I’ll take the luxury to put a twist on the age old maxim: for the powerful to accomplish their purposes it is only necessary that good men remain silent. The silence these days is deafening.
And I think you pinned the tail on old man Gates. He’s found it’s just as easy to buy a scientist as it is a politician.
The censorship I’m referring to is the insidious self-censorship that’s so dangerous to a society. To your point, it’s not so simple a step to speak out and stand up to power when it’s flexing it’s muscles, especially when it seems we as individuals have no determining influence on public life. That’s why forums like this and the work that people like Walter are doing is so vital. I see the herd instincts which have been propped up by the prevailing fads and the hollow phrases and coddled sensibilities of the new gross wokeness and I wish there was more I could do.
McLuhan was a prophet, but even he could not have guessed that info war would be waged by platoons of trannies, girlbosses and furries or that the digital stockade would be run by HR hags.
That's my response as well. We were censored. From deletion if comments to deletion or freezing of accounts. All that did that, I will never use again. If I or we can't speak truth on a platform, I have no use for it.
He’s utterly psychopathic & driven by sexualized fascination to power, revenge and the enactment of mass murder on a planetary scale. Just watch him squirm and giggle when he talks about how many people ‘might’’ die… Think Jeffery Dahmer fueled with billion$.
That’s biophysics, conceptually he ‘knows’ some people are better than others and like all people who think that way he believes he’s one of them. In a word, eugenicist and though we might think him one of the most powerful men in the world if you see with 👀 of 💗, he’s one of the most fearful 😱.
I agree with you, which is something I wouldn't have said 5 years ago. Trump's first term, The pandemic and associated distortion of reality for most people in the left who I know has changed my understanding of powerful people and institutions. Gates has unimagined wealth, access to power and accumulated actual power. Such unallayed ability to control people and institutions combined with his sexual proclivities to me, mean that he is almost monsterlike in reality. What strictures are there on a man whose nearly every want can be bought through money, fear, or promises.
In the 90s almost every college student had to buy a Windows computer for college. When I saw the cost of the OS, Gates had already created the Foundation, ostensibly to redistribute all his obscene profits.
I stood in Best Buy, wondering why he charged so much for the OS, even the educational reduced price version was almost $100, if ultimately, he wanted to help people?
It was at that moment when the realization that he was full of, and that philanthropy in general was, horse shit, dawned on me.
He had after all driven Netscape out of business by bundling ie#, even now a comparatively poor browser, with Windows.
Why did a court rule that wasn’t restricted anticompetitive behavior?
Was it just simple bribery or influence peddling?
Or, are Gates and many of these other billionaires, ie modern aristocrats, playing a part to the public for the benefit of the DoD and that apparatus called the Deep State?
Isn’t one operating system, utilized by the vast majority of corporations and individuals easier to build viruses for than many, which simplifies surveillance?
It’s not like Gates or anyone else is truly more powerful than governments and us collectively.
Isn’t it really that they want us to believe that, as people used to believe nobles really were better by birth and ruled by divine right?
They want us to believe this fiction, so that we accept the totalitarian influence billionaires have, via their wealth.
Government officials in purported democracies play a game of decrying billionaire influence, while secretly they are probably in it together.
Because seriously, without society, money is worthless, so society can decide at will if it will allow certain individuals to amass wealth, or not.
Yes and as a lifelong Democrat though not very politically oriented the pandemic really pulled the curtain on the extremity of the world and captured America I had always lived in. That capture went public with the JFK assassination a day I have only one memory of… the shock in the American psychosphere let’s say
Of course I voted for team Trump. If the pandemic had been a dream, it would’ve been a nightmare, knife to my throat, threatening to kill me and everyone I loved, unless… Meanwhile, broad daylight 24 and seven gang land warfare in the streets
Pain and injury is quite the teacher. Trump ostracized felonized Musk his child transed RFK his uncle and father, murdered and brought to court more times than Trump as well as pilloried by media attacks Gabbard ousted from the darling Democrat position FOR HER INTEGRITY
and the list goes on Shanahan included
I just express my disappointment to my Democrat friends “I’m just can’t imagine I’ll ever be able to vote for them again… So I’m a former Democrat voting for team Trump, who are in the front row of the bench all former Democrats”
I saw that same look in Guv NewScum when rocked his shoulders back and forth with a grin on his face and a gleam in his eyes, talking about ‘investors coming to look at the [Palisades] properties’ that were burning to the ground behind him as he basically danced a jig in front of the cameras.
I later realized that I recognized that exact demonic look on Peter Strozk face when he testified before Congress…….telling one lie after another after another……
These Lizard people need to be taken to the woodshed.
Brilliant insight. A modern day “The Emperor Has No Clothes”. I love how you take historic events and share the human impact in the shadow of the event. The description of how you cared for your dying father is a beautiful tribute to your love for him and your compassion as a person. (BTW, human life is full of “typos”. I find they energize my focus. I think it makes this medium even more valuable and endearing.) I love your work.
Good for you to keep your father away from the insanity during his final weeks. I have so many regrets leaving my 98 year old WWII hero father-in-law to deteriorate in a 'care' facility, isolated and confused. He would have easily hit 100 if we'd just had the courage and fortitude to spring him from that hell on earth. My final visit with him was through a screened window, and I doubt he knew I was there. Provocative and inspiring, Walter. Thank you.
I would like to add my praise regarding care of your father. Caring for my mother with Dementia/Alzheimer's I ran across one doctor with the right statement: "You shouldn't do new things to old people"
This made me tear up. Isn’t it amazing we actually listened to this crap and let elderly family members wither away in homes? Where’s the outcry for that? Your father in law knew you loved him and that’s all that matters. But shame on them.
It was horrific. I'm so sorry- so many in fear and isolation and strange suited people while being held up in your room for months on end. We did try to make some fun for our residents, but so short staffed as well. People were paid to stay home!
