We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

No one interest group could have achieved this on its own. It required a perfect storm. It doesn’t have to be a conspiracy much less a specific plot. It only requires that the right confluence of events present themselves in a way that prompts action and cooperation.

Jeffrey Tucker writing about Who Wanted Pandemic Lockdowns?

10 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Snorri Godhi

    While i tend to agree with the quote, i have also read the article (quickly) and disagree with Jeffrey Tucker about the incentives of the groups that he reviews.

    Without going into details, i’d like to point out one obvious flaw: Tucker does not mention that everybody who later pressed for lockdowns, started off by minimizing the threat, even characterizing it as an irrational panic. That goes for the ChiComs and the WHO, the US media, Boris & Sadiq, Cuomo & DeBlasio. No doubt one could think of other names.

    Why “”libertarians”” are letting this lowlife get away with it, is beyond me.

  • George Atkisson

    The initial explosion of COVID in Northern Italy from the infected Chinese workers returning from their traditional Lunar New Year celebrations in Wuhan shocked the world. China deliberately facilitated this by allowing international flights to continue uninterrupted, even as they shut down all domestic flights in and out of that region. The initial lockdown response was then seized upon throughout the West as the proper initial response, lacking any true knowledge of the virus. The Davoisie and their allies saw lockdowns as just the tool they needed to vastly expand governmental power. The Media happily joined in to boost their rating with 24/7 fear porn. In the US, the suggested 2 week lockdown rapidly was extended and expanded as the ideal tool to destroy the booming economy that would otherwise have guaranteed Trump a landslide re-election victory. It was also quickly realized that extending the lockdowns past November 4 could be used to justify a massive increase in mail-in ballots to assist in voting fraud. The Deep State and its allies were already planning to keep Trump from 4 more years and were actively looking for anything to make that happen. With the active support of broadcast and social media, they made it happen.

  • bobby b

    There’s a lot of money and power concentrated in the 70+ age group – the group that felt the most at risk from this virus. Heck, look at the average age of our national political classes.

    I think we all got locked down at their behest. If this same group faced a similar statistical risk from fentanyl (for example), I bet we’d be attacking that problem with sweeping social change also.

  • Paul Marks

    No bobby b – this was not from below Sir. The people who ordered the lockdowns, for example Governor Cuomo in New York, could not give a damn about the “70+ age group”, indeed they pushed to INCREASE the deaths of this group, for example by ORDERING Nursing Homes to accept infected people and then locking them down (they knew what would happen – they were counting-on-it).

    Did governments and media tell people to increase their Vitamin D? No they did not – because they would have reduced the development of the disease by about 50%. Did governments and media tell people about the Early Treatments that would have reduced hospitalisations and deaths by 80% – no they SMEARED Early Treatment. They smeared and smeared and smeared – desperate to PREVENT people seeking Early Treatment (and thus saving their lives).

    As for the “lockdowns” – this was wargammed by various international organisations (government and corporate) in 2019.

    In 2019 bobby b – 2019. Before Covid 19 was generally known.

    The difficulty that most people (including yourself Sir) have is that they can not grasp the level of human evil. Because most people, whilst (of course) sinners, are basically O.K. – basically good people.

    But there are some people bobby b who are not basically O.K. – they are bad, bad-to-the-bone and they do terrible things. And these people are very powerful.

    I am not powerful (I am nothing) – but I have no problem understanding someone like Klaus Schwab at all. It is normal people I find hard to understand.

    Of course someone like Klaus Schwab (or the rest of the Legion) do not say to themselves “I am evil” – they believe they are doing hard-but-necessary things.

    “Stakeholder Capitalism” (the Corporate State – “Fascism” to use a harsh word, “Sustainable Development” or “Technocracy” sounds nicer), must, they believe, be established. A couple of million dead people is very unfortunate – but if it “must-be-done” it must be done.

    The-end-justifies-the-means – to them. The end being the wonderful Collectivist world that the various Corporate and governmental bodies aim to create (ask Disney or Mark Cuban about it – it is going to be wonderful, but the ignorant peasants do not understand, so it must be FORCED upon them, Agenda 2030 once Agenda 21 or “Sustainable Development”).

    And, deep down (although I doubt they admit this to themselves) they ENJOY it. Both the power – and the human suffering.

    In 2020 they inflicted vast casualties – most of those people could have been saved.

    And they also rigged the Presidential election – indeed they (essentially) boast of their “Shadow Campaign”.

    They will not be punished – on the contrary, they will punish anyone who defies them.

  • Paul Marks

    As for the virus itself – it was a natural virus, although it may have been tweaked a bit in the Wuhan research establishment it escaped (or was deliberately released) from.

    That research was funded by Dr Fauci’s agency – via a Corporation that outsourced the work to the Chinese research establishment.

    Will Dr Fauci be punished?

    No he will NOT.

  • jmc

    @George Atkisson

    You got the sequence pretty much correct. The missing bit was the WHO etc collaborating with the Chinese coverup of the SARs CoV 1 outbreak in 2003 and knowingly disseminating completely misleading information about just how much of a health risk there really was. Not a lot really.

    The Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) for SARs CoV 1 was actually probably around 0.2% not the 2%+ published by the WHO etc after 2003. The Chinese refused to do any follow up large scale serological studies which would have not only shown the true IFR but just how widespread the official Chinese coverup had been in 2003. All the international public health official would have know this. There are all guilty.

    So what we have is a pandemic of something that has the same kind of mortality rates as the other human corona-viruses which account for 15%/20% of common colds and kill about 10% of people admitted to hospital with serious respiratory infections. The only difference between this and Swine Flu (H1N1) in 2009 is that SARs Cov 2 pretty much only kills people over 60 whereas Swine Flu left that demographic almost untouched. Unlike previous Flu epidemics.

    If you want a date for when the Chinese government first knew there was a serious problem in Wuhan then April 2019 looks like the date. Thats when Dr Jiang Yanyong was arrested. The doctor who blew the Chinese government coverup of SARs back in 2003. Because that how dictatorships operate, we have a big problem, who caused us political problems last time we had a problem like this, arrest them immediately.

  • Jim

    “There’s a lot of money and power concentrated in the 70+ age group – the group that felt the most at risk from this virus. Heck, look at the average age of our national political classes.”

    Its not OAPs who have the political power to force a lockdown, that lies in the hands of the myriad of 50-65 year olds who form the basis of government, both political and administrative in the UK at least and probably elsewhere too. Its the 50-65 year olds who control public life who sh*t themselves at the thought of CV eliminating their long envisioned 25+ year retirement, and as a result threw everyone else (old and young) under the bus to save their own skins.

  • Paul Marks

    The Club of Rome in the 1960s was not about helping the old.

    Klaus Schwab was not old in 1971 when he wrote “Stakeholder Capitalism” – and he was not thinking about Global Warming either, as theory was not being pushed yet.

    This is not about the virus, it has never been about the virus.

    No Jim it was NOT about people wanting to “save their own skins”.

  • Paul Marks

    As for the article by J. Tucker – it is fine, as far as it goes.

    But unless someone takes the time to study, the Great Reset (Stakeholder Capitalism, Agenda 21 – Agenda 2030, Sustainable Development), they will not really know what the lockdowns are designed to achieve.

  • the other rob

    I started to type out my own analysis but… fuck it.

    Bottom line, I have taken steps that leave me confident that I will be able to smuggle a weapon plus four rounds into the re-education camp. That’s three for the guards and one for me.

    If a sufficient number of others are willing to settle for a similar rate of exchange, we may yet turn this around. Of course, I won’t be there to see it but you can’t have everything.