At times I’ve wondered Faulkneresquely this plague-stricken year what Emile Durkheim would have thought of all this lockdowning, quarantining, and self-isolating? To echo Benjy from The Sound and the Fury: Does “Caddy” still “smell like trees”?
The Great Reset news is here, and all the headlines read: “Science Walks on Water!” The print’s in appropriately big and bold font, while the accompanying stories quite breathlessly tell of a miracle cure for the COVID-19 that has just arrived, like a Joe Christmas present — and, faster than a speeding Silver Bullet. Civilization, and all of its Discontents, have been suddenly Saved! This was the insane scene, as American elves everywhere were jumping for jolly joy, selfie-ing themselves dancing in elf-righteous isolation — even mask-urbating on Zoom calls, in some cases. Yes! The big bad COVID is almost over, kaput, doneski, because, sure as feces on a fan, We’ve got the Vaccine!
OK, but “wait a minute, Pilgrim!”: Maybe not so — fast. Not to rain any Corona droplets on this mass parade, but the fine print indicates that the instantly worshipped vaccine is not, in fact, approved by the almighty FDA; instead, only its “emergency use” has been given the “go-ahead.” To anyone of reasonably sound mind (and God knows that we all have plenty of reasons to be off-our-rockers these Pandemic days…), the distinction is quite clear, and, more than a little ominous. Pfizer’s miracle cure, technically known as “Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 mRNA vaccine,” is still in an experimental phase. To use a religious metaphor: Jesus Vaccine has merely dipped its toe in the water, and is a mighty long way from actually walking on it…
But, God knows, don’t tell that to Dr Francis Collins, the tenured director of the National Institutes of Health in the USA, who appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to share the “good news” with that Sunday morning show’s host, Chuck Todd, who has perfected a kind of perpetually credulous look, as if he were always internal monologuing to himself I wonder how my beard looks? It was perfect two minutes ago, but now I’m not so sure…Gee, I’d sure like to go to a commercial break right now, and maybe the sooner the better…
Now, if you’ve never seen NIH director Collins speak, it’s immediately clear why Saint Dr Fauci got the role on the Trump corona-circus “task force.” Playfully speaking, Doctor Collins is not — to his credit, perhaps — a natural mugger of the camera. He’s also a motorcycle riding Bible-thumper who swears that he never puts the Gospel before Science. Allow me to rephrase, for clarity: our “Sacred Science,” and cherished by all, except for a mask-less minority of racist Covidiots who are the absolute cause of the COVID’s stranglehold upon our Economy…For the sake of even more clarity, I certainly over-shot the mark by referencing the “Economy,” which never comes up during the “Meet the Press” interview.
The “Economy be damned!”, but neither does the “emergency use” nature of the Pfizer vaccine occur during this most important roll-out interview. If you are Pfizer, or a shareholder of this suddenly lionized pharmaceutical firm, then you probably got a chuckle out of the “free air” that NBC’s “Meet the Press” just extended to you: Gratissimo! Nevertheless, Chucky Doll Todd and Dr Collins were “On Air” to fry other fish, namely, in Collins’ nervous words: “Disregard all of these terrible conspiracy theories!” That’s right: the upstanding Dr Collins is sick and tired of hearing about vaccine skepticism, and he just might whip out his shibboleth upon…By the way, before anyone who might be reading this unduly scoffs — and it should be noted that “unduly scoffing” is now listed on the official WHO registrar of “COVID-like symptoms”–it should be noted that asking questions is a normal, human brain function, and when the answers don’t add up — “We interrupt this article to notify you that GlaxoSmithKline is on the brink of a dramatic breakthrough: a 3-phase lab-tested inoculation against “Skepticism, which has been killing millions of true indoctrinaires for thousands of years! This jab is but a Morning Star!”
Well, apparently, neither Todd nor Collins has heard of Montaigne, who literally wrote the essai “On Skepticism.”
However, despite his unhealthy lack of journalistic curiosity, the endlessly moderating Mr Todd does manage a snarky poke — or jab — of Holiday-themed fun into the Informercial-like interview when he asks, a propos of masks: “How long are masks going to be a part of our lives? I mean: Are they going to be stocking stuffers next year, too?” Great question — and way to always be working the merchandise angle! This question leads into a revved-up flurry from the motorcycling Doctor who claims, almost defensively, that the rollout of the vaccine is “kind of like D-Day…Just like we did in World War 2…We gotta absolutely double-down!”
