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FTR #1127 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment. [6]
NB: This description contains material not included in the original broadcast.
Introduction: This program examines one of the multi-layered effects of the Covid-19 “bio-psy-op.” We stress that the demarcation of these layers is for cognitive purposes–to enhance understanding. The layers are part of a unified whole.
In this broadcast, we focus on the eugenic effects of the virus. We have covered eugenics in many broadcasts over the decades. A few of those: FTR #‘s 1075 [7], 1029 [8], 908 [9], 909 [10], 32 [11], 1013 [12]. FTR #1013 [12] is of particular importance, as Trump has used the Covid-19 outbreak to halt immigration into the U.S.
Before delving into the eugenics manifestations of the Covid-19 outbreak, we highlight some of the recent developments in the pandemic:
- A recent report [13], based on random testing, indicated that up to one fifth of New Yorkers may have been infected by the virus. If accurate, this is an important piece of information, indicating that, from an epidemiological standpoint, the virus did NOT originate in China.
- We strongly suspect that New York was deliberately vectored by fascist elements associated with the Trump administration at one level, and the Underground Reich at another. This methodology would not be unprecedented [14]: “. . . . In the summer of 1965, Special Operations men walked into three New York City subway stations and tossed lightbulbs filled with Bacillus subtilis, a benign bacteria, onto the tracks. The subway trains pushed the germs through the entire system and theoretically killed over a million passengers. . . .”
- We note increased finger-pointing [15] at, scapegoating of, China for the pandemic, on the part of Britain, Germany and France, in addition to Trump and elements of the intelligence community: ” . . . .Washington is simultaneously spreading deliberate rumors that the virus could have originated in a Chinese laboratory. Whereas, scientists vehemently refute the allegations, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas declared, he ‘does not want to exclude’ that the WHO will have to deal with these issues. On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Beijing to show ‘transparency’ on the issue. . . . At the same time deliberate rumors are being spread in the United States that the Covid-19 virus could have originated in a Chinese laboratory — possibly in bioweapons lab. The US government indicated that it does not rule out this possibility; US intelligence services are currently investigating the issue. . . Leading British and French politicians have expressed similar views. British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab has repeatedly declared that China will be held responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic. French President Emmanuel Macron has now joined the campaign. Regarding the pandemic’s alleged origin, he declared, ‘there are clearly things that have happened’ in China ‘that we don’t know about.’ . . . . ”
- [16]We also note a disturbing aspect of the symptoms of a cross-vectored, genetically-engineered virus that is the precipitating event for the Nazi takover in the US in Serpent’s Walk [17]: ” . . . . Pacov‑1 produces only a mild, flu-like infection that disappears within a day or two. Public health authorities would overlook it, never consider it a serious epidemic, and even if they did they’d have to look carefully to isolate it. Once a victim is over the ‘flu,’ Pacov‑1 becomes dormant and almost undetectable. A month or two later, you send in the second stage: Pacov‑2 is also a virus, just as contagious as the first, and just as harmless by itself. It reacts with Pacov‑1 to produce a powerful coagulant. . . . you die within three minutes. . . .”
- The coagulating pathology produced by Pacov‑1 and Pacov‑2 in Serpent’s Walk is unnervingly similar to one of the many symptoms [18] of Covid-19 infection: ” . . . . Doctors in hot spots across the globe have begun to report an unexpected prevalence of blood clotting among COVID cases, in what could pose a perfect storm of potentially fatal risk factors. . . . . . . It’s growing so common with severe COVID cases, doctors are recognizing it as a new pattern of clotting called COVID-19-associated coagulopathy, or CAC [19], which is notably associated with high inflammatory markers in the blood, like D‑dimer and fibrinogen. . . . ‘In the beginning of the outbreak, we started only giving them medicine to prevent clots. We saw that it wasn’t enough,’ Dr. Cristina Abad, an anesthesiologist at Hospital Clínicos San Carlos in Madrid, told ABC News. ‘They started having pulmonary embolisms, so we started [full] anticoagulation on everyone.’ . . .”
Eugenics [20], in its practice, might best be described as a pseudo-scientific doctrine attributing features of racial, ethnic and socio-economic prejudice to empirical scientific fact. ” . . . Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic [21] quality of a human population [22],[4] [23][5] [24] typically by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior, and promoting those judged to be superior. . . . Many countries enacted[49] [25] various eugenics policies, including: genetic screenings, birth control [26], promoting differential birth rates, marriage restrictions [27], segregation (both racial segregation [28] and sequestering the mentally ill), compulsory sterilization [29], forced abortions [30] or forced pregnancies [31], ultimately culminating in genocide [32]. . . .”
Discussion of the eugenic aspects of the Covid-19 phenomenon include:
- De facto rationing of health care during the pandemic in such a way [33] as to potentially lethally discriminate [34] against those with disabilities.
- Infection and death rates disproportionately high among populations enduring the economic and physiological affliction deriving from prejudice and social darwinistic doctrine: African-Americans [35], people who work in low-paying jobs that require close human contact and living in conditions that do not permit social distancing [36].
- The economically degrading effect of GOP fiscal policy with regard to public transportation [37] during the pandemic.
- New York City has been stigmatized during the pandemic, as has New York State [38]. With large Jewish, African-American and Latino populations, a tradition of liberal politics, generous municipal union contracts, a free city university program, New York has long been viewed as “Jew York City” by fascist elements. Governors, as well as Trump himself, have proposed quarantining New York City and New Jersey. This further underscores the above speculation concerning the rate of infection in New York City. ” . . . . As President Trump put it [39] in his short-lived bid to ‘QUARANTINE’ New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, ‘Some people would like to see New York quarantined because it’s a hot spot’ — the implication being that if New Yorkers could only be kept where they are, with checkpoints and guards if need be, Covid-19 could be stopped from spreading elsewhere in the country. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida set up [40] checkpoints to stop cars with New York or Louisiana license plates, so that state troopers can warn drivers to self-quarantine or face 60 days in jail — even as he hesitated to put any social distancing in place or close the beaches for spring break. Instead of admitting the danger of community spread in Florida, the governor framed the problem as one of outsiders bringing germs in. Governors in Maryland and other states warned [41] anyone arriving from the New York City area to isolate themselves. On Twitter, Covid-19 has taken on a new sobriquet: the ‘Cuomovirus.’ . . .”
The broadcast concludes with an overview of New York Times headlines, illustrating various aspects of the socio-economic fallout of the Covid-19 outbreak, victimizing lower income people, reducing income and earning ability, educational opportunity, adversely affecting access to food and auguring catastrophe for Third World populations:
- “Colleges Running Out of Cash Worry Students Will Vanish, Too” by Anemona Hartocollis; The New York Times; 4/16/2020; pp. A1-A-15 [Western Edition].
- “Outbreak Strains States’ Finances” by Mary Williams Walsh; The New York Times; 4/16/2020; pp. B1-B6 [Western Edition].
- ” ‘This Is Going to Kill Small-Town America’ ” by David Gelles: The New York Times; 4/16/2020; pp. B1-B5 [Western Edition].