I’m so sorry and also angry. It was a very horrible time to try and hold ritual, sacred connection to the death and dying process of our elders. I had a similar experience. 💔
This is one of the best pieces that I have read all year. Fortunately, Bari Weiss linked to it so that I was able to enjoy it. The Buffett 9/11 story is fantastic whether or not it was true. You summed it up perfectly here: “Power, true power, is a wonder to behold. It is also, for the powerless, unnerving, chiefly because it calls for self-suppression in quantities equal to power’s immense self-confidence. . .Survival, I learned then, is not our strongest drive, whatever the evolutionists may say. Our strongest drive is to please the people over us, especially those who have no one over them.”
I loved this too. I guess I walk away from the bull when I see it. I don't understand anything different. Yes, I called them put and called them out and called them out. Censored and deleted. Couldn't even buy a book from Amazon or attend my church online. Then, every time I was on my phone longer than an hr or so, helicopters or drones over me- this could happen day or night. Later, it was a continuous garage of them. I don't know how they connect, unless it was another hartasment tool.
I live in a small town in Northern CA and we had some of the first Covid deaths in the US- back in February ‘20. By all accounts our county (450k/ 30% 65 years old +) and our metro area (1.5m/same age demographic) should have been devastated with over 10k deaths at least over the first 3 + months. It was clear from the first month that the pro ported death rates were wrong.
Honest people- who can accept the fact that the ‘Buffet Fear Factor’ exists have to also accept that they did not act wisely after the first few weeks of data became known.
Honesty is the first and most important virtue- with out it the others die.
As I read the article, and the posts it engendered, a real issue that we all need to see is that folks who ‘have stuff’ drove the pandemic plan. Their goal- as I watched from a fairly wealthy town outside Sacramento, CA - was to protect themselves.
That saddens me- especially as we watch POTUS Joe reprioritize financial aid behind other issues that, to me are focused on giving things to people that don’t need them ‘right now’. Transgender rights, breaking white power, are these issues as important as getting money to people who have not worked steadily in a year?
As I read the posts it’s clear that some are pro POTUS Trump and others are pro POTUS Joe- which is a goofy place to start this argument. While each of these men may represent a basket of ideas- remember the point of the article is for us to look around and do what the day demands.
To do that we cannot yield to the fear of ‘Buffet’ but we cannot yield to fear of the moment. Yielding to fear from either event is equally bad as their are ‘Buffets’ on both sides. (Note we should hold how the author of the piece treated his father as a good standard of courage)
We should not be complaining about shutdowns (we need to honest about death rates- they never were as high as reported) women’s, gay or men’s rights. A focus on any of these issues - by definition means you are not focusing on taking care of your neighbor or the problem.
We are Americans. We ought to be better than this. We owe it to our kids to grow up.
Growing up requires us to examine the depraved seeking of power by those who then used it to shutdown the world and censor anyone whatsoever who sought to ask questions about COVID, mRNA shots, the destruction of peoples' lives who stood up against and a score of other horrors. You can choose to speak of being neighborly, but many of my neighbors and family became very friendly with public disdain and Stasi like tactics to attempt the ostracism of the "others" who stood up against a destruction of American civil liberties. No amount of ignorance of these fundamental truths works for me.
My son took to contemplating suicide while forced to live a life without his peers' touch, smell, company staying home as our school system acted as organs of the corrupted public health apparatus. It has taken years to undermine the effects of a disgusting, anti-scientific set of choices of frankly stupid, unthinking school leaders.
The actions of bureaucrats and the public health apparatus were completely corrupt and I find them to be execrable, not excusable.
It was, indeed, deflection from the real issues at hand. The slithering snakes had some dastardly things in mind. It was good to see a fraudchi admission today, but he is still a coward, and responsible for millions of deaths from so many things. The bug or the vex, loosing livelihoods or friends. Losing health bc of the drug or bc of the high intensity and demand of the work- nobody came to help. From family to pastors to volunteers, not allowed to help. Seems they were hiding something.
For me, I ran, doing the work of 3-4 people, at times, many 60 plus hour weeks and for many months. Couldn't even attend to my own family. Ultimately, my muscles froze up, felt like my calves were shredded. Fell and broke both ankles- one right through 3 ankle bones. 3 years later, I can't do that work anymore and I've went through all of my savings. If not by the grace of God, I have no idea where I would be. Now, at 60, trying to start anew. Everyone says "but you don't have anything on your resume for 3 years", even after I've told them I was in a serious accident and recovery. It's like people can't think through things. Who knows of I will be able to work again. Sorry for the rant, but I feel we need to share more about the different ways this thing robbed people.
Another commenter beat me to it, but it's a lot like The Emperor's New Clothes. It's a bad sign when people are pressured not to trust their own senses
Thank you for this story Walter. It seems to me, though, that the subservience you describe is a survival trait. The big guy can punish you, you can lose group support/safety net. It seems to go back to our most basic tribal instincts. The kind of "individuality" that pulls us out of it is IMO something conscience and faith are made of
The Covid trauma was not the virus but the fear-driven lockdowns, masking, and vilificationn of the unvaccinated...for a vaccine that didn't even work. It was madness unlike anything to happen in this country. We haven't yet recovered from the vax cult. The unvaxxed know this, sadly.
Reading this excellent piece, I understand what Jesus meant when He stated that “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25. True wisdom. What does He say next? “ For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” Actually, Matthew 16 is chock full of wisdom for this story. The last morsel of truth I’ll call out is about the power of the church standing on the solid foundation of truth… interesting choice of words, isn’t it, when Jesus says that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”. That’s real power.
Beautifully written as always Walter. I live in NJ, just outside NYC. The horrors we experienced last spring were very real. I do not know if mitigation efforts prevented that from becoming a more widespread reality but I suspect it did. By the end of May I personally knew 8 people who died and several with near-death experiences, two of whom are badly struggling almost a year later. I'm glad that you and apparently most of the commenters here did not have similar experiences. It changed the view quite a bit. What we really needed IMHO was a 6-week national shutdown with govt paying rents or something and we could have picked back up and moved along. This also exposed so many faultlines and cracks in our society. Schools that had been neglected for years and had inadequate ventilation being a tiny example.
Before anyone assumes we had a societal overreaction, consider that life expectancy fell by a full year in 2020 - and, per USA Today, "Life expectancy for Black populations declined the most from 2019 – by 2.7 years, to 72 years – its lowest level since 2001.
