Posted on 09/21/2020 3:54:42 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Ian Brown, Van Morrison and Noel Gallagher have been objecting to lockdown rules, is this the start of a dangerous trend?
The timing looks a bit suspicious, right? Just days after I published a column about the dangers of falling for Ian Brown’s Covid conspiracy rants on Twitter, Noel Gallagher – a man never knowingly muffled – joined the anti-mask fray, insisting that going maskless could only affect himself, like a resident of Bethnal Green in 1941 arguing “well, if everybody else has got their lights off I’m not going to be hit by any of their bombs, so if I draw a big target on my roof in Catherine wheels and let the Luftwaffe have a pop, it’s entirely on me”.
Three days later Brown released a protest song called ‘Little Seed Big Tree’, railing against “Masonic lockdown”, microchipped vaccines and “mass mind manipulation”. That very same day music’s least ‘people person’ Van Morrison, who you’d assume would have relished sitting miserably in a room on his own for six months, announced a batch of anti-lockdown tracks. All of a sudden, ‘red pill rock’ is a thing. What did I know? Who’s funding me?
Throughout the history of modern music, troubled times have produced protest songs. Vietnam, ‘70s poverty, Thatcherism, Mondays. They’ve generally come from a progressive, rebellious, anti-authoritarian and primarily left-wing standpoint; the voice of The People berating The Man with machines that might not kill fascists but should at least keep them out of Glastonbury if they have any shame at all. It’s the righteous stance of the artist speaking for the downtrodden, oppressed and war-torn: Strummer, Dylan, Baez, Costello, Ochs, Lennon, Bragg, D. When the right wing have historically targeting liberalism in song, on the other hand, the very best they can hope for is Mike Read’s ‘UKIP Calypso’. Racist accent optional.
The pandemic, however, has turned protest music on its head. Lockdowns, masks and vaccines – essential measures for tackling a health crisis unprecedented in our lifetimes – look a lot like fascist oppression if, like many a cloistered rock star who hasn’t heard the word ‘no’ since they turned 23, your concerns aren’t for the greater good. Being anti-authoritarian, skewering cruel leaders and fighting for freedom can suddenly mean defying the only sensible and successful actions that Boris has (belatedly) taken.
So Brown sings of “Doctor Evil” with “a plan to chip us all, to have complete control” and being told to stay indoors “for the new world order” and he sounds, to irresponsible ears, like a classic rebel folk hero for the 4chan age. Van Morrison warbles about the “fascist bullies…pretending it’s for our safety when it’s really to enslave” in ‘No More Lockdown’ and, overnight, he’s Dylan for divots.
In fact, these songs are protesting science rather than authority. I won’t insult your intelligence by going too deep into why the red pill rockers are talking rubbish. It should be pretty obvious to anyone capable of operating a handkerchief without ruining a shag that masks are going to help reduce virus spread. Unless you’ve recently come down with a bothersome case of polio, I don’t need to point out the upside of vaccines.
Are you really that worried about Bill Gates getting a tracking device into your pancreas? Two words: Pokémon Go. Here’s a quick nibble on a bona fide red pill, conspiracists – pick up your phone and tap the Maps app. See that pulsing blue dot where your house is? That’s you. You’re already being tracked. You happily carry your own tracking device around in your pocket, gratefully upgrade it to more intrusive models, type all of your opinions into it and let it hang all your passwords on its handy little keychain, no questions asked. Bill Gates and all the other big tech cronies already know where you go, and you pay them handsomely for the privilege. You think they need to spend billions of dollars sneaking a chip implant into your brain to control your thoughts and actions through expensive 5G towers? Here, have a cookie. Mmmm, you love cookies, dontcha? T&Cs? T&Zzzzs more like, am I right?