- The New York Times [Western Edition] headline for 4/16/2020 said it all, as far as the fortunes of retail outlets. “Sales at U.S. Stores Hit ‘Catastrophic’ Depths” by Sapna Maheshwari and Ben Casselman; The New York Times; 4/16/2020. [42]
- “Evidence of Virus Effect on Economy Grows More Ominous” [AP]; The New York Times; 4/15/2020. [43]
- “135 Million Face Starvation. That Could Double” by Abdi Latif Dahir; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; pp. A1-A6; [Western Edition].
- “This Pandemic Is Bringing Another” by Nicholas Kristof; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; p. A23 [Op-ed–Western Edition].
- “Covid-19 Threatens Global Safety Net” Editorial; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; p. A22 [Western Edition].
- “How Government ‘Failed the Elderly’ ” Letter to the Editor; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; p. A22 [Western Edition].
- “A Limit on Trump’s Immigration Power” by Jennifer M. Chacon and Erwin Chermerinsky; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; p. A23 [op-ed–Western Edition].
- ” ‘The Food Supply Chain Is Breaking.’ Tyson Foods Warns of Meat Shortage as Plants Close Due to Covid-19” by Sanya Mansoor [Time] Yahoo News; 4/26/2020. [44]
As noted in the program, the eugenic aspects of the pandemic and effects on the economically and socially disadvantaged inside and outside of the U.S. are inextricable with the weal-concentrating aspects of the pandemic. This will be the focus of our next program:
- “Banks Steered Richest Clients To Federal Aid” by Emily Flitter and Stacy Cowley; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; pp. A1-A14 [Western Edition].
- “Millions In Relief For Backer Of Resorts” by Jeanna Smialek, Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappeport; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; pp. B1-B5 [Western Edition].
Critical observations [46] by Wolfgang Schauble, the German/EU “Austerity Czar” who wrought so much suffering following the 2008 economic collapse has clearly enunciated the functional and philosophical essence of “corporatist” and eugenic doctrine.
This, too, is reflected in the Trumpian “LIBERATE MICHIGAN etc.”
Some background on Schauble’s outlook: ” . . . . Hardly a German government representative is more notorious than Wolfgang Schäuble — worldwide. During the international financial crisis, when Schäuble was Germany’s Minister of Finance, his EU counterparts trembled: Schäuble wanted to force them to adapt harsh austerity measures. Because the foreseeable social consequences would cost lives, Schäuble’s tactics seemed to scare Europe with ‘traumatic effects’ and gave it a lesson in German economic ethics: Teutonic brutality and at all costs. ‘Terrifying,’ was the assessment the US Treasury Secretary made following his conversation with Schäuble. Paris and Madrid were also apprehensive; Athens called Schäuble an ‘arsonist,’ on a rampage through Europe. Schäuble has since climbed higher on the government ladder. Schäuble now ranks second, after the President, in the Federal Republic of Germany’s protocolary system. . . . .”
After the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, he has redoubled his “Teutonic brutality:” ” . . . . In the midst of the Corona crisis, Schäuble initiated an interview, considered to be an unofficial guideline for the German state’s life and death decisions. Its tenor deserves attention, even beyond Germany’s borders.
“Should people have to die, because they are deprived of state resources, essential for the economic cycle, such as currently during the Corona crisis? Does the protection of human life have absolute priority in state policy? In the interview, Schäuble has elaborated in 2020 on what he had already made clear in 2012, during the international financial crisis: ‘If I hear that everything else must take a back seat to the preservation of life, I must say that this, in such unequivocalness, is not right.’ Protection of human life does not have an ‘absolute priority in our Basic Law.’ Death is coming sooner or later anyway. ‘We are all going to die.’ (April 26, 2020)
“Schäuble’s statements are exemplary and are of ‘national significance’ declared the German Ethics Council. The council is government financed and prioritizes ‘economic rights.’ They should ‘not be unconditionally subordinated’ to the protection of human life. There is a sort of rivalry of values. If the value of life would have priority, ‘freedom’ would suffer, according to the unanimous judgment of the ethics department of the German Economic Institute (IW). From the standpoint of German constitutional law, according to a former judge on the constitutional court, ‘the state’s efficiency’ would encounter its limits, if life were given top priority, where ‘everything else must lag arbitrarily far behind.’
“In fact, the government’s obligation to the constitution’s highest value — the protection of life — must be relativized, just as Schäuble is doing, confirm the majority of Germany’s government leaders. Prominent voices from the parliamentary opposition parties are also in agreement that the protection of human life, as the primary legitimized duty of the state is a ‘question of assessment.’ From this the FDP draws the conclusion: ‘therefore, please reopen the businesses.’ ‘Enable production.’ In harmony with Germany’s export economy lobbyists and the President of the Bundestag, the chair of the Greens is also one of the relativizers. He finds himself in an alleged ‘dilemma,’ when he thinks of the protection of life during the Corona crisis, while a fellow Green municipal politician speaks in plain operational terms; ‘Let me tell you quite bluntly: We may be saving people in Germany, who, because of their age or serious previous medical conditions, may, be dead anyway in a half a year.’ . . . .”
1a. A recent disclosure that up to one-fifth of people in New York City have been infected suggests that the virus did not originate in China.
One of every five New York City residents tested positive for antibodies to the coronavirus, according to preliminary results described by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday that suggested that the virus had spread far more widely than known.
If the pattern holds, the results from random testing of 3,000 people raised the tantalizing prospect that many New Yorkers — as many as 2.7 million, the governor said — who never knew they had been infected had already encountered the virus, and survived. Mr. Cuomo also said that such wide infection might mean that the death rate was far lower than believed. . . .
1b. We conclude with discussion of the supervision of Ft. Detrick personnel by Dr. Kurt Blome, the Deputy Surgeon General of the Third Reich and another individual incorporated into the U.S. biological warfare establishment.
We have discussed Blome in, among other programs, FTR # 1012 [47] and AFA #39 [48].
Both Blome and Traub reported directly to Reichsfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler during World War II.
Note the 1966 tests on the New York City subway system.
. . . . Fort Detrick’s Special Operations Division ran ‘vulnerability tests’ in which operatives walked around Washington, D.C., and San Francisco with suitcases holding Serratia marcescens—a bacteria recommended to Fort Detrick by Traub’s nominal supervisor, Nazi germ czar and Nuremberg defendant Dr. Kurt Blome. Tiny perforations allowed the germs’ release so they could trace the flow of the germs through airports and bus terminals. Shortly thereafter, eleven elderly men and women checked into hospitals with never-before-seen Serratia marcescens infections. One patient died. Decades later when the germ tests were disclosed, the Army denied responsibility. . . . In the summer of 1965, Special Operations men walked into three New York City subway stations and tossed lightbulbs filled Bacillus subtilis, a benign bacteria, onto the tracks. The subway trains pushed the germs through the entire system and theoretically killed over a million passengers. . . .
1c. In FTR #1126 [49], we examined the Trump administration and GOP’s exploitation of the Covid-19 outbreak as a campaign tactic and right-wing hints that the virus escaped from a Chinese biological warfare laboratory.
Now, Germany, France and Britain are joining with the Trump administration and the GOP in hinting that the coronavirus escaped from a Chinese biological warfare laboratory.
