Situation report – October 2021

Dave – the editor

This is yet another attempt to try and marshal my thoughts regarding the weird and increasingly dystopian situation we’re in at the moment. As I’ve mentioned many times before, these efforts are just snapshots in time because events move on and the dynamics of the situation alter. This piece is being written in a period that to all intents and purposes, feels like the calm before the coming storm. Hence, the sense of urgency in writing this assessment of the situation before the focus turns on how the heck we get through what’s coming. Despite all of this, undertaking these exercises leave records of points in time that can be combined with all the others I’ve written – hopefully one day, they’ll be incorporated into a narrative looking back at these times. That’s if I’m in a position to be able to undertake this…

VACCINE PASSPORTS

I’m writing this in England where compared to the rest of the so called United Kingdom, as things stand at the moment, vaccine passports and the enforcement that will inevitably accompany them are still a bit of a distance away on the horizon rather than an immediate threat. Both the Welsh and Scottish assemblies have voted to implement vaccine passports, albeit with questions being raised about the validity of the votes: Labour succeeds with plan to introduce Covid passes in Wales after farcical scenes in Senedd. As things currently stand, it doesn’t look as though the Stormont Executive intend to implement them: Northern Ireland ‘no longer in the space’ to justify vaccine passports – Lyons.

This stands in stark contrast to other locations around the globe where vaccine passports are being implemented and the enforcement measures are pretty draconian. This is a Twitter thread from a Lithuanian, Gluboco Lietuva, which graphically describes what life is like in a society where the imposition and enforcement of vaccine passports is nearly universal. It makes for some grim and quite frankly, alarming reading. The biggest mistake anyone here in England could make is thinking that Lithuania is a far off country and that the kind of draconian measures they’re under couldn’t happen here. As I’ve mentioned before, the UK government appear to have seen the level of resistance to the blanket imposition of vaccine passports in a number of countries such as France, Italy, Switzerland and Australia to name just a few, and have decided to take a more incremental approach. The point about an incremental approach is that by the time the mass of people wake up to what’s been done to them and their liberties, it will be too late to turn things around.

Away from the UK, the imposition is being undertaken in such a way that those who refuse to be vaccinated for whatever reason find themselves being shut out of much of society to the point where survival becomes an overwhelming challenge. This means not being able to enter a supermarket, gain access to healthcare, visit a loved one in hospital or in some instances, even attend a funeral, without a valid vaccine passport. This is a deliberate strategy of coercion, regardless of the cost in human misery that’s a consequence of this.

As I’ve written previously, this level of coercion isn’t about getting as many people vaccinated as possible. If governments across the globe genuinely wanted a high level of uptake of the vaccines, they wouldn’t be deploying the draconian, coercive tactics they’re currently using. They would instead be using reasoned, fact based argument and persuasion. This is why many of us see as the trajectory that’s being followed:

1. Get as many people jabbed as possible
2. Coerce them into having a digital vaccine passport
3. Once the vast majority of the populace have the vaccine passports, start the process of morphing them into a full blown form of digital identity
4. Alongside of this, normalise the concept of physical cash being replaced by digital money
5. Start to talk about ‘programmable digital currency’ where the issuer can control what the recipient spends it on
6. When these start coming on stream at various points, introduce the concept of social credits where people get ‘privileges’ for being ‘model citizens’ and on the other hand, get shut out of various levels of society if their behaviour is deemed to be ‘disruptive’

CONSPIRACY THEORY I HEAR YOU SAY?

This time last year when I started to warn people about vaccine passports I was dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theorist’. Well, vaccine passports are happening so I would say that my so called ‘conspiracy theorising’ was actually some pretty accurate forecasting! Lets go through the above list with some readings that back up each of the predictions in the trajectory:

Vaccine passports > Digital identity
The looming disaster of immunity passports and digital identity – Privacy International
Vaccine passports prove an ethical minefield – Alex Scroxton – Computer Weekly – 24.02.21

Cashless economy
‘You can’t pay cash here’: how our newly cashless society harms the most vulnerable – Sirin Kale – The Guardian – 24.06.20
Britain sleepwalking into a cashless society – Warnings as notes and coins near end – David Williamson – Daily Express – 28.11.20

