When it really happens: SHTF...

[Surpmil]

Gil, I think that I heard so many people just venting their mouths, that I can't take anyone seriously anymore.
The tragicomical effects of disastrous communication.
This pandemic will be remembered, at least by me, as the big orgy of Internet "experts".
Everybody talks and does not know enough to substantiate what they say.
I look, see, try to understand and take my own conclusions now.
First of all, we might very well have already been through that virus without even knowing. Many of us. I was pretty sick in the second week of February, with all symptoms, but high fever.
One week prior I had been in Vicenza at the arms fair, in the midst of thousands of people from Bergamo and Brescia. The heart of the infection here.
All my friend who were with me had some kind of flu, cold cough at the same time. One caught pneumonia.
Most people don't even notice if they get through that thing. No symptoms at all, like my brother in law. Not even one second of coughing, but he was positive.
Elder people have died in great numbers because they were treated too late. There was not enough knowledge about this illness, so plenty came into a hospital when they were done already.
Now we know much more, have lots of ICU units freed and many new specialised hospitals ready and empty. Doctors and nurses have tons of experience and could get people out of the Devils' arms if given the means. And now they have them!
Some treatments are coming out and seem to be promising.
I, for myself, only fear the dumbheads ruling the countries, the media and, in some cases, the economy.
They are bound to cause much more damage than this bad flu.
And blame the flu for every mistake they'll make or have already done.

In the end, thank you for worrying, but I don't think you need to.
I'm sure we are much safer now than we have ever been. With the exception of the possible actions of the dumbheads above...

What I will take away from this is the immemorial human preference for passivity until the point at which events they might easily have averted or forestalled are forced upon them.

We in the English-speaking world are inclined to assume on the basis of the last century or so that our nuts can always be pulled out of the fire at the very last moment. Unfortunately that is not the general rule of history, quite the opposite.

Many alternate between running off to buy toilet paper with the Jones and metaphorical waving of hands and dramatic effusions about the impossibility of understanding anything, which conveniently serves to excuse them from a little self-education and a little participation. Both of which are today so easy and of such little cost in time and money that it beggars belief.

Public ignorance is now reaching terminal levels. Jefferson observed long ago that public ignorance and freedom cannot co-exist. If that were not enough, one can sense that many are actually bored with freedom and the responsibilities it conveys. As long as they can have their toys and diversions, or think they can, they are happy to either know or believe almost nothing, or merely whatever they are told to.

The younger generations will I'm afraid get the lesson that inevitably follows when a society degenerates to that point. Considering the geo-political and demographic realities of the world, I very much doubt anything will be allowed to rise from the ashes. One could quote the speeches, but who wants to know?

Can't happen? What great civilization of the past did not believe the same? They all did.

A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague.

"Dumb" Oividio? You should be so lucky as to be governed merely by the "dumb". There are plenty of self-important little donkeys in our bodies politic to be sure, but they are just the "useful idiots" of the wolves and vultures. And the serried tiers of unwitting donkeys extend down through our societies.

For all the easy talk about future generations, the post-war generation failed in the most profound sense: that of failing to reproduce, a betrayal not only of the those who were thus deprived of life, but of all those of the past who poured out theirs so that others might have the chance. We then compounded that failure by tolerating financial, social and cultural policies that have ensured the decline and impoverishment of the West, with one or two partial exceptions.

It is no exaggeration to say that we have the power to change all or most of this within easy grasp for a little longer. True, there are no bands, medals or uniforms, but there are no bombs or bullets either. Could a few little sacrifices of time and leisure be made? Most of us have already enjoyed more of life's good things than any three previous generations.

Now, those who want to scoff, sneer or distract themselves may do so to their heart's content! Goodnight.