As for the life expectancy change, we cannot assume the loss of life expectancy is due solely or even substantively to COVID infection. We have to consider the following as contributory:
1. Potential increased suicides (though these numbers are not yet reported)
2. Increased domestic violence, drug, or alcohol-related deaths
3. Increased death from serious diseases that were not treated due to prioritization of COVID patients (waitlists for surgeries, transplants, radiation, treatment for infections, etc.)
I suspect these are significantly increased, and likely have significant numbers among young people, as opposed to COVID, which bears a significantly higher death toll on those approaching the end of average life expectancy. (I have a co-worker who committed suicide after being fired in April, 2020, age 35, at the height of total home confinement, and the mother of a co-worker who was in a nursing home in perfect health and "died of loneliness" due to severe visitation restrictions, even from staff.) We should consider these deaths COVID-related, however, since they are related to our RESPONSE to COVID. And they are disproportionately affecting average life expectancy figures because those who died from these conditions likely had many, many more years to live.
Thank you. That's what I would call an appropriate, civil disagreement. I also appreciate that you seem to use your actual name as do I. I think its a good way to remind yourself to behave online as you would/should in real life.
Everything you say makes sense. I obviously don't know what the right approach would have been. I do know that the situation in Spain, Italy, New York and environs in the early stages was drastic and dramatic and I don't see any reason to think that it wouldn't have been similar more widely.
The lack of federal leadership and leaving everything up to states and localities seems to me to have been a monumental blunder and the politicization of mask-wearing and basic social distancing truly reprehensible.
I'm afraid I have no confidence in mask wearing, and only marginal confidence in distancing measures, as implemented. The inventor of the smallpox vaccine published a paper earlier last decade that demolished the idea masks would be efficacious against H1N1 and even an op-ed in the AMA's flagship journal authored by three doctors said in May, IIRC, mask wearing was likely not effective but merely symbolic against COVID. The demand for mask-wearing worldwide can be argued as the singularly most polluting event in world history (save perhaps the World Wars). It has been environmentally devastating.
California has had some of the more draconian lockdown measures and mandatory mask-wearing since April and it still had 1 million cases (out of 55 million people) in December alone. My concern is that people who can't afford new masks simply re-wear them, making them prone to all sorts of infections, bacterial and viral, latent in re-used masks. And lockdown measures for entire households meant that if one person came home with the virus, they could spread it to the vulnerable in the entire house before quarantine measures could be implemented. That's especially devastating for poor families who tend to have higher occupancy per household.
Only the N-95's (and maybe the European kN-95's) would have provided any real (but partial) protection. Forgive the crudeness, but I have a relative who put it simply: "if I can smell your farts, the (surgical) mask isn't protecting you from COVID."
As a trained sociologist, my concern early on has been the social and psychological damage from both lockdowns and masks, but particularly the latter. Infants, though they cannot understand language, do understand tones and facial expressions in particular. Our biology, and then eventually our learning of language and relatively accurate accumulation of interpretation skills, depends on these. Reading someone's face and tone builds social and interpersonal trust and warns us of those who are angry with us or who should not be trusted. Mask wearing severely damages these things, and makes fighting with one another too easy. People are more distrustful of one another, exacerbated by our inability to interpret others intentions with an adequate degree of accuracy. We cannot underestimate the damage this simple lack has done to the further breakdown of our society.
And shutting down our economy in the U.S. (for example) has severely damaged our trading partners' ability to receive needed goods from us, harming the poor especially who need cheap goods and perishable goods to stay afloat and feed their families. Doesn't matter if farms themselves were not shut down; supply chains feeding farms, such as factories making tractor parts or harvesting equipment, or tire production, or seed suppliers may have been damaged, decreasing output and requiring more goods to stay at home rather than be shipped.
The tried-and-true approach to pandemics was, IMO, the correct choice: quarantine the sick and protect the vulnerable. Grocery stores could have offered free, non-contact delivery to senior citizens and the feds could have provided additional funding for heating and cooling, as well as extra stipends and free masks to seniors as well. The rest of us needed to go on living. I really can't believe we asked our children to pay such a high of a price during this time.
I'd add that the mask creates some kind of desperate need in others, through the eyes only, to define all facial expressions. It's laughable how many people stare longer, almost creepily, directly at eyes to account for what thousands of years of human evolution can no longer do.
I worked the pandemonium. I beg to differ. These deaths came in large waves after the mass vaxx stadium event, which I had to escort those who wanted to go. I find the intakes at the care facility, had my own clients...many went downhill fast and died within days to a couple of months after that horrible "treatment". I had a nurse froend succumb to the pressure and had a long battle w systolic & diastolic heart failure. In true heslrhcare fashion, it was reported that she had some inflammation and died quickly. Later, as if it was nring sent my way, I came across her record 3 times, in med records, where there was a lot of tracking- cause that's what we do.
I had so many died, not from loneliness, but after the vaxx. Let's think through that, ad hard ad it is.
Perhaps our doctors should have treated covid with other treatments (most were banned). Instead they placed them on killer ventilators and then sent them back into nursing homes to continue spreading it to the elderly.
I don't really want to get in a fight with you, but your implying doctors' responsibility is really offensive to me. I have friends and relatives who are doctors and nurses and who went through hell while reusing masks and wearing garbage bags and ponchos because there was no PPE. They learned a lot about treating COVID in the past year. Cuomo's nursing home rulings were criminal.
Hydroxychlorine and zinc treatments would have saved 1000’s of people but fauci and the deep state didn’t want to save them.... rather they wanted death to blame on trump. And you probably know it but deflect. Sad.