American media voices from (predictably) Fox News [50] to (also predictably) The New York Times [51] are orgiastically disseminating the fresh fertilizer, acting in conjunction with intelligence officers.
Note that the linked story about Fox News describes statements by right-wing journalists, acting in concert with elements of the intelligence community, intimating that officials of the Democratic Party are in bed with Chinese intelligence.
This reeks of McCarthyism and may well hand Trump victory in the fall and, eventually, lead to war.
In fact, there is a high-security biological research facility in Wuhan at which Chinese scientists, along with American peers, have been studying coronaviruses–a source of intermittent disease transmission in China. This facility involves joint research [52] funded, in part, by the Pentagon.
Suggestions that the virus could have originated in a Chinese bioweapons lab are curiously blind to events in the United States. In early August of 2019 [53], shortly before the recorded start of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at that facility was closed down by the CDC due to multiple safety violations. “All research at a Fort Detrick laboratory that handles high-level disease-causing material, such as Ebola, is on hold indefinitely after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the organization failed to meet biosafety standards. . . . The CDC sent a cease and desist order in July. After USAMRIID received the order from the CDC, its registration with the Federal Select Agent Program, which oversees disease-causing material use and possession, was suspended. That suspension effectively halted all biological select agents and toxin research at USAMRIID . . . .”
As the German Foreign Policy [15] article notes, the tone of both American and German rhetoric concerning Covid-19 is reminiscent of the deliberate disinformation that led to the American invasion of Iraq in 2002.
. . . . Last weekend, US President Donald Trump warned the People’s Republic that it should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the spread of the pandemic. Washington is simultaneously spreading deliberate rumors that the virus could have originated in a Chinese laboratory. Whereas, scientists vehemently refute the allegations, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas declared, he ‘does not want to exclude’ that the WHO will have to deal with these issues. On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Beijing to show ‘transparency’ on the issue. . . .
. . . . At the same time deliberate rumors are being spread in the United States that the Covid-19 virus could have originated in a Chinese laboratory — possibly in bioweapons lab. The US government indicated that it does not rule out this possibility; US intelligence services are currently investigating the issue. Particularly given the lie about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, such an allegation must be perceived as a threat to lend legitimacy to new aggressions. . . .
. . . . Already last week, German media organs have increasingly been calling China the “culprit” behind the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. Under the headline “what China already owes us,” Germany’s Springer press even called for “reparations.” (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[5]) Leading British and French politicians have expressed similar views. British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab has repeatedly declared that China will be held responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic. French President Emmanuel Macron has now joined the campaign. Regarding the pandemic’s alleged origin, he declared, “there are clearly things that have happened” in China “that we don’t know about.”[6] It is not clear how Macron can know something exists that he does not know about. It is however clear that he seeks to implicate Beijing. . . .
“The Suspicion Campaign;” German Foreign Policy; 4/21/2020. [15]
The German government is joining the US campaign of allegations against China regarding the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. Last weekend, US President Donald Trump warned the People’s Republic that it should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the spread of the pandemic. Washington is simultaneously spreading deliberate rumors that the virus could have originated in a Chinese laboratory. Whereas, scientists vehemently refute the allegations, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas declared, he “does not want to exclude” that the WHO will have to deal with these issues. On Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Beijing to show “transparency” on the issue. Senior German military officials have recently been demanding that the EU adopt “a joint political-strategic response” to China’s growing strength, because in the Corona crisis, Beijing is gaining considerable influence. According to a recent poll, more than half of the Italian population sees China as a “friend,” while nearly half see Germany as an “enemy.”
Deliberate Rumors
The German government is joining the Trump administration’s new campaign against China, albeit attenuated. On the weekend, President Trump claimed that the virus “could have been stopped in China” and warned that the People’s Republic “should face consequences” if it was “knowingly responsible” for the spread.[1] At the same time deliberate rumors are being spread in the United States that the Covid-19 virus could have originated in a Chinese laboratory — possibly in bioweapons lab. The US government indicated that it does not rule out this possibility; US intelligence services are currently investigating the issue. Particularly given the lie about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, such an allegation must be perceived as a threat to lend legitimacy to new aggressions. There is no proof that the virus originated in a laboratory. Scientific studies clearly conclude that it was transmitted from wild animals to humans.[2]
Open to Suspicion
Berlin is open to entirely unfounded suspicions. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas is quoted saying he “doesn’t want to exclude” that “the WHO will have to deal with these issues.”[3] The Minister of Development Gerd Müller declared that the People’s Republic must display “complete openness” — “particularly regarding the origin of the virus.”[4] Already last week, German media organs have increasingly been calling China the “culprit” behind the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. Under the headline “what China already owes us,” Germany’s Springer press even called for “reparations.” (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[5]) Leading British and French politicians have expressed similar views. British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab has repeatedly declared that China will be held responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic. French President Emmanuel Macron has now joined the campaign. Regarding the pandemic’s alleged origin, he declared, “there are clearly things that have happened” in China “that we don’t know about.”[6] It is not clear how Macron can know something exists that he does not know about. It is however clear that he seeks to implicate Beijing.
“A Devastating Impression”
Insight into the German-European involvement in the Trump administration’s new campaign against China is provided by German military officials’ recent statements. A new working paper by the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS), for example, examines the Covid-19 pandemic’s potential global political ramifications. The author, Ret. Brig.Gen. Armin Staigis, BAKS Vice-President (2013 — 2015) today’s Chair of BAKS “Association of Friends” points out that the USA, “up to now the EU’s most important partner” is “eroding in the global context.” China, on the other hand, is emerging more and more “on the world stage.” “With its economic power, it is reaching the European continent and is thus ... also becoming a political rival.”[7] The EU should “not become a pawn” in the hands of states like Russia (“revanchists”), the USA (“off course egocentrics”) or China (“hungry up-starts”). The EU “still has to formulate a joint political strategic answer” particularly to the People’s Republic’s growing strength. This is all the more important in light of the political development in the Corona crisis: “There is a public perception that China is providing faster and more helpful support in Europe than the EU and its member states among themselves.” This, however, is a “devastating impression.”
Race between the Global Economic Powers
Late last week, General Staff Officer Col. Matthias Rogg, a member of the board of the German Institute for Defense and Strategic Studies (GIDS), a Bundeswehr think tank (founded in 2018) made a similar observation. Rogg assumes that in the course of the Corona crisis, China will significantly enhance its international influence. “That pertains to the economic development in countries, for example in the Middle East or even in Africa, which are not visibly affected by the epidemic, but will surely also be seriously affected by Corona, either directly or indirectly.”[8] There, the People’s Republic of China will be able to secure new influence “through financial, and material assistance.” It should “not be forgotten” that it is completely uncertain “how the USA will economically evolve from this crisis.” “That means that in the race between the global economic powers, one can assume that China ... will have a head start and wind up among the winners of the crisis.” That is grave — after all, with China, which, for example, has “offered immediate assistance” to Italy, we are “de facto dealing with a country from a rival system.”
