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The Middle Class, Globalization and the Pandemic
Takes just two hours to claw our way back from the cliff edge to a safer, saner, sustainable world beyond elites and experts
PREAMBLE
COVID-19 is not the only pandemic around. And the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is not the only dangerous virus that you have to protect yourself from, especially If you are part of the vast majority of the world's non-elites (or ordinary people, or the low- and middle-income groups).
In this age of 140-character tweets, snappy headlines and click-baits, "short attention span" of ordinary people, the non-elites prone to distractions, is a bigger pandemic that could prove potentially fatal sooner than mankind would care to imagine.
Even when under seemingly interminable lockdowns or curfews (imposed emergency that restricts outdoor movement and confines people indoors), and deprived of the daily "fix" of live entertainment and livestreamed e-commerce, the so-called Common Man/Woman (or Average Joe/Jane), it seems, has all the time in the world to re-watch age-old TV serials, yesteryear movies and favorite sports shows, but is somehow unable to carve out a couple of hours to read something that would deliver relatively "instant" enlightenment, prove a life-lasting eye-opener, haul him/her back from the cliff edge, give not just hope but a clear vision and the means to a new, better, safer, purpose-driven life.
We ordinary people had better realize that the current ecosystem has "conditioned" or "programmed" us into becoming victims of short attention spans.
Therefore, force yourself, if you must, into reading, re-reading, understanding, reflecting upon and digesting the entire content on this website.
For, it would be worth the effort. It would make you a better-informed person, besides propelling you toward that change which will save you and the world from unravelling.
So, if you are part of the vast majority of the world’s non-elites, it is highly likely the following Hobson’s choice might be applicable to you.
EITHER
you can spend an hour or two to digest the content on this website, and thereby fully comprehend what’s going on right now in the world (in the context of the 2020 pandemic), your place and role in this world, and implications for your (and your family’s) present and future
OR
you continue your current belief system, your current lifestyle pattern, and risk being further disempowered, zombified, marginalized, tricked and perhaps pushed toward elimination/extinction by the decades-old, elite-manipulated ecosystem created by a flawed form of capitalism.
EITHER
get enlightened and figure a way toward a safer, saner world
OR
remain ignorant, selfish, indifferent, greedy or fearful, and risk being pushed toward extinction by the current system.
Every section of the elites is trying to fish in troubled waters, take advantage of the current situation, and use the 2020 pandemic to not only perpetuate an unjust, unfair system but make it much more virulent, authoritarian or loaded against the masses.
Truth be told, the current situation also hides a tremendous, unprecedented opportunity for the ordinary people of this world to come together and act decisively, collectively and unitedly for the first time in history, to co-create a better, safer, saner and happier world for themselves, thus breaking a centuries-old chain of events that continually widened the elite-commoner gap in the socio-economic space.
It would be a real shame if people let go of this opportunity without even realizing its existence, without even attempting to exploit it. And, it's not as if there woud not be any consequences, or no price to pay, if the opportunity is not exploited in the way it should be exploited.
ESSAY
August 2020: At the outset, let’s acknowledge that the entire world, the human race, now finds itself at a grave risk posed by the global COVID-19 pandemic. We are on the cliff edge.
First, let’s acknowledge that the global spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was due to mass-scale movement of people criss-crossing the world for a variety of reasons– executives, officials, employees, professionals, workers, labourers, tourists, students, ministers, etc, and their family members.
As economist Ian Goldin wrote in The New York Times:
"The (COVID-19) pandemic is a product of our times in the speed and intensity of its rapid spread. The super spreaders of the good aspects of globalization, such as major airports, which facilitate business and leisure travel, are also the super spreaders of the bads, like disease. The rapid growth of cities and rising incomes in many places is also relatively recent, so more people live in concentrated centers close to major hubs."
Second, let’s also recognize the majority of such people on the move are the middle class, or the middle-income people, a broad category that, for the purposes of this essay, subsumes many segments or strata (including those covering the lower middle class and the poor).
Third, let’s admit much of this physical movement of people worldwide would not have been possible without globalization. In a sense, their movement was made necessary by, or due to, globalization. It is globalization that facilitates their physical movement across the globe.
Now, let us look at the possible causes of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Possible” because there is no conclusive consensus or hard evidence yet on the real cause(s). There is a lot of speculation, including rumours, gossip, hypotheses and conspiracy theories. Some of them are as follows (highlighted in bold font below):
Mind you, the idea here is not to dwell on the conspiracy theories per se. Rather, these speculations now doing rounds online show the possibilities at least theoretically. (We must stress that the general consensus among the science community right now is that the 2020 pandemic may have been caused by natural forces, with the most likely cause being a virus that may have evolved in bats and got transmitted to humans via an intermediate vector.)