Alan, you’re wrong about everything regarding the Sars Cov 2 virus and the clearly political public policy enacted by the elite. You betray your political agenda by suggesting we should have had a federal mandate closing down the entire country. Places like New York City and Wichita, KS are distinct and did not need to employ the same approach to the virus. The lockdown was never justified as a means to end the pandemic. It was very clearly and unequivocally rationalized as a means to avoid overwhelming the health care system. It’s proponents clearly stated that it would not stop the spread nor would it prevent people from dying of Covid. It was merely supposed to slow the rate of contagion. You are either ignorant or dishonest when you reject the truth about treatments like HCQ and zinc. Clinicians all over the world treated their patients successfully with HCQ and elite here actually prevented its use in order to secure the Emergency Use Authorization for the genetic treatments they are calling vaccines. That is what’s known as having an agenda. A reasonable person would recognize that fact and seek to determine the intent behind the agenda. You also must hold 5he record for personally knowing the most people who died from Covid. Of all the hundreds of people I know, I have heard of three people who were acquaintances of people I know- ie I didn’t know them but my friends did - who died of Covid. All were over 75 years old and all had severe pre-existing health issues.
As for the ventilators , doctors in New York publicly stated that they put patients on ventilators because they were afraid giving them oxygen would cause the virus to spread more readily in hospitals. That isn’t a contested fact. Nor is it a contested fact that no one with Covid is being intubated anymore because it kills the patient. Given your clear leftist political bent it is hard to believe anything you say.
The FDA cannot legally issue an Emergency Authorization (EUA) for a vaccine when there is an existing treatment that works. The effective treatments used by Dr. Zelenko, Dr. McCullough and others, if acknowledged by the establishment as effective, would have prevented the EUA, would have ended the emergency, and thus prevented a (lucrative) vaccine from going forward until it was thoroughly tested. And that long-term thorough testing would have revealed what we are now seeing: the vaccines' efficacy wears off after a few months and requires ongoing boosters. (This is the subscription model, like software.) A vaccine whose efficacy can't even last a year in the past would have been considered a failed vaccine. But under the EUA? Apparently anything goes.
Some might not be aware that Fauci and others in govt agencies stand to gain considerably financially from these shots. They have a vested financial interest in NOT acknowleding these treatments' effectiveness. Indeed hospitals and doctors have been *disincentivized* from using them. Medical boards across the country have threatened phsysicans who do.
The "Emergency" will continue until the covid shots are made part of the children's regular vaccine schedule, where they will forever remain liability-free, no matter how much damage they cause or how ineffective they are. If you are skeptical of this argument, I strongly encourage you to listen to Alix Mayer:
You’re offensive with your know it all attitude and authoritarianism while no one can engage with your “don’t want to get into a fight” without “being offensive” to you. Typical liberal hypocrisy. Go hide under your bed, triple mask, and get your annual covid vaccine. BUT DINT MAKE ANYONE ELSE DO IT WITH YOU!!!
We were working crazy hours bc of the 14 days out w exposure or potential exposures, later went to 10 days out- still devastating. We had to use our mask for a week b4 new ones were made available. We didn't have them. We were told to leave them in a drawer, collectively, in individual brown paper bags. Some chose to use sandwich baggies- keeping the junk in. I took mine home to air in the sun..of course, they laughed at me- cause if you don't follow directive. After months of this, I ended up w a severe lung infection. Bug exposures got 14 days out, but lung infection, nope. Nada. You gotta pull the ship along, no matter what. I had to jump ship to recover. Went to a different facility soon after. Same business.
You sound like a retarded liberal. 6 week shutdown? Why do you liberals always make others do what you could do yourself? Go hide under your bed for six weeks. You sound like my 2 year old. Grow up!
You seem nice. I mentioned that I lost 8 friends, so common decency might have started with an expression of condolence but thanks for calling me a retarded liberal.
For what's it's worth, I really appreciate your writing here; I think it's thought proving, impactful, and even if I don't entirely agree, that's a prerequisite to appreciating a new perspective. Thx for the good read
Wasn't there a 6 week shutdown? Or do you mean a shutdown that didn't even have 'essential' workers working? I don't think shutdowns have proven successful, tho if you mean a full 'stop' of all activity, what would hospitals do?
I agree that much was exposed during this year that aggravates, infuriates, frustrates and debilitates us all in various ways. I add that 'misinformation' police came out of the woodwork to pound down the scientific method, individual and group of doctors and nurses... So my feeling on this story Unbound is that we cannot ignore what we see and must discuss it - openly -- without fear. This is about how power and greed shut down the most obvious things. This is us, now, the USA.
I lost many. From clients to the residents in the facilties I worked in, to co-workers, college classmates, and client whose husband and her good friends husband passed at the same time. Friends lost siblings, parents, spouses. Suicides of the very young- even a 13 year old; my sons Marine buddy's daughter.
Then the maiming and loss of livelihood of so many, for a vast variety of consequences of this ...disaster
This just hit my feed and I did not see the publication date until I read the article. Weird! And weird times they were. Despite Trumps recent win, I still feel unsettled, but with a remote sense of optimism.
I've not been so deeply affected by a story in a long while. Not since Christopher Hitchens was writing. And I don't mean to compare, and I mean it as a compliment, it's just a fine feeling to be moved and to linger a little longer and to think on the many layers you've crafted. I'll take this story with me through life. And I look forward to reading more of your work.
I’ll take the luxury to put a twist on the age old maxim: for the powerful to accomplish their purposes it is only necessary that good men remain silent. The silence these days is deafening.
And I think you pinned the tail on old man Gates. He’s found it’s just as easy to buy a scientist as it is a politician.
Actually a lot of people are trying to speak out and have spoken out, but their voices are being silenced. We are in the midst of a censorship war.
I agree.
The censorship I’m referring to is the insidious self-censorship that’s so dangerous to a society. To your point, it’s not so simple a step to speak out and stand up to power when it’s flexing it’s muscles, especially when it seems we as individuals have no determining influence on public life. That’s why forums like this and the work that people like Walter are doing is so vital. I see the herd instincts which have been propped up by the prevailing fads and the hollow phrases and coddled sensibilities of the new gross wokeness and I wish there was more I could do.
Keep up the good fight, Naj.
The narrative battle space: “ the successor politics will be propaganda” Marshall, McLuhan
Another McLuhan chestnut:
“ World War III is a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation”
McLuhan said this in 1964; We are fully engaged.
McLuhan was a prophet, but even he could not have guessed that info war would be waged by platoons of trannies, girlbosses and furries or that the digital stockade would be run by HR hags.
