Veteran US journalist, John Rappaport, believes that we are now living in phase one of a lockdown civilisation. Phase two will see a “new planetary system of command and control” to deal with future pandemics - as well people. “Human behavior must be modified”. This modification will be in line with the attitude of the technocrats, who view life as a “system”. People are just “cogs in a machine” to them.

There will be wall to wall surveillance, and a universal guaranteed income for the plebs who are obedient to state directives. Nano devices could be implanted in people for tracking purposes. Shades of China’s social credit system!

Strong democracies should be able to resist this sort of dictatorship, people will say. But with the attitudes of the young, certainly, and most of their parents who never taught or bothered to talk to them about freedom, politics, and how democracy was earned, democracy might not be strong enough to resist.

Currently, the UK is stampeding into full-blown technocratic tyranny and dystopia. Total lockdowns are being imposed, but the China virus continues to spread despite the lockdowns. The governments blames the population for not being obedient enough to their diktats, demanding that everyone act as though they already had China virus.

In, America, people are fleeing the lockdown areas for the freedoms of South Dakota, South Carolina and Oregon. Big Tech is censoring dissent; the MSM is blaming the China virus for everything from drug addiction and alcoholism to female unemployment and murder, when it is the lockdowns that are causing these problems.

Primal fear rules. People think that everyone else is trying to infect them, and they put up with the attacks on their rights in the belief that it is for their own good.

Interesting times ttbn-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okun's_law

"for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate, a country's GDP will be roughly an additional 2% lower than its potential GDP"

Okun's Law in 1962 linked economic growth with labour but in 2021 due to massive consumer based production systems is labour really still coupled to production. Many believe that the systems and processes are now more important than the people. The peoples only role in the current system is as impotent consumers.

It's a reminder of what the Unibomber said- technology enslaves in the name of freedom- not that he has a monopoly on truth.

A solution perhaps is to become more self sufficient.

Freedom is not free

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/21/freedom-is-not-free-it-always-comes-with-a-cost/

http://www.thememorialdaytribute.com/memorial-day-poems/freedom-is-not-free.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_isn't_free

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/wahitchcock.htm

The problem is the powerful don't need the peoples brains- but they need their consumption- this perhaps makes the old system obselete- but what should the new system be. I can say one thing- it's not communism or socialism or globalism. For me it's a return to a traditional principles that our grandparents knew.

There are powerful people that have a vested interest in globalism.

Dear CM,

You write;"I can say one thing- it's not communism or socialism or globalism."

43% of farm income in the US this year came in the form of subsidies making it very hard for Australian farmers to compete.

Happy for you to be against globalists but don't be exposing free market ideas when to survive in that kind of world government handouts become the norm and that is socialism writ large.

I recall several private businesses failing in remote communities because the local Councils were so heavily backed by Govt. The private sector could simply not compete !

Steele Redux said-

Dear CM, You write;"I can say one thing- it's not communism or socialism or globalism." 43% of farm income in the US this year came in the form of subsidies making it very hard for Australian farmers to compete. Happy for you to be against globalists but don't be exposing free market ideas when to survive in that kind of world government handouts become the norm and that is socialism writ large.

Answer-

Yes free markets are a tool in the toolbox- but it needs to be used in the right context- I am espousing a more traditional approach over time- society is a hierarchy- there are natural features of the hierarchy that have developed over tens of millions of years of natural selection/ animal group behavior/ and more recently human communities - in the last one hundred years universalism, globalism, communism, capitalism believe in a borderless world where everyone are interchangeable parts in a global Taylorism machine without culture or colour. Globalism believes in top down control- traditional cultures were created from the bottom up- this is not socialism- it is family.

Why does Australia need to grow farm produce for the US market when it doesn't want it- they have a right to their own sovereignty. We can produce things for those that want it or preserve it as long term food supplies. We need to produce things that people need. I will be interested to hear what the Aussie farmers have to say.

Many use a macro economic approach to solve micro economic issues- an excavator for a pot plant.

