It seems like we’ve been living in this crazy pandemic era much longer than since March of 2020. Yesterday marked an ominous change in pandemic responses among Western countries, with Austria being the first to impose a COVID lockdown for unvaccinated people aged 12 and older. The new rule will force unvaccinated people to stay in their homes and only be able to leave for a few specified reasons and was to go into effect once ICU use reached 30% in the country. That this type of government coercion and power will expand to other countries and be parlayed to control people for other “crises,” like climate change, etc. seems pretty much certain. Whether some liberal governors in America attempt legislation like this seems highly likely too.
At this point it’s obvious Dr. Fauci and other top US health officials misrepresented and at times outright lied to the American people in pushing their preferred public policies on dealing with COVID-19 and we were inundated with “data” and assurances that we must “trust the science,” all while the “science” became more and more a power-grabbing tool in the hands of politicians. The lies range from Dr. Fauci lying back in the beginning urging people not to wear masks in public, to then switching to pushing not just mass masking, but once the vaccines rolled out, which was supposed to be the way out of the pandemic, he began pushing double-masking. All these twists and turns in our public health officials’ social mitigation approaches came with absolutely no new scientific research to back them. However, their social mitigation approaches almost all came with assurances that these approaches were being used in other countries and working well.
Austalia and New Zealand implemented some of the most stringent lockdown measures, under a highly controversial and failed Covid Zero policy, which both countries have since abandoned. However, the lingering negative social chaos can’t be erased with new legislation and the swipe of a pen.
It’s easy to say, “What’s the big deal, it’s only a mask?” or “Don’t you care about other people?” to minimize these rules, but the more disturbing aspect of these “it’s no big deal” rules is how those imposing the rules and the powerful elites selectively follow their own rules and have worked to divide Americans, even within families by stoking fear and selling “othering,” dividing the “good” people from the “bad” people.
It’s not just about masks; it’s about using fear to scare people into allowing government to grab more and more power. Then we come to the vaccines and as soon as another COVID wave started this past spring, Dr. Fauci led the messaging pitting the Vaccinated vs. the Unvaccinated, which resulted in a massive Democrat/mainstream media messaging effort to turn The Unvaccinated into the new Trump “Deplorables.” It was 100% about politics and 0% about public health.
It seems unlikely America will easily or quickly return to pre-Covid norms, especially with so many big business elites being eager to impose and implement even the most extreme COVID measures, but it doesn’t stop there. So many of them are also rushing to acquiesce to BLM/social justice demands too. Media-manufactured climate change hysteria will assuredly be propelled to advance more pushed government rules and mandates.
The new Austrian COVID lockdown measures matter here in America, when you consider that from the beginning of this pandemic Dr. Fauci, US health officials and many elected officials borrowed all of their “social mitigation” efforts from foreign countries. At the end of October, Dr. Fauci was cheering Australia’s controversial lockdown measures:
“America’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, has praised Melbourne’s response to the coronavirus, saying he “wished” the US could adopt the same mentality.
In an interview hosted by the University of Melbourne and the Melbourne-based Doherty Institute, Fauci said Australia was “one of the countries that has done actually quite well” in handling the virus.
“I really wish that we could transplant that kind of mentality here,” he said. “Because masks in the United States have almost become a political statement.”
The amazing thing about Dr. Fauci’s lamentations about how everything pertaining to COVID has become so politicized is his stunning lack of self-awareness of his own starring role in politicizing COVID with his non-stop media COVID show, where he stars as The Expert. The problem isn’t only Dr. Fauci, it’s with all of us, because we live in a society ruled by “experts” and media-driven waves of fear hitting us from all directions. Back in the 1990s, I was disgusted with the Oprahization of America, where Oprah would hype some heretofore trivial issue as a pressing issue in America or she’d trot out another of her band of “experts” and America would all turn to said expert, like Dr. Phil, for instance, as the most trusted expert in that field. We’ve been swamped by so many experts being sold by politicians, celebrities, news media, and social media, that the Oprah influence seems rather quaint now.
The harder lesson-learned for me has been when the media or high-profile people, many whom I used to respect, came out and touted some revered federal government “public servant,” who turned out to be just another partisan political hack. It’s been very disillusioning, from hearing about the dedicated career professionals at the FBI, only to realize they were people like Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok, to our revered intel officials and it turned out to be people like John Brennan, James Clapper or Alexander Vindman, I’m just automatically on guard now when I hear about any unassailable, apolitical public servants.
Even if COVID disappeared from being a major issue tomorrow, the corruption and expansion of government power-grabs it wrought will be eagerly used and abused with new crises (real and manufactured), so it’s best to keep an eyes wide open attitude to new efforts to infringe on our personal liberties and mass media demonization of those who dare to defend their rights every step of the way.
America’s only hope lies in ordinary Americans working hard in the nooks and crannies of America to try to strengthen their own families and rebuild some sense of community, not in trusting Washington to fix anything. It’s so easy to watch the news on TV or get online and in every direction news and social media is dominated by media-driven, spun up hot topics and drama trying to push us into fear or anger. The single best thing, I think each of us can do is take some time every day to step outside, look around and take some deep, calming breaths. Take some time to chat with family, friends and neighbors about ordinary life, not just what’s in the news. It’s challenging sometimes to be hopeful, but if we lose faith in our power to control our own hearts and minds, we’ve already ceded control to others. The media-driven fear-mongering can only influence you, if you let it.
There was something to be said for my childhood days of three major TV networks, news in only short spurts throughout the day and our own lives taking up more of our time, energy and thought than what we were looking at on our cell phones or electronic devices. I doubt most of us are ever going to revert back to that type of no-tech life, but I started taking more breaks from social media and the news. I still write my backwoods blog here, but have made an effort to spend less time on social media. I’ve gone back to some of my pre-internet interests and it’s been a nice change.
Update: The news article on Dr. Fauci cheering Australian lockdown measures was from 2020, not 2021, but Dr. Fauci continued to praise Australia’s lockdowns in 2021 too: Dr Fauci praises Australia’s Covid lockdowns: ‘Viruses don’t mutate unless they replicate’, from March 2021.
libertybelle diaries 
Yeah, we’re doomed.
Perhaps, Sam, but I still try to cling to small glimmers of hope, wherever I find them. Admittedly those small glimmers are harder to spot these days.