But, how did we reach this cliff edge? How come we allowed a world like the one we have now to be created in the first place where such things (as described below) are not only possible to be perpetrated but may have been perpetrated by "experts" or "specialists" or "the elite", right under our nose, while we ordinary people are conned into running the self-disempowering, self-defeating and self-destructive "rat race"?
Let's look at various speculations to gain some understanding.
SPECULATION 1) The pandemic is due to some strange eating habits of certain people, which led to zoonotic transmission of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 or nCoV-19) that is still evolving or mutating.
Are certain people, mostly “middle-class” consumers, consuming exotic food by force of habit? Or, are they doing so because they can afford it now, given their newfound affluence arising from economic opportunities presented by globalization? Or, are they doing so because they have not been enlightened enough by their ecosystem on what to eat and what not to eat, even after decades of globalization and the attendant development and progress? Or, are they doing so because the modern culture spawned by globalization portrays weird habits as unusual, extraordinary, fashionable, and spotlight-worthy? Or, are they doing so because globalization has reinforced “market societies” so deeply that anything and everything can be commodified, marketed and monetized now, by exploiting the demand-supply equation?
A relevant quote from Alanna Shaikh’s TEDx talk:
"COVID-19 is not the last major outbreak we're ever going to see. There's going to be more outbreaks, and there's going to be more epidemics. That's not a maybe. That's a given. And it's a result of the way that we, as human beings, are interacting with our planet. Human choices are driving us into a position where we're going to see more outbreaks. Part of that is about climate change and the way a warming climate makes the world more hospitable to viruses and bacteria. But it's also about the way we're pushing into the last wild spaces on our planet."
SPECULATION 2) The pandemic is a manufactured crisis, with political, economic and trade goals, with one side trying to outsmart or diminish the other side using high-tech, deadly alternatives to conventional warfare.
A saying goes that when elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets crushed.
That such a fight should be waged at all suggests a few things:
i) The stakes are very high, thanks in large measure to globalization (global markets).
ii) For such high stakes, unthinkable ways and means are possible to be adopted, which could bring untold suffering to the majority middle-class people globally.
iii) The current system, accepted and facilitated by the middle class themselves, enables “the elephants” to gain access to such deadly ways and means.
To quote Ian Goldin again:
“(COVID-19) is different in terms of how quickly and how far the pandemic can spread quickly. This is a feature of the growing complexity and interdependence of the world, but it also reflects the failure of politics to understand how the systems have developed and how to respond.”
SPECULATION 3) The pandemic is an accident – a biotech/life sciences experiment gone horribly wrong.
An international team of neutral scientists, including epidemiologists, have asserted that the SARS-CoV-2 is very likely a natural mutation, not something that has been developed or grown in a laboratory. Even so, theoretically, it is possible to ‘manufacture’ deadly viruses. The DNA-based and RNA-based strains are ample proof of natural and artificial/synthetic viruses.
These call for tremendous R&D, humongous investments. The current system enables vast flows of money into the development of such technologies. The current outbreak has also exposed how fragile, inadequate and unprepared health systems are in our globalized world.
Now, pandemics are nothing new. They have been part of our history and evolution. So, when we unquestioningly accept a certain kind of globalization, how come we ignore the most basic or elementary risks and priorities, and do nothing at all for decades to cover our bases?
When we embarked on a process like globalization, this pandemic threat is something that we should have foreseen and addressed at the very start, right? But no one questioned the pattern of investments, nor reviewed our priorities, for decades. Now, we, including the compliant, flaw-perpetuating middle class, find ourselves at the cliff edge.
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SPECULATION 4) The pandemic is a deliberate diabolical strategy of Big Biotech + Big Pharma combined with Big Philanthropy, and Big Tech.
Is biotech – gene sequencing, life sciences, virology, and its monetization through technology, etc – the newest, evil-tainted means to unlimited power and unlimited wealth?
What if COVID-19 were a sophisticated project to force an abrupt paradigm shift down the throat of an unsuspecting world? Do masses even have a choice whether or not to embrace futuristic technologies like new-generation telecommunications, big data, AI, automation, internet of things, designer drugs?
What if Big Philanthropy is a mask that hides secret attempts to preempt opportunities for the masses to grow, develop and evolve by controlling and calibrating their already fragile health through donated medicines, vaccines, etc, to eliminate them because they are unwanted “masses”?
The point is not so much whether such possibilities could be true. The point is, what is it that the disempowered masses could do now, if such so-called conspiracy theories were true?