Contrary to Morrison’s cry of “no more taking of our freedom, and our God given rights”, no freedoms or rights are being abolished by short-term measures intended to protect the country from further catastrophic death rates. With the Coronavirus Act lasting just two years, nothing’s yet been written permanently into law because of the pandemic. Yes, now more than ever we need to stay alert to abuses of power; no self-serving regime lets a good crisis go to waste. Boris Johnson – the result of Big Bird and Snuffleupagus having hate sex – has already handed half a billion in largely unfulfilled emergency equipment contracts to his donors and grousemates, most of whom previously thought PPE stood for Panama Papers Exposé. But when Noel complains about the possibility of being fined £1000 for not wearing a mask on a train, his freedom not to care if other people’s nans die isn’t being infringed, it’ll just cost him a grand a pop. For a few brief months, callous selfishness has a price.
The frustrating thing is, the red pill rockers are being played like meme-guzzling fiddles. Johnson has mishandled this crisis with a criminally cack-handed incompetence. He’s caused tens of thousands of avoidable deaths, brought on the worst death rate in the world and deepened the economic impact by failing to shut the country down in time. He surrendered control of lockdown just to ensure that Dominic Cummings gets his Brexit bonus. He’s put millions of jobs, small businesses and venues at risk and now he’s chasing the virus around the country like it’s a ******* roadrunner you can flatten with a ‘localised’ anvil. The Tories’ record on the pandemic is ripe for powerful, informed protest anthems.
Instead, Noel, Brown, Morrison and their ilk are providing Johnson with exactly the excuse he needs to reframe any coming disaster as one of our own making. Just this weekend, Matt Hancock rode the Sunday TV sofa carousel embedding the PR line that we’d be entering a second lockdown not because millions were told to go back to work, school and university, or bribed to risk their lifelong lung capacity for a half-price Wagamama, but because people like the anti-mask protestors wilfully flouted the rules.
By amplifying unsubstantiated conspiracy theories designed to distract, divide and destabilise, the red pill rockers aren’t challenging power, they’re playing into its hands, the real mind-controlled puppets in 2020’s pandemic Punch & Judy show. Oh, and if any nefarious New World Order types are reading this, I’m very much available for funding. DM me, babes.
The mask is the official symbol of the Resistance. Easier to tell who the True Believers are.
What a govt sycophant this “author” is. Does he get his copy from MI-5?
Human beings usually recognize someone wearing the mask, but facial recognition programs don't.
Was thinking the same.
the only people who have benefitted from the masks are BLM/Antifa and their puppet-masters.
funny how the PROGRESSIVE LEFT hate a maverick like Trump and love the worst career politicians like HILLARY and JOE!!!
how many people know?
20 Sept: Daily Mail: Second wave of Covid cases in Europe is not causing deaths to spike compared with the peak in spring
•Difference may be explained by countries’ increased testing in recent months
•But it could also be a sign the virus is mainly infecting younger, healthier people
•Lockdown-free Sweden still has significantly lower rates than rest of Europe
By Michael Powell
Although cases in Spain have soared to almost 15,000 a day – leading to a new lockdown in parts of Madrid – the number of deaths remains relatively low compared with the peak in spring.
There were 240 deaths in Spain on Thursday – much lower than the 929 daily deaths reached in late March when there were a recorded 9,000 cases a day...
In France, another 13,498 cases were reported yesterday. But the latest 24-hour death toll – 154 on Friday – is much lower than in mid-April when there were 1,400 deaths but 5,500 confirmed cases...
Sweden, which did not impose a lockdown, continues to have a significantly lower rate of cases and deaths from Covid-19.
On Tuesday, Sweden had its lowest number of new cases since March. In April, Covid deaths in a single day in Sweden peaked at 115. Now, some days, that figure is zero...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8751369/Second-wave-Covid-cases-Europe-not-causing-deaths-spike.html
20 Sept: Daily Mail: THIRD of UK Covid victims in July and August ‘died from OTHER causes’ - including cancer or being hit by a car - Oxford University scientists reveal
Covid victims recorded by the ONS may have actually died from other diseases
One in 13 deaths may not have been primarily from Covid-19, study suggests
Scientists say it is too difficult to determine if virus was the main cause of death
By IAN NOBLE
The data comes as the Government introduces its new Rule of Six measures to combat the further spread of the disease...
