BartBlog

“Let’s just shut down the economy for a few days, months or years,” say our leaders. “What could possibly go wrong if we open Pandora’s box?” Oops. And now we have riots in Minneapolis.

“But Jane,” you might say, “That’s just about police brutality and racism and stuff like that.” Is it?

I recently talked with a friend of mine in Minneapolis and she paints a whole different picture. “Ever since the lock-down started,” she said, “things have been very tense around here. People in Minneapolis are sick and tired of the lock-down. Plus so many neighborhood stores have been closing. Permanently. And many of my friends are out of work too.” The same is true here in my hometown as well.

“But to make matters even worse,” my friend continued, “police have been stopping a whole lot of people in the streets lately and charging them with walking around while Black. Minneapolis has been a tinderbox for at least a month now. And someone or something was just bound to light the fuse. We are sitting on dynamite here. Racism set it off this time — but almost anything could have caused it to blow.”
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CAq5huWhqwF/?igshid=1iw5ulmorzh72

Yeah, well. What my friend says about Minneapolis rings true. And this could also be true of all the rest of America right now — and even for the rest of the world. What were our leaders thinking? Shut down our entire economy and even our way of life for two months and expect nothing much will happen except that the Federal Reserve will go nuts spending other people’s money and a few billionaires will become trillionaires — but somehow none of the rest of us will even notice?

None of the rest of us will get pissed off if we have no jobs, no schools, no food, no social life, no freedom, no hope?

Most Americans right now are all tied up in their fear of catching the dread coronavirus — but all too soon they will be start to be all tied up in their fear of things even far worse, even their very survival. Minneapolis is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Yep, our leaders have truly opened Pandora’s box. Damn. I wish that they would hurry up and just close its freaking lid — before even more evil escapes into the world.

According to Dr. Zach Bush, we can make this a hopeful time instead of just one of scarcity and horror. “We can’t just go back to the ‘normal’ of buying more and more stuff,” and being ruled by greedy stupid leaders who can’t even recognize Pandora’s’ box when they see it actually staring them in the face.

“Instead, we need to be able to congregate with better attitudes toward each other, create music to celebrate life and protect ourselves while protecting nature. Otherwise our future is extinction. We have an opportunity to transform to a better planet.” What he said. Yeah. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fduWYR6L36M

When I was a little kid, my really mean older sister constantly told me that I was stupid, dumb and ugly. By the age of five or six, I had clearly started to believe her. And to this day, I can still hear her voice in my head, “You are stupid, dumb and ugly. And lazy and will never amount to anything either, you’re a disgrace and nobody will ever love you.”

Finally I just threw a chair at her. She ducked. It made a big hole in the wall.

To a whole bunch of Americans today, Donald Trump represents that chair. He stoutly defends the honor of all those Americans out there who also believe that they too are stupid, dumb and ugly. So every time one of us progressives calls Trump a liar, a thief, a clown, a pervert, a dupe for the Dark Overlords, a tacky dresser, Sheldon Adelson’s rentboy or an idiot who doesn’t know shite from Shinola, we are in effect calling his base all those bad names too!

And when Trump roars and fights back and blames everyone but himself for destroying the economy, selling out to the nabobs, spending our hard-earned money on even more dangerous nuclear weapons and brutal wars, trying to destroy our post offices, disrespecting Jesus’ teachings, throwing babies into cages, egging on gun-toting racist mobs, encouraging anarchy, screwing with our schools, screwing with our jobs, our families, our very life itself? And subjecting us to hours and hours and hours of bad TV as well?

Then we are in effect insulting his base.

And when The Donald boisterously defends himself, he is also defending his base. And they love him for it. Trump is their Chair. And he loves being their Chair. Every time any of us with even half a grain of human decency makes fun of him, he tightens his grip on his base. Tightens his grip on their balls. Becomes their mean older sister.

Perhaps it’s finally time for Trump’s base to realize that he is actually just using them, that he’s actually their own worst enemy — and then, like me, finally become their own chairs and throw their own chairs back at him.

“COVID-19 is America’s karmic payback for callously murdering all those babies in Iraq and Syria,” stated Madam Jane this morning. “Karma’s a bitch.”

“Stop, just stop it!” I screamed at her, horrified. “This time you have gone too far.”

“I know what I know. I see what I see,” said Madam Jane. “Millions dead in the Middle East. Brutally dead. Blown up, shot, poisoned, beheaded, starved, jailed, tortured, murdered by America’s imperial forces — murdered without mercy in Syria and Palestine and Iraq and Afghanistan and Yemen and Lebanon and Libya….”

