Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Don't Look Down

Teetering Over Abyss,

Alexander Aston, via The Automatic Earth:
The virus is a catalyst, something beyond our agency to control which is triggering cascading changes in a system that has been rotting for some time. As an archaeologist, if I found evidence of intensive and intersecting energetic, ecological and economic disruptions in society, what I would expect to find at the end of those stratigraphic layers is a new cultural phase.
That is, I would expect a very different kind of society and culture, albeit causally linked, from that which preceded it. Another way to frame this is that periods of systemic collapse and reorganisation generate new forms of social psychology, new narratives, beliefs and practices. A new epoch is here, and we will all quickly learn that we are very different kinds of people than we thought we were. Soon, things will start looking radically different from what we have known to be the order of things. States, institutions, practices and beliefs that once seemed permanent fixtures of our world will be swept away.
This may seem extreme, the momentum of history has not fully tipped us over the edge yet, which allows psychological space for defaulting to normalcy bias. The problem is that causality is not linear, and it does operate at singular scales. What we are experiencing has been building for decades, but the synergy of these causal processes, their true emergent effects are about to become fully apparent. The virus is a spark, not the cause, and it is breaking down the last reinforcing bonds holding the global system together. If the ruling class had not been debasing our societies and parasitizing their citizenries for decades, our social resiliency to this pandemic would be much higher. High energy production costs, low demand, and low consumption have been masked by systemic financial fraud.


As the machine breaks, it has to be kept limping along, before it can recreate itself. 
Economy , "political economy", is our life support machine. 
Checks-in-the-mail time, soon. Professor Steve Keen:
Frances Coppola makes the case for this in the general case of a financial crisis in her book People's Quantitative Easing (Coppola 2019). This power could be used now to stop a financial crisis happening in the first place.
The payment should be per capita—as it has been in the country that has already done this because of the crisis, Hong Kong. The payment there is HK$10,000, or roughly US$2,000. It does not need to be financed by the Treasury or by taxation: neither were used by the USA to support its $1 trillion dollars per year Quantitative Easing program. There will be no "debt burden for future generations".


I couldn't keep watching the Biden gaffe clips. Too many...
"Running Joe Biden for president is like making your dog wear a dress," Carlson deadpanned. "It may make for an amusing Instagram post, but it's wrong. You can see the confusion in the dog's eyes." ...
 "Today, both Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar endorsed Biden. So did former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Beto O'Rourke," Carlson said. "These are party people doing the bidding of their corporate masters. There's nothing warm or sentimental about it. They're pushing a defective product on consumers and they know it. They're selling lawn darts."
Carlson believes the threat from Sanders is about "institutional control."
"The Biden campaign isn't about ideas, much less ideals. The Democratic establishment's only concern is institutional control," Carlson said. "That's where all of their power comes from. From holding together and running things. If the Democratic coalition breaks down, they are by definition powerless."


Tulsi Gabbard has a dlegate? No problem. We'll change the debate rules to keep her invisible.
 So it’s unsurprising that the DNC felt comfortable striding forward and openly announcing a change in the debate threshold literally the very moment Gabbard crossed it. These people understand narrative control, and they know full well that they have secured enough of it on the Tulsi Problem that they’ll be able to brazenly rig her right off the stage without suffering any meaningful consequences.
 The establishment narrative warfare against Gabbard’s campaign dwarfs anything we’ve seen against Sanders, and the loathing and dismissal they’ve been able to generate have severely hamstrung her run. It turns out that a presidential candidate can get away with talking about economic justice and plutocracy when it comes to domestic policy, and some light dissent on matters of foreign policy will be tolerated, but aggressively attacking the heart of the actual bipartisan foreign policy consensus will get you shut down, smeared and shunned like nothing else. This is partly because US presidents have a lot more authority over foreign affairs than domestic, and it’s also because endless war is the glue which holds the empire together.

 Chinese recommendations on personally mitigating the effects of n-CoV-19 once diagnosed:
Fever Good, Tylenol Bad.
Take antiviral (chloroquine and others, when fever starts, not when pneumonia makes it hard to breathe. You could precipitate cytokine storm and shut down heart and lungs by waiting until then.
Special recommendations about re-infecting your lungs from your nose are included. How to breathe and cough at different stages of disease are addressed.
Not addressed is taking vitamin-D. Take 5000 units per day, unless you have not been taking any, in which case take 10,000 units per day for a month (or longer).