Enemy Number One
A current survey made in Italy shows the problems German power strategists are confronting. The Italian survey suggests that the suspicion campaign against China is also aimed at affecting Europe. In mid-March it had indicated that around two-thirds of the Italians felt EU membership was disadvantageous to their country. Only four percent felt that the Union was providing sufficient support to Italy during the Corona crisis.[9] Now, since China’s most recent Covid-19 assistance delivery, 52 percent of the Italian population see China as a “friend” of Italy; 32 percent consider Russia, who is also providing assistance, a “friend,” and only 17 percent place the United States in this category. Among the countries in the survey considered an “enemy” of Italy, first place, with an impressive 45 percent, went to Germany.[10]
[1] Trump droht China mit “Konsequenzen”. tagesschau.de 19.04.2020.
[2] Vgl. etwa: Kristian G. Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, Robert F. Garry: The proximal origin of SARS-CoV‑2. Nature Medicine 26 (2020). S. 450–452.
[3] Nils Metzger: Neue Argumente für Labor-Theorie? zdf.de 17.04.2020.
[4] Darum nimmt die Kritik an Pekings Umgang mit der Coronavirus-Krise zu. tagesspiegel.de 20.04.2020.
[5] See also Battle of Narratives [54].
[6] Victor Mallet, Roula Khalaf: FT Interview: Emmanuel Macron says it is time to think the unthinkable. ft.com 16.04.2020.
[7] Armin Staigis: Ernstfall Europa — Jetzt! Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik: Arbeitspapier 2/20. Berlin, April 2020.
[8] “China dürfte am Ende zu den Krisengewinnern gehören”. cicero.de 17.04.2020.
[9] See also Germany First (II) [55].
[10] Massimilia
2a. This post is a preview of an upcoming show in the “Bio-Psy-Op Apocalypse Now” series. As Mr. Emory has stressed, the presentation of these programs in conceptually separate packages is for purposes of cognitive grasp. The consummately brilliant, consummately evil “bio-psy-op” is an example of six or seven dimensional chess. It operates on a number of different, overlapping levels simultaneously.
Note that the Nazi takeover in Serpent’s Walk occurs after the country is attacked with genetically-engineered biological warfare weapons. Although the nature of the infection is different, the overall paradigm is identical. “Pacov” might be understood in a contemporary context as standing for “Pandemic CoronaVirus.”
In Serpent’s Walk–which we have discussed [56] for decades–the SS go underground (which they did) [57], buy into the opinion-forming media (which they did) [58] and, infiltrate the military (which they have done) [59], and, after a terrorist attack by genetically-engineered viruses decimates large parts of the United States, martial law is declared and the Nazis take over. NB: we do not know if “cross-vectoring” is occurring with the Covid-19 virus, however that is something to be contemplated and researched.
. . . . “Yes. Well. ‘Pacov’ stands for ‘Pandemic Communicable Virus,’ one of the uglier results of military experimentation with recombinant DNA. Do you know what that is?” . . .
. . . . “Very well, let me tell you in layman’s terms.” Mulder extended a hand to shush Wrench, who had started to speak. “Pacov consists of two separate re-workings of two DNA chains of existing viruses. It’s a piggy-back weapon, a two-stage operation. You send in the first stage. The vectors . . . agents of transmission . . . for Pacov‑1 are extensive. It travels through the air, the water, or directly from person-to-person and is highly contagious. It spreads for hundreds of miles, if conditions are optimal. Pacov‑1 produces only a mild, flu-like infection that disappears within a day or two. Public health authorities would overlook it, never consider it a serious epidemic, and even if they did they’d have to look carefully to isolate it. Once a victim is over the ‘flu,’ Pacov‑1 becomes dormant and almost undetectable. A month or two later, you send in the second stage: Pacov‑2 is also a virus, just as contagious as the first, and just as harmless by itself. It reacts with Pacov‑1 to produce a powerful coagulant. . . . you die within three minutes. No warning, no vaccine, no cure. Those not exposed to both stages remain unharmed. . . . Pacov‑2 goes inert, like Pacov‑1 within a week or two. Then you get your victim’s country, all his property, in undamaged condition. . . . and a lot of corpses to bury.” . . . .
2b. We note that, although a “coagulant” is not causing the phenomenon, blood clots are indeed one of the many symptoms of the Covid-19: ” . . . . Doctors in hot spots across the globe have begun to report an unexpected prevalence of blood clotting among COVID cases, in what could pose a perfect storm of potentially fatal risk factors. . . . . . . It’s growing so common with severe COVID cases, doctors are recognizing it as a new pattern of clotting called COVID-19-associated coagulopathy, or CAC [19], which is notably associated with high inflammatory markers in the blood, like D‑dimer and fibrinogen. . . . ‘In the beginning of the outbreak, we started only giving them medicine to prevent clots. We saw that it wasn’t enough,’ Dr. Cristina Abad, an anesthesiologist at Hospital Clínicos San Carlos in Madrid, told ABC News. ‘They started having pulmonary embolisms, so we started [full] anticoagulation on everyone.’ . . .”
As the COVID-19 pandemic [60] ravages a world still grappling with vast uncertainty over the virus, a new and unnerving pattern has emerged in some patients.
Though novel coronavirus [61] symptoms thus far have presented chiefly within the respiratory system, the infection is swiftly showing to be an all-out, system-wide assault that reaches far past the lungs. Doctors in hot spots across the globe have begun to report an unexpected prevalence of blood clotting among COVID cases, in what could pose a perfect storm of potentially fatal risk factors.
In New Orleans [62], a man in his 30s was admitted to the hospital a week into treatment for the flu, severely sick. Developing shortness of breath, chest pain and an abnormally rapid heart rate — he was tested for coronavirus — doctors realized those symptoms also are typical of a pulmonary embolism: a potentially deadly blood clot that can move from the legs to the lungs and damage the heart.
The man’s blood work already showed heart damage, though he had no known underlying medical conditions, no recent travel, no recent surgeries. His chest scans, shown first to ABC News, revealed a massive clot. Termed a “saddle embolus” because it hooks over branches of both pulmonary arteries, it was severely stressing the right side of the heart, unable to push blood against the clot already in its strained state.
“Thankfully, we were able to find this and treat this early, otherwise it probably would have killed him,” Dr. Siyab Panhwar, a cardiovascular consult for the patient, told ABC News. . . .
. . . It’s growing so common with severe COVID cases, doctors are recognizing it as a new pattern of clotting called COVID-19-associated coagulopathy, or CAC [19], which is notably associated with high inflammatory markers in the blood, like D‑dimer and fibrinogen. . . .
. . . . In Spain, among the hardest-hit nations [63], clotting cases have become so prevalent in novel coronavirus patients that doctors have begun routinely treating individuals with therapeutic doses of anticoagulation medication.
“In the beginning of the outbreak, we started only giving them medicine to prevent clots. We saw that it wasn’t enough,” Dr. Cristina Abad, an anesthesiologist at Hospital Clínicos San Carlos in Madrid, told ABC News. “They started having pulmonary embolisms, so we started [full] anticoagulation on everyone.” . . .
3. The Bio-Psy-Op is manifesting eugenics application–a bio-psy-op T4 program, if you will.
. . . . People with disabilities and chronic health conditions are some of the most vulnerable groups during the coronavirus crisis, though often overlooked in the national debate, according to advocates. The virus has infected more than 69,000 Americans and led to nearly more than 1,000 U.S. deaths, according to a site run by Johns Hopkins University [64].