It is possible for such theories to come true. What makes this possible is the process of lopsided economic globalization that empowers the elite – the businesses, the Establishments, the institutions – in every conceivable way at the expense of the non-elites. And aren’t the majority middle class complicit in the perpetuation of this uneven, flawed globalization by accepting and facilitating it unquestioningly?
While the biotech companies were doing their work quietly in the background, how many of us paid attention to them or what they have been doing? How many of us ordinary people wondered about the implications of what they might be doing? How many of us questioned their motives? Why were they experimenting with bats? Did we even recognize that this sector was attracting mega investments? And, did we even realize all that money was, in a sense, originating from our wallets, directly or indirectly?
Stated differently, we didn’t realize that while we were busy all these decades running the rat race, living the “good life” of vulgar, obscene or graceless material pursuits, comforts and pleasures, we were in effect disempowering ourselves and empowering ‘them’.
Prestigious awards are given away every year to cutting-edge achievements. How come we never probe who funds this kind of research? And research into what exactly?
How have the masses who fund such research through taxes benefited, if at all?
How come we live in a world where we have unbelievable technologies, but no adequate health and education systems still?
Worse, as said earlier elsewhere, extreme poverty and utter lack of development are not so uncommon in various parts of the world, a world where luxury cruises are (were) a rapidly growing industry.
If you had watched movies such as Outbreak and Contagion, or the Netflix documentary series Pandemic, it would appear the whole world of domain experts knew a super deadly pandemic was due any time. Noises too were made about the utter inadequacy of health systems. Yet, two key sections did not, or chose not to, pay attention: the Establishments and the ordinary people.
It is understandable that the disempowered majority ordinary people, having gotten used to delegating or outsourcing all big-picture responsibilities to the elite for a long, long time, were busy running the rat race for enjoying their “good life”.
How come ordinary people never think deeply about the strange phenomena of life imitating fiction, art and prophecies with uncanny accuracy time and again?
Are prophecies, dystopian movies and novels, which eventually and unfailingly come true in real life, and inspire instant shock and awe, actually a ploy of the elites to test the consciousness level (or the ‘zombieness quotient') of the masses?
Has globalization (of the kind that has been practised for last several decades now) zombified and corrupted even the so-called educated people so much that they are unable to see the writing on the wall, or decipher such coded messages?
How come ultra-modern high-tech diagnostic centers are ubiquitous, and routinely charge astronomical sums from middle-class people for umpteen prescribed tests that may or may not be essential in the first place?
But, how come when it comes to testing pandemic-causing viruses, all the countries the world over, the proponents of globalization, are woefully lagging in terms of facilities required, even though history has taught us enough about the risk of pandemics?
Are new-generation telecom technologies, AI, big data, cloud computing, internet of things, AR, VR, e-commerce, digital payments, cryptocurrencies, fintech, what have you ... more important than basic health, basic education and poverty alleviation?
How come in spite of big data and the rest of those futuristic algorithm-enabled AI technologies, we still don’t have real-time data on the hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 deaths and infections – like, up-to-the-minute demographics, geographic spread, prognosis of each patient, real causes of death, duration of illness in each case, patterns therein, symptoms, diets used, medicines and care given, cross-infections within hospitals, patient management, disease management, so on?
Are privacy concerns a good enough reason not to share such data in the public domain while privacy is routinely intruded upon already in the name of surveillance, contact tracing, etc?
SPECULATION 5) The pandemic is a ploy to get rid of unproductive human resources that are seen as a drain on economic resources. Using extreme sci-tech, the world is being depopulated heartlessly, cold-bloodedly.
Is it a mere coincidence that in Europe and elsewhere, most of those who died of COVID-19 are old pensioners who helped facilitate globalization in the past, but may have been dispensed with as soon as they ceased to be useful and became a liability or a burden on the very system they had helped perpetuate?
How come a certain demographic of young people who may have been judged as dregs on society, lacking in talent or merit, or potential future trouble or burden, also perished, first due to the mysterious vaping illness of 2019, and then the allegedly similar COVID-19 in 2020? Questions, even if seemingly preposterous, worth pondering, huh?
SPECULATION 6) This is by far the MOST IMPORTANT speculation. Read carefully, attentively, patiently. The pandemic, it seems, could well be a prelude to something bigger – more targeted elimination of certain peoples, or it is a preliminary trial to test the current immunity levels of the population before the next big move? Or, perhaps a massive, global-scale sociological experiment, to test how a ‘standardized’, globalized world can zombify communities and societies across geographies and cultures?
Imagine test marketing of a new product in the form of a sample. Sometimes, the trial itself could be conducted on a wider scale, to test the response of different audiences across geographies, cultures and demographics. Depending on the "market" response and 'feedback', the product's features will be fine-tuned before the actual launch across all "markets".