Google has removed an app - reportedly popular with conservatives - from the Google Play store. The app, 'Parler', allows its users to exercise freedom of speech. Big Tech gets bolder all the time knowing that there isn't a politician alive, now that Trump has gone, with the guts to call them out. President Biden will be a mere lackey to Big Tech.

Further to that, I have just downloaded the app, installed it, then uninstalled it. Perhaps things are different here.

But, to use this app, you have to enter your name, your email, your birthdate, your sex (they call if 'gender' - all very PC) and your location.

Ttbn,

Wow. To the deranged mind, there are always enemies. If not other ethnic groups, other countries, other political parties, then it might as well be 'Big Tech'.

What if ethnic groups, countries, political parties, etc are all simply trying to do the best they can, without all that much concern - or animus - positive OR negative - about anybody or anything else ?

As a progressive conservative, who believes that well-established institutions may well be the bedrock of our society and may well need to be retained until something markedly better comes along, I'm reasonably happy with the current institutions of our society. Some need improvement but I do think we need to be careful about junking any of them.

Otherwise we risk becoming a totalitarian society, either a 'communist' society on the left or a fascist society on the right. I'm very concerned about the nihilism of both left and right, that impatient tendency to want to junk the lot, clear the slate and start again from the ground up. That has never worked, Ttbn, and never will.

Joe

I consider that very unlikely for one very simple reason: it's extremely rare for deadly diseases to be contagious while asymptomatic. That's why SARS and MERS didn't become pandemics.

People will accept behaviour modification to deal with tangible threats, but not mere potential threats.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Steele
>43% of farm income in the US this year came in the form of subsidies
Source?
Are you sure you've not confused it with the (more credible) claim that US net farm income rose 43% this year because of the subsidies?

Well, whatever the possible political agenda, lockdowns seem to be achieving their claimed aims in Australia.

Is Mise,

Lockdowns in Australia and the US compared:

Australia: around 800 Covid deaths;

the US: 370,000 Covid deaths.

Easily 400,000 Covid deaths in the US by the time of President Biden's inauguration, while Trumpf neglects his presidential duties. Perhaps a million deaths in the US by the end of the year before dumb-arses realise that the virus ISN'T a hoax AND that the vaccine may work - of course, it may come a bit late for them. What a shame, never mind.

Your point ?

Joe

The World will turn anti Democrat after this !

Foul-Mouth,

You especially would know what they say in Beijing: "If we've developed a virus like that then we might as well let them have!"

Misop,

So you DO know what they're saying in Peking ? You ARE a Chinese agent ?

Joe

Joe,

My point is that lockdowns appear to work especially when they are initiated with speed and decision.

The fact that the population of the US is more than 13 more than ours (331 million to 25 million) might have something to do with the difference in death figures.

Compare Australia with Taiwan - same population, no lockdowns, spitting distance from China - 7 deaths.

The question really is: why is Australia's death rate 114 times higher than Taiwan's?

Hi IsMise,

Yes, indeed: early and hard lockdowns, say for a month, with rigorous contact-tracing, use of masks, social distance and no unnecessary travel, seem to have been what worked. Clearly, the opposite in the US HASN'T worked all that well.

I suppose we can juxtapose, say, Sweden's experience with those of the other Scandinavian countries - vastly better results from them rather than from Sweden.

Or our experience compared with that of the US: 800-odd rather compared with nearly 400,000 - no deaths for months now here, compared with 4000 each day under Trumpf's watch.

Maybe the ultimate lesson will be (it hasn't been really applied yet in many countries) that they have to lock down hard, sooner or later, and the sooner the better. So the UK farts around, France too, many other countries, anything to dodge the need to lock down. And deaths there increase rapidly.

Viruses will arise periodically. So lockdowns will be needed promptly, no BS excuses. Sure, bail out businesses. But clamp down early and hard, and the light at the end of the tunnel will come that much sooner.