On Wednesday, 27 U.S. representatives and five senators sent a letter [65]to the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, and U.S. Attorney General William Barr, urging them to issue guidance to state agencies to protect people with disabilities from being discriminated against during the outbreak. U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R‑NJ, led the effort. . . .
. . . . One of the concerns is whether people with disabilities will be sidelined for healthcare as medical equipment such as ventilators and hospital beds become increasingly scarce, said Ari Ne’eman, visiting scholar at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.
A number of states, including Utah, Tennessee and Alabama, have emergency contingency plans that direct hospitals not to provide medical equipment, such as ventilators, to people with certain intellectual and cognitive disabilities, should that equipment become scarce, he said. . . .
4. The “Useless Bread Gobblers” are losing out.
How do doctors and hospitals decide who gets potentially lifesaving treatment and who doesn’t?
A lot of thought has been given to just such a predicament, well before critical shortages from the coronavirus pandemic.
“It would be irresponsible at this point not to get ready to make tragic decisions about who lives and who dies,” said Dr. Matthew Wynia, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado.
Facing this dilemma recently — who gets a ventilator or a hospital bed — Italian doctors sought ethical counsel and were told [66] to consider an approach that draws on utilitarian principles.
In layman’s terms, a utilitarianism approach would maximize overall health by directing care toward those most likely to benefit the most from it. If you had only one ventilator, it would go to someone more likely to survive instead of someone deemed unlikely to do so. . . .
5. It is, on the one hand unsurprising that African Americans are contracting and dying of coronavirus at a higher rate and, on the other, completely in keeping with the Far Right agenda of Trump, Bannon et al.
The coronavirus entered Milwaukee from a white, affluent suburb. Then it took root in the city’s black community and erupted.
As public health officials watched cases rise in March, too many in the community shrugged off warnings. Rumors and conspiracy theories proliferated on social media, pushing the bogus idea that black people are somehow immune to the disease [67]. And much of the initial focus was on international travel, so those who knew no one returning from Asia or Europe were quick to dismiss the risk.
Then, when the shelter-in-place order came, there was a natural pushback among those who recalled other painful government restrictions — including segregation and mass incarceration — on where black people could walk and gather.
“We’re like, ‘We have to wake people up,’” said Milwaukee Health Commissioner Jeanette Kowalik.
As the disease spread at a higher rate in the black community, it made an even deeper cut. Environmental, economic and political factors have compounded for generations, putting black people at higher risk of chronic conditions that leave lungs weak and immune systems vulnerable: asthma, heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. In Milwaukee, simply being black means your life expectancy is 14 years shorter, on average, than someone white.
As of Friday morning, African Americans made up almost half of Milwaukee County’s 945 cases and 81% of its 27 deaths in a county whose population is 26% black. Milwaukee is one of the few places in the United States that is tracking the racial breakdown of people who have been infected by the novel coronavirus, offering a glimpse at the disproportionate destruction it is inflicting on black communities nationwide.
In Michigan, where the state’s population is 14% black, African Americans made up 35% of cases and 40% of deaths as of Friday morning. Detroit, where a majority of residents are black, has emerged [68] as a hot spot with a high death toll. As has New Orleans. Louisiana has not published case breakdowns by race, but 40% of the state’s deaths have happened [69] in Orleans Parish, where the majority of residents are black.
Illinois [70] and North Carolina [71] are two of the few areas publishing statistics on COVID-19 cases by race, and their data shows a disproportionate number of African Americans were infected.
“It will be unimaginable pretty soon,” said Dr. Celia J. Maxwell, an infectious disease physician and associate dean at Howard University College of Medicine, a school and hospital in Washington dedicated to the education and care of the black community. “And anything that comes around is going to be worse in our patients. Period. Many of our patients have so many problems, but this is kind of like the nail in the coffin.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks virulent outbreaks and typically releases detailed data that includes information about the age, race and location of the people affected. For the coronavirus pandemic, the CDC has released location [72] and age data, but it has been silent on race. The CDC did not respond to ProPublica’s request for race data related to the coronavirus or answer questions about whether they were collecting it at all.
Experts say that the nation’s unwillingness to publicly track the virus by race could obscure a crucial underlying reality: It’s quite likely that a disproportionate number of those who die of coronavirus will be black.
The reasons for this are the same reasons that African Americans have disproportionately high rates of maternal death, low levels of access to medical care and higher rates of asthma, said Dr. Camara Jones, a family physician, epidemiologist and visiting fellow [73] at Harvard University.
“COVID is just unmasking the deep disinvestment in our communities, the historical injustices and the impact of residential segregation,” said Jones, who spent 13 years at the CDC, focused on identifying, measuring and addressing racial bias within the medical system. “This is the time to name racism as the cause of all of those things. The overrepresentation of people of color in poverty and white people in wealth is not just a happenstance. … It’s because we’re not valued.”
Five congressional Democrats wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, whose department encompasses the CDC, last week demanding [74] the federal government collect and release the breakdown of coronavirus cases by race and ethnicity.
Without demographic data, the members of Congress wrote, health officials and lawmakers won’t be able to address inequities in health outcomes and testing that may emerge: “We urge you not to delay collecting this vital information, and to take any additional necessary steps to ensure that all Americans have the access they need to COVID-19 testing and treatment.”
Milwaukee, one of the few places already tracking coronavirus cases and deaths by race, provides an early indication of what would surface nationally if the federal government actually did this, or locally if other cities and states took its lead.
Milwaukee, both the city and county, passed resolutions last summer that were seen as important steps in addressing decades of race-based inequality.
“We declared racism as a public health issue,” said Kowalik, the city’s health commissioner. “It frames not only how we do our work but how transparent we are about how things are going. It impacts how we manage an outbreak.”
Milwaukee is trying to be purposeful in how it communicates information about the best way to slow the pandemic. It is addressing economic and logistical roadblocks that stand in the way of safety. And it’s being transparent about who is infected, who is dying and how the virus spread in the first place.
Kowalik described watching the virus spread into the city, without enough information, because of limited testing, to be able to take early action to contain it.
At the beginning of March, Wisconsin had one case. State public health officials still considered the risk from the coronavirus “low.” Testing criteria was extremely strict, as it was in many places across the country: You had to have symptoms and have traveled to China, Iran, South Korea or Italy within 14 days or have had contact with someone who had a confirmed case of COVID-19.
So, she said, she waited, wondering: “When are we going to be able to test for this to see if it is in our community?”
About two weeks later, Milwaukee had its first case.
The city’s patient zero had been in contact with a person from a neighboring, predominately white and affluent suburb who had tested positive. Given how much commuting occurs in and out of Milwaukee, with some making a 180-mile round trip to Chicago, Kowalik said she knew it would only be a matter of time before the virus spread into the city.
A day later came the city’s second case, someone who contracted the virus while in Atlanta. Kowalik said she started questioning the rigidness of the testing guidelines. Why didn’t they include domestic travel?
By the fourth case, she said, “we determined community spread. … It happened so quickly.”
Within the span of a week, Milwaukee went from having one case to nearly 40. Most of the sick people were middle-aged, African American men. By week two, the city had over 350 cases. And now, there are more than 945 cases countywide, with the bulk in the city of Milwaukee, where the population is 39% black. People of all ages have contracted the virus and about half are African American.
