Don’t Stand So Close to Me! By Peter Bennett
Back in 1980, when rock singer Sing was with the band, The Police, and he had a bit more hair, they released the song, Don’t Stand So Close to Me. It was terrible then, dealing with some sort of decadence, but today the song is strangely relevant, especially in Singapore, a highly regulated society, which mirrors how the rest of the West will inevitably go total authoritarian after this crisis in the next wave of the New World Order:
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/singapore-jail-people-6-months-standing-too-close-strangers
“Singapore is set to punish people who stand too close to strangers with 6 months in prison as the true scope of “social distancing” measures begins to be felt around the world. According to a press release from the country’s Ministry of Health, Singaporeans who fail to maintain a distance of one meter from other people during “non-transient” public interactions can be fined 10,000 Singapore dollars ($6,985) or hit with 6 months in jail. The measure is obviously designed to target groups of people who congregate or people who visit their friends and relatives. As the resentment of being forced to live under quarantine lockdown for weeks and possibly months builds, authorities across the world are undoubtedly going to face a growing backlash from the citizenry, no matter how bad the spread of coronavirus. In France, a 35-year-old man was sent to prison after repeatedly violating lockdown measures after being found guilty of “endangering the lives of others.” Another 19-year-old man was handed a 4 month suspended prison sentence for repeatedly flouting the measures 10 times in just a few days. In Jordan, authorities initially banned everyone from going outside, even to buy food, leading to the arrest of 800 people. More than 90,000 Italians have also been hit with fines for violating quarantine while transgressors in Spain can face up to 18 months in prison. As we highlighted yesterday, one police force in the UK is using drone surveillance technology to spy on people who walk their dogs in remote areas and then track down their home address. Meanwhile, in “troubled” areas of European cities such as Seine-Saint-Denis in Paris, migrants are virtually immune from quarantine measures because large groups of them intimidate police if they try to enforce them.”
Yes, that is all well and good, but will there be social distancing in jail? Perhaps very long poles will be needed to keep prisoners in line, unlike the unsafe small batons now used. Perhaps 10 feet poles, as the old proverb goes? Still, South Africa has moved to military enforcement of lock downs, and has banned the sale of cigarettes and alcohol, which must be leading to widespread suffering. But, will this lead to less farmland slayings of whites or more?
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/unprecedented-south-africa-invokes-military-controlled-lockdown-infections-soar
In a space of only a few weeks the super-elites have been able to push into place, with no opposition, de facto martial law, social control beyond anything which has ever existed in history (few regimes would even contemplate social distancing; Genghis Khan never got to this), and coming mandatory vaccines where everybody gets pumped full of everything and the end of cash. Not bad for a week or two’s work!
http://themostimportantnews.com/archives/the-pace-at-which-the-coronavirus-is-changing-life-in-america-is-absolutely-breathtaking
Even if it is argued that these measures are necessary to stem the spread of the virus, it is unlikely that most of the present measures and limitations of freedom will be wound back. When has this ever happened?