Deaths from this virus are highly stratified and impacted by age, medical problems, cold weather, highly infectios groups in tight spaces, and the sicker you get, the more likely you are to die. Kids basically don't die from it, but may spread it without seeming ill. South Korea is going to be the best-case-scenario. Iran may be worst-case-scenario.
World health officials said Tuesday the mortality rate for COVID-19 is 3.4% globally, higher than previous estimates of about 2%.  

​Iran frees 54,000 prisoners AFTER virus swamps crowded prisons. (It's ok, pretty few "confirmed-cases")

The Chinese viral lab that publicly released the n-CoV-2019 genetic sequence without prior approval in early January, was promptly shut down without explanation, and remains shut, hampering research. (Fear loss of narrative control?)

Angela Merkel complains that Turkey's Erdogan is slamming Greece and Europe with a human weapon of war refugees. (Erdogan has got to get these folks out of his country before they all get fevers and pneumonia, doesn't he?)

Not Sick Yet 

2 comments:

  1. John

    Truly appreciate your blog and all the work you and your partner do for your local community. I live in remote NE corner of WA state next to Canadian border.

    My wife and I are both over 60, have chronic diseases, and are concerned about coronavirus (CV). We appreciate the recommendations you have made, especially taking large doses of vitamin D-3 to boost our immune systems.

    I am confused/troubled by CDC response so far and have questions.

    1. If I generate cold or flu-like symptoms, etc. and suspect I may have CV symptoms, I could go to my local hospital to be tested. Yet as of now, I would not be tested unless there was definitive proof that I had come into contact with a person who exhibited CV symnptoms and that person was officially acknowledged by CDC to be contagious (i.e has traveled to China, etc.)

    2. You recommended that Chloraquine Phosphate be taken once a person is diagnosed with CV. You stated that a person must obtain a prescription from a doctor to purchase this medication.

    Does that mean I must have the CV symptoms and be in the hospital before the
    Doctor could prescribe these meds?

    What if a shortage of such meds develops and they are unavailable?

    It would seem that I would have to convince my doctor that I am more likely to possibly contract CV, and therefore I need to purchase Chloraquine ASAP.

    I would appreciate any thoughts you have on this matter. My wife and I are taking the following supplements (gleaned from TAE comments) to improve our immune systems:

    AntiViral support

    Garlic
    horseradish
    oregano oil
    lomatium dissectum
    apple cider vinegar
    olive leaf
    elderberry

    Immune System Support

    Echinacea seed and root
    Astragalus
    Cordyceps mushrooms
    Cheaga powder

    Thanks again for your tireless efforts to improve community health and political awareness while maintaining your Buddha nature. We have a small local sangha and are inspired by your actions.

    Cleve

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Cleve,

    Supplements look reasonable. Eat fresh vegetables. You may have a garden, but it's colder up there, too.
    Testing is in flux. Commercial companies have just been given the go-ahead. Stay tuned. There will not be rapid tests like for flu and strep.
    Stay out of circulation and stay outside as much as possible, when in public. Wear disposable gloves and change often when out shopping. Don't wear them back to the car. It sounds wacky, but it's useful for this.
    Getting tested when you are coughing AND have a fever, as soon as you have a fever, is probably the best course. Go get test and go back home. Await result.
    If result is positive and you are not short of breath and tachycardic, take antiviral at home and monitor pulse oximetry, heart rate and symptoms at home.
    Chloroquine is almost unobtainium now. Wholesalers are telling pharmacies it is "back ordered".
    I hope there will be an adequate production increase, but all of this is very secretive now.
    Chloroquine is an ordinary travel medicine for some malaria zones. Any doctor can prescribe it, but calling pharmacies about availability is the big work. A very few might have a few pills on the shelf. I know. I made lots of calls to try to get doses in the hands of at-risk family members, including my wife, who has asthma.
    I'm glad you have all 3 jewels. Sangha is so good.
    Peace, Brother.

    ReplyDelete