Hilarious
I had never heard that, but we ARE engaged!
We are nearing the end of a long censorship war. Truth is breaking out at last.
That's my response as well. We were censored. From deletion if comments to deletion or freezing of accounts. All that did that, I will never use again. If I or we can't speak truth on a platform, I have no use for it.
To what end, though? Pharma profit is derivative, so what is pudding-face’s game?
He’s utterly psychopathic & driven by sexualized fascination to power, revenge and the enactment of mass murder on a planetary scale. Just watch him squirm and giggle when he talks about how many people ‘might’’ die… Think Jeffery Dahmer fueled with billion$.
That’s biophysics, conceptually he ‘knows’ some people are better than others and like all people who think that way he believes he’s one of them. In a word, eugenicist and though we might think him one of the most powerful men in the world if you see with 👀 of 💗, he’s one of the most fearful 😱.
I agree with you, which is something I wouldn't have said 5 years ago. Trump's first term, The pandemic and associated distortion of reality for most people in the left who I know has changed my understanding of powerful people and institutions. Gates has unimagined wealth, access to power and accumulated actual power. Such unallayed ability to control people and institutions combined with his sexual proclivities to me, mean that he is almost monsterlike in reality. What strictures are there on a man whose nearly every want can be bought through money, fear, or promises.
In the 90s almost every college student had to buy a Windows computer for college. When I saw the cost of the OS, Gates had already created the Foundation, ostensibly to redistribute all his obscene profits.
I stood in Best Buy, wondering why he charged so much for the OS, even the educational reduced price version was almost $100, if ultimately, he wanted to help people?
It was at that moment when the realization that he was full of, and that philanthropy in general was, horse shit, dawned on me.
He had after all driven Netscape out of business by bundling ie#, even now a comparatively poor browser, with Windows.
Why did a court rule that wasn’t restricted anticompetitive behavior?
Was it just simple bribery or influence peddling?
Or, are Gates and many of these other billionaires, ie modern aristocrats, playing a part to the public for the benefit of the DoD and that apparatus called the Deep State?
Isn’t one operating system, utilized by the vast majority of corporations and individuals easier to build viruses for than many, which simplifies surveillance?
It’s not like Gates or anyone else is truly more powerful than governments and us collectively.
Isn’t it really that they want us to believe that, as people used to believe nobles really were better by birth and ruled by divine right?
They want us to believe this fiction, so that we accept the totalitarian influence billionaires have, via their wealth.
Government officials in purported democracies play a game of decrying billionaire influence, while secretly they are probably in it together.
Because seriously, without society, money is worthless, so society can decide at will if it will allow certain individuals to amass wealth, or not.
Yes and as a lifelong Democrat though not very politically oriented the pandemic really pulled the curtain on the extremity of the world and captured America I had always lived in. That capture went public with the JFK assassination a day I have only one memory of… the shock in the American psychosphere let’s say
Of course I voted for team Trump. If the pandemic had been a dream, it would’ve been a nightmare, knife to my throat, threatening to kill me and everyone I loved, unless… Meanwhile, broad daylight 24 and seven gang land warfare in the streets
Pain and injury is quite the teacher. Trump ostracized felonized Musk his child transed RFK his uncle and father, murdered and brought to court more times than Trump as well as pilloried by media attacks Gabbard ousted from the darling Democrat position FOR HER INTEGRITY
and the list goes on Shanahan included
I just express my disappointment to my Democrat friends “I’m just can’t imagine I’ll ever be able to vote for them again… So I’m a former Democrat voting for team Trump, who are in the front row of the bench all former Democrats”
I saw that same look in Guv NewScum when rocked his shoulders back and forth with a grin on his face and a gleam in his eyes, talking about ‘investors coming to look at the [Palisades] properties’ that were burning to the ground behind him as he basically danced a jig in front of the cameras.
I later realized that I recognized that exact demonic look on Peter Strozk face when he testified before Congress…….telling one lie after another after another……
These Lizard people need to be taken to the woodshed.
True believer not a game.
Thanks Dan. Yes, it always seems that most everything comes back around to money. I can be bought…at least I admit it.
It's been tough, but I can't be.
So true.
Brilliant insight. A modern day “The Emperor Has No Clothes”. I love how you take historic events and share the human impact in the shadow of the event. The description of how you cared for your dying father is a beautiful tribute to your love for him and your compassion as a person. (BTW, human life is full of “typos”. I find they energize my focus. I think it makes this medium even more valuable and endearing.) I love your work.
Good for you to keep your father away from the insanity during his final weeks. I have so many regrets leaving my 98 year old WWII hero father-in-law to deteriorate in a 'care' facility, isolated and confused. He would have easily hit 100 if we'd just had the courage and fortitude to spring him from that hell on earth. My final visit with him was through a screened window, and I doubt he knew I was there. Provocative and inspiring, Walter. Thank you.
I would like to add my praise regarding care of your father. Caring for my mother with Dementia/Alzheimer's I ran across one doctor with the right statement: "You shouldn't do new things to old people"
That was one really swimming through the strong current. I was surprised at how many "went along".
This made me tear up. Isn’t it amazing we actually listened to this crap and let elderly family members wither away in homes? Where’s the outcry for that? Your father in law knew you loved him and that’s all that matters. But shame on them.
It was horrific. I'm so sorry- so many in fear and isolation and strange suited people while being held up in your room for months on end. We did try to make some fun for our residents, but so short staffed as well. People were paid to stay home!
I’m so sorry and also angry. It was a very horrible time to try and hold ritual, sacred connection to the death and dying process of our elders. I had a similar experience. 💔
I'm so sorry for your loss.
I worked through that. Hell to see in action.
This is one of the best pieces that I have read all year. Fortunately, Bari Weiss linked to it so that I was able to enjoy it. The Buffett 9/11 story is fantastic whether or not it was true. You summed it up perfectly here: “Power, true power, is a wonder to behold. It is also, for the powerless, unnerving, chiefly because it calls for self-suppression in quantities equal to power’s immense self-confidence. . .Survival, I learned then, is not our strongest drive, whatever the evolutionists may say. Our strongest drive is to please the people over us, especially those who have no one over them.”