Joe

Dear Aiden,

You are correct. Bloomberg has direct government aid accounted for nearly 40% of farm income this year. I conflated the two.

Dear Canem Malum,

But most socialist countries have free markets in the tool box which they use in the right context just as the US is doing.

You wrote; "Why does Australia need to grow farm produce for the US market when it doesn't want it- they have a right to their own sovereignty. We can produce things for those that want it or preserve it as long term food supplies."

But the US is the world's largest agricultural exporter doubling amount the next closest. Australia doesn't even get in the top 10. We are battling a country which subsidises nearly 40% of its farmers income. These are socialist handouts and make it very hard for Australian farmers to compete in world markets.

I noted with approval, that police in Brisbane, enforcing the mask-wearing, handed out masks to people who didn't have one; now that is real policing.
There were no reports of anyone refusing the freebie.

Whilst on the subject of free masks, last year the Korean Govt. gave each Korean War Veteran 10 free masks; masks that were top quality and in individually sealed packets.

why is Australia's death rate 114 times higher than Taiwan's?
ttbn,
The Taiwanese have always been a smarter lot, t'has got to do with having culture.

Individual,

Yes, why does the US have fifty thousand times as many deaths from Covid-19 than Taiwan ? 50,000 ? Good question, Individual.

Because they promptly put a hard lock-down in place. They took the virus seriously. They didn't muck around with it, joking that all anybody had to do was to drink some disinfectant and shine a strong light up their arses. Ho ho, yuk yuk, so funny.

So, while the US has around four thousand deaths each day currently, Taiwan has had more sense from the beginning, so nobody has died from the virus for nearly a year.

Lockdowns work. And every idiot country will, sooner or later, have to apply a strong lock-down, if they haven't already.

Joe

loudmouth2,
There simply is no comparison between the Taiwanese Demographic & that of the USA & Australia.
It invariably comes down to discipline & the lack thereof. Culture means discipline !

Foul-Mouth,

You didn't mention that access by PRC Chinese into Taiwan would have been minimal compared to their entry into the US.

So the likelihood of infected Chinese getting into Taiwan would have been much lower than getting into the US, which means far less chance of Taiwanese getting infected by travellers from China.

In other words, the China-Taiwan political relationship acted as a barrier to the transmission of Covid-19 from the PRC to Taiwan which protected the Taiwanese from being infected by people from the PRC whereas infected Chinese were allowed to enter the US in large numbers which then spread rapidly across America.

People need to keep in mind that what you are telling us is what your bosses in Beijing have instructed you to say. All we will ever get from you is the version Beijing wants people to hear.

Opinion,

For a good laugh read your last post.

Is Mise,

I don't see anything funny about Foul-Mouth being in the pocket of the Chinese.

Maybe you should pay him a visit in Adelaide. I'm sure you will both appreciate the encounter (especially when you find out what he's got lined up for you.)

Interesting point Steele Redux- I'll get back to you on it.

We all seem happy with the lockdowns being needed.
Well that has nor escaped the notice of the radical Global Warming mob.
When the covirus problem subsides with the vaccines they intend to
drive the anti CO2 campaign with similar lockdowns.
Like co2 is up this week no driving private cars next week or a police fine.
They have seen how meekly we have accepted the covirus restrictions
and intend to use them as a model to reduce co2.
You think it is a joke, oh no, they are deadly serious.
Keeping quiet about it now but watch this space.

I always liked John Rappaport, thought he always had intelligent things to share.

Personally I'd prefer it if they didn't lock us down, but instead locked all foreigners and returned travellers out until 2024, and we went and did our own fruit-picking and got back to basics instead.

The aim is a permanent state of laws being changed and implemented upon the people in a moments notice, and they call it 'Covid normal'.

Well stuff covid normal.
We almost had it beat, but some idiot declared that people who catch planes and travel to foreign lands are more important than those who don't.

Thanks for ruining my country jetsetters.