“No! No!” I shouted. “These two tragedies are not the same! Innocent Americans are dying here. Our elders. Our doctors. No! You are wrong! Get out of my house!”

“But I see what I see,” said Madam Jane. “A few Americans dead. Less than 0.03% at the most. Yet we wail and gnash our teeth and go into hiding like it was Armageddon. Well, I had a dream.” https://unherd.com/thepost/professor-karol-sikora-fear-is-more-dangerous-than-the-virus/

“What can you possibly dream that is crueler than this — that the American economy is ruined? Our children afraid and our grandmothers dead? Our freedoms gone, our dreams destroyed, our cities ruled by martial law, everyone suspicious of their neighbors? Our businesses closed forever? Not enough medicine? Not enough doctors and nurses? Our leaders telling us lies about the wonders of deregulation while enabling greedy oligarchs to steal our life savings and the Federal Reserve prints up Monopoly money and pretends that it’s real? Our schools shut down, eviction just around the corner, our grocery store shelves soon to be empty — and our stomachs too? What can possibly be crueler than this!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfAO8fvfXiA

M.J. just kept rattling off statistics and shite. Thankfully there was no Power Point presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBv4N9uj-5c

I covered my ears. I didn’t want to hear any more. Blasphemy!

“What you have just described,” she calmly continued, “is just one more average day in Gaza, just another typical day in Damascus, just one average day in Sana’a, another average day in Kabul. Greedy Americans and their totalitarian allies have destroyed the Middle East for fun and profit. And, like all those endless ‘wars’ that our televisions constantly teach us to love so much, there clearly isn’t any exit strategy for our COVID nightmare here either.” https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/inflammatory-syndrome-affecting-children-kawasaki-disease-covid-19-or-something-else/

” No. I refuse to accept that,” I said. “You are clearly not Galileo. These two nightmares are not the same. COVID is not karmic retribution. COVID is just a disease. Wait six months. You’ll see!” https://medium.com/@tepper_jonathan/ground-zero-when-the-cure-is-worse-than-the-disease-3c513d91393d

Madam Jane simply shrugged. “You just keep telling yourself that.” I shut the door in her face.

__________________________________________

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

PPPS:  What if almost everyone in America owned their very own EMF meter, one that actually measured the dangerous effects of 5G?  And that we all went around beeping and flashing together?  Verizon and AT&T would be horrified!  Yay!  https://theemfguy.com/metercrisis/

“I need a new dress for our virtual prom,” cries your teenager — but the local shopping mall has been completely closed down. It’s been locked down for as long as we have been in lock-up. What to do? Order a prom dress from Amazon!

And suddenly all of America’s shopping is being done online.

And we’ve all seen photos of those dangerous Amazon sweatshop warehouses, right? But it’s the wave of the future. Amazon Prime. Small businesses go under. Big businesses thrive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsRhmdpT8Ic&feature=youtu.be

How come Amazon is an essential business yet yours is not?

PS: And how come the United States Postal Service is suddenly going bankrupt yet Amazon isn’t? In a word? “Unions.”

PPS: Have you ever considered workers’ cooperatives as an alternative to Corporatism?

PPPS: When I was crossing through the border station last month while coming back from Tijuana, at least a hundred “guest workers” suddenly walked past me while I waited in line. Each man was pulling a small roller-board suitcase. They were all quickly loaded onto buses headed for Los Angeles. https://www.mintpressnews.com/podcast-whitney-webb-coronavirus-mass-surveillance/266905/

How come “guest workers” are legal in America and yet other Latinx are not? When large corporations are in need of cheap labor, regular rules simply do not apply to them. It’s time that we change all that — or we’ll be in lock-up forever too.

When my plane landed in New York City recently, I had the entire JFK airport all to myself. Even the TSA security checkpoint was empty except for a few bored employees. Empty. Totally empty. Can you even imagine a TSA line with nobody in it? Totally surreal. But then I saw a few more people on the subway into Manhattan — and then lots of people on 34th Street. People in front of Penn Station. People next to the Empire State Building. People walking past Macy’s.

My mind boggled. Here’s me, with a completely boggled mind. But why was I being so gobsmacked? Definitely not because there were people on the streets of New York City — but rather because of the type of people I saw. All the techies, the yuppies, the rising-star professionals, the upper-class shoppers, New York’s chic urban workforce? They were all gone from the streets completely, disappeared as if by magic.