‘Programmable’ digital cash
Bank of England tells ministers to intervene on digital currency ‘programming’ – Tim Wallace – The Telegraph – 21.06.21
Programmable Digital Currencies Are Coming – Here’s What That Means – TradeSmith – Nasdaq – 18.08.20
“Programmable Digital Currency”: The next stage of the new normal? – Kit Knightly – Off Guardian – 01.10.21

Social credits
We need to act now to block Britain’s social credit system – Ross Clark – The Spectator – 27.07.21
Why a social credit system is so scary – Tutanota
COULD YOU SURVIVE THE SOCIAL CREDIT SCORE? – Gary Hemming – ABC Finance

I rest my case m’lud… My view is that we really need to be past the point of arguing over whether the coronavirus crisis was opportunistically leveraged to bring about the above or whether there was some serious advance planning years in advance years ahead of the ‘introduction’ of coronavirus. The point is that all the above has happened, is happening, will shortly be happening or is under serious consideration. To put it bluntly, shit is getting real and if we want a future worth living in, we need to disregard the divide and rule agenda that’s being used against us.

DIVIDE AND RULE

Mind you, disregarding the divide and rule tactics that have been deployed against us is a hard task because to be brutally honest, the bastards have played a blinder. Whether it’s maskers vs anti-maskers, vaxxers vs anti-vaxxers, believers of the mainstream media vs so called ‘conspiracy theorists’, supporters of vaccine passports vs opponents of them, the powers that be have really got us at each other’s throats. The divide and rule has become so toxic it’s split families, broken up friendships, finished off relationships and overall, made us more fearful of and less trusting of each other. Then there’s the fall out in our political movements as well to deal with…

This fall out in our movements has led to the protests we’ve seen since last year being lazily written off as little more than ‘anti-maskers’ or ‘anti-vaxxers’. Having been on a number of these protests, while I have some reservations about them as covered in this piece – Dealing with the new (ab)normal – a situation report – August 6, 2021 – the picture is a considerably more nuanced that the detractors are willing to acknowledge.

As I’ve mentioned previously, those opposing the imposition of vaccine passports fall way outside what the aforementioned detractors would see as the ‘usual suspects’. A good few of the objectors we know have had both doses of the jab and observed social distancing and masking protocols. As far as they’re concerned, they’ve ‘done their bit’ and can see that digital vaccine passports will inevitably morph into a form of digital identity that could well be used in a coercive fashion. As I wrote in this piece – Dealing with the complexities of reality… – September 25, 2021 – the reality of the various currents of protest against the new (ab)normal is far more nuanced that the detractors are willing to admit.

RESISTANCE

There’s a wave of protest and resistance to the new (ab)normal a.k.a. the ‘great reset’ across the globe. The Acorn – 68 has done a good job of covering these. Obviously, as this was issued on September 23, it has been overtaken by events! The events being that the protests and resistance are intensifying. Needless to say, the mainstream media have somehow managed to largely ignore this – when they do acknowledge it, they do so to denigrate and misrepresent. Am I surprised that the mainstream media are doing this? Not in the least… A caveat – I’ve been on more protests than I care to remember over the decades and a lot of them were ignored or misrepresented by the mainstream media. However, given the scale and spread of these protests across the globe, the mainstream media ignoring them isn’t just their normal practice – there are definitely some sinister agendas at work here.

The biggest mystery of all is why the Left and a fair number of anarchists are choosing to either completely ignore this massive wave of protest or when they do occasionally choose to acknowledge it, smear and denigrate it. Again, I return to this piece – Dealing with the complexities of reality… – September 25, 2021 – where I describe the various currents that come together at times on these protests and make the plea for Leftists and anarchists to make a serious effort to engage with the ordinary people who feel they have no alternative but to take to the streets.

As I’ve mentioned previously, a long time ago in a different political existence, I was taught that when a pre-revolutionary situation emerges, there will be many elements who do not have a perfectly formed political outlook. They may indeed have a number of reactionary viewpoints but the point is, along with everyone else, they’ve been driven to the point where they feel they have no other option than to revolt. I was told that we should accept this, take a full part in the situation and engage with people in an open and honest conversation as to what we want from this revolution while fighting alongside them. What I and many other people are seeing is the complete opposite of this which can only be described as a dereliction of duty that history will judge them harshly for. Anyway, that’s enough for the moment…let’s talk about how the resistance is going and thoughts on where it should go.

