BartBlog

I’m one of those people who prefer to see facts on the ground rather than get swept away by all the stuff that I’m told on TV. Hell, I didn’t even believe that Saddam Hussein had WMDs or that the war on Vietnam was justified — or that the current “war” on Syria is justified either. Call me crazy. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29058214-the-dirty-war-on-syria-washington-regime-change-and-resistance

“Jane, you’re just one of those misinformed COVID deniers,” someone told me on FB today. “You’re just like all those ignorant climate-crisis deniers.” Yeah, right. Me and a Swiss doctor and a Stanford scientist and…. The list of experts goes on and on. So at least I’m not alone in my foolishness.

[Stanford doctor] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6MZy-2fcBw

[Statistician] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnXzGB170GI&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0xDmO9GVgvKvZ9ITD5jL89XorbM2sMMH6CRonRKB2G4taUMiSrfr_erhc

[Independent journalist] https://www.pscp.tv/w/1DXxyeVnVNkxM

[Swiss Doctor with daily updates] https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

[12 Experts on COVID] https://www.globalresearch.ca/12-experts-questioning-coronavirus-panic/5707532

But I digress.

My main point here is that when I went over to San Francisco today, all I could see from the windows of the #30 bus were miles and miles of small businesses shut down, sad people without jobs — and general despair.

At the famous Palace hotel, I did the math. “We used to have 300 to 500 people employed here,” said the last remaining lonely concierge. “Now we have only ten employees — and even fewer guests. Only two people checked in today.” And there before my very eyes was the beautiful and legendary Garden Court, totally empty, like some haunted ghost.

“We will be closing down the hotel in a couple of days,” said the sad-eyed concierge. Who knows when it will ever open again.

My bus driver was also in despair too. “Most of my friends are out of work right now. They have no idea how they’re going to pay their rent.” Even the historic City Lights bookstore in North Beach was closed. And Glide Memorial Church in the Tenderloin was closed too. And I also stood in the middle of Market Street to take a photo, totally unafraid of getting hit by a car. Chinatown? Same sad story. Sigh.

Thousands of people risk death from rising sea levels these days. Thousands more are killed by tsunamis and hurricanes and tornadoes. Millions die from having the USA invade their countries. Millions more die from the freaking flu. And yet somehow Americans have all suddenly become fixated on destroying our economy over a slightly stronger version of the common cold? Makes no sense to me. Call me crazy.

But as a result of this shut-down, millions more here in America will also die from bankruptcy, poverty, food riots, suicide and despair either before this poorly-thought-out COVID quarantine is over — or afterwards. For decades afterwards perhaps.

So. Am I crazy — or not? Only time will tell. In a few years we may look back on this COVID event with the same distanced humor that we look back on the famous Holland tulip mania of 1637. Or else that this fiasco was the greatest April Fool joke of all time!

But in the meantime, I totally enjoy having the entire City of San Francisco all to myself.

PS: What else can we do to resolve this dilemma? Have we destroyed the economy for nothing — or am I (and a whole bunch of medical geeks) on the wrong track? Easy-peasy to find out. Let’s demand transparency. Get everyone tested. Analyze the results. Either our lives are in grave danger — or they are not. It’s not rocket science, guys.

Power in numbers. If enough of us demand the facts? They can’t shut us all up! Or can they…. https://fox4kc.com/tracking-coronavirus/kck-police-launch-hotline-to-report-businesses-not-complying-with-stay-at-home-order/

The other day, my friend Ana and I hopped aboard the San Diego Trolley to San Ysidro and then walked across the border to Mexico. Nothing could be more simple.

On the other side of the border, we found lots of taxi drivers. Ana knows Spanish. She bartered. “¿Cúantos para rentar un taxi todo al día hoy?” she said. How much will it cost to rent your taxi for a day?

“$100,” yelled a stranger driving a red Nissan. “I don’t trust him,” said Ana. “I do,” said me. “$75,” said Ana, “but we’re not buying you lunch.” Deal.