And all that was left on the streets of New York City were its “dregs”.

And New York City has a hecka lot of “dregs”. America itself has a whole freaking lot of “dregs”.

Thanks to COVID-19, America’s convenient veil of secrecy has been ruthlessly ripped aside and America’s morbid classism has now been cruelly exposed. Tears came to my eyes — and I don’t usually cry. https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/04/17/navajo-native-american-coronavirus-pkg-tuchman-ac360-vpx.cnn

All those suave New Yorkers with homes to go to and Netflix to watch and popcorn to eat as they sit on their sofas bombarded by TV commercials with violins in the background and soothing voices telling us that “We’re all in this together” and “We’re here to help”?

None of that warm-puppy feeling applies to New York City’s underclasses, America’s underclasses, carefully cultivated since Nixon and Reagan — and now in full bloom right next to Madison Square Garden.
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2020/05/listen-to-your-mother-nobody-should-be-too-rich-or-too-poor/

And then I thought of our recent “stimulus package” — $1200 to everyone who has filed an income tax return. $1200 might be a drop in the bucket for some Americans, but to the people actually living on the streets of New York City, $1200 would be a freaking miracle, a wonderful last meal, a comfortable place to finally lay down their heads — like a dead man walking being offered a last meal before midnight. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/covid-19-may-not-discriminate-based-on-race-but-u-s-health-care-does

But none of those who are truly in need will be getting any of America’s bounty. Once again.

 

 

What are your favorite TV shows? Mine are The Rookie, The Connors, Survivor, Roswell, New Mexico (my father was born there), Gray’s Anatomy and All Rise (obviously I’m too cheap to buy cable). These are my guilty pleasures, my relief from the real world. One hour a night I just put my feet up, turn off my brain and get entertained.

But then some melodramatic fool comes on during the commercial break and sobs, “We are all in this together!” again and again and again.

Bummer.

I really didn’t mind being locked up for the first seven weeks. I puttered. I gardened. I ordered stuff online. I even caught up with my FaceBook page. But this morning? Something inside of me just suddenly snapped. I finally reached a point of no return — the point where I’d even rather choose actually dying of COVID and just getting it over with than being constantly locked up here for even one more day, one more hour or even one more freaking second! Arrgh.

And I think that everyone else in America has just reached that same point too. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/news/the-brave-new-world-of-bill-gates-and-big-telecom/

For the first time since 1776, the words “Give me liberty or give me death” have taken on a very personal meaning for all of us. Let me out of here!
__________________________________________

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

Have you ever sleepwalked through a dream? One that made little or no sense? Salvador Dali comes to mind, especially that scene with the clock.

10:00 am: I’m feeling sort of fishy. My back hurts a little. I just got back from New York and Los Angeles. Paranoia sets in. Maybe I’ve got COVID? https://21stcenturywire.com/2020/05/01/covid-why-sweden-has-already-won-the-debate-on-covid-19-lockdown-policy/

12:00 noon: I walk over to the emergency room at the local hospital. They’ve moved the intake area outside to a tent. Someone takes my temperature, checks me for weapons and waves me through. I walk over to sit on a folding chair in the hospital’s driveway. Only two other patients are there.

One patient had caught her index finger in a blender while making a smoothie. “You’re probably gonna lose that nail — but it will grow back,” I say. She nods sheepishly.

The other patient has back trouble too. “Have you ever read Revelations?” he asks. “This here is The Rapture.” Then he rambles on and on about his unhappy childhood in some podunk town in the Central Valley, how he drinks four Dr. Peppers each evening and then has trouble sleeping. “But never touch alcohol….” I try to politely change chairs.

1:30 pm: Finally a really nice doctor sees me inside another white tent. “We will need a blood panel and a urine sample. Here, take this cup….”

2:30 pm: I’ve just finished drinking four cups of water, each cup the size of a Starbucks latte grande. Still can’t pee. Back to the folding chair. EMTs bring in an elderly man on a gurney. COVID? I’m afraid to ask.

4:00 pm: This is starting to get annoying. I had thought that I’d just be in and out with a quick diagnosis and some pills — but no. I’m still stuck in the bathroom trying to come up with a urine sample.

5:15 pm: I did it! Two more grande-sized cups of water later, I come up with a few drops. But then I accidentally drop the freaking sample cup into the sink. Crap. Too much performance anxiety.

