by Jeffrey Tucker, Daily Reckoning:
Three years ago, in the depths of lockdowns, it became obvious that we desperately needed a new citizen movement with a different focus.
Prevailing ideological forms were simply not adapted to the enormous exogenous shock to the system that lockdowns implied. It was unexpected, especially under the guise of public health.
Every essential freedom was under attack. Authoritarian/totalitarian government sweep over the country and world, and nearly the entire intellectual class said: this is fine.
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Since then, there’s been some pushback. We’ve achieved some victories.
Vaccine mandates and passports have been beaten back. The right of international travel has been restored. Emergency declarations have been allowed to expire (even if the powers are still in place). We’re back to pretending that the people and not the Faucis of the world are in charge.
There has been no justice, however.
No question that the officials who did this to us are on the ropes. Many have resigned. Others are hiding. Rare is the public figure today who is willing to own what happened. And these days, hardly anyone defends the claim that the despotic response achieved anything in terms of public health.
Congress holds hearings on the pandemic response and that’s great. But the mass media doesn’t cover them. A brutalized population does not want to revisit the trauma. There has been and will likely not be any real accountability much less a Nuremberg 2.0.
We’re left with a vast number of remaining issues from the past and new ones we never expected. These all necessitate continued ideological adaptation and citizen mobilization. It’s a sad truth because people are tired and demoralized and more than ready for normal life again.
But we cannot simply wish away the ugly truths all around us.
No question that the administrative bureaucracies would lock down again under the same or new pretext. Yes, they will face more opposition the next time and trust in their wisdom has fallen off a cliff.
But the pandemic response also granted them new powers of surveillance, enforcement, and hegemony. The scientism that drove the response informs everything they do. So the next time, it will be harder to restrain them.
Below, I list 12 challenges for a shattered world. We must address them if we want a free and prosperous future. Read on.
12 Challenges for a Shattered World
By Jeffrey Tucker
1. Tech Surveillance and Censorship. Big Tech surveilled before the pandemic response but the quasi-martial law of the period consolidated the power of the government over private data. The Twitter Files have proven the huge role that the police state played in censorship of science and any opinion that contradicted regime priorities.
Facebook groups were blasted away. LinkedIn and Twitter accounts were banned. Even Google search results were gamed. This was why those of us in the resistance had such a very difficult time finding each other in the first place.
They wanted to stop the formation of any serious resistance. They wanted us all isolated, disoriented, and thus easy to control. As a result, the tools that we once believed were designed for more human connection were deployed to keep us apart.
Yes, there are many lawsuits ongoing that challenge this practice as a violation of First-Amendment rights. Court discovery has produced many thousands of pages, and the decisions seem likely to land in the correct position.
But here’s what is spooky. If these court challenges really posed much of a threat to the practice, wouldn’t mainstream social platforms be eschewing censorship right now? They’re not.
YouTube is the king of takedowns. Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook do the same. Only Twitter was relatively freed up once Elon Musk took over. But his new CEO is a champion of content moderation at the behest of the advertisers she hopes to lure back to the platform.
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