I’ve asked several of these same questions myself.
For the record, I don’t believe there was a U.S. conspiracy against China either. I think there is a much simpler explanation.
The U.S. and the UK have known that a pandemic was the single greatest threat to their populations for the past twenty years. The RAND Corporation concluded years ago that a pandemic was the only “existential threat” that was “capable of destroying America’s way of life.”
There have been multiple simulations of a pandemic (Dark Winter, Atlantic Storm, SPARS Pandemic, Clade X, Event 201, Crimson Contagion) in which the pathogen has been either a smallpox attack or a novel coronavirus emerging in China. There were two such simulations (one by the Gates Foundation and the other by HHS) last year alone. In all the war games since Dark Winter in 2001, the U.S. federal government has lost miserably to the virus. This wasn’t a failure of imagination. It was a nightmare scenario that politicians simply didn’t want to think about.
What were the odds that Trump would have to confront the worst pandemic since the Spanish Flu before the 2020 election? The odds of that happening were extremely remote. Trump has about the same IQ as Simple Jack and is known for his belief in the power of positive thinking. Norman Vincent Peale was his family preacher. This is how Trump convinced himself the coronavirus would “disappear like a miracle” in April and conveniently cease to be a problem for his reelection campaign.
Every year these simulations happen and reports are filed where they end up collecting dust because what democratic politician wants to think about such an unwinnable doomsday scenario? The truth is that it wasn’t just Donald Trump who failed here. Even the experts who are now being attacked by the conspiracy theorists for being a part of a vast global conspiracy didn’t want to believe that the virus was actually this deadly when the news first broke in January. They dismissed the “alarmists.”
In the UK, Boris Johnson spent the entire month of February ignoring the coronavirus. In January and February, Boris was focused on getting BREXIT done and his pregnant girlfriend who recently gave birth to his sixth child. Neither Donald Trump or Boris Johnson took the coronavirus seriously until the stock market dropped. Boris was so cavalier about it that he repeatedly exposed himself to the virus by shaking hands with coronavirus patients which is why he got the virus almost died from it.
Boris and Trump are conservative liberals.
They didn’t want to think about the virus or have to take responsibility for dealing with it. It was bad for the markets to even bring it up in public. The preferred “National Conservatism” strategy was to do nothing that would upset the markets.
U.S. intelligence briefed OUR GREATEST ALLY Israel on the virus in November. It appears that Netanyahu didn’t take the virus seriously either though. Trump himself wasn’t briefed about it until January and he typically doesn’t read the intelligence reports anyway. Reading is hard and is for nerds and for all Trump knew it could have just been more Deep State misinformation.
Note: As I write this, there is another report gathering dust somewhere about the megadrought in the Western states which is going to eventually upend life there with far more lasting consequences than the pandemic.
Perhaps Bojo was subconsciously trying to suicide himself shaking patient’s hands. He’s the Chris Farley of international politics at this point. Every bungle possible he’s done it all.
I personally think it’s a synthetic virus. It’s also possible that strains of COVID 19 are in fact synthetic variations of the original Wuhan virus. Note that when the UK brought back citizens to the UK they were brought back to a Brize Norton and sent on a coach to Liverpool’s Tropical Medicine school in Wirral. This thing has been weaponised at some point by someone.
It’s a National Security issue.
” Neither Donald Trump or Boris Johnson took the coronavirus seriously until the stock market dropped.”
No one cares, until it touches theif wallet.
One thing Bojo did was secure the best virologists China has. Although MI5 should take credit for that.
But what if it’s just the flu though, Broooooh? [dusts off hands triumphantly]
Seriously though, there is no reason for a hoax. The Jews had the world in the palm of their hands, living in luxury, slowly chipping away at Americans’ rights, etc. They have everything to lose by pissing off the public. Their stocks and the taxes they farm from us to finance their sick schemes have evaporated!
