Wednesday Morning Guest Rant [Joe Mannix]

The government (most of them, here and abroad) response to the coronavirus has been a disaster. None of their plans - from masking to lockdowns to vaccines to any other policy response - has resulted in slowing down the spread. The lockdowns, the absence of formal early intervention guidance, the all-or-nothing vaccine push and the limitless number of other response items have, however, been economically, socially and medically ruinous. As they look around at the ruins of a world that used to at least have the appearance of thriving, many people ask why these things are the way they are and why our governments - and sometimes ourselves - took such actions. And those people then try to answer that question. One of the problems with this is that many people look for an answer. There is not an answer, there are many answers. Every single bad government (or mega-institutional) behavior is on display, and all of them have become pathological.

"They're dishonest and greedy. Follow the money." Yes.
"They're corrupt and beholden. Follow the influence networks." Yes.
"They're plain, old-fashioned evil for its own sake." Yes.
"They're after power." Yes.
"They're utopians who see an opportunity to bring about their vision." Yes.
"They're stupid." Yes.
"They're incompetent." Yes.
"They hate us." Yes.
"They're afraid to be wrong or look dumb and their vanity demands they continue." Yes.
"Government fixates one thing or one perfect solution all the time, and this is no different." Yes.
"They're cowards and they're afraid and their policies reflect that." Yes.
"They've screwed up and know it and so are doubling down." Yes.

The list goes on, more or less forever. Every single bad behavior manifested by governments and huge institutions is in play simultaneously. The "freak flags" (so to speak) are flying, and they're all flying at once and at the top of very tall flagpoles. All available bad behaviors are being manifest at such huge and thorough scale that the manifestation is essentially total. Every bad behavior has spread into a pathological condition, all at once.

We in the Horde have an expression for this: embrace the healing power of 'and.' It's everything, all at once. It's greed, corruption, dishonesty, evil, incompetence, stupidity, pie-in-the-sky social engineering, influence games, monomania, megalomania, hatefulness, vanity, cowardice and everything else. It's all of these things and more, all at once. Different individual people have these same behaviors in different order, but as an entire organization, institution or complex, it's everything at the same time.

It's a physical manifestation of the power of 'and,' which is why so many explanations seem to make sense. None of the explanations make sense for the whole story, but all of them seem to fit somewhere.

posted by Open Blogger at 11:10 AM

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