I loved this too. I guess I walk away from the bull when I see it. I don't understand anything different. Yes, I called them put and called them out and called them out. Censored and deleted. Couldn't even buy a book from Amazon or attend my church online. Then, every time I was on my phone longer than an hr or so, helicopters or drones over me- this could happen day or night. Later, it was a continuous garage of them. I don't know how they connect, unless it was another hartasment tool.
I live in a small town in Northern CA and we had some of the first Covid deaths in the US- back in February ‘20. By all accounts our county (450k/ 30% 65 years old +) and our metro area (1.5m/same age demographic) should have been devastated with over 10k deaths at least over the first 3 + months. It was clear from the first month that the pro ported death rates were wrong.
Honest people- who can accept the fact that the ‘Buffet Fear Factor’ exists have to also accept that they did not act wisely after the first few weeks of data became known.
Honesty is the first and most important virtue- with out it the others die.
As I read the article, and the posts it engendered, a real issue that we all need to see is that folks who ‘have stuff’ drove the pandemic plan. Their goal- as I watched from a fairly wealthy town outside Sacramento, CA - was to protect themselves.
That saddens me- especially as we watch POTUS Joe reprioritize financial aid behind other issues that, to me are focused on giving things to people that don’t need them ‘right now’. Transgender rights, breaking white power, are these issues as important as getting money to people who have not worked steadily in a year?
As I read the posts it’s clear that some are pro POTUS Trump and others are pro POTUS Joe- which is a goofy place to start this argument. While each of these men may represent a basket of ideas- remember the point of the article is for us to look around and do what the day demands.
To do that we cannot yield to the fear of ‘Buffet’ but we cannot yield to fear of the moment. Yielding to fear from either event is equally bad as their are ‘Buffets’ on both sides. (Note we should hold how the author of the piece treated his father as a good standard of courage)
We should not be complaining about shutdowns (we need to honest about death rates- they never were as high as reported) women’s, gay or men’s rights. A focus on any of these issues - by definition means you are not focusing on taking care of your neighbor or the problem.
We are Americans. We ought to be better than this. We owe it to our kids to grow up.
Growing up requires us to examine the depraved seeking of power by those who then used it to shutdown the world and censor anyone whatsoever who sought to ask questions about COVID, mRNA shots, the destruction of peoples' lives who stood up against and a score of other horrors. You can choose to speak of being neighborly, but many of my neighbors and family became very friendly with public disdain and Stasi like tactics to attempt the ostracism of the "others" who stood up against a destruction of American civil liberties. No amount of ignorance of these fundamental truths works for me.
My son took to contemplating suicide while forced to live a life without his peers' touch, smell, company staying home as our school system acted as organs of the corrupted public health apparatus. It has taken years to undermine the effects of a disgusting, anti-scientific set of choices of frankly stupid, unthinking school leaders.
The actions of bureaucrats and the public health apparatus were completely corrupt and I find them to be execrable, not excusable.
Excellent comment, thank you.
It was, indeed, deflection from the real issues at hand. The slithering snakes had some dastardly things in mind. It was good to see a fraudchi admission today, but he is still a coward, and responsible for millions of deaths from so many things. The bug or the vex, loosing livelihoods or friends. Losing health bc of the drug or bc of the high intensity and demand of the work- nobody came to help. From family to pastors to volunteers, not allowed to help. Seems they were hiding something.
For me, I ran, doing the work of 3-4 people, at times, many 60 plus hour weeks and for many months. Couldn't even attend to my own family. Ultimately, my muscles froze up, felt like my calves were shredded. Fell and broke both ankles- one right through 3 ankle bones. 3 years later, I can't do that work anymore and I've went through all of my savings. If not by the grace of God, I have no idea where I would be. Now, at 60, trying to start anew. Everyone says "but you don't have anything on your resume for 3 years", even after I've told them I was in a serious accident and recovery. It's like people can't think through things. Who knows of I will be able to work again. Sorry for the rant, but I feel we need to share more about the different ways this thing robbed people.
Another commenter beat me to it, but it's a lot like The Emperor's New Clothes. It's a bad sign when people are pressured not to trust their own senses
Thank you for this story Walter. It seems to me, though, that the subservience you describe is a survival trait. The big guy can punish you, you can lose group support/safety net. It seems to go back to our most basic tribal instincts. The kind of "individuality" that pulls us out of it is IMO something conscience and faith are made of
Damn Walter, that was a killer story. Thanks for sharing. Now that Gutfeld is going nightly I look forward to seeing you more than once a quarter...
Warren Buffet is the Sun King? The whole scene you just painted, reminds of of Versailles, Under Louix the 14th. Splendidly well done!
A great article. The golf tournament at Buffett’s estate reminds me of the billionaire in Mission to America.
Side note: What do you call someone who wants fewer Africans? A white supremacist? Close, the answer I was looking for was Bill Gates. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/sep/18/the-african-youth-boom-whats-worrying-bill-gates
The Covid trauma was not the virus but the fear-driven lockdowns, masking, and vilificationn of the unvaccinated...for a vaccine that didn't even work. It was madness unlike anything to happen in this country. We haven't yet recovered from the vax cult. The unvaxxed know this, sadly.
You're so right!
Reading this excellent piece, I understand what Jesus meant when He stated that “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25. True wisdom. What does He say next? “ For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” Actually, Matthew 16 is chock full of wisdom for this story. The last morsel of truth I’ll call out is about the power of the church standing on the solid foundation of truth… interesting choice of words, isn’t it, when Jesus says that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”. That’s real power.
Poignant!
Beautifully written as always Walter. I live in NJ, just outside NYC. The horrors we experienced last spring were very real. I do not know if mitigation efforts prevented that from becoming a more widespread reality but I suspect it did. By the end of May I personally knew 8 people who died and several with near-death experiences, two of whom are badly struggling almost a year later. I'm glad that you and apparently most of the commenters here did not have similar experiences. It changed the view quite a bit. What we really needed IMHO was a 6-week national shutdown with govt paying rents or something and we could have picked back up and moved along. This also exposed so many faultlines and cracks in our society. Schools that had been neglected for years and had inadequate ventilation being a tiny example.