Could the numbers be inflated? Certainly. But to what end? To make globalism even more unappealing?
The intersection of drought and covid might be interesting to see, if the virus starts making waves in the southwest. What takes precedence, water conservation or hygiene?
Politicans in democracies know they will only be in power a short time, so if a problem is too hard, they kick the can down the road.
The November timeline is unconfirmed. That is probably when the first few infections started this thing and doubt even the Chinese doctors in Wuhan noticed the pattern yet. I remember around mid December hearing SARS is back and warned a mail order bride at work flying home to visit her mother with cancer in Nanking the weekend before Christmas that there was supposed to be SARS again in China.
Good post. But regarding the disclaimer “For the record, I don’t believe there was a U.S. conspiracy against China either,” I respond:
There is no “conspiracy” in the sense that there is more than conspiracy: there is a real, obvious U.S. hybrid war going on against China that anyone can see. Both sides continue doing business with each other to make money, as much and for as long as possible, but it is still a real war-to-the-death of one system or the other system.
Cheer up. I’m being told by a Jehovah’s Witness that Paradise Earth is just around the corner.
There is an excellent relevant article on Saker today, on financial aspects of the war, explaining why COVID chaos will not topple the U.S. but probably strengthen it: https://thesaker.is/zerohedge-a-response-to-mr-littlejohn-the-future-of-dollar-dominance/
“Moon of Alabama” also has a good relevant post today with information supporting the natural source theory: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/05/blaming-china-will-not-restore-american-exceptionalism-.html “Some researchers have noticed that raccoon dogs are known to carry bat sourced coronaviruses and that they have the specific ACE2 receptors that would have allowed the SARS-CoV-19 virus, as well as the original SARS virus, to use them as an intermediate hosts. Raccoon dogs are bred in Japan and China for their fur. The largest farms breeding raccoon dogs in China are said to be in Hubei province where the outbreak occurred. A wide screening for viruses in the raccoon dogs on those farms could establish a potential natural chain. But the (Trump) administration is not interested in the natural source of the virus. It is already thinking about how it can ‘punish’ China: Senior officials across multiple government agencies are expected to meet Thursday to begin mapping out a strategy for seeking retaliatory measures against China, two people with knowledge of the meeting said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to disclose the planning. Officials in American intelligence agencies are also involved in the effort….”
And this British blog is consistently good, for example today: https://niqnaq.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/underneath-the-hype/
Just one more comment: The U.S. Mint released a new quarter in February that has two BATS on the opposite side from George Washington, perfectly coincidental with the “bat-eaters sourced” pandemic – a very memorable coin! https://catalog.usmint.gov/national-park-of-american-samoa-2020-rolls-and-bags-MASTER_SAMOA.html?cgid=america-the-beautiful-quarters#cm_mmc=infosite-_-coin%2520medal%2520page-_-american%2520samoa-_-america%2520the%2520beautiful%2520quarters&_ga=2.7897972.798826700.1588277900-289836819.1588277900&start=1
The US is on the list of China’s “10 Inevitable Wars”.
They have stated they will use bio-weapons, both in the document “Unrestricted Warfare”, and in General Chi Haotian’s speech to CCP leadership. Here is a paragraph from that speech:”…
Conventional weapons such as fighters, canons, missiles and battleships won’t do; neither will highly destructive weapons such as nuclear weapons. We are not as foolish as to want to perish together with America by using nuclear weapons, despite the fact that we have been exclaiming that we will have the Taiwan issue resolved at whatever cost. Only by using non-destructive weapons that can kill many people will we be able to reserve America for ourselves. There has been rapid development of modern biological technology, and new bio-weapons have been invented one after another. Of course, we have not been idle, in the past years we have seized the opportunity to master weapons of this kind. We are capable of achieving our purpose of “cleaning up” America all of a sudden. When Comrade Xiaoping was still with us, the Party Central Committee had the perspicacity to make the right decision not to develop aircraft carrier groups and focus instead on developing lethal weapons that can eliminate mass populations of the enemy country….”