Imagine the havoc the 'new', improved, fully-loaded, and fully-potent "product" would wreak upon its "full-fledged" launch, come, say, November/December of 2020, or the winter of 2020-21, and in "waves" (or upgrades/refreshes) thereafter.
Globalization concentrates enormous amount of power, financial resources, control over natural resources and knowledge in a few hands. Those few hands manipulate the majority into supporting and sustaining a system that is loaded against the latter, us. If science and technology have evolved to such a level that targeted elimination of certain peoples is theoretically possible without the use of conventional war, and weapons of mass destruction like nuclear bombs, or genocides, then globalization is clearly implicated. How come the majority middle-class people still don’t recognize this link in spite of receiving “education”? That apart, economic policies can be cleverly manipulated to work against the non-elites, driving some of them to not just joblessness, dependence but even suicides and extinction.
Coming to the sociological experiment angle, it is conceivable that science, health, technology could be misused to shape/reset cultural mores or paradigms. Decades back, blue denim jeans became a meme and a global fashion. Ditto for McDonald's French fries (potato chips).
Similarly, wearing of masks, maintaining social/physical distancing, staying indoors due to lockdowns, complying with calls for clapping hands, ringing bells, lighting lamps/torches, remote working, furloughs, etc . . . all these could well be clever sociological ploys to check whether or not people in the 21st century could still be manipulated, to make them behave like zombified puppets on cues of social responsibility, health scare, nationalism, and such.
One disease, one virus strain, one global outbreak at the same time-period, but the way it is handled by the authorities concerned will differ enormously across geographies, cultures, societies and systems of governance. The big bright idea (of the elites operating as one united global unit), it seems, is to figure out which method works best and why. Once, "they" collate all the "field" data and crunch it using "big data" and "AI" for sociological insights, they will likely further fine-tune the "payload" and "functionality" of the next "strain", before the latest upgraded biotech "product" is finalized for a "full-fledged" global launch, come the winter of 2020-21. Beware!
The so-called "second wave" will have as mysterious origins as the first outbreak's, and will seek to convince you that the narrative about the first wave was real, true, fact, truth -- that the virus is real, natural, not a manufactured "product". The "third wave" will seek to reinforce that the first and second "waves" were natural. International multilateral agencies will profess deep understanding of the virus, when it is entering a "new and dangerous" phase. But they also profess ignorance about its origins and other aspects. As per their convenience, they are either super-powerful or super-helpless.
The authorities will control the narrative, your mood, your hope, your focus of attention, your movements, your freedoms, your lifestyle, your choices.
To sum up:
The so-called second wave will seek to reinforce that the first wave was real, genuine, that the virus actually exists in reality and not some fiction or hot air.
Similarly, the third wave will seek to convince and persuade you it's all happening for real. And so forth.
"They" (the super-elite secretive exclusive club at the controls in the global command center) will likely signal without even explicitly saying or writing -- "The situation is still dangerous, it's risky to step out, so maintain social distancing, wash hands, wear mask, drink ginger tea, lemon juice, Vitamin C, boost immunity, etc.
"Vaccine is coming. Vaccine is compulsory. Vaccine is expensive. Vaccine must be used twice a year, twice a month, twice a week, twice a day, or twice an hour.
"Meat plants are dangerous. Snacks factories are dangerous. Fruit markets are dangerous. Vegetable marts are dangerous. Meat markets are dangerous. Offices are dangerous. Sports stadia are dangerous. Cinemas are dangerous. Parks are dangerous. Airports and planes are dangerous. Trains are dangerous. Ships are dangerous. Drinking water supplies have been contaminated because of some infected workers. Courier deliveries are risky. Stay in, stay in, don't move around too much.
"Stay in. Self-quarantine. Stand. Sit. Wake up. Do exercise at home. Eat. Drink. Sleep. Dance. Learn. Smile. Cry. Scream. Laugh. Roll on the floor. Piss. Let one out. Take a dump. Eat. Drink. Cough. Sneeze. Change. Wash. Jump. Stand on your head. Shake. Twist. Twirl....
"You are an ordinary fellow. You are from non-elites. You are a zombie. You are a puppet. You are a marionette. We will manipulate you. We will control the narrative. We will spin the yarn. We will script and set the rules of the New Game. And you will comply. We will remote-control you. We will press the buttons. You will do exactly what we command you to do. Or else....Beware!"
It would NOT be preposterous anymore to suggest that the content of sci-fi films -- 100% dystopian or theonomic societies, new lethal life forms and animals, poisoning of air and supplied tap water, even alien attacks, and so forth -- may be well within the realm of possibility in the coming years, IF the majority non-elites do not resist and reverse the current systemic trend of zombification, disempowerment, and marginalization of individuals at the levels of citizen, voter, taxpayer, consumer, tech-user, etc.