The county’s online dashboard [75] of coronavirus cases keeps up-to-date information on the racial breakdown of those who have tested positive. As of Thursday morning, 19 people had died of illness related to COVID-19 in Milwaukee County. All but four were black, according to the county medical examiner’s office. Records show that at least 11 of the deceased had diabetes, eight had hypertension and 15 had a mixture of chronic health conditions that included heart and lung disease.
Because of discrimination and generational income inequality, black households in the county earned only 50% as much as white ones in 2018, according to census statistics. Black people are far less likely to own homes than white people in Milwaukee and far more likely to rent, putting black renters at the mercy of landlords who can kick them out if they can’t pay during an economic crisis, at the same time as people are being told to stay home. And when it comes to health insurance, black people are more likely to be uninsured than their white counterparts.
African Americans have gravitated to jobs in sectors viewed as reliable paths to the middle class — health care, transportation, government, food supply — which are now deemed “essential,” rendering them unable to stay home. In places like New York City, the virus’ epicenter, black people are among the only ones still riding the subway [76].
“And let’s be clear, this is not because people want to live in those conditions,” said Gordon Francis Goodwin, who works for Government Alliance on Race and Equity [77], a national racial equity organization that worked with Milwaukee [78] on its health and equity framework. “This is a matter of taking a look at how our history kept people from actually being fully included.”
Fred Royal, head of the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP, knows three people who have died from the virus, including 69-year-old Lenard Wells [79], a former Milwaukee police lieutenant and a mentor to others in the black community. Royal’s 38-year-old cousin died from the virus last week in Atlanta. His body was returned home Tuesday.
Royal is hearing that people aren’t necessarily being hospitalized but are being sent home instead and “told to self-medicate.”
“What is alarming about that,” he said, “is that a number of those individuals were sent home with symptoms and died before the confirmation of their test came back.”
Health Commissioner Kowalik said that there have been delays of up to two weeks in getting results back from some private labs, but nearly all of those who died have done so at hospitals or while in hospice. Still, Kowalik said she understood why some members in the black community distrusted the care they might receive in a hospital.
In January, a 25-year-old day care teacher named Tashonna Ward died [80] after staff at Froedtert Hospital failed to check her vital signs. Federal officials examined 20 patient records and found seven patients, including Ward, didn’t receive proper care. The report didn’t reveal the race of those whose records it examined at the hospital, which predominantly serves black patients. Froedtert Hospital declined [81] to speak to issues raised in the report, according to a February article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and it had not submitted any corrective actions to federal officials.
“What black folks are accustomed to in Milwaukee and anywhere in the country, really, is pain not being acknowledged and constant inequities that happen in health care delivery,” Kowalik said.
The health commissioner herself, a black woman who grew up in Milwaukee, said she’s all too familiar with the city’s enduring struggles with segregation and racism. Her mother is black and her father Polish, and she remembers the stories they shared about trying to buy a house as a young interracial couple in Sherman Park, a neighborhood once off-limits to blacks.
“My father couldn’t get a mortgage for the house. He had to go to the bank without my mom,” Kowalik said.
It is the same neighborhood [82] where fury and frustration sparked protests that, at times, roiled into riots in 2016 when a Milwaukee police officer fatally shot Sylville Smith, a 23-year-old black man.
And it is the same neighborhood that has a concentration of poor health outcomes when you overlay a heat map of conditions, be it lead poisoning, infant mortality — and now, she said, COVID-19.
Knowing which communities are most impacted allows public health officials to tailor their messaging to overcome the distrust of black residents.
“We’ve been told so much misinformation over the years about the condition of our community,” Royal, of the NAACP, said. “I believe a lot of people don’t trust what the government says.”
Kowalik has met — virtually — with trusted and influential community leaders to discuss outreach efforts to ensure everyone is on the same page about the importance of staying home and keeping 6 feet away from others if they must go out.
Police and inspectors are responding to complaints received about “noncompliant” businesses forcing staff to come to work or not practicing social distancing in the workplace. Violators could face fines.
“Who are we getting these complaints from?” she asked. “Many people of color.”
Residents have been urged to call 211 if they need help with anything from finding something to eat or a place to stay. And the state has set up two voluntary isolation facilities for people with COVID-19 symptoms whose living situations are untenable, including a Super 8 motel in Milwaukee.
Despite the work being done in Milwaukee, experts like Linda Sprague Martinez, a community health researcher at Boston University’s School of Social Work, worry that the government is not paying close enough attention to race, and as the disease spreads, will do too little to blunt its toll.
“When COVID-19 passes and we see the losses … it will be deeply tied to the story of post-World War II policies that left communities marginalized,” Sprague said. “Its impact is going to be tied to our history and legacy of racial inequities. It’s going to be tied to the fact that we live in two very different worlds.”
6. The outbreak is financially handicapping mass transit, further straining the mean of low-income people.
Low-income Americans have borne the brunt [83] of the coronavirus pandemic. They may also get left behind in the recovery.
Steep declines in ridership during the crisis have pushed public transit systems across the U.S. into deep financial distress [84]. Though Congress included allocations for transit in the CARES Act [85], cities said [86] it won’t be nearly enough [87]. Even major systems in large metro areas like New York City and Washington, D.C., have serious concerns about long-term survival without more sustained support.
Failure of transit systems would be a disaster for the large proportion of low income households that depend on buses and trains to get to work and elsewhere – not only in urban areas, but in rural ones too.
I’m currently [88] in the middle of a two-year study of transport inequality in the U.S. One of my early findings is that about 20 percent of the poorest households don’t own a vehicle. That would make them entirely reliant on public transportation, compared with 6 percent for all households. . . .
7. Charles Blow amplifies the message in the Politico article above.
“Social Distancing Is A Privilege” by Charles Blow; The New York Times [36]; 4/5/2020. [36]
People like to say that the coronavirus is no respecter of race, class or country, that the disease Covid-19 [89] is mindless and will infect anybody it can.
In theory, that is true. But, in practice, in the real world, this virus behaves like others, screeching like a heat-seeking missile toward the most vulnerable in society. And this happens not because it prefers them, but because they are more exposed, more fragile and more ill.
What the vulnerable portion of society looks like varies from country to country, but in America, that vulnerability is highly intersected with race and poverty.
Early evidence from cities and states already shows that black people are disproportionately affected by the virus in devastating ways. As ProPublica reported [90], in Milwaukee County, Wis., as of Friday morning, 81 percent of the deaths were black people. Black people make up only 26 percent of that county.
As for Chicago, WBEZ reported [91] Sunday that “70 percent of Covid-19 deaths are black,” and pointed out about surrounding Cook County, “While black residents make up only 23 percent of the population in the county, they account for 58 percent of the Covid-19 deaths.”
The Detroit News reported last week [92], “At least 40 percent of those killed by the novel coronavirus in Michigan so far are black, a percentage that far exceeds the proportion of African-Americans in the Detroit region and state.”
If this pattern holds true across other states and cities, this virus could have a catastrophic impact on black people in this country.