Alvaro drove us to our first asylum-seeker’s shelter, run by a non-profit group called Pro. Libertad y Derechos Humanos en America, http://pldha.mexico.org.

First we talked with a man from Honduras. “I fled for the same reasons as most of the men here,” he told us. “Gang violence, corrupt government, fear for my life. If I ever go back there again, they will murder me. Tingo mucho miedo.” He has much fear. I didn’t bother to tell him that I myself have given up fear for Lent.

“We do the best that we can to be helpful,” said the shelter’s director, a kind and compassionate woman who has dedicated her entire adult life to helping those who have far less than she does. “We used to have over 150 men here in response to the United States’ recent ‘Remain in Mexico’ program — mostly refugees escaping from gangs and government thugs in Central America. Now, however, we have far less.” https://attentionage.com/2020/03/22/viral-too/

Hmmm. I wonder what became of those missing men. Rumor on the border has it that the U.S. has been paying to have them shipped off to Guatemala like so many packages stamped “Return to Sender”.

Once in Guatemala, however, these asylum-seekers are screwed. The only option they have left there is death — the ultimate asylum.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, we are all busy worrying about perhaps dying of the coronavirus (or perhaps running out of toilet paper). But our chances of dying from COVID-19 are around 3% at most — and even then you most likely gotta be old, obese, a smoker or in bad health in order to actually kick the bucket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHE3OerDKEY

But in the many asylum-seekers’ shelters and camps on either side of the US-Mexico border, your chances of death are much higher — especially if you are a child in a cage. Asylum-seekers here are constantly playing peekaboo with death.

But this ultimate tragedy no longer matters to those of us north of the border. The American spotlight, the American news cycle has moved on. The men that we talked to in Tijuana, collateral damage from America’s brutally flawed foreign policy in Central America and the gangs that are left in its wake, are forever stuck here to die alone and afraid in TJ — and they have all been forgotten.

PS: In my next article, I’ll try to describe my visit to a women’s asilo-buscando shelter, followed by the total incongruity of sipping margaritas on a lovely Tijuana beach — right next to Trump’s ugly Wall.

PPS: On a happier note, at lunchtime our taxi driver took us to his favorite place in Tijuana for tacos, tamales and barbacoa. The real deal. I even bought extra tamales, smuggled them back across the border and had them for dinner that night at my San Diego AirBnB.

PPPS:  If everyone wore face masks for three weeks, the COVID problem would be solved, right?  Boom.  End of pandemic.  And we can make instant face masks ourselves with just a bandana and two rubber bands.  Don’t have to be a narcissistic blowhard to figure this one out.  Just watch the freaking video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvioDd6GMxU

     Photos to follow.

If our government could possibly get organized enough to use a test that actually works, get everyone in the USA tested tomorrow and pay everyone who tested positive to voluntarily self-quarantine, then perhaps this disorganized clown-car train-wreck-in-slow-motion reaction by our government that we now have to endure will disappear, the Federal Reserve can stop giving away trillions of our dollars to oligarchs, our kids can go back to their freaking schools, we can pay our rent on time and America could even start manufacturing toilet paper again. https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/?

Boom. Done and dusted.

We currently live in a scientific wonderland that can put a SmartPhone into the hands of almost every teenager in America — and even put a person on the moon. Yet we still can’t manage to come up with a simple reliable COVID test, stock the shelves at Walgreens with it and get on with other more important things like keeping up on Twitter?

This is obvious to no one but me?

PS: I myself don’t have a SmartPhone, and in fact rely mostly on a HP computer that I bought used 12 years ago. And my computer is slow. And it’s prone to forget things. So I want to notate here all the COVID-19 stuff that I still need to think about or do research on so I won’t forget.

A. What’s all this talk about pathogens escaping from that bio-warfare lab at Ft. Detrick last August — and the subsequent American soldiers who then came down with a mysterious hard-scrabble case of flu? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/health/germs-fort-detrick-biohazard.html

Then the US sends a bunch of troops to some massive Military Games in October, with over 9000 athletes participating and around 50,000 spectators, a very big deal. And guess where it was held? You got it. Wuhan.

