Commentary
According to the U.N., lockdowns are responsible for the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of children in the Third World. The disruption from school closures is leading to devastating outcomes for children. And as
studies already show, lockdowns hardly had any effect on deaths from COVID-19, while they are surely in large part responsible for the spike in excess deaths from other causes.
Now, when the attempts at slowing or stopping the spread of the virus either through lockdowns or vaccination have failed and it has become endemic, it’s time to move on. But it’s not time to forget. For if we forget, we’re in danger of repeating this horrifying experiment.
In short, the situation is this: Information about the failure of lockdowns is slowly emerging. More and more information on the catastrophes caused by them is leaking out, even making it into the
mainstream media now. People are starting to feel on their own skin the economic consequences, and attempts to pin all that on the war in Ukraine are doomed to fail.
Even if the majority of the vaccinated may still hang on to their belief that the vaccination did something for them, the spiking excess mortality and the obvious failure of the vaccines to prevent transmission are really too clear to be denied. And now it even turns out the original claims of efficacy were based on a
falsification of data.
At the same time, most people have become complicit in the lockdown and vaccination narrative. They have repeated the mantras so often that they themselves have become
stakeholders; it is now their narrative also, which means changing opinion is difficult. It’s hard to admit having been fooled, especially when you’ve taken an active part in fooling others also. And if you’ve been active in ostracizing your unvaccinated friends and relatives, there may even be no way back for you.
Most people still believe in the narrative and consider those skeptical of the vaccines as crazy “anti-vaxxers,” and the belief in the lockdowns is based on a very strong
fallacy of intuition, which is hard to escape. Admitting that what you’ve wholeheartedly supported is not only causing misery and death all around the world, but even scarring your own children for life is probably too difficult for most people. So they close their eyes.
Before I continue, a word of caution: Almost from the very outset, I realized there was something fishy about the whole story; there was such a huge discrepancy between the facts and the narrative. In fact, I had been focusing hard on the application of critical, logical thinking in the months before, publishing a
book on the subject just before the pandemic struck. So I was in a questioning mood already.
Mostly, my predictions have proven correct, whether it’s the consequences of the lockdowns, the ineffectiveness of the vaccines, or the uselessness of masking or the lockdowns for curbing transmissions. But being right on one count doesn’t mean you have to be right on the next, and belonging to a small minority with strong views may well taint my analysis and predictions.
Anyhow, here’s what I think: I believe we’re approaching a tipping point. The facts speak for themselves, and facts have the annoying habit of becoming known; in the end, they always do. We are still in the phase of denial, we still cling to our false beliefs, and we still cannot comprehend the consequences of what was done to us: what we did to ourselves, perhaps, by succumbing to mass hypnosis as claimed by psychologist
Mattias Desmet. But this stage cannot last long; this is the quiet before the storm hits.
Most people don’t know the storm is about to hit. But those who have a questioning mind and can think clearly and critically see where we’re heading. They see how the inflation, the supply disruptions, and the shortages have been caused by lockdowns and unprecedented money printing to support them. Those who understand even a little bit about psychology can see the devastating effects of school closures and masking on children. Those who have read the reports on rising hunger and collateral deaths caused by health care disruption and isolation, and those who can read and judge medical studies and understand the data on vaccine effectiveness, know the cause.
Many of the longer-term consequences will emerge slowly. The deterioration in children’s education and the psychological scarring, those will emerge slowly, and the cause-effect relationship may not be clear to most people. Hunger and deaths in Third World countries will be ignored in the affluent West as usual, although not in the countries affected. The damage from the vaccination campaigns will become more visible as time passes, especially if the most pessimistic predictions regarding people’s health hold true. But it is the economic reality we are facing that will be the loudest wake-up call. Surging inflation is leaving people considerably worse off. Many will lose their homes, living standards will fall, and the
poorest will go hungry.