Before anyone assumes we had a societal overreaction, consider that life expectancy fell by a full year in 2020 - and, per USA Today, "Life expectancy for Black populations declined the most from 2019 – by 2.7 years, to 72 years – its lowest level since 2001.
Hi Alan,
I'm sorry about the loss of your friends.
As for the life expectancy change, we cannot assume the loss of life expectancy is due solely or even substantively to COVID infection. We have to consider the following as contributory:
1. Potential increased suicides (though these numbers are not yet reported)
2. Increased domestic violence, drug, or alcohol-related deaths
3. Increased death from serious diseases that were not treated due to prioritization of COVID patients (waitlists for surgeries, transplants, radiation, treatment for infections, etc.)
I suspect these are significantly increased, and likely have significant numbers among young people, as opposed to COVID, which bears a significantly higher death toll on those approaching the end of average life expectancy. (I have a co-worker who committed suicide after being fired in April, 2020, age 35, at the height of total home confinement, and the mother of a co-worker who was in a nursing home in perfect health and "died of loneliness" due to severe visitation restrictions, even from staff.) We should consider these deaths COVID-related, however, since they are related to our RESPONSE to COVID. And they are disproportionately affecting average life expectancy figures because those who died from these conditions likely had many, many more years to live.
Thanks for reading.
Thank you. That's what I would call an appropriate, civil disagreement. I also appreciate that you seem to use your actual name as do I. I think its a good way to remind yourself to behave online as you would/should in real life.
Everything you say makes sense. I obviously don't know what the right approach would have been. I do know that the situation in Spain, Italy, New York and environs in the early stages was drastic and dramatic and I don't see any reason to think that it wouldn't have been similar more widely.
The lack of federal leadership and leaving everything up to states and localities seems to me to have been a monumental blunder and the politicization of mask-wearing and basic social distancing truly reprehensible.
You're welcome.
I'm afraid I have no confidence in mask wearing, and only marginal confidence in distancing measures, as implemented. The inventor of the smallpox vaccine published a paper earlier last decade that demolished the idea masks would be efficacious against H1N1 and even an op-ed in the AMA's flagship journal authored by three doctors said in May, IIRC, mask wearing was likely not effective but merely symbolic against COVID. The demand for mask-wearing worldwide can be argued as the singularly most polluting event in world history (save perhaps the World Wars). It has been environmentally devastating.
California has had some of the more draconian lockdown measures and mandatory mask-wearing since April and it still had 1 million cases (out of 55 million people) in December alone. My concern is that people who can't afford new masks simply re-wear them, making them prone to all sorts of infections, bacterial and viral, latent in re-used masks. And lockdown measures for entire households meant that if one person came home with the virus, they could spread it to the vulnerable in the entire house before quarantine measures could be implemented. That's especially devastating for poor families who tend to have higher occupancy per household.
Only the N-95's (and maybe the European kN-95's) would have provided any real (but partial) protection. Forgive the crudeness, but I have a relative who put it simply: "if I can smell your farts, the (surgical) mask isn't protecting you from COVID."
As a trained sociologist, my concern early on has been the social and psychological damage from both lockdowns and masks, but particularly the latter. Infants, though they cannot understand language, do understand tones and facial expressions in particular. Our biology, and then eventually our learning of language and relatively accurate accumulation of interpretation skills, depends on these. Reading someone's face and tone builds social and interpersonal trust and warns us of those who are angry with us or who should not be trusted. Mask wearing severely damages these things, and makes fighting with one another too easy. People are more distrustful of one another, exacerbated by our inability to interpret others intentions with an adequate degree of accuracy. We cannot underestimate the damage this simple lack has done to the further breakdown of our society.
And shutting down our economy in the U.S. (for example) has severely damaged our trading partners' ability to receive needed goods from us, harming the poor especially who need cheap goods and perishable goods to stay afloat and feed their families. Doesn't matter if farms themselves were not shut down; supply chains feeding farms, such as factories making tractor parts or harvesting equipment, or tire production, or seed suppliers may have been damaged, decreasing output and requiring more goods to stay at home rather than be shipped.
The tried-and-true approach to pandemics was, IMO, the correct choice: quarantine the sick and protect the vulnerable. Grocery stores could have offered free, non-contact delivery to senior citizens and the feds could have provided additional funding for heating and cooling, as well as extra stipends and free masks to seniors as well. The rest of us needed to go on living. I really can't believe we asked our children to pay such a high of a price during this time.
Again, thanks for the exchange.
I'd add that the mask creates some kind of desperate need in others, through the eyes only, to define all facial expressions. It's laughable how many people stare longer, almost creepily, directly at eyes to account for what thousands of years of human evolution can no longer do.
I worked the pandemonium. I beg to differ. These deaths came in large waves after the mass vaxx stadium event, which I had to escort those who wanted to go. I find the intakes at the care facility, had my own clients...many went downhill fast and died within days to a couple of months after that horrible "treatment". I had a nurse froend succumb to the pressure and had a long battle w systolic & diastolic heart failure. In true heslrhcare fashion, it was reported that she had some inflammation and died quickly. Later, as if it was nring sent my way, I came across her record 3 times, in med records, where there was a lot of tracking- cause that's what we do.
I had so many died, not from loneliness, but after the vaxx. Let's think through that, ad hard ad it is.
Pardon my blunders on the keyboard. Wish we could edit.
Perhaps our doctors should have treated covid with other treatments (most were banned). Instead they placed them on killer ventilators and then sent them back into nursing homes to continue spreading it to the elderly.
I don't really want to get in a fight with you, but your implying doctors' responsibility is really offensive to me. I have friends and relatives who are doctors and nurses and who went through hell while reusing masks and wearing garbage bags and ponchos because there was no PPE. They learned a lot about treating COVID in the past year. Cuomo's nursing home rulings were criminal.
Hydroxychlorine and zinc treatments would have saved 1000’s of people but fauci and the deep state didn’t want to save them.... rather they wanted death to blame on trump. And you probably know it but deflect. Sad.