Come to think of it, in the 1970s, disintegration of the USSR was unthinkable. But it happened. Similarly, in the 1990s, an incident like 9-11 of 2001 was inconceivable. But it came to pass. A financial crisis that could unsettle the entire globe was unimaginable in the early 2000s. But it happened in 2008-09, and the world is yet to recover. In the 2010s, a global, long-term, lethal pandemic was improbable. It is happening right now.
In the 2020s, absolute dystopian theonomies, new lethal life forms, human-devouring animals, poisoning of air and supplied tap water, underground nuclear explosions that could bring down entire cities, drone attacks, even alien invasions, asteroid hits ... all these may seem impossible.
But, by now, you should know that concentration of sci-tech, political, financial, military, and law-enforcement powers in the hands of the unethical, heartless, demonical minority elites through popular, rigged, or manipulated mandates (like elections and referendums), crass consumerism or through straightforward appropriation and usurpation of power is a surefire recipe for depopulation of zombified masses, going forward.
The deeper the zombification intensity, selfishness, indifference, ignorance, mindless compliance, fear, cowardice, hands-off insular approach to life and living among the majority non-elites, the greater is the risk of elimination to them (the current and future generations).
SPECULATION 7) The pandemic is an attention-shifting distraction to cover up something.
Globalization’s hallmarks are unbridled capitalism, consumerism, materialism, debt, excessive focus on economy (GDP, growth, development, etc), sexy startups, investments, financial crises, liquidity, recession, depression, hyper-inflation, markets, currencies, bonds, equities, securities, commodities, derivatives, gigantic frauds, humongous scandals, and so forth.
On the other hand, it has spawned spurious ideologies and governance systems that are high on lofty concepts like democracy but low on governance, probity, transparency and accountability.
Business, politics, science and religion, combined with other institutions like defence and judiciary, it seems, are all in a nexus, on the same side now, in bed with each other, ganged up against the ordinary people. Everything, it appears, is rhetoric, make-believe, trick, or a con-game. What you see is not what you get. You can bet that truth is stranger than fiction.
Look back and recall the run-up of the last few years to the outbreak. Whose positions were facing the threat of weakening? Who felt threatened? Who now appear to have regained control? Who are looking forward to the future? Whose future is in jeopardy? Who will benefit from the virus? Who will lose out? What happened before, during and after the 2008-09 Global Financial Crisis, or, for that matter, the 2001 planes-crashing-into-towers episode? Until their occurences, such episodes, like the current outbreak, were unthinkable, unimaginable, improbable too.
Amid the outbreak that has cast a long dark shadow over your very future, which other issues have received your attention? Did you focus your mind volitionally on such issues? Or, was it manipulated by, well, manipulative media narratives and hyperventilating thought-leaders? Could it be that such issues were manufactured by orchestrating certain events? Is "reality" manufactured?
SPECULATION 8) The pandemic is a conspiracy of capitalism’s advocates against climate crisis activists – first deprive people, create pent-up demand for goods and services, resume the rat race, to take the wind out of activists’ sails.
Could it be that capitalists felt unnerved by rising voices the world over against economic inequalities, widening wealth gap, exploitation, unfair business and employment practices, global warming, climate crisis?
To pre-empt any further mass protests on a global scale, are people being kidded and manipulated (through fear and coercion) into complying with orders – travel restrictions, social distancing, lockdowns – that have slyly ushered in dystopian societies?
Having made people addicted to materialism, and then by temporarily depriving them of their ‘fixes’, are attempts being made to convince the masses that capitalism is a necessary evil and cannot be done away with, even in the face of threat to the planet itself? Is the pandemic a sickening admission of helplessness (in finding better alternatives) and a death wish? Or, is it a villainous attempt by the diehard capitalists to take the world down along with the inevitable demise of capitalism?
SPECULATION 9) It all boils down to the age-old conspiracy: The Haves versus the Have-nots, now enacted on a global scale by finessing the age-old divide-and-rule strategy, combined with create-and-thrive-in-confusion/distraction technique.
Beyond the “optics” or manufactured narratives of ‘East versus West’, ‘Democracy versus Communism’, ‘White Race versus Yellow Race’, is it really a case of ‘Haves versus Have-nots’, enacted worldwide for the very first time?
Have we reached the technological age where have-nots have become dispensable, and hence are being dispensed with as the haves, in their eternal wisdom, may have decided this is for the “larger good” of the planet? But manufactured confusion and complexity will conceal Truth.
