SHTF

[MaryN]

Personally I find the whole thing extraordinarily fishy! Whether the bloody microbe escaped from a lab or hopped off a pangolin, I don't care. China is lying through its teeth (what a surprise!), and the ramifications from this farce are going to be longstanding and dramatic. I don't even think that the death toll is is worst part of it; the economic crash that is heading our way (globally) is going to be horrendous, and this is just another way to exert that bit of extra control over the population. Most people probably won't even notice that their freedoms have been permanently curtailed; they may well even be grateful that their lives have been saved.....

[Mortblanc]

The Chinese numbers are crap and the whole world knows it. The nation shut down almost every bit of production, not due to quarantine, but due to sick workers not showing up for their shifts.

The big gap in supply right now is due to that loss of production time and failure to ship anticipated production.

From our own experiences we know that the virus "spreads like a plague" in areas of dense population and China has been densely populated since man jumped down out of the trees.

Then there is the thing about China being a closed and controlled society. No one really knows what the true figures are.

We do not even know the "true figures" here in the western societies where the supposed "free press" reigns.

[CharlesHarris]

Today's political tensions in the US look a lot like the Kansas-Missouri border struggles. Once politics give way to vigilante justice it's game on. Oligarchy is the natural state of government through the ages and tyranny is it’s principle tool. (Both Cicero and Aristotle describe the cycle of Anarchy, Democracy, Monarchy, Oligarchy quite clearly). The real power behind the throne is controlled by the Titans of Industry, currently the tech sector (in years past it was manufacturing and energy production).

They shape and fund the current insurrection for their own ends, often through manipulation of government bureaucrats and elected officials. Not a new phenomenon at all. There are lessons to be learned from the Thatcher era-pseudo war in the Northern Six Counties of Ireland, the best recent analogy I know of, which fits better than the US Civil War, the Balkan Collapse, Rwanda, Malaysia, Angola, Oman, Rhodesia, the Boer Wars (1899-1902 and circa 1965-present), Algeria, or Vietnam (1945-1973). There are important threads that run through each of those revolts. I don’t expect America to experience a "Fort Sumpter moment," but we can fully expect escalating unrest regardless of how the fall election turns out. A lot of misery will pass before the elites reach their Westphalia moment.

[Pete Grey]

I do not understand why certain people get their knickers in a twist about vaccination, common sense, it could never be made compulsory. As for wearing face masks on public transport and in shops, uncomfortable maybe, but at this time safer.

So why these protest demonstrations ?. Normally protesters keep their faces covered to avoid recognition .