Research project: To compare the list of countries that participated in the Wuhan games with the list of countries hardest hit by COVID-19.

B. Who benefits from all this COVID craziness? (Hint: Not you or me)

1. According to journalist Whitney Webb, in the case of a national emergency there are now actual “Continuity of Government” plans in place that gleefully hand our federal government over to people we’ve never even heard about — let alone elected.

Plus “The William Barr-led Department of Justice will not only be authorized to indefinitely detain Americans without trial, it will be able to detain them without any proof of those detainees having committed a crime or even having plans or the intent to commit a crime.” Oops, me and my ancient computer could soon be going to jail — even if we don’t have the flu. https://www.mintpressnews.com/coronavirus-what-newsweek-failed-mention-continuity-government/265954/

Plus, under this or that C.O.G. plan, we will probably be stuck with Trump & Family for the rest of our lives. Yuck.

2. Then there’s Greg Mannarino, “The Robin Hood of Wall Street,” who says that the Federal Reserve is talking about going into “negative interest” territory — which means that instead of banks paying us interest for using our money, the reverse will happen and we will start paying the banks to store our money. What a racket. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g50uC3r-otw

3. Holy shite! Congress is trying to pass a bill that will give mega-corporations huge sums of “Socialism for the Wealthy Only” money — and give the rest of us almost nothing. Table scraps. Does this mean that mega-corporations will no longer have to go offshore for cheap labor? When they can get Americans to work for pennies right here?

4. And then there’s always Big Pharma — always ever-ready to shove its hand as deeply into the federal cookie jar as it can. COVID-19? Manna from Heaven for them. Not for us. Get used to it. Big Pharma uber alles.

C. Then there’s the rumors to ponder that COVID-19 isn’t even killing off as many people as the regular flu does — and/or that it has been around for a while but we just didn’t know to test for it. And/or that people who die of the flu or COVID-19 or whatever were unhealthy as hell in the first place and thus the rest of us aren’t really in danger.

Transparency about the data just isn’t a thing right now — now when we need it most. (See above for further discussion of the clown car). https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/?

D. And does anybody but me object to all these massive plans to call out the military and the National Guard? Seriously? How about we just pay people to get well instead of turning America into a war zone. First we got the Patriot Act shoved down our throats and now this? Apparently “Give me liberty or give me death” is no longer a thing in America. And “No Fear!” is clearly no longer a thing either.

More and more, we are being told how totally deadly and extensive this coronavirus nightmare is — but what if it is all just another Deep State scam to distract us (and bribe us with measly promises of $2,000 each), to get us to look the other way while the shell game moves our cheese and the crumbling Evil Empire is once again revived at our expense.

America is losing its Evil Empire bigtime in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and even Europe right now — as more and more of the Axis of Resistance peeks behind the Deep State’s shabby curtain. What better way to get it back than to put the world under lock-down. What would Darth Vader do? Exactly this. Call up the troops.

E. Something else to consider about COVID-19 is that we either get it or we don’t — and if we do get it, we either get well or we die. End of story. But if the economy tanks bigtime, if we have a whole new Great Depression to deal with and we all go bankrupt and have to start selling apples on street corners, that’s a whole other story altogether. Then we will spend years (years!) of our poor pathetic lives working in sweatshops, living in cars, foraging out of oligarchs’ dumpsters and having to put up with the Trump family forever.

I don’t think my computer can handle all this new information. I don’t think I can handle any of it either. Can you?

What the freak is really going on? We need to find out. Now.

At what point, for the average American, does a shift in the ratio between fear of COVID-19 and fear of bankruptcy become statistically significant? And I wonder what will happen when that ratio finally does shift? Just asking….

Perhaps we might finally give up our current “Socialism for the Rich Only” form of government and switch to democracy instead? Hey, it could happen.