Google has removed an app - reportedly popular with conservatives - from the Google Play store. The app, 'Parler', allows its users to exercise freedom of speech. Big Tech gets bolder all the time knowing that there isn't a politician alive, now that Trump has gone, with the guts to call them out. President Biden will be a mere lackey to Big Tech.

I think George Webb lasted about a week on Parlor before they shut him down.

Armchair Critic,

And apparently the app was also allowing Trump to promote acts of violence.

There has been an increase in public and 'expert' opposition to lockdowns and border closures in the last few days, as our moronic political class continues allowing overseas entrants to arrive here. The China virus has revealed what absolute tits our political classes are: they are no further advanced in dealing with emergencies than they were 430 years ago with the Black Death.

ttbn,

You just said ". . . . . 430 years ago with the Black Death."

2021 - 1347 = 674 years ago.

Where on Earth did you study history? At Wattasmatta U?

Big Tech has colluded to annihilate Twitter competitor Parler because it encroached into hallowed Technocrat ground. Google and Apple kicked the Parler App out of their respective App stores and Amazon severed server/data contracts. This all happened within days of each other.

ttbn,

I'm only joking.

I know you have never studied history and know that you have never graduated from a university, even Wattsamatta U.

ttbn,

Parler was a hotbed of bigoted posts incitement etc.

However, I seem to remember Google & Co bleating 'freedom of speech' and that they were not responsible for paedophiles using their facilities and that...blah...blah.

Hypocrites.

Is Mise,

And Twitter, Facebook etc. are not?

There's a big difference between telling someone your views and telling someone to commit a violent action.

Our national intellectual giant Michael McCormack MP seems to think they are one and the same thing.

McCormack managed to make it all the way through secondary school and stands today as one of Australia's greatest high school graduates.

McCormack is now a role model for anyone who thinks that going to university is a waste of time.

Mozilla has also joined the enemies of free speech. They will also reveal networks of people guilty of "Wrongthink" and name advertisers who support them

ttbn,

Well at least dear old Mr Opinion will be safe from being censored.

Though I can't say as much for the rest of you.

Ttbn,

I'm inclined to go with you: let Trumpf make the most inciteful and criminal exhortations to his neo-fascist followers, so that State and municipal legal authorities can prepare charges against him, to be laid once he is just an ordinary citizen next week. Don't waste time 'impeaching' the mongrel. Just flush him down the sewer of history and be done with it.

Thanks for the opportunity :)

Joe

Foul-Mouth,

Finally you wrote something worthwhile reading.

Just don't ask us to visit you in Adelaide to do you know what in order for us to show our appreciation.

Infectious diseases professional - not a public servant pulling ignorant politicians strings - Professor Peter Collignon, says that the China virus will still be with us at least until the end of the year. We will still be told to isolate, stay away from other people and wear masks. He didn't say anything about draconian measures not making much difference anyway, nor about about the 'new strain' that 'experts' tell us is fifty percent more transferable, and the PM says is seventy percent more infectious to scare us more and keep us in line; nor the fact that people are not listening anymore to the bastards

You know how you say to yourself sometimes "Some people just look dumb."?

That's how I get when I see Michael McCormack MP.

ttbn,

"And Twitter, Facebook etc. are not?"

All in the same cesspit.

Trump stills has some supporters. Twitter shares have dropped by 10% or $3.2 billion; Facebook down by 4%, and Google 2%.

ttbn,
> Mozilla has also joined the enemies of free speech.
No it hasn't.

>They will also reveal networks of people guilty of "Wrongthink" and name advertisers who support them
They do not have the power to do that. The Mozilla CEO has merely called for more transparency to make it harder to fool people. See:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2021/01/mozilla-calls-for-sites-to-go-beyond-just-deplatforming-bigots/

So now, ttbn, I suspect your level of outrage at current events is preventing you from thinking about them clearly, so I have some questions for you regarding events four and a bit years ago:
Do you thing spreading lies to convince the public that Hillary Clinton was corrupt was right or good?
Do you think such behaviour should be protected as free speech?
Do you think advertisers should benefit from supporting that misinformation?