And yet, we are still not seeing an abundance of news coverage or national governmental response that center on these racial disparities. Many states haven’t even released race-specific data on cases and deaths. The federal government hasn’t either.
Partly for this reason, we are left with deceptive and deadly misinformation. The perception that this is a jet-setters’ disease, or a spring breakers’ disease, or a “Chinese virus” as President Trump likes to say, must be laid to rest. The idea that this virus is an equal-opportunity killer must itself be killed.
And, we must dispense with the callous message that the best defense we have against the disease is something that each of us can control: We can all just stay home and keep social distance [89].
As a report last month by the Economic Policy Institute pointed out [93], “less than one in five black workers and roughly one in six Hispanic workers are able to work from home.”
As the report pointed out, “Only 9.2 percent of workers in the lowest quartile of the wage distribution can telework, compared with 61.5 percent of workers in the highest quartile.”
If you touch people for a living, in elder care or child care, if you cut or fix their hair, if you clean their spaces or cook their food, if you drive their cars or build their houses, you can’t do that from home.
Staying at home is a privilege. Social distancing is a privilege.
The people who can’t must make terrible choices: Stay home and risk starvation or go to work and risk contagion.
And, this isn’t just happening here, it is happening with poor people around the world, from New Delhi to Mexico City.
8a. New York City has long been a focal point of right-wing/fascist hatred. With large non-white populations, a large Jewish population, a strong liberal political tradition and the epicenter of the financial industry (viewed by Nazis and their ilk as “Jewish”), New York would be a target for vectoring by Underground Reich elements.
The right has been calling the virus as the “Cuomovirus.”
“Scapegoating New York Means Ignoring Its Desperate Need” by Kim Phillips-Fein; The New York Times [38]; 4/5/2020. [38]
The anxious notes have been arriving in my inbox from people all over the country: “Watching reports and wanted to check in.”
I know why they are concerned. New York City has emerged as the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. For those of us in the city — even if we are staying in our apartments almost all day, pressing elevator buttons with our elbows or gloved hands when returning from a once-a-week journey to the grocery store — we are well aware that we are living at the heart of the storm.
Almost as alarming as the health data, though, is the suggestion circulating in some political corners that New York and New Yorkers are to blame for spreading for the coronavirus, as though the city helped to create a health threat now endangering the good people of the South and Midwest. Once it was the “Chinese virus”; now it also belongs to New York.
As President Trump put it [39] in his short-lived bid to “QUARANTINE” New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, “Some people would like to see New York quarantined because it’s a hot spot” — the implication being that if New Yorkers could only be kept where they are, with checkpoints and guards if need be, Covid-19 could be stopped from spreading elsewhere in the country.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida set up [40] checkpoints to stop cars with New York or Louisiana license plates, so that state troopers can warn drivers to self-quarantine or face 60 days in jail — even as he hesitated to put any social distancing in place or close the beaches for spring break. Instead of admitting the danger of community spread in Florida, the governor framed the problem as one of outsiders bringing germs in. Governors in Maryland and other states warned [41] anyone arriving from the New York City area to isolate themselves.
On Twitter, Covid-19 has taken on a new sobriquet: the “Cuomovirus.”
There’s a long history of scapegoating New York City for problems that have their roots far beyond the Hudson. In the 1970s, the Ford administration blamed New York’s liberal politics, generous social safety net and strong public sector unions for the fiscal crisis that almost brought the city to bankruptcy — even though that crisis arose when the country as a whole was mired in recession, at a moment when federal policies encouraged suburban flight and the departure of factories from cities like New York.
Despite the national context for the city’s difficulties, President Gerald Ford warned [94] that there could be no federal aid for the country’s largest metropolis because it had brought its problems on itself. As his press secretary Ron Nessen put it: “This is not a natural disaster or an act of God. It is a self-inflicted act by the people who have been running New York for a long time.”
Underlying Ford’s punitive attitude was a deeper conservative critique of the city. Its history of leftist politics, its tuition-free city university [95] and its network of public hospitals (several of which were closed in the fiscal crisis) all made New York suspect, as did its reputation as a center for the gay rights movement and feminism.
The vision of New York as morally suspect, a city of sexual promiscuity and libertine mores, also helped shape the federal response to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. The Reagan administration failed so dismally in addressing the health crisis, not even mentioning it publicly for years after it had emerged, as it raged in part because AIDS was viewed as a disease of the cities, especially of gay men and IV drug users, not as a problem of the heartland.
But while some aspects of New York’s situation in the 1970s and beyond were unique, the larger problems the city faced were those confronting the entire country. And the AIDS epidemic, too, spread throughout the nation. Blaming New York was a way to let the federal government off the hook.
Today, the scapegoating of the city could have consequences even more profound than during the 1970s. It could mean the city not getting the federal money it needs or a sufficient supply of ventilators and masks and enough support for health care workers.
What is more, the suggestion that New York is uniquely susceptible can support the dangerous illusion that allowed the coronavirus to gain traction here in the first place: that we are able to cordon ourselves off from one another, that one region of the country — or the world — can be separated from the rest. Acting on this fantasy would be the real danger to states like Florida, Vermont and Tennessee.
At the same time, painting a picture of the entire city as equally at risk may make it harder to address the likelihood that the coronavirus will probably have the most devastating impact on working-class and poor people — who are less likely to have good access to health care, whose underlying health may be worse to begin with and for whom the economic penalties of social distancing are more profound.
The dense urban spaces of New York City are empty now — the libraries and public schools closed, the playgrounds and streets notably quiet. But the social solidarity that they nurture still has the capacity to offer lessons that might help the rest of the country.
I’ve seen this even in my own apartment building, where people have mobilized in support of the most at-risk residents — all from a distance of six feet. High school students are offering virtual tutoring to homebound elementary school kids, younger tenants are picking up groceries for elderly people for whom a trip to the store might be more dangerous, the most organized among us are keeping phone lists so that tenants can call one another if any of us get sick and need help.
And as is happening in places around the world, every night at 7 people come to the windows and the balconies of my apartment complex to cheer for the heroism and dedication of the city’s health care workers — the E.M.T.s, ambulance drivers, physician assistants, janitors, cooks, orderlies, doctors and nurses. As we chant and clap, we can see one another from the windows and across the courtyard, and even in this moment of devastation, the collective life of our city offers sustenance and hope.
8b. Critical observations [46] by Wolfgang Schauble, the German/EU “Austerity Czar” who wrought so much suffering following the 2008 economic collapse has clearly enunciated the functional and philosophical essence of “corporatist” and eugenic doctrine.
This, too, is reflected in the Trumpian “LIBERATE MICHIGAN etc.”
“Germany Threatens” by Rudiger Minow; German Foreign Policy; 5/01/2020. [46]
Hardly a German government representative is more notorious than Wolfgang Schäuble — worldwide. During the international financial crisis, when Schäuble was Germany’s Minister of Finance, his EU counterparts trembled: Schäuble wanted to force them to adapt harsh austerity measures. Because the foreseeable social consequences would cost lives, Schäuble’s tactics seemed to scare Europe with “traumatic effects” and gave it a lesson in German economic ethics: Teutonic brutality and at all costs. “Terrifying,” was the assessment the US Treasury Secretary made following his conversation with Schäuble. Paris and Madrid were also apprehensive; Athens called Schäuble an “arsonist,” on a rampage through Europe. Schäuble has since climbed higher on the government ladder. Schäuble now ranks second, after the President, in the Federal Republic of Germany’s protocolary system. Whatever he says carries weight. And he uses this position. In the midst of the Corona crisis, Schäuble initiated an interview, considered to be an unofficial guideline for the German state’s life and death decisions. Its tenor deserves attention, even beyond Germany’s borders.