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Fact: For years now, Republicans, neo-cons, Wall Street lobbyists, banksters and even Yellow Dog Democrats have been trying to break the Social Security piggy bank with every hammer at hand.

“Those pesky Boomers have worked hard for that money but screw them! That money is ours!” This is the current thinking in Washington — believe it or not.

Fact: The average age of the COVID-19 dead person in Italy is 81 years old. Almost all of them are over 65. Yep. If things here go the same way as things in Italy went, our Baby Boomers will be dropping like flies here in America too. https://www.epicentro.iss.it/coronavirus/sars-cov-2-decessi-italia

The Angel of Death will pass by all those kids going stir-crazy from being out of school and all those Charmin-hoarding Gen-X Millennial hipsters obediently trying to “Flatten the Curve”. Forget about them. The Angel of Death will head straight for the Baby Boomers.

The Angel of Death will flatten that particular demographic curve bigtime.

Hypothesis: That if America continues to go the way that Italy did, there won’t be hardly as many Boomers around to collect their hard-earned Social Security — and all the neo-cons, Wall Street lobbyists, banksters, American oligarchs and Republi-Dems in D.C. will all rejoice. “More Socialism for us!” they will cry. “Less Socialism for them.”

Promise to come visit us Baby Boomers in the graveyard? Thanks.

PS: Instead of wasting all our hard-earned money on soldiers patrolling our streets, cops arresting quarantine violators, bureaucrats enforcing martial law and demagogues calling out the National Guard, why don’t we just use all that money to simply pay people to stay home. Carrots always work better than sticks.

     And wearing a burka in public is clearly not going to save us from the terrible bankruptcy epidemic that is currently sweeping America too.  Only the federal government can do that.  “But if you give us money to help us through this pandemic nightmare, won’t that be socialism?”  Not if you are a billionaire oligarch.  It’s only socialism if you are just another American peon like me. 
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/we-know-script-naomi-klein-warns-coronavirus-capitalism-new-video-detailing-battle PPS:  Stay safe.  Shelter in place of course.  But also try to pump up your immune system.  That might not help — but then again it just might give us a slight edge.  Boil up some hot tea and then inhale the steam.  That might make the viruses unhappy.  Worth a shot, right?  Eat your veggies and take your vitties. 

     Give up smoking, sugar, sugar substitutes and processed food.  Be kind.  Get plenty of sleep — but then what else have we got going on right now?  Stop wasting money on attacking poor vulnerable places like Yemen, Palestine, Syria and Iran — and on building that freaking Wall.  Give all those billions to us generic Americans instead.  We need it more.  Can’t hurt.  Might help.

Joe Biden seems to be slowly sinking into dementia. Donald Trump appears to already be there. Who knew that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would turn into an assisted living facility. https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/06/stop-calling-it-a-stutter-dozens-of-examples-show-bidens-dementia-symptoms/

What can we do about it? Nothing. The Deep State thrives on chaos — and what can possibly be more chaotic than if the Leader of the Free World can’t even tell fantasy from fact? https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-snaps-michigan-auto-worker-173703659.html

Oh. Right. A World War might be more chaotic. A stock market crash? Or a virus pandemic….

But is there really nothing we can do? “Do unto others as we would have others do unto us.” Behave ourselves on an individual level no matter what crazy things our leaders are up to. Chase chaos out of our own individual worlds.

“What? No more voting for crazy leaders in the White House? Where’s the fun in that!”

American taxpayers are now expected to pay for yet another national budget boondoggle that happily commits two-thirds of our hard-earned money to “defense”. American taxpayers have been price-gouged for over seven trillion bucks in the past 19 years for “defense”. Yet has any of this mind-boggling amount of money kept us safe from a virus that is smaller than a pinhead?

The joke’s on us.

Our Congress just passed a law that will bail out big businesses and banksters who have “suffered” from the coronavirus. Poor dears. But will it help the average tax-paying schmuck on the street like you and me? Hell no. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3hdx1knOM

The joke’s on us.

