One potential positive from the whole Covid-19 debacle is that we have learned an incredible amount about the society in which we live.
This will be crucial IF we manage to stave off a descent into a nightmare future of techno-fascist slavery.
We will have a new understanding of what our world has become and what we would like it to be in the decades and centuries to come.
And "we" means we. While the majority have apparently learnt nothing at all from what has happened, they will eventually catch up.
There is no way that knowledge gained by a wide-awake 15% or 20% of the population will not end up being shared by almost everyone.
Once the truth is out, it tends to stay out. As H.R. Haldeman so wisely put it, "you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube".
Here are Ten Things We Have Learned During the Covid Coup:
1. Our political system is hopelessly corrupt. Virtually all politicians are hopelessly corrupt. No political party can be trusted. They all can be, and have been, bought.
2. Democracy is a sham. It has been a sham for a very long time. There will never be any real democracy when money and power amount to the same thing.
3. The system will stop at nothing to hold on to its power and, if possible, to increase its levels of control and exploitation. It has no scruples. No lie is too outrageous, no hypocrisy too nauseating, no human sacrifice too great.
4. So-called radical movements are usually nothing of the sort. From whatever direction they claim to attack the system, they are just pretending to do so and serve to channel discontent in directions which are harmless to the power clique and even useful to its agendas.
5. Any "dissident" voice you have ever heard of through corporate media is probably a fake. The system does not hand out free publicity to its actual enemies.
6. Most people in our society are cowards. They will jettison all the fine values and principles which they have been loudly boasting about all their lifes merely to avoid the slightest chance of public criticism, inconvenience or even minor financial loss.
7. The mainstream media is nothing but a propaganda machine for the system and those journalists who work for it have sold their sorry souls, placing their (often minimal) writing skills entirely at the disposition of Power.
8. Police are not servants of the public but servants of a powerful and extremely wealthy minority which seeks to control and exploit the public for its own narrow and greedy interests.
9. Scientists cannot be trusted. They will use the hypnotic power of their white coats and authoritative status for the benefit of whoever funds their work and lifestyle.
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
10. Progress is a misleading illusion. The "progress" of increasing automisation and industrialisation does not go hand in hand with a progress in the quality of human life, but in fact will "progressively" reduce it to the point of complete extinction.
"The Evil Impactorship wants to own and control us, our bodies and every moment of our lives. It wants to own and control every square inch of our world".
3/8
"They want to herd us into smart cities, strap us with wearable technology, monitor and control our every movement and interaction".
"The divide that appears to be emerging is one between those who trust the state to look after their welfare on the one hand and on the other, those who trust people acting as individuals or collectively to decide what’s best for them".
3/5
"If anyone was looking to the left to stand up for liberty against the imposition of the restrictions we’ve been subjected to, we would hope that the experience of the last year has disabused them of that somewhat naïve hope".
"Why is it that otherwise perfectly intelligent, thoughtful and rationally minded people baulk at the suggestion that sociopaths are conspiring to manipulate and deceive them?"
"The conspiracy denier will attack any suggestion that the caregiving archetype is no longer present – that sociopaths are behind the barred door, who hold us all in utter contempt or disregard us completely"
3/5
"The infant has never matured, and, because they are not conscious of this, other than as a deep attachment to their personal security, they will fiercely attack any threat to this unconscious and central aspect of their worldview"
In 2013 many UK anarchists received an email from Sophie Pritchard of Edge Fund looking for "groups that need funding for their work to bring about justice and equality".
Edge Fund has gone on to fund various antifascists and anarchists, plus Black Lives Matter and Rising Up (the network behind Extinction Rebellion) and many "intersectional" groups.
3/9
Edge Fund is closely linked to EDGE Funders Alliance (Engaged Donors for Global Equity) in the USA, whose sponsors include the Rockefeller Foundation.