Hey Mr Opinion

"And apparently the app was also allowing Trump to promote acts of violence."

No, actually what Parler is, is a platform for free speech when all the other platforms have already outlawed free speech or trained everybody to act in a certain way.

I never joined it, but I know what they purported themselves to be and I know how YouTube and other social networks have pushed people though bans and demontisation to create their own platforms.

You see when content creators are banned from youtube, eventually they're all going to get together and create their own place.

On the one side you're going to get every rejected misfit go there;
And you're also going to get some really good content creators as well.

On the other side because it's a platform for free speech you're going to get people from the opposing side deliberately join and post things that will get the website banned.

Like if the site is a haven for Pro-Trump points of view and someone hates Trump and thinks the website harbors people who have views different to their own and should be shut down, they can just join and post pedophilia, racist attacks, incitement of violence etc, and that would be cause for the site to be banned from Google play.

The whole worlds full of crap totally and it's easily manipulated.

Always selling some bs narrative.
Because you lot have been trained to cling to some bs mistruth.

Promoting acts of violence...

Just 5mins ago read this:

https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=21270&page=0

"The likes of Charlie Perkins, Adam Goods and Stan Grant, the US Civil Rights Movement, followed by the Black Lives Matter movement now, may have helped us to wake up and be counted!"

If THOSE movements involved violence, then that's perfectly fine and justified.
Yay!! Lets go run around screaming 'Kill Whitey!', bash people and smash, loot and burn everything.
Those acts of violence, they're fine fight, they all get the nod of approval, antifa etc.

It's all bs.

The other side condones whatever violence suits them, even right here on this forum.

Do you actually read the things I post?
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=21264#375251
Why do you think I wrote that?

What happens when the people who support the constitution of their nation, see it being torn up?
i.e. No more free speech, No right to firearms, No due process, on trial by an elected mob.
- By Google, Facebook and Twitter who themselves have far more reach and power than any President.
If you're live in the country you have no rights.
If you're foreign immigrant pushing your own agenda against the rights of sovereign citizens you have all the rights.

Globalism by big business, shaping the world against the interests of all the citizens,
By using immigrants to deliberately change the people, and then change the government.

What happens is that those people will use those rights afforded TO THEM in such important national documents such as Declaration of Independence to try and stop what they see as an infringement of their rights from a tyrannical government.

So lesson one, Trumps not actually doing anything wrong.
It your news that spoon feds you bs that has your brain tied in knots.
There's a precedent / kind of provision in history for Americans to stand against tyrannical and oppressive rule, and they have rights afforded to them to prevent EXACTLY what is happening to them.

It's ok to rig democracy for global agendas right?
Violence is ok when it suits right?

The global agenda side will stoop to nothing.
They just do whatever the hell they want, and use the media to spin it however they want later.

Like we're all mindless jellyfish, like you.

International democracy and globalism imposed on nation states.
There's no such thing as democracy when one side of every two party system supports immigrants.

And so the guiding establishment that dictates all these other social agendas decides that a platform like Parler can't be allowed to stand.

Should I be, like surprised?

Voting for open borders policies means more getting more voters to vote for more open border policies.
That's how dumb the world actually is.

Democratic parties gain power from co-opting minority groups.
- But they don't even care about the minority groups, they just pretend to.

- The whole worlds stuffed, what else is new -

If someone had've bet me $50 20 years ago that all the stuff we'd see today was going to happen, I'd say no way will we ban plastic bags and straws, celebrate and support every shade of weird as normal, and normal people as weird. That all this crap would happen...

Not only would I have taken that bet, Id've made it $100, and I would've lost.

Thanks Armchair Critic- someone had to say it.

Michael McCormack MP sounds like he is standing up for the right things not sure why Mr Opinion has a problem with him- I'm sure he has his reasons- McCormack is supporting Trump and Trump is the only one trying to restrict US immigration from what I can see. Can't say that I know everything about this issue though.