Death Is Coming Anyway
Should people have to die, because they are deprived of state resources, essential for the economic cycle, such as currently during the Corona crisis? Does the protection of human life have absolute priority in state policy? In the interview, Schäuble has elaborated in 2020 on what he had already made clear in 2012, during the international financial crisis: “If I hear that everything else must take a back seat to the preservation of life, I must say that this, in such unequivocalness, is not right.” Protection of human life does not have an “absolute priority in our Basic Law.” Death is coming sooner or later anyway. “We are all going to die.” (April 26, 2020)
Rivalry of Values
Schäuble’s statements are exemplary and are of “national significance” declared the German Ethics Council. The council is government financed and prioritizes “economic rights.” They should “not be unconditionally subordinated” to the protection of human life. There is a sort of rivalry of values. If the value of life would have priority, “freedom” would suffer, according to the unanimous judgment of the ethics department of the German Economic Institute (IW). From the standpoint of German constitutional law, according to a former judge on the constitutional court, “the state’s efficiency” would encounter its limits, if life were given top priority, where “everything else must lag arbitrarily far behind.”
Enable Production
In fact, the government’s obligation to the constitution’s highest value — the protection of life — must be relativized, just as Schäuble is doing, confirm the majority of Germany’s government leaders. Prominent voices from the parliamentary opposition parties are also in agreement that the protection of human life, as the primary legitimized duty of the state is a “question of assessment.” From this the FDP draws the conclusion: “therefore, please reopen the businesses.” “Enable production.” In harmony with Germany’s export economy lobbyists and the President of the Bundestag, the chair of the Greens is also one of the relativizers. He finds himself in an alleged “dilemma,” when he thinks of the protection of life during the Corona crisis, while a fellow Green municipal politician speaks in plain operational terms; “Let me tell you quite bluntly: We may be saving people in Germany, who, because of their age or serious previous medical conditions, may, be dead anyway in a half a year.”
Neglect
Deliberately blunt or rationalizing inhibited, decisive groupings within German political and economic policy are displaying clear signs of an ethical deterioration, wherein the preservation of economic activity is being counterpoised to the preservation of human life — offensively, by seeking to depict life as a rivaling commodity of existence. However, practical economic activity is no rival to maintaining human life, it transforms nature into the practical material that sustains and satisfies life — as long as economic activity supports life. However, a “dilemma” arises, when concrete individual lives must be sacrificed, because the practical resources of economic activity are unavailable, although the state’s primacy for making, first and foremost, provisions for human life was reasonable but neglected. The greater the neglect, the greater are the “questions of assessment.”
Escapism
In the current crisis, it is obvious that the practical resources that economic activity could have produced for the preservation of human life, were not or insufficiently available before death could no longer be avoided. By not providing even the simplest means of protection, the officials have shifted responsibility for life and death “questions of assessment” to the hospitals. This escapism has cost additional lives or overwhelmed the lives of many nurses and doctors.
Barbarians
Protective means that are now being supplied are subjected to usurious trade; survival machines for intensive-care medicine are inciting stock market speculators, betting on company shares of the manufacturers, increasing their wealth. The poor are dying in rest homes and the suburbs. As long as the state allows this situation to continue, the preservation of human life and preservation of the economic activity are indeed in opposition to one another — however not as the advocates of value rivalry are intending. A state that relinquishes the preservation of human life, to that of economic freedom has either given up its existence or become barbarian.
Failure
It is not solely a German peculiarity to not draw boundaries between civilization and biology in the event of state failure. The ideology of failure adores the dull stench of predator dens, where the stronger animals feed on the weaker. There, archaic instinct makes the preservation of life superfluous. The predator archaic and its economic ideal — social Darwinism — determine phases of German history, wherein the state can no longer control its economic potency; it must be catapulted beyond its borders or collapse. Then it will be doubtful, whether everything else will recede, if the preservation of life prohibits everything else, namely death. Then a threat can be heard from Germany.
Upheaval
However, if with death, the highest obligation for the state, the protection of human life, falls, then the state’s right to the monopoly on the use of force to protect human life against any other claim, falls as well. If the monopoly on the use of force falls, the state falls into its condition that relativized human life and forces to elevate human life again to its permanent right.
9. “Colleges Running Out of Cash Worry Students Will Vanish, Too” by Anemona Hartocollis; The New York Times; 4/16/2020; pp. A1-A-15 [Western Edition].
10. “Outbreak Strains States’ Finances” by Mary Williams Walsh; The New York Times; 4/16/2020; pp. B1-B6 [Western Edition].
11. ” ‘This Is Going to Kill Small-Town America’ ” by David Gelles: The New York Times; 4/16/2020; pp. B1-B5 [Western Edition].
12. The New York Times [Western Edition] headline for 4/16/2020 said it all, as far as the fortunes of retail outlets.
. . . . Total sales, which include retail purchases in stores and online as well as money spent at bars and restaurants, fell 8.7 percent from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. The decline was by far the largest in the nearly three decades the government has tracked the data.
Even that bleak figure doesn’t capture the full impact of the sudden economic freeze on the retail industry. Most states didn’t shut down nonessential businesses until late March or early April, meaning data for the current month could be worse still. . . .
13. “Evidence of Virus Effect on Economy Grows More Ominous” [AP]; The New York Times; 4/15/2020. [43]
14. “135 Million Face Starvation. That Could Double” by Abdi Latif Dahir; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; pp. A1-A6; [Western Edition].
15. “This Pandemic Is Bringing Another” by Nicholas Kristof; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; p. A23 [Op-ed–Western Edition].
16. “Covid-19 Threatens Global Safety Net” Editorial; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; p. A22 [Western Edition].
17. “How Government ‘Failed the Elderly’ ” Letter to the Editor; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; p. A22 [Western Edition].
Re “Death Toll Spikes at Nursing Homes as Defenses Crack’ (front page, April 18).
18a. “A Limit on Trump’s Immigration Power” by Jennifer M. Chacon and Erwin Chermerinsky; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; p. A23 [op-ed–Western Edition].
Tyson Foods, one of the U.S.’s biggest meat processors, didn’t mince words in a full page New York Times spread that ran Sunday, in which they warned, “the food supply chain is breaking.”
“As pork, beef and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain,” John Tyson, Chairman of the Board of Tyson Foods, wrote in a letter published as an advertisement. “As a result, there will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed.” . . .
19. “Banks Steered Richest Clients To Federal Aid” by Emily Flitter and Stacy Cowley; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; pp. A1-A14 [Western Edition].
20. “Millions In Relief For Backer Of Resorts” by Jeanna Smialek, Jim Tankersley and Alan Rappeport; The New York Times; 4/23/2020; pp. B1-B5 [Western Edition].