Confusion and distractions could be created in the form of varying, sometimes mysterious or shocking policies and response measures adopted by various countries, clashing or contradictory statements of leaders, confounding or inconsistent protocols and advisories issued by health organizations and other agencies, 'spin'-smeared media coverage that boggles the mind rather than creating clarity and enlightenment...
And THE TRUTH will be revealed by 'the villains' themselves in the form of conspiracy theories, fiction, predictions, forecasts, debunking of conspiracies, pooh-poohing, dismissing, rejecting or ridiculing such theories, so that confused people will be misled into disbelieving them, and ruling out such eventualities! As they say, "the Devil's finest trick is to convince you it does NOT exist".
While the ordinary masses grapple with all this to make sense of the situation, somewhere in the background, unbeknownst to the majority, evil strategies will be implemented and dark deeds done. By the time you finally figure out whay might be going on, it will likely prove too late because the "knock-out punch" will have landed on your face by then.
SPECULATION 10) It's conceivable novel coronovirus (SARS-CoV-2), whose real origins and the actual place of outbreak remain a mystery, may have been an improvisation (or natural mutation) over its 2002-03 SARS avatar -- a product of several years of research (or negligence). And it could be a prelude to things to come in the future. Whether a natural outbreak or a manufactured pandemic, now that it is here and seemingly fast spinning out of control (as of mid-May 2020), it may be sought to be exploited by the powers-that-be for multiple goals spanning economic, technological, sociological, biochemical, psychological, and political fields.
It's like the one stone that can kill many birds at the same time.
The whole existing economic model is being abruptly disrupted to install a new economic system in its place. Surprise and shock are its (perpetrators') weapons. Even before people could make sense of what's going on, the (evil-minded) deed will have been done.
The trillions of dollars in bailouts, financial aid and other policy responses will make the rich richer and beggar the have-nots eventually, through hyper-inflation, erosion of value of assets in hand (land, real estate, jewelry, personal vehicles, stocks, securities, bank deposits, what have you), loss of jobs, salary freezes, salary cuts, leave without pay (furloughs), phasing out of whole lines of businesses, professions and vocations that are deemed redundant, or no longer essential, or luxuries in the current context.
Only a certain kind of individuals will be allowed to prosper. Others will be eliminated gradually through attrition, using the philosophy of "the survival of the fittest".
Over the last few decades, beggars have been systematically eliminated. Poor farmers have been committing suicides as agriculture was taken over by big corporations and mechanized.
Automation, robotics, deep machine learning, big data and artificial intelligence will likely next eliminate low-skilled laborers/workers.
Whole human gene pools that are seen as inferior, now living across vast populations and geographies, will likely be eliminated next through high-tech vaccines and drugs, in the name of philanthropy, welfare and public health systems.
Next in the queue (line-up) for elimination will be the billions of middle-income people who are seen as mediocre, greedy, lazy, ignorant, insecure, selfish and 'sin'-addicted, and hence as parasites, pathogens on earth, a drain on natural resources as well as man-made systems.
Since the middle-income people's biochemical or bodily composition and the quality of mind have already been altered (degraded) through sustained exposure to the controlled ecosystem of modern society and cultures and their compromised value systems (lifestyles) on the one hand, and genetically modified grains, fruits and vegetabless, chemical-rich junk foods, and brain-damaging beverages and non-vegetarian processed foods on the other, it will be easier now to manipulate them and browbeat them into submission, and then make them comply with dystopian systems.
Such dystopian regimes won't be political institutions but pan-global corporate affairs, given that the net wealth, financial power, control over technologies' evolution and reach of the world's top 2,000 billionaires (all businessmen, businesswomen or business families or royals who, yes, continue to exist and thrive even in 2020) exceeds the collective GDP and government budgets of hundreds of countries.
In other words, it requires just a few hundreds of these top billionaires -- the Elite of the Elite, or the creme de le creme -- to come together and take over our planet, and dictate terms and conditions to Heads of Governments or Heads of States, who will have no alternative but to fall in line, and carry out their orders or diktats.
Look around, and you will find everywhere helpless, pennyless, clueless, ignorant, incapable and under-prepared governments or regimes headed by jokers, clowns, tyrants, charlatans, pretenders, impostors, or criminals. Such governments and their heads hold no terrors to the Elite of the Elite.
All that dystopian and theonomic/theonomy fiction, prophecies and predictions portrayed in movies, TV serials, online series, and described in books, is now well within the reach of the 'Super Elite'.
God forbid, but don't be surprised if the future unfolds with multiple simultaneous shocks being administered brazenly, wantonly, remorselessly and with gay abandon.
By the way, we are not talking of 24x7 surveillance, invasion of privacy, curtailment of individual freedoms, violation of human rights, etc.