Yes, we must “absolutely” use gambling terminology when discussing a radically sped-up vaccine for general consumption and: Way to shill for Pfizer, Bible-thumper! Dr Collins doesn’t come off as a “bad guy” so much as a “bought-and-paid-for” guy. Fauci’s a lot more sinister, in his demeanor, like maybe he’s the “fixer” or something. And Robert Redfield, the head honcho at CDC: this Puritanically-bearded fellow looks like he just ate Cotton Mather’s kids for breakfast, and now he’s using their bones to pick his teeth clean. That’s quite a Cerberus we’ve got “guarding” the Public Health here in America, but I digress…
Towards the top of the interview, Dr Collins begins his yappy diatribe against vaccine skepticism by suggesting that Americans “really need to hit the reset button” in terms of what we all think about vaccines. This is a curious choice of words; perhaps Harley’s Angel is trying to punch his ticket to the next Davos summit, in January 2021, which is meeting under the slogan “The Great Reset”? Of course, “reset” is a kind of trending mot du jour, at least in circles of the 1%, so any linkage of the Good Doctor’s phrasing to the World Economic Forum’s current agenda could be purely coincidental, if not beyond the realm of reasonable speculation. In summary, this Pfizer COVID vaccine advertisement masked-up as a “Meet the Press” interview never wavers in its promotional tone, as if the viewer were in a used-car lot being pressured to buy a used car or, of course, one of the many vaccines being rolled-out in “record” time for a virus that may already be reaching its expiration date…
The Todd-Collins interview occurred on December 13. Earlier that same month, the COVID-vaccine sales drive began in earnest with three of our most recognizable used-car salesmen: Barack Obama, George W Bush, and the one and only “Slick Willie!” William Jefferson Clinton. It was a reunion, of sorts, of many-times-over — but never charged — War Criminals; a gigglingly giddy Triumvirate of Trump’s 3 immediate predecessors who were absolutely jubilant — like it was a Jabilee — to take the about-to-be-rolled-out vaccine and: on “live” TV! Yes: High-fives all around; or, as Obama might press-release it: “Don’t you worry, folks — We got this!”
Before going any further with this analysis, let us be clear that Mein Trumpf, at the very least, deserves deputy War Criminal status, whether or not the sick psychopaths at the Death Star, or Pentagon, simply ignored him for 4 years, and just kept dropping the bombs; after all, the Corporate Media cheered the loudest when Donny-come-lately to the War Criminal Party bombed the most conspicuously, in Afghanistan (MOAB) and Syria, as if Trump were ultimately being trashed because he wasn’t “Illegal War President enough.” Clinton, Bush 2, and Obushma never suffered this kind of critique. They all bombed frequently and often — just in case frequently wasn’t often enough.
But Mr Obama’s unique in this trinity. He’s kind of sly, and tends to tap a black key during an all-white-key composition. Obama spoke for all 3 ex-Presidents when he said he’d take the “jab” live on camera or, in case of a scheduling conflict, he would at least be “filmed” getting jabbed, while perhaps taking another sip of that fine in-like-Flint, Michigan water, which he’s “almost-famous” for…Nevertheless, despite his blatant hypocrisy, Obama’s glad-handy endorsement of the experimental vaccine with W’Clinton comes with a mild note of doubt. Mr Obama, off-or-left-handedly, notes the historical fact of the Tuskegee experiments, and seems thereby to get why Black folks would not be down with the vaccine, based upon knowledge of the notorious Tuskegee experience (One could opine that Mr Obama hits a black Tus-Key-gee here, if the pun’s not too discordant…). Of course, his High-Five! show with dub-ya-Clinton was supposed to ameliorate any and all doubts, or “skepticism,” on this account. Obama’s definitely a salesman for the Neo-Liberal Order, which is how he rose to Power in the next place. That we got a Game-or-Lame Reality Show Host president in the next place, after Obama, should not come as such a surprise. The Deck is stacked and the Pentagon is loaded and Follow the Money and the Brand Prayed on and “Caddy smelled like trees…”
So we’ve got the Vaccine, Jesus Vaccine and, moreover: the First! of many. ModeRNA’s merely the second coming of many more comings. It’s kind of like bleach, of which there are many brands. Take your pick, or jab. It’s up to you, the Citizen-Consumer, to choose your poison, the one that’s right for you, in these bleach-dark days. Every expert-idiot’s telling you what to do, but no one’s explaining why we need multiple vaccines for a singular virus; logically, one might deduce that there is more than one novel virus roaming around out there, making mischief. It’s as if the Total Propaganda Network were saying: “Mutant strains, folks, nothing but proliferating vaccines; Nothing to see here, and just Follow the Yellow Brick Road of whatever it is we define as Science at this moment…”
For myself, I’m not too sure that I would follow Chuck Todd, Dr Francis Collins, or even the esteemed Klaus Schwab to the end of the painbow of this Pandemic. In other words, this vaccine panacea seems more like a Panglossia than anything else, and maybe Voltaire was on to something when he suggested that we all cultivate our own gardens at the anti-climax of his riotously enlightening Candide. Then again, Candide was published 30 years before 1789. Perhaps T.P. Wilkinson is quite intuitively correct, in a recent DV article, to suggest that we are all reaping the whirlwind of an elite resentment that was sown by the French Revolutionary event so long ago, today, in our own Pandemic day? Peace has been dangerously “breaking out” for centuries, so: Why not a Vaccine for War?