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/13-reasons-fear-coming-covid-world-order
https://www.activistpost.com/2020/03/why-i-oppose-the-lockdown.html
“I spoke out after 9/11 and was largely alone with a few notable exceptions. I was forced to watch the majority of my fellow Americans give away the most precious thing they had, the things which no other country could lay claim to, and the thing that they claimed they were supporting war to protect. America gave away a huge chunk of its rights in the wake of 9/11 and, though they were promised the measures were only temporary, twenty years on we have never received them back. Instead, police officers are now often indistinguishable from military soldiers, the United States is still in Afghanistan as well as Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Ukraine, and a host of theatres across the world where its undefinable “interests” apparently lie. It is now a foregone conclusion that cellphone, internet, and all other communications are monitored. It is well understood that the iron fist of the state can come down with lack of due process and the Second Amendment is under daily attack. Torture is now general practice for foreign and domestic arrestees. Now, here we are close to twenty years later. Americans once again have a shadowy nemesis for which our government has once again failed to provide adequate information. Once again, the governmental response is not a robust rethinking of how we got to be where we are, (in this case how medical care is provided, who has access to it, or the overarching philosophy behind it), but a massive police state, quasi martial law, and the evisceration of what is left of the liberties and rights they didn’t give away twenty years ago or give away gradually in the time between. This time, it is not so much the President leading the charge to burn the Constitution, but Governors all across the country, acting in concert with one another. But they aren’t acting alone. Because of the massive propaganda mouthpiece of the mainstream media blasting hysteria and panic as well as the desired conclusions they intend for their audiences to reach, many Americans are demanding that their rights be taken away and that they and their fellow citizens be forced off the streets and into their homes at gunpoint. My opposition to the potential Lockdown is twofold but principally it is based on the fact that over two hundred and thirty years of rights and liberties should not be shredded on the basis of any threat, real or imagined. Americans either have rights or we don’t. There is no asterisk in the Constitution that states the Bill of Rights is null and void in the event of a terrorist attack or a virus outbreak. If we do not maintain our rights in a time of crisis, then, simply put, we do not truly have rights at all. If we do not maintain these rights, our country, such as it is, ceases to exist.”
As I see it, the end of liberalism is at hand. We have entered a brave new world which is post-Western, a dystopia which may prove to be far worse than any pandemic, just in economic terms alone:
https://www.ft.com/content/3b8ec9fe-6eb8-11ea-89df-41bea055720b
“Jacob Wallenberg has warned governments to weigh the economic threat from coronavirus more heavily or risk depression, social unrest and a potential lost generation. The Swedish industrialist, whose family investment vehicle has controlling stakes in companies from telecoms equipment maker Ericsson to bank SEB, told the Financial Times that policymakers must protect the vulnerable but not lose sight of the impact of containment measures on businesses, from neighbourhood restaurants to multinationals. If the crisis goes on for long, unemployment could hit 20-30 per cent while economies could contract by 20-30 per cent, he warned. “There will be no recovery. There will be social unrest. There will be violence. There will be socio-economic consequences: dramatic unemployment. Citizens will suffer dramatically: some will die, others will feel awful,” he added. His warning comes as country after country has closed schools and locked down large parts of society, leading to plummeting demand in industries from airlines to theatres and halted production in many manufacturers such as carmakers in Europe and the US. Donald Trump, the US president, has said the cure must not be worse than the problem and that the country needed to get back to work by Easter Sunday if possible. Mr Wallenberg said he wanted to start a debate about the long-term consequences of the crisis. “I am dead scared of the consequences to society,” he said. “I want to put the view — what else can we do? Right now, we’re just going on one path . . . We have to weigh the risks of the medicine affecting the patient drastically. “How does tomorrow look like? One of these days there is a tomorrow. We have to prepare ourselves as well.”
https://www.foxnews.com/us/army-corps-engineers-temporary-hospitals-coronavirus
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/sa-business-journal/twoweek-jobs-wipeout-the-growing-list-of-sa-workers-being-stood-down-or-losing-their-jobs-due-to-coronavirus/news-story/0562a9072c40a34e1290609eacab9891
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/coronavirus-army-to-check-sick-stay-in-selfisolation/news-story/bbe0da4e46463eed8cd553ee53bd1623?utm_source=&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=&utm_content=
https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/coronavirus/coronavirus-sa-updates-army-joins-in-fight-as-borders-tightened/news-story/04ab940d4dc6592b9617cdb095d67dd5
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/coronavirus-australia-live-updates-scotland-secretary-alister-jack-joins-boris-johnson-in-selfisolation/news-story/0b3ae3c67e791ea55f89b656d42f8037?
So, here in Australia, there is a ban on public gatherings of two or more people, but there can be public gatherings of a single household. But, given that many families are separated by divorce, a divorced father whose adult children do not live with him cannot meet them in public, as they are in a separate household. There are problems with this measure. If granny is dying, and was in a separate household before being rushed to hospital, the family cannot gather together for her last moments.
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