CHART CAPTION:
The real Covid deaths: How 238 of the 796 Covid victims recorded in July actually died from other causes, including cancer or being killed by cars, while 93 of the 312 Covid victims recorded in August are now believed to have not been killed by the virus, analysis by the Office for National Statistics has shown...
Figures revealed in The Telegraph state that approximately one in 13 people who were said to have died from coronavirus during the whole pandemic did not die primarily from the disease...
CHART NUMBER OF DEATHS PER DAY IN UK
The team from Oxford University is concerned that the over counting will get worse as the pandemic continues and that it will give a false representation of the true figure...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8750139/Scientists-claim-UK-covid-19-victims-July-August-died-causes.html
following video ends with anti-lockdown letter from hundreds of Belgian Doctors (remember Belgium was #1 in deaths per million until recently, when Peru shifted it to #2). they say: “medical, psychological and social costs of lockdown are disproportionately enormous compared to the limited good being done”.
note: Bolt then says do you know how many people got sick with covid yesterday? Eleven. however, eleven is just ALLEGED positive cases, nothing more.
VIDEO: 6m: 21 Sept: Sky News Australia: Andrew Bolt: ‘Terror has robbed us of judgement and fear has beaten facts’
Sky News host Andrew Bolt says “terror has robbed us from judgement” and fear has beaten facts as Victoria, with just 11 new coronavirus infections, is set to remain under the toughest lockdown in the world for weeks to come.
On Monday, Premier Andrews said it was “a great day” as Victoria recorded only 11 new coronavirus infections and two deaths overnight (ONE WOMAN IN 80s, ONE WOMAN IN 100s). “This is not just a good day, this is a great day,” the premier said.
Mr Bolt said while the deaths are tragic, “do we really lock up a millions of other people, particularly in Victoria, for 22 hours a day ... at such a human cost, at such a financial cost, to stop someone in their one-hundreds from getting the virus”.
“This does not make sense,” he said...
“To say what I’ve said since March, it doesn’t have to be like this, protect the old, trace the sick, lock up the infectious but let everybody else get back to life and to work,” he said.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6193006881001
People wh don’t want the government tracking them also benefitted.
this bunch of cr*p is what the public are being fed worldwide! “infections” has replaced “cases” - both meaningless. love the schools bit, where being outdoors or indoors is deeply worrying!
22 Sept: ABC: Associated Press: Europe adopts tougher virus restrictions as infections surge
European countries are imposing new coronavirus restrictions as the crisis deteriorates, while the U.S. closes in on 200,000 virus deaths
By DANICA KIRKA and SYLVIE CORBET, Associated Press. Corbet reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin; Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark; Karel Janicek in Prague; Aritz Parra in Madrid; Nicole Winfield in Rome; and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed to this report.
As the U.S. closed in on 200,000 coronavirus deaths Monday, the crisis deteriorated across Europe, with Britain working to draw up new restrictions, Spain clamping down again in Madrid and the Czech Republic replacing its health minister with an epidemiologist because of a surge of infections.
The push to reimpose tough measures in Europe to beat back a scourge that had seemingly been brought under control in the spring contributed to a drop on Wall Street...
In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce a round of restrictions Tuesday to slow the spread of the disease...
In France, where infections reached a record high over the weekend with more than 13,000 new cases in 24 hours, health authorities opened new testing centers in the Paris region to reduce lines and delays. Italy added Paris and other parts of France to its COVID-19 blacklist, requiring travelers from those regions to show proof of a negative test or undergo testing on arrival.
And the Norwegian capital of Oslo banned gatherings of more than 10 people in private homes after a spike in cases and strongly urged people to wear face masks when traveling on public transportation amid a strike by bus drivers that forced many commuters to take the tram.
