weekend he indicated he may continue to work in a state of isolation to “set an example” for Canadians. 

Currently Quebec is maintaining police checkpoints around the province’s major cities in order to monitor unnecessary travel, and to tell outside travelers returning to Quebec to self-quarantine upon return to their homes. Quebec has further banned gatherings of 5 people or more in order to mitigate the spread of the virus.

Authored by The Zman,

Has the world gone mad? It certainly seems that way to some of us. Even the most cynical never imagined the government shutting down the country for fear of a virus, but it has suddenly become the new normal. The cynical, if they thought of it at all, would have thought the opposite. Instead of a great lock down, the response would have been for the beautiful people to insulate themselves from harm, while abandoning the rest of us to the plague. Instead, we have all gone mad together.

Not everyone has got the fever, that is this panic fever, not the one caused by the Chinese coronavirus.

Our world is now firmly divided into two camps.

• There are those fully invested in the great panic over the virus and

• there are those who look at the other camp, gobsmacked by what appears to be a general madness.

Those in panic look at the rest of us the same way preppers look at normal people. They just assume the gods will strike us down for doubting the virus.

Of course, the people in the skeptic camp could be the ones suffering from some form of madness that prevents them from seeing the threat. The trouble is, the great plague is not exactly lighting up the scoreboard. America has tested over 600,000 people suspected of having the virus. Over 500,000 tested negative. Of the positives, 12,000 needed hospital care. In a country of over 320 million people with 200,000 empty hospital beds at any one time, that’s not much of a crisis.

Yet, despite the numbers, formerly sober-minded people continue to carry on as if there are bodies in the streets. Steve Sailer, a man not known for excitability, is calling this virus a great adversary of the human race. Greg Cochran has completely lost his marbles over this thing. Geneticist and HBD enthusiast Razib Khan is in hiding, convinced the end times are upon us. In fact, the whole HBD community is a click away from fleeing to Antarctica to wait out the end of civilization.

Of course, part of the panic, a symptom of that particular virus, is a set of abracadabra phrases that have become so common they seem like something from a secret society, understood only by the initiates. The duller sorts chant about “exponential growth” while others talk about “the hospitals being overwhelmed.” That’s why we have to “flatten the curve” and “slow the spread.” These incantations are to chase away doubt and reinforce the belief that people are dying in the streets.

The dying in the streets bit is not much of an exaggeration. A popular bit of folklore now among the panicked is some version of the anonymous ER doctor or nurse relaying how they are overwhelmed and letting people die in the hallways. This urban legend turned up in China, Washington, Italy, New York and now New Orleans. Formerly sensible people now pass these whoppers around on-line, never bothering to think that maybe they are being fed a just-so story by people seeking attention.

One emerging aspect to the madness is the moral dimension. The Human Biodiversity (HBD) crowd seems to have been hardest hit. They spend a lot of time contemplating nature and their fellow man’s refusal to respect it. Part of what is driving them now is a sense that nature is going to finally exact some revenge. In other words, this panic is part of a strange revenge fantasy, where they are finally vindicated by biological reality. This sudden sense of moral purpose has made them immune to reason.

Another aspect to this general panic, unrelated to the virus itself, is a different type of revenge fantasy. Many people are cheering the collapse of the economy and civil life on the mistaken belief that what emerges from the rubble will have them at the top of the social hierarchy. This is a phenomenon shared across the political spectrum. It seems to be most popular with young people unhappy with the status quo and far too caught up in purge fantasies to be reached with facts and reason.

Probably the most salient aspect to this panic is the role of women. As has been noted too many times to count, the West is now a gynocracy. It is not a matriarchy, as women have stopped bearing children and stopped caring about children. Look around and you see childless women in positions of authority all over the West. In fact, these are women who reached their status by rejecting every aspect of womanhood. The West is now a world run by middle-aged childless women.

Anyone who has been around women in a crisis has observed a strange phenomenon among childless adult females. Some switch gets flipped in a crisis where their protective instincts get misdirected at the adults in the room. This part of their nature was never allowed to mature in the raising of children, so it comes bursting forth in an incoherent desire to help when their help is not needed. They become like mother ducks loudly herding the brood to safety.

For a society run by such women, every crisis is met with demands that everyone shelter in place. Notice how over the last few decades that public officials no longer call for volunteers or tell people to pitch in and work together. Such independent action violates the frightened female’s sense of duty to her brood. Instead, mild weather events now close the schools and force people to work from home. This virus scare is every middle-aged women’s Hunger Games moment.

Mass panics are a known phenomenon.

The general panic that took place in France between July 22 and August 6 1789 is known as The Great Fear. It was a period of rural unrest, driven by both a grain shortage and rumors of an aristocrats’ “famine plot” to starve the peasants. The exact reason for this panic is in dispute. Ergotism is a favorite reason for those with a certain sense of humor, but most historians consider it one of the primary causes of the French Revolution.

At some point, the bloom comes off this lock-down rose once people start to feel the real cost of listening to madmen. People will remember that the same folks who swore Boris and Natasha had used their mind control devise to install Trump in the White House are the many of the same people peddling this panic. Necessity will force a lot of people to stop going along with what they have suspected from the start is nothing more than a mass panic. Soon, this all comes to an end.

Like the Great Fear, the Great Madness will leave a mark, or at least it should leave a mark on our society. You never can be sure about these things, as the West seems to be unusually immune to learning from these events. Two centuries ago The Great Fear meant the end of the feudal order and eventually a revolution. It was not the sole cause of the revolution, maybe not the main cause. It was certainly an example of how the old order was no longer able to maintain order.

It is too soon to know what this panic means for us. Perhaps it further undermines the legitimacy of the system and the people that profit from it. Perhaps it sets off social changes that slowly transform our society in ways we have yet to imagine. Maybe the fever breaks and this event, like the Russian hoax, gets forgotten.

Given what most likely awaits on the other side of the lock-down, it is hard to imagine this great madness being forgotten. There’s always a price to be paid for following madmen.