Instead, we are foreseeing or visualizing (not "awfulizing") poison gas leaks, deadly air pollution, deadlier viruses with stronger 'payloads', contaminated water supplies, compulsory expensive "vaccines" or drugs or "therapeutics" that slowly invade and destroy natural immune system of certain types of identified/blacklisted human populations, induced killer local earthquakes through deliberate diabolical underground nuke tests, orchestrated "asteroid"/"meteorite" (missle/drone) attacks from skies, engineered droughts and famines through control of supply chains and logistics networks.
The idea here is NOT to scare the hell out of you. We are not fear-mongers. But, our speculations are shaped by the realization of what is now technologically and theoretically conceivable, possible and executable.
To reiterate, what we do is not scare-mongering nor propagation of creative conspiracy theories. The intent here is to provoke thought and make ordinary people, the non-elites, think and ponder their future, and encourage them to grow intellectually and evolve spiritually.
That is the only way we the non-elites can protect our own enlightened self-interest, and come together, learn to cooperate and collaborate in order to co-create a safer, saner, secure and sustainable world.
* * *
Ok, before we move on, just a few more possibilities, which can't be ruled out. "Truth can be stranger than fiction." Remember? So, in that spirit, we share FIVE more possibilities here, with no elaborations because we are sure by now you'll get the drift.
SPECULATION 11) The pandemic is a conspiracy of a world-controlling “secret society”, or a religious order, or a cultural or civilizational group, or an elite group/sub-group, or an activist group gone rogue for larger good (or miscalculated indiscretion), whose motives or goals will become clear down the road.
SPECULATION 12) The pandemic is a possible alien attack, or due to some celestial phenomena, or a result of some deadly virus that entered earth from other-worldly bodies like meteorites. Or, an approaching or passing celestial object like a comet -- Neowise? -- could trigger turbulence or disturbances in subtle energies that permeate Earth's matter, bringing forth dormant pre-life forms into activated or stimulated mode, as was stated in ancient books.
Or, the COVID-19 pandemic is the result of dangerous underground experiments in particle physics conducted over the last several years, which has disturbed the delicate inner balance, ecology or equilibrium of earth's matter, and brought into being, or activated, dormant primitive pre-life forms that are now evolving fast to square up against existing life forms, top down.
Meaning, after annihilating homo sapiens, the new life forms that will evolve from the novel coronavirus's mutations will devour all other existing species, and a completely new set of life forms will come to inhabit planet Earth, as if to dispense justice to the recklessness, greed and speed with which we used up the natural resources while destroying Nature even more quickly.
Or, the COVID-19 pandemic is the result of alien life forms like bacteria or microbes, or pre-life forms like viruses, that were "imported" into earth by various space missions wittingly or unwittingly.
SPECULATION 13) The novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is a natural, still-evolving phenomenon, perhaps a result of decomposition of buried dead bodies of people who had died of dangerous diseases.
SPECULATION 14) This whole talk of nCoV (SARS-CoV-2) is just BS, hogwash, eyewash, the biggest con ever, a "fake pandemic". There is no virus at all! In the name of virus, "they" want to impose indefinite lockdowns, so that helpless, "useless", low-value people will die of starvation, or due to lack of essential resources like food, water, and shelter, or due to lack of access to healthcare, depression, stress, suicide, etc. Cure is worse than disease, as they say. Data, it seems, is fudged, or methodology is suspect, or opaque, not self-evident. The COVID dead may not be included in data. Or, those who died of other causes may be included in COVID casualties list. Slowly, this will become their preferred method of reducing population. This way, others -- the unsuspecting, fearful, gullible middle-class 'zombies' -- will learn compliance, and unquestioningly dance to the tunes of authoritarian regimes controlled by mega corporations and Big Philanthropy, as the world heads toward a dystopian era.
SPECULATION 15) The ('fake") pandemic is a sly, super-sophisticated, high-tech attempt to abruptly introduce a completely new economic system designed to be disruptive to the core, with a built-in shock-and-awe effect that will be far-reaching and long-lasting. The new high-tech economic system will suit only those who have invented the 'Game' and its rules. Not just ordinary people, even a section of the elites -- say, 1,000 to 1,350 of the 2,300-odd billionaires on this planet, besides $$$ multimillionaires -- will get 'burnt' by the pandemic that is likely to last five to ten years, marking a transition to the new system. So, the 2020 "wave" (or "waves") is (are) just the tip of the iceberg. More lethal stuff is in the pipeline, beware.
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After creating havoc with lockdowns and disruptions that entail economic mayhem, death of some industries, layoffs, mass deaths of people, will there be an eventual triumphant cry of capitalists that they have yet again rescued mankind from the jaws of death by funding the development of a vaccine?