“The situation in Oslo is serious. This development must be stopped, and we have to do it now,” Mayor Raymond Johansen said.
Police in the Spanish capital of Madrid and its surrounding towns began stopping people going in and out of working-class neighborhoods that have been partially locked down to combat Europe’s fastest coronavirus spread.
Authorities said that starting on Wednesday, an estimated 860,000 residents must be able to show that their trips out of their neighborhoods are justified for work, study or medical reasons or face fines...
The measure has been met with protests from people who think the restrictions are stigmatizing the poor...
The German city of Munich, with one of the country’s highest infection rates, will allow only up to five people or members of two households to meet, and will restrict private indoor gatherings such as birthday parties, weddings or funerals to no more than 25 people...
Elsewhere, the U.S. was on the verge of hitting 200,000 deaths, with health authorities ***deeply worried about the resumption of school and college and the onset of cold weather, which will force more people indoors***.
A widely cited model from the University of Washington predicts the U.S. death toll will double to 400,000 by the end of the year...
India (#61 DEATHS PER MILLION) recorded nearly 87,000 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours...
And in Africa, the surge in cases has been leveling off after the continent’s 54 countries joined an alliance praised as responding better than some richer countries, ***including the U.S. Over 33,000 deaths have been confirmed on the continent of 1.3 billion people...
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/europe-adopts-tougher-virus-restrictions-infections-surge-73149140
why do I still feel the lockdowns worldwide could be part of the stop Trump campaign?
unfortunately, after first four minutes, Bolt talks to the typical Sky Australia reporter, Annelise Nielsen, in Wisconsin, who is in the US covering the election. she never exposes the pathetic nature of Biden’s campaign. you would think he’s a worthy opponent. however, she ends by saying it’s remarkable how many times she’s heard - in the six States she’s visited so far - that they will be voting for Trump, because he’s not a politician:
VIDEO: 10m44s: 21 Sept: FB: Sky News Australia: Andrew Bolt: For the Left, ‘political violence is apparently fine’
Threats of violence from the Left have been amped up since the death of Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg has left a vacancy which Trump can fill to give conservatives a majority in that court... https://www.facebook.com/SkyNewsAustralia/videos/367810307586068/
If the vaccine comes with a microchip, you can count me out!
How 238 of the 796 Covid victims recorded in July actually died from other causes...
OK, someone is lying with statistics. For what reason? To get everyone on the vaccine bandwagon? So they can get a microchip implanted for no reason? In the words of Daffy, "Not this little black duck!" Daffy said that, not me!
I posted awhile back that, as batcrap crazy as the Left has become, it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility that some evil little shifty-eyed strategist in the Dem bunker looked up one day this past Spring and said, “We know Joe’s too ill to leave his house right now. If people find that out, we’re dead in the water ... So how about we arrange it so EVERYBODY can’t leave their house right now?” Shifty eyes lit up around the room ... And they and their media made it happen.
What the hell is up with Boris? He lost his balls! This is a disease that is not only preventable, but there are cures for it. What the hell is wrong with the UK?
“”Not this little black duck!” Daffy said that, not me!”
What happened to those reports that the death toll in America was closer to 9,000 than 150,000?
Ain't that the truth. It also give Antifa/BLM cover and anonymity. It all ties together with a big fat ribbon.
They were very inconvenient and had to disappear. That’s why cancer deaths and auto fatalities had to be substituted. I still ask everyone I know how many people they personally know who came down with the disease. Nobody knew more than one if they even knew that many. Cures were also deemed to be inconvenient.
What’s really fun is to wear one of those neck gaiters over your head, dark sunglasses and a hoodie and start walking through Wal Mart.
There are treatments. Therapies. Even Argentina has been using ibuprofen combined with vitamins and argued that it is more effective than vitamins combined with HCQ.
Mask gift packs are now available. I’m waiting for the Mask of the Month club.
Your basic, blue kn95 mask is how I roll. And ONLY where it is required. Not in the parking lot as I walk to and from the car.
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