There are a number of different approaches being touted. My view is that there’s no one way of fighting what’s being done to us and that a variety of strategies and tactics should be openly embraced. Here’s a rough and ready summary of some of these approaches…
Firstly, there’s Architects For Social Housing who argue for non compliance and civil disobedience: The UK ‘Vaccination’ Programme. Part 3: Resistance – ASH – October 1, 2021. What has been and is continuing to happen is that workers faced with compulsory vaccinations are staging walkouts: Hospital Workers Walk Out Over Mandatory COVID Vaccination: ‘It’s a Choice’ – Soo Kim – 06.08.21. In this piece – Putting the skids under the vaccine passports – September 9, 2021 https://thestirrer.net/2021/09/09/putting-the-skids-under-the-vaccine-passports/ – I advocated the development of mutual aid networks so that as we increasingly get shut out of society, we can support each other to not only survive but also to thrive. Some are saying that we’ve tried to be peaceful in our protest but in the face of continuing and escalating police violence, our use of physical force has to be considered:

We’ve tried peaceful protest, we were attacked by police.
We tried open debate but were censored.
We tried to tell our followers that violence is not a solution.
We were wrong, it’s time we fought back, physically, we are the many!
Pitchforks or whatever you can muster, out.
https://twitter.com/Citiz3n5/status/1447288025571016706
Citiz3n5 – @Citiz3n5

My attitude is one of hope for the best but prepare for the absolute worst. If we could defeat this by peaceful non compliance and civil disobedience alone, it would be seen by many as a result, albeit it would leave the existing power structures unscathed. In a situation where there’s a blanket imposition of vaccine passports and the unvaccinated find themselves shut out of every aspect of society to the point where they’re struggling to get food on the table for themselves and their loved ones, violence is inevitable. Desperate people will be driven to do desperate things and the result will not be pretty. This is why I’ve advocated developing mutual aid networks so that in the event of a blanket imposition of vaccine passports that would shut us out of society, we can support each other to survive and be in a position to fight back.

As mentioned at the start of this piece, as it stand at the moment, here in England, things appear to be relatively relaxed regarding vaccine passports in comparison to a lot of other countries. For the moment that is…it would be foolish to think that what’s happening in countries such as Lithuania couldn’t happen here. We absolutely have to be prepared for the worst, albeit that it looks like it’s going to be imposed upon us in a step by step gradualist approach in the hope that we won’t wake up to what’s going on until it’s too late. All we’ve got is a little bit more time than many to prepare for what’s coming. However, there are a number of other issues coming into play which means that come the winter, we could well be dealing with a very messy and chaotic clusterf**k…

IT’S CLUSTERF**K TIME!

One of the visible manifestations of the coming clusterf**k was the ‘fuel crisis’ which manifested itself back in September. What sparked it was BP having a few glitches with their tanker deliveries to the petrol station forecourts which saw a few of them have to close for a short while. It could have just stayed there if it hadn’t been for the mainstream media picking up on the story, spinning it for a bit of sensationalism and hey presto, a small proportion of the populace panic and start queuing up at petrol stations to ensure their tanks are full. As we saw back in March 2020 at the start of the coronavirus crisis, it only takes a few extra people rushing out to stock up to knock a finely calibrated supply chain out of kilter resulting in the sight of empty shelves. The sight of empty shelves then prompts more panic buying in a self reinforcing feedback loop.

This is what has happened with the petrol situation. There were queues round our way but on average, they tended to be between 15-30 vehicles. Not massive but when sustained, enough to quickly drain the tanks at the petrol stations leading them to have to be closed until the next delivery. Like empty supermarket shelves, closed petrol stations will spark a sense of panic in some sections of the populace. We have to bear in mind that after almost twenty months of fear mongering and psyops, the mindsets of some sections of the populace will be more easily spooked now than they would have been two or more years ago, hence their heightened tendency to panic buy.