“What is the truth?”
We’ll never know is the cold, hard truth.
The truth in China can legitimately be blamed for not closing international travel to and from their country in January 2020 because they knew a virus of unknown origin and severity was in existence in that country. Shutting things down would have prevented the virus from spreading out of China. The leadership there did not do so because they do not care about any other human beings, certainly not foreigners. For that, targeted punishment is appropriate. However, any response should not impact Chinese citizens because they have no more power to influence the actions of their government than do citizens anywhere else, including the USA.
“The Southern Nevada Water Authority, which manages water supply and needs in Clark County, uses climate change projections to inform its water resource plans, said Bronson Mack, public outreach manager for the water authority…As the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect Las Vegas, Mack urged people staying home to follow water restrictions and avoid wasting water, especially for landscaping and outdoor use.
“It really is down to that granular level of, ‘What did I do today to save water?’” he said”
This is the official line – while they continue to authorize the construction of massive, thirsty residential developments all over the Valley!
If they really believed in climate change and water conservation, they would not allow such real estate development.
So true. They made a big deal about water conservation and when people actually did conserve water, their first action was to allow more real estate development. So much for conservation.
This is the entire problem of liberal democracy in microcosm. The U.S. Southwest is incredibly dry and worse, subject to periodic, unpredictable droughts, sometimes lasting years. This has been well known since the area was explored first by the Spanish then settled more heavily as the U.S. frontier moved westward.
For years there were various successful water schemes to divert water to Las Vegas, Arizona and southern California as population and agriculture increased rapidly especially after WWII. Given financial and technical limits there are no new significant water sources to be had, especially long term sources of water. Ground water is rapidly being pumped from aquifers now causing ground subsidence and the aquifers are likely to be depleted relatively quickly.
All this is well known by all the businessmen and politicians as well as more or less, the general public. If the U.S. were not owned and governed by thoughtless, greedy bastards then long term planning would take place to among other things, sharply curtail building and agriculture so as not to outrun sources of water. Also, there would be no immigration and the border with Mexico would be secured with concertina wire to prevent population moving from the third world into the Southwest.
Instead business is above politics in the U.S. and therefore, logically, profits drive everything. From the scumbag businessman’s perspective the important thing is to make money now, as much as possible, the future be damned. The politicians come from the business class (looking at you DJT) or are joined at the hip to those reprobates extracting wealth from them in return for favors unavailable to the general public.
Immigration of hostile groups, salting up agricultural land from too much water pumping and building houses in the desert are the logical consequence of this faulty system. None of this is sustainable and corona has shown the overshoot of limits, first in the financial system, soon in everything else. This wonderful liberal democracy has been enriching insiders at everyone else’s expense, socializing losses while privatizing gains in the name of the “free market” and transferring inevitable losses from insiders to the U.S. Government’s balance sheet.
The explosion of bailouts to the rich and infamous since 1981 (thanks Reagan) has now reached the point where it’s imperiling the currency, the U.S. Dollar. If the USD croaks because of all these trillions in bailouts it will be balls out chaos all over the world, that is the end game of liberal democracy. No one knows now what will come next.
Yep.
There is also a huge aquifer under the Great Plains that is being rapidly depleted
I should add that Neoliberal (not “socialist”) Sweden, which does almost nothing to protect ordinary Swedish people from the pandemic, now has more billionaires per capita than the U.S., and is farther down the Neoliberal road of economic deregulation than the U.S. International surveys rank Sweden as one of the very best countries to do business. The Swedish tax code has been adjusted since 1990 to favor capital accumulation, with a flat rate on investment income, no taxes on inheritance or residential property, and a much lower corporate income tax rate than the U.S. Taxes to pay for public infrastructure and services now fall heavily on consumption.
It is not surprising that Sweden and the U.S. lead the way to failure in the pandemic.