That's ridiculous.
Alan, you’re wrong about everything regarding the Sars Cov 2 virus and the clearly political public policy enacted by the elite. You betray your political agenda by suggesting we should have had a federal mandate closing down the entire country. Places like New York City and Wichita, KS are distinct and did not need to employ the same approach to the virus. The lockdown was never justified as a means to end the pandemic. It was very clearly and unequivocally rationalized as a means to avoid overwhelming the health care system. It’s proponents clearly stated that it would not stop the spread nor would it prevent people from dying of Covid. It was merely supposed to slow the rate of contagion. You are either ignorant or dishonest when you reject the truth about treatments like HCQ and zinc. Clinicians all over the world treated their patients successfully with HCQ and elite here actually prevented its use in order to secure the Emergency Use Authorization for the genetic treatments they are calling vaccines. That is what’s known as having an agenda. A reasonable person would recognize that fact and seek to determine the intent behind the agenda. You also must hold 5he record for personally knowing the most people who died from Covid. Of all the hundreds of people I know, I have heard of three people who were acquaintances of people I know- ie I didn’t know them but my friends did - who died of Covid. All were over 75 years old and all had severe pre-existing health issues.
As for the ventilators , doctors in New York publicly stated that they put patients on ventilators because they were afraid giving them oxygen would cause the virus to spread more readily in hospitals. That isn’t a contested fact. Nor is it a contested fact that no one with Covid is being intubated anymore because it kills the patient. Given your clear leftist political bent it is hard to believe anything you say.
The FDA cannot legally issue an Emergency Authorization (EUA) for a vaccine when there is an existing treatment that works. The effective treatments used by Dr. Zelenko, Dr. McCullough and others, if acknowledged by the establishment as effective, would have prevented the EUA, would have ended the emergency, and thus prevented a (lucrative) vaccine from going forward until it was thoroughly tested. And that long-term thorough testing would have revealed what we are now seeing: the vaccines' efficacy wears off after a few months and requires ongoing boosters. (This is the subscription model, like software.) A vaccine whose efficacy can't even last a year in the past would have been considered a failed vaccine. But under the EUA? Apparently anything goes.
Some might not be aware that Fauci and others in govt agencies stand to gain considerably financially from these shots. They have a vested financial interest in NOT acknowleding these treatments' effectiveness. Indeed hospitals and doctors have been *disincentivized* from using them. Medical boards across the country have threatened phsysicans who do.
The "Emergency" will continue until the covid shots are made part of the children's regular vaccine schedule, where they will forever remain liability-free, no matter how much damage they cause or how ineffective they are. If you are skeptical of this argument, I strongly encourage you to listen to Alix Mayer:
https://rumble.com/vqqb06-alix-mayer-explains-why-the-drug-companies-are-targeting-kids.html
For those following the numbers, the news from the insurance companies bears watching. Might want to check numbers in your own state:
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/unprecedented-deaths-in-indiana-for
Very likely Alan has ulterior motives. He actually might himself have financially benefited from the garbage edicts. Grifters gotta grift.
You’re offensive with your know it all attitude and authoritarianism while no one can engage with your “don’t want to get into a fight” without “being offensive” to you. Typical liberal hypocrisy. Go hide under your bed, triple mask, and get your annual covid vaccine. BUT DINT MAKE ANYONE ELSE DO IT WITH YOU!!!
Also, I bet you don’t even know what a covid cycle threshold is!
We were working crazy hours bc of the 14 days out w exposure or potential exposures, later went to 10 days out- still devastating. We had to use our mask for a week b4 new ones were made available. We didn't have them. We were told to leave them in a drawer, collectively, in individual brown paper bags. Some chose to use sandwich baggies- keeping the junk in. I took mine home to air in the sun..of course, they laughed at me- cause if you don't follow directive. After months of this, I ended up w a severe lung infection. Bug exposures got 14 days out, but lung infection, nope. Nada. You gotta pull the ship along, no matter what. I had to jump ship to recover. Went to a different facility soon after. Same business.
You sound like a retarded liberal. 6 week shutdown? Why do you liberals always make others do what you could do yourself? Go hide under your bed for six weeks. You sound like my 2 year old. Grow up!
You seem nice. I mentioned that I lost 8 friends, so common decency might have started with an expression of condolence but thanks for calling me a retarded liberal.
For what's it's worth, I really appreciate your writing here; I think it's thought proving, impactful, and even if I don't entirely agree, that's a prerequisite to appreciating a new perspective. Thx for the good read
*provoking
Wasn't there a 6 week shutdown? Or do you mean a shutdown that didn't even have 'essential' workers working? I don't think shutdowns have proven successful, tho if you mean a full 'stop' of all activity, what would hospitals do?
I agree that much was exposed during this year that aggravates, infuriates, frustrates and debilitates us all in various ways. I add that 'misinformation' police came out of the woodwork to pound down the scientific method, individual and group of doctors and nurses... So my feeling on this story Unbound is that we cannot ignore what we see and must discuss it - openly -- without fear. This is about how power and greed shut down the most obvious things. This is us, now, the USA.
Being immune to COVID and inconsiderate of those who are not immune is another form of power.
I lost many. From clients to the residents in the facilties I worked in, to co-workers, college classmates, and client whose husband and her good friends husband passed at the same time. Friends lost siblings, parents, spouses. Suicides of the very young- even a 13 year old; my sons Marine buddy's daughter.
Then the maiming and loss of livelihood of so many, for a vast variety of consequences of this ...disaster
This just hit my feed and I did not see the publication date until I read the article. Weird! And weird times they were. Despite Trumps recent win, I still feel unsettled, but with a remote sense of optimism.
I've not been so deeply affected by a story in a long while. Not since Christopher Hitchens was writing. And I don't mean to compare, and I mean it as a compliment, it's just a fine feeling to be moved and to linger a little longer and to think on the many layers you've crafted. I'll take this story with me through life. And I look forward to reading more of your work.
So many of our problems would be mitigated if men would put more faith in the LORD and less in their fellow men.
Yes!