For a complex array of reasons, there’s a shortage of truck drivers, not just here in the UK but in many other countries as well: Driver shortage is pan-European – Global Cold Chain News – 24.08.21. We live in a society where (too)much of what we rely on, particularly food, comes to us via complex, ‘just in time’ supply chains. As you can imagine, being short on HGV drivers to move our food around is going to have an adverse impact on the food supply chain. These are a couple of pieces we’ve posted on our sister blog, Alternative Estuary, on the need to shorten food supply chains and gain more control over where our food comes from: Keeping it local and under our control – August 9, 2021 and: Building community resilience – securing the food supply – July 21, 2021.

Obviously, these two pieces are referring to the need for long term, holistic solutions. Meanwhile, the mainstream media have picked up on the growing number of glitches in the food supply chains and hey presto, in a self fulfilling prophecy, there’s now panic buying: Panic buying is back! Shoppers queue to fill up trolleys with toilet roll and other essentials after one in six couldn’t find what they wanted on the shelves as supermarket bosses are told to co-operate to save Christmas and petrol shortages continue – 10.10.21.

When there are shortages of, or supply chain issues with, fuel and food, a fair chunk of an already spooked population will be looking to government to ‘sort it out’. That’s exactly what the government want when they’re part of the unholy alliance pushing the ‘great reset’ upon us – a populace looking to them to provide a solution, regardless of the cost in personal freedom. Which is why, now more than ever, we need grassroots mutual aid projects to help us meet our needs without having to rely upon a government that does not have our best interests at heart. On a positive note, there are actually many examples of grassroots mutual aid projects that are doing the business in their communities – here are just a couple of examples: Cooperation Town and: South Norwood Community Kitchen.

On top of this, there’s the issue of soaring gas prices which are threatening to plunge many domestic consumers into fuel poverty as we move through the winter towards next spring, plus disrupting and even halting industrial production: Ministers clash as industries pushed to brink over soaring gas prices – i news – 10.10.21 and: Gas crisis: Government faces growing pressure to tackle rising energy costs amid warnings of difficult winter – i news – 09.10.21.

And…as well as all of the above, there’s a CO2 shortage which is adversely affecting the food industry. This piece explains why there’s a shortage and what impact that’s having across various sectors: CO2 Shortage: Why Is The UK In Trouble? – HuffPost – 21.09.21.

So there we have it – a perfect clusterf**k situation. As mentioned above, some of the issues are arising from panic buying which turns a glitch into a self reinforcing crisis. Then again, a fair bit of the above comes from an over reliance on over complex systems that until now, have never really been stress tested. Now they’re coming under stress for the first time, some of these systems would appear to have been built on little more than hubris. By the way, this is coming in on top of an NHS that yet again, has not adequately prepared for winter, as it has not done now for many years. All of this is on top of the roll out of the vaccine passport / digital identity / great reset’agenda.

CONCLUSION

Predicting the future accurately is never an easy process. With so many crises happening at once, it makes a tricky process even harder. However, with the shit hitting the fan across a number of fronts, come the depths of winter and going through the next spring, it will not come as any surprise if the government starts to get more openly authoritarian. A panicked populace will happily trade their freedoms for an illusion of security. While there are real issues with the complex systems we’ve come to rely upon, there’s also a lot of media hype that’s feeding this sense of panic, thus enabling the willingness to accept authoritarian measures.

We’ve had twenty months of fear mongering over coronavirus and now this is being exacerbated by fears over supply chains failing. When you put this in the context of the damage done by lockdowns to people’s lives and the mental health consequences of that, there’s a lot of people not in a good place. When we’ve been out and about, there has been a veneer of things going back to ‘normal’. That’s a thin veneer because anyone who has been paying attention will have recognised that things could change for the worse very quickly. Which makes any long term planning for the future a fraught, if not impossible task. That alone is enough to have an adverse impact on mental health as people struggle to get by in a climate of escalating uncertainty. The unpredictability of the fair sized chunk of the populace that has been traumatised to various degrees by what’s happened since March 2020 is another factor making it harder to predict how the next six months will play out.

We are where we are – in a very fraught and challenging situation. I’ve done my best with the above to try and summarise where we are. What has to be born in mind is that underneath the chaos – real and hyped – there’s the agenda of driving us towards the great reset. The chaos will undoubtedly be exploited to bring in the authoritarian measures that will be used to facilitate this drive. We face testing times. All we can do is carry on resisting while keeping alive the dream of building the world we want in the shell of the dysfunctional, dystopian one we’re currently being obliged to endure.