With this COVID 'masterstroke', will capitalism be perpetuated at a time when its days were numbered? Will all challenges to it from environmentalists, social activists, climate crisis protesters, et al, be swept aside as billions of people cry out for jobs and livelihoods?
And, since you can kill two or more birds with one stone, why not finish off those billionaires who had gatecrashed into the exclusive ‘Real Elite Club’ by getting lucky on the capitalism ride, as well?
Kill off certain industries that are such wrong billionaires’ cash cows; ensure the future belongs to only those select industries where the real elite have vested interests.
By the way, which industries and markets are rising because of COVID? And which ones are biting the dust? Is this up-down phenomenon natural or orchestrated? Think!
As of mid-August 2020, it is clear the world's central banks have opened the floodgates of liquidity and eased interest rates, leading to easy big cash for a select few, who are driving stocks markets up, up, up, amid COVID deaths and chaos all around, in hope of making a killing on their bets on a future rebound.
So, is this COVID pandemic really a East-versus-West story, a Haves-versus-HaveNots tale, or is it more likely a conspiracy by a select club or subset among the elites to run away with our planet, empowered by political, physical, financial, sci-tech and legal powers on the one hand, and the vast majority middle-class people's ignorance, indifference, zombieness, greed, fear, cowardice, disunity and laziness on the other?
Okay, so much for conspiracy theories, rumours, and speculations. :) Pretty intense, huh? But plausible too, right? Now, you read, re-read, read between the lines, reflect. Somewhere, Truth may be in there. 'Get' it. If you still find difficulty in sensing or intuiting the Truth, then you may want to take part in our COVID Contest. That will help exercise your intellect, particularly if you click all the embedded links on that page. Your mind should / will connect all the dots hopefully.
Be that as it may.
Now, it seems apparent that whatever may be the real cause behind COVID-19 (which we may or may not ever come to know), it is related in one way or another to the process of flawed globalization of the last few decades.
And we, the majority middle class people, have been enablers of globalization wittingly or unwittingly. How?
To be sure, globalization has brought tremendous opportunities to the majority middle-class people the world over. They have become affluent, prosperous, are enjoying a relatively "good life" (perhaps more than they actually deserve in some cases).
Instead of encouraging them to evolve toward accepting greater and larger responsibilities, globalization seems to have made the middle class greedy, a "grabbing" class of sorts, very insular and selfish in outlook, as if the PART doesn’t have to feel concerned and responsible for the WHOLE.
Do the middle class feel entitled to a “good life”? Do they take the material benefits for granted? Have they become so selfish, self-absorbed and self-centric that they have become insensitive and blind to the dark side of globalization, the very process that gives them the good life?
The dark side causes pain and misery to other peoples on this planet, harms other species and environment, destroys Nature, overuses resources, disturbs ecosystems, devastates the planet... all of which, it appears, is lost on the middle class that reaps the benefits of globalization.
How many of such beneficiaries of globalization truly have a global outlook, a global perspective, and really understand globalization in a 360-degree way?
And, going by Alanna Shaikh’s TEDx talk, could we then ask if their selfish attitude, ignorance and indifference have now put the entire planet and the human race at risk?
Is it time then for the majority middle class people to review and understand globalization, and also review their approach to life and living, their value system and priorities?
Is it also time for the majority middle class to reimagine their inner model of society and community, and their role in it at an individual level, now that coronavirus has shown (in a weird sort of way) how deeply 'interconnected' and ‘interdependent’ we all truly are?
If you have read this essay so far, and the rationale for it, then we believe you may be serious about seeing positive change in your own lifetime.
We believe you have conscience, courage and sincerity, probably even an activist’s mindset. We believe you are a doer, not just a talker or a reader/viewer. We believe you might consider an opportunity to make a positive difference to our world, to make it a “better place” for all, not just for some.
We believe it’s simply not enough to write a powerful essay and leave it at that. In this day and age, we ought to know, and do, better than that.
We believe it is still possible for all of us ordinary people, the non-elites, to wake up from our collective slumber, our selfish and zombie-like existence, which is the real, deadlier virus. Hence, we must act in decisive and unprecedented ways.
The two pie-charts below depict in a nutshell what it would take for us ordinary people, the majority, to wrest control of this world and regulate its future evolution.
As you can see, it doesn’t take much -- just Cooperation, Coordination, Collaboration and Contribution. The 4Cs – our operative words. Conviction (Faith) and courage are the magic mantras.
If you are up for The Great Middle-Class Reset Challenge, please fill up the form below NOW.
Click here to know more about our ‘Transform The World Project’, also known as neWorldView (nWV).
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Next page: Rationale for this essay
