Final thoughts on 2022 + INDEX
Another year, mostly awful as usual, is now almost over, and so it's time to set down a few reflections on it.
Firstly, on this blog itself. In the last year, like my inspiration The Daily Sceptic, I've expanded my remit, focusing not just on the mad tyranny of the covid response but on the malignant 21st century version of communism, 'woke', to give it its most recognisable moniker (see bottom of page). Going forward, I am likely to offer up a similar subject mix, and as in 2022 I'm thinking that posts will be fairly irregular. I only try to write about things when I am really fired up, and feeling that I can add something to the conversation. I will not stray too much from the above subjects for fear of 'diluting' the original purpose of the blog.
For this post, I'll confine myself to observations about the ongoing fallout from the most disastrous, scandalous and tragic policies ever enacted in the civilised world, the 'fight' against covid. My position is largely unchanged but a little more nuanced. As new evidence has come to light, I've become more cynical about the 'vaccines'; as recently as my December 2021 post on the London protest march I was critical of the 'anti-vaxxers' – now I believe they may have been correct. Did they just happen to get lucky here? Or were they the wiser ones all along? I'm unsure.
What has been stunning to me is not only the mainstream media's reluctance to report on the dubious safety and efficacy of the 'vaccines', but a near ignoring of the Twitter files, which prove beyond doubt that voices sceptical of lockdowns, masks and the jabs were routinely suppressed and outright banned. What else do Fleet Street newspapers not tell us? A great deal, I'm beginning to think. Different people now live in totally different realities, which I can't imagine is very healthy for functioning societies.
Nearly three years on from the start of one of the darkest episodes in human history, the scars are still visible. They're certainly visible on the faces of the clueless neurotics who still wear cloth masks, but it's much deeper than that. This article on the ever-sharp Spiked lays out some of the vast collateral damage. Disturbing thoughts about the response continue to hit me at random, because I still can't believe they did what they did. I might wake in the night to be suddenly struck by the stupidity and cruelty of the restrictions – the memories flash afresh to hold and horrify, as Larkin might have written. Covid showed that those who now run the world are desperately ignorant, inefficient and reckless. The response to a respiratory virus in the envelope of a bad seasonal flu was simply unbelievable if judged rationally; it showed that rational minds are in short supply in the corridors of power – either that or there are more sinister explanations for the bizarre actions.
Instead of "If you feel ill, stay at home" we got extreme fear-mongering, trashed civil liberties, a trashed economy, a trashed NHS, trashed education, two Easters ruined, two Christmases ruined, a pathogen that was more free to mutate, censorship, lies, hypocrisy, people given psychological damage for life, and a licence for the over-officious to snoop on neighbours.
Cast your mind back to the unhinged daily press conferences where they'd parade 'covid deaths' with zero perspective; the way, in the lead up to announcements about further restrictions, they'd feed stories to the press about how dreadful things were, to scare people and thus make them welcome the tightening of the screws; the way they'd move areas up a 'tier' because of a tiny increase in 'cases' (which weren't cases, but were dodgy PCR test results); the way that international arrivals were forced to pay £2.5K to stay in a crummy hotel for ten days after arriving in the UK, even if they'd tested negative; Gove saying everyone was equally at risk (a massive fib, which he must have known); the ads that showed people in masks 'protecting' them – which they weren't – or keeping a few feet away from each other for safety – which wouldn't work either. All lies, bought and paid for by you. Never forget. Never forgive.
Lockdowns gave those in power a rush akin to that of sexual arousal. Originally copied from communist China in a fog of confusion and bad information, they quickly turned into a power grab by government and a money grab by big tech and big pharma. Lockdowns caused an astonishing 100 million cancer screenings to be missed in Europe alone. They threw ten million people in the Third World into extreme poverty (but, hey, it's okay, because they didn't stop YouTube influencers from working). Yet pre-Musk Twitter closed down an estimated 11,000 accounts warning about these likely consequences. If conjecture is wildly inaccurate you don't need it to be censored. If a drug is very effective against a terrible disease you don't need it to be mandated. You could make a good case for the likes of Anthony Fauci, Jeremy Farrar, Francis Collins and many others who pulled the global lockdown strings to face charges of large-scale manslaughter.
It's the sheer injustice of what they did that sticks in the craw. So much of what was done was clearly WRONG – the ventilators, the over-sensitive PCR tests, the useless social distancing, the useless masks, the claim that people with no symptoms were the main spreaders, the reliance on new, experimental mRNA technology for the 'vaccines', the demonisation of drugs that did work, healthy people paid to stay at home, the mass censorship... The whole thing stinks to high heaven. And why did the G20 recently approve the idea of digital vaccine passports?
Britain was made far less kind (you couldn't comfort a distraught friend face to face, even if both physically robust); less productive (how many millions of working age people are now on benefits because they were mentally and physically hammered by the restrictions?); less trusting (the lies started with 'three weeks to flatten the curve' and only got worse); and more on edge, permanently (because you suspect they could suspend your rights again any time they like). We became iller, unhappier and poorer because of lockdowns. As you now struggle with your bills, think back to that grinning fool Sunak with a pizza in each hand at some restaurant taking part in his inane Eat Out To Raise Taxes scheme.
And yet so many people still think: lockdowns were necessary until a vaccine came along to set us free. This line of thinking is so incredibly wrong it is mind-blowing. But the past three years have taught me that many just don't think – even the clever ones. Some don't want to think, some can't be bothered to, some aren't even capable of thinking. It's a terrible reflection on the state of education, but it was perhaps ever thus. You almost want to grab folk by the lapels and yell in their face: "Death classed as a covid death if the patient tested positive for it in the last 28 days – what the hell was that all about?!" "A 'track and trace' system costing billions which obviously didn't work – and how could it?!" "PCR tests – where the heck did they suddenly come from and why were they used to test for this virus?!" It astounds me that more can't see that they made it up as they went along, and that the cure was immeasurably worse than the disease.
Government policies were expressly designed to spread paranoia and neuroticism. (I know one elderly lady who still refuses to leave the house – ever.) The rich and powerful have always run the world, and now they have excellent technology which enables them to do so in a more efficient, joined up fashion. Which is why the response that did so much to increase human beings' distrust of other human beings was replicated worldwide.
2020 was the year the sociopaths and psychopaths in public health and in government launched a brutal all-out assault on civil liberties, mental health and free speech, and even now do not want to stop. It's thoroughly depressing to think that so many of our future conversations with people we haven't met yet, or haven't seen for a long time, will likely mention these horror years. Although, as it is often considered bad form to talk politics with those who might not share your views, it might be thought wrong to do so with covid. Part of me hopes this; part of me hopes we never forget the immense damage done to every facet of society by the governing classes.
Here is a list of my 2022 blog posts, all clickable:
I've been banned from the Telegraph's website
Jordan Peterson, Utilita Arena Birmingham, 14 September 2022
How Doctor Who became Doctor Woke
Sight and Sound's new movie poll is a woke joke
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