In Iceland, after the financial crash of 2008, when the local currency was devalued by half and all the country’s banks went bust, thousands lost their homes and unemployment surged. In early 2009, massive protests drove a democratically elected government out of power, and the blame was pinned on reckless bankers, admired by all a few months before, based on a fairytale of the
unfailing ingeniousness of Icelandic bankers and businessmen—and, of course, on politicians for not having seen what was in the cards.
Who will be blamed this time? Will it only be Putin? That’s unlikely, or at least that explanation will not hold for long; people will seek the culprits closer to home. The Americans, Chinese, Africans, and Indians, many of whom have barely heard of Ukraine and to whom Europe is an unimportant and decaying part of the world, how likely are they to blame a far-away warlord when at home, their politicians have not only failed to keep their promises, but have lied to them also on a massive scale?
The economic consequences will force people’s minds to question the rest. Once they’ve realized what drives the inflation and devaluation of their pensions, they’ll start questioning the vaccines, if only because of the surge in excess deaths and the adverse effects experienced by many.
Once you’ve found someone to blame for one thing, you’ll quickly pin the next one on them also, especially when they haven’t been entirely honest. You decided to believe them, even if you had a hunch what they said wasn’t true; you chose to overlook it. But now, now they’ve done this to me, I’m losing my home, I cannot put food on the table, I still have those lingering side effects ever since my vaccination, my daughter’s been depressed since the school closures, and it’s only getting worse.
This is the way it will play out. The tipping point will be the economic shock. The rest will follow suit.
But what then? Many of the key players behind the catastrophe have already started to
distance themselves from their earlier propaganda. A few, such as UK SAGE member
Mark Woolhouse, even seem to regret their actions. But many more will not. Recently, the Icelandic chief epidemiologist said in an
interview the lockdowns hadn’t been stringent enough. And he blamed those few politicians who voiced their doubts and worried about the well-being of society as a whole for undermining the solidarity behind the measures.
As if he were the emperor, and the politicians only his servants. And he is not alone. Many of those people will continue pushing the narrative even as it crumbles around them. They will be the first targets of people’s anger. Then it will be the politicians, pharmaceuticals, media, and big tech.
There will, of course, be strong pushback. There will be a scramble for alternative truths once the narrative starts crumbling, for something to keep the veil on the lies and atrocities. The push for continued masking, lockdowns, and vaccine mandates will continue for a while.
And we shouldn’t forget there are huge interests at stake here; to certain very big business sectors, lockdowns are a godsend; human interaction is a threat to them. The censorship will be ramped up even further. But despite all the power, money, and technology, the facts will emerge, and the truth will prevail in the end. It always does.
Some might say I’m too optimistic, that we are already under the control of conspiring media, big-tech, and corrupt officials, with no way out. But is it really so? Recently a U.S. attempt at handing unprecedented powers over to the World Health Organization was averted, thanks mostly to African leaders and strong public opposition. The vaccine mandates are disappearing, and what will eventually come of the still existing plans for health passes is unclear. But of course the danger is still there.
What really matters is how we react as the narrative crumbles. Will we just shrug and move on with our daily lives, not caring about the threat to our freedom and humanity? Or will we face the consequences of our failure to think critically, of our gullibility, our lack of moral integrity, as the German people were forced to do after World War II, as the Icelanders had to do after 2008?
Will we bring those responsible to court? Will we learn, once again the hard way, how the only thing that can prevent such catastrophes in the future is taking responsibility as thinking, doubting individuals?
And will we finally understand the true meaning of Hannah Arendt’s conclusion in “
The Origins of Totalitarianism,” that flawed as it may be, it is only a sovereign nation-state of free people, governed by elected representatives who take their responsibility seriously—as they did in the tiny
Faroe Islands during the pandemic—and not unelected officials, supranational organizations, or huge corporations; that only the nation-state is really able to protect universal human rights?
We have to move on. We have to rebuild our societies, reestablish our moral values and our rights, rebuild trust in science and trust within our communities. But to truly move on, we must face, understand, and act on the roots of the catastrophe and take full responsibility for the part each of us played. This is why we must not forget. We must never forget.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