Now all I want to do is go home, take some vitamin C and call myself in the morning. This has gone on far too long. I’ve been here for over five hours. “Now we are going to have to admit you.” Wha? Nothing’s all that wrong with me — but I’m now the only patient they’ve got. I start thinking about that old U. Utah Phillips song, “They will keep you and they’ll never let you go….” https://no1lyrics.com/song/green-rolling-hills-713294

5:45 pm: Here I am, in a hospital bed, strapped to a machine that measures my oxygen levels. A warning beeper starts going off. Having nothing else to do, I count the beeps (finally giving up after the 948th beep) and go back to reading Lee Goldberg’s latest murder mystery, Killer Thriller. I’ve read 103 pages here so far.

They’ve got me in a hospital gown by now. A really nice nurse comes in, accompanied by a student. “And this is where we draw the blood,” she says, pointing to the vein in my left arm. “Now you try it….”

6:30 pm: Everyone has disappeared. I’ve finally managed to pee into the sample cup but no one seems interested in taking it away to the lab. Haven’t eaten since breakfast.

6:45 pm: Finally another really nice nurse comes in. “I’m hungry,” I say. “What if I starve to death!” I joke.

“It takes four days to starve to death,” she replies. Good to know.

7:00 pm: I’ve finally had enough! Now I’m even starting to worry about catching some iatrogenic disease or even COVID itself and being stuck here forever, perpetually sick. I pull off the wires, get dressed and start to leave. “You can’t do that!” says another nurse. Then she threatens to write the dread “AMA” in my chart! “Leaving against medical advice.” https://consentfactory.org/2020/05/04/virus-of-mass-destruction/

At this point I start to pass out. Has it been four days yet? They plop me into a wheelchair, put me back into the bed, wire me up again and hand me a stale turkey sandwich. I gulp it down without even washing my hands first.

7:15 pm: Finally the doctor comes in. “Have you seen a lot of COVID patients here,” I ask him out of curiosity. https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-reinfections-were-false-positives.html

“Not that many.” He shrugs. And then he finally tells me what is wrong with me. “You have low sodium levels.” Oh. Okay.

7:30 pm: As I leave the hospital ER, I notice that there was another separate indoor waiting room where four or five sad-looking older men sit resignedly. Might this be a specially-designated COVID waiting room? I will never know — because I’m too hungry to stop and find out.

7:55 pm: I stagger into the nearby Whole Foods minutes before it closes, grab the first food I see off the shelf and gulp that down too, ending a very surreal day.

PS: I have a friend who is an ER doctor. “I’m beginning to think that all this COVID thing is just a myth dreamed up so that the Federal Reserve can steal our economy,” I told her this morning. “Just look at me. Since mid-March I’ve been to San Diego, Tijuana, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles (on essential business) and spent seven hours a freaking emergency room — and don’t even have so much as a cough.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD-jBdU2vQA

“Oh, no. It’s real,” she replied. “There are doctors and nurses who are dying of COVID.” And I finally believe her because I trust her — even though it’s almost impossible to believe even a single word that the mainstream media tells us (remember Iraq’s phony WMDs, the shockingly spuriously false charges that Syria used chemical weapons, the Gulf of Tonkin fabrications and all those Kuwait incubator baby lies?) http://www.susted.com/wordpress/content/sustainability-education-responsible-truthfulness-and-hypnotic-phenomena_2020_04/

Anyway, here’s my latest theory about COVID-19, combining both personal experience, that chat with my ER doctor friend and the latest scientific data: That there are two different strains of COVID. One is totally deadly, a microbial Freddie Kruger, lurking around to assassinate our doctors, nurses and most vulnerable. And then there are some milder strains of COVID that even Mary Poppins could cure. https://plandemicmovie.com/

Wait, what? New information just came in: According to a German virologist, the more someone is exposed to the virus, the more severe their case. So that might explain why doctors, nurses and rest home residents are getting so sick. Wow. Send them all to the beach, Governor Newsome!
https://unherd.com/thepost/german-virologist-finds-covid-fatality-rate-of-0-24-0-36/

Plus there is also the issue of how best to actually deal with the COVID epidemic. To paraphrase Hamlet, “To lock-down or not to lock-down?” And it’s becoming increasingly clear that America’s “lock ‘em up” attitude is simply bad science. https://thecritic.co.uk/is-the-lockdown-killing-people/

By locking us up, we are apparently giving the deadly strains more chances to act like Jason in Friday the 13th around our doctors and nurses — while giving the more benign strains less chance to give us herd immunity (and also giving the Federal Reserve mafia even more chances to steal all our money). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD-jBdU2vQA
__________________________________________

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