Our government spends billions on developing biological weapons — but not all that much on developing biological cures. We still don’t really know how to stop cancer and thousands of Americans die each year from not having healthcare.

The joke’s on us.

It seems that one of the reasons COVID-19 is so virulent in Wuhan is that this entire city is wired up the wazoo with 5G — which is known to weaken our immune systems. South Korea also is wired up the kazoo for 5G. So apparently is Seattle and the Grand Princess. How can it possibly matter that we will have more intelligent appliances if we are dead? And if this connection between 5G and low resistance to COVID-19 is factually true, then it makes perfect sense that the safest place we can possibly be these days is in a mud hut in the jungles of Africa — or down in Tijuana where I am going next week.

The joke’s on us.

The Chinese government has just discovered that chlorquinine relieves symptoms of COVID-19. That’s the same stuff that cures malaria. So while Big Pharma gets gifted with billions in a race to the bottom with yet another snake-oil vaccine, apparently all we really need in order to get ourselves cured is to drink lots of gin and tonic.

The joke’s on us.

PS: Why the freak is it up to me to explain the real truth about what is going on in the Middle East to millions of lazy Americans who fail to spend time on even the most basic Google research? What? I’m spozed to spend the rest of my life refuting obvious propaganda on FB — one misinformed person at a time? No thank you. https://soundcloud.com/taylor-report/imperialism-losing-its-grip

American operatives in the Middle East have joined forces with the Zionists, the Saudis, NATO and al Qaeda to commit all kinds of monstrous war crimes in Syria. I’ve been there myself. I know about this kind of stuff. Keep up, America. Did you learn nothing after being lied to about Vietnam, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Venezuela, Chile, Cambodia, Ukraine, Wounded Knee, etcetera etcetera etcetera? Apparently not. https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/exclusive-vanessa-beeley-interviews-yemeni-ambassador-damascus

The joke’s on us. Again.

So why aren’t I laughing?

And what can we do to stop ourselves from constantly being the pathetic brunt of all our military-industrial complex’s sordid jokes?

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world. And while you’re at it, please buy my books. https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

     I woke up this morning with the sniffles.  This is actually a good thing.  Someone just told me that having a runny nose doesn’t mean that you have COVID-19 — but only a slight cold.  Whew!  Apparently coronavirus symptoms consist of a cough, a fever and trouble breathing.

But as for all those poor innocent victims who actually do get COVID-19? “Sucks to be you.” Why? Because our demagogue President has ordered the CDC budget to be cut so that he’ll have more money to spend on foreign misadventures. Mussolini in Ethiopia comes to mind. https://fortune.com/2020/02/26/coronavirus-covid-19-cdc-budget-cuts-us-trump/

Next week I’m taking a trip to Mexico but I may have to stay there forever if our demagogue President orders America’s southern border to be closed. That sounds like something Chairman Mao used to do.

Election tampering in Venezuela and Bolivia by our very own demagogue President? Yeah. Not to mention how he’s done absolutely nothing to prevent election tampering here at home by Dark Money, Jim Crow, unverified voting machines and even the DNC. Shades of when Idi Amim simply elected himself president of Uganda.

And the American economy? It’s about to crash. Hard. But hopefully not as badly as when Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqHxmKX703M

Kids in cages? Overcrowded prisons? What if COVID-19 introduces itself into America’s gulags — and prisoners are trapped like passengers on the Titanic, with no place to escape? Or consider the ever-increasing number of homeless camps in America where no one can even safely wash their hands? Worst horror movies ever. “Worse than Joseph Stalin’s gulags in Siberia?” Maybe not. But close.

Corruption?  Pay for Play?  What really goes on down at Mar-a-lago?  Not even Bibi Netanyahu or Prince BnB appear to be this corrupt.

Then there’s the Democratic nominating convention in July and the Republican nominating convention in August. I’m going to both. Wearing a face mask of course. Nobody had to wear a face mask at Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies. I wonder if our demagogue President will have to wear one at his?

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world. And while you’re at it, please buy my books. https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM