The most deadly virus -- fear

May 24, 2021. The pandemic has allowed government bureaucrats and politicians to manufacture fear. When history looks back on the 'pandemic of 2020-21,' we may find we need to use the words of FDR, describing the real problem in any crisis (of the government's own making), and that is, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Think about it. What is the most destructive, infectious, invisible force producing massive shots back into work poverty, economic turmoil, 'spikes' in murder, suicide ad mental health crises, unemployment, and a long list of threats to the human condition? It's simply fear, fear promulgated, promoted and practiced by politicians and the media elite. Why? Because having failed to move the public mindset with repeated false force cats about impending climate doom, politicians desiring to claim more control over economies, culture, personal lives and the basic fabric of western liberal democracies have jumped on the Covid bandwagon to create an even more devastating climate of fear.

And as with climate change -- global warming, climate crisis, etc. -- the forecasts fail to meet the scientific tests and the measures used to instill fear fail basic tests of reliability and validity. Take the PCR test, the widely used "gold standard" for identifying Covid 'cases,' only the PCR was not designed as a Covid test, and while it is 'sensitive,' it is so sensitive that it identifies remnants of the virus in a body that indicate only that the person has had -- and serviced -- Covid-19. Rather than a 'case,' these tests better indicate a cure, where the person successfully combated the virus, as do up to 99% of the people who contract the virus.

Worse, even a 'positive' PCR test does not establish a 'case.' A 'case' requires symptoms, not just a test. Most positive PCR tests do not produce a case, just alarm, and another number added to a meaningless tally. And more worse -- worser? -- even if the test is accurate in establishing an active case, it tells us nothing as to what the outcome of that case will be and , if negative, offers no assurance that the person will not contract Covid later.

And as to the 'death counts,' the science of establishing a single cause of death in an elderly person with significant co-morbidities is not science at all. Rather, it is subjectivity. And have you noticed that apparently few if any people die of 'natural causes,' even if the person is in her 90's, obese, and perhaps caught a cold or some other mild infection or virus while lacking a strong immune system.

And as to 'age-adjusted mortality rates,' what do these tell us about the rapid increase in the numbers of frail, elderly and obese Americans, driven by the baby boomers born from 1946 to 1956.

And as to masks and social distancing, little science as to their value has been reported, other than the obvious: If you are symptomatic, you need to keep your breath (and moist droplets) away from everyone else. And, oh yes, WASH YOUR HANDS! But you knew this. Your mother knew this. Your elementary school nuns knew this. This is not news, or a CDC discovery.

In many if not every respect, some of our most important institutions have failed us, and that is not just in failing to recognize the very institutional racism that they decry, that they claim to have an answer for us. Well, these institutions -- the federal government, higher education, public education, the mainstream media -- are part of the problem. Not he people, rather the leaders of these institutions that promulgated all the evils they now seems eager to deflect to the man in the street, to Trump supporters, to blue-collar workers, to people living on neither coast ("flyover country").

Me? My only fear is for the future of my descendants id this absurd institutional crisis does not right itself in the next five years. For now, I rely on the joy of being separated from the swamp, the academic slime, and the political cesspool.