Have we brewed a whirlwind? Paul Craig Roberts

Have we brewed a whirlwind?

March 4, 2020 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: |  Print This Article

Have we brewed a whirlwind?
Paul Craig Roberts
Dear friends, it is March and time for my quarterly call for your donations.  I am here for you as long as you want me.  PCR
In the United States and throughout the Western World there is public distrust of public authorities and distrust among the public of one another.  Public authorities who do not like “conspiracy theories” do a lot to generate them.
We can see the public’s distrust of public authorities in the negligent response to the coronavirus.  The refusal of public authorities to stop incoming flights from infected countries has brought the
dangerous virus into the Western World where inaction has so far prevailed.
Many virologists and other experts have criticized the inaction for seriously endangering the public.  I recently posted some of the expert statements made to public health authorities.  See:
Belgium:  https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/03/02/virologist-advises-belgium-health-minister-country-is-unprepared/ 
Germany:  https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/03/03/coronavirus-people-are-left-alone-in-the-face-of-a-rapidly-growing-virus-pandemic-some-thoughts-out-of-germany/ .
The refusals of public officials to take protective steps partly reside in ideological positions.  In Europe it is the European Union’s commitment to open borders and one Europe.  Closing the borders goes against the ideology that nationalism is the problem.
In other instances, Canada for example, the Prime Minister apparently considers it “racist” to protect Canadians from incoming flights from Iran.  See: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/03/02/we-cannot-protect-ourselves-because-travel-bans-are-racist/ .
The public sees inaction, disbelieves the feeble reasons given, and takes action to exhaust supplies of protective gear, storable foods, and everything else that disappears in a panic.  
As the inaction of public authorities is not understandable, all sorts of explanations arise.  For example: The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institute for Health (NIH) want the virus to spread, because the result will be bigger budgets;  the pharmaceutical companies (Big-Pharma) want the virus to spread, because it will bring them profits in mandatory vaccination whether it prevents or aids the spread of the virus;  governments want the virus to spread, because it allows them to impose martial law and abolish civil liberties;  elites are using the virus to reduce the world population;  governments are using the virus to reduce the strain of the elderly on health care systems and save money.  You can add to this list on your own.
One consequence of distrust of public authorities is lack of public cooperation in whatever response effort public authorities eventually mount.  Another consequence is that this lack of public cooperation justifies more coercion by government in order to deal with the threat.  Remember all of the violations of Constitutional protections made by the George W. Bush and Obama regimes in responst to 9/11 and the “terrorist threat.”  A big difference is that then there was no pandemic.
Distrust among the public of one another has been fomented by decades of feminist attacks on men and by decades of attacks on white people as “racists.”  These attacks have been institutionalized in the educational system.  They have been useful to feminist and “racial minorities” for advancement.  But they have atomized the population.  Where there was once community, no matter how unequal, there is the lack of community.  
The “sexist” and “racist” offences are more taught than felt and are reaching the point of absurdity.  Every day someone finds a slur in a word that has been part of the language for centuries before the presence in the population of racial minorities. These manufactured “offences” are used to excoriate men and to fire them from jobs and deny them professional careers.
Guillaume Durocher points out that community is also being destroyed by the decline in national community. The core entities that produced national communities or countries are being flooded out by incoming multitudes of immigrants from different cultures and value systems. Many on the left show open contempt for nationhood and national solidarity.  Durocher explains the collapse of national community here:  https://www.unz.com/gdurocher/towards-expat-nationalism/  
Now assaulting a fragmenting Western World comes a pandemic whose consequences cannot be known.  Is there enough leadership to overcome the long-inflicted damages and to pull the people together and to reestablish community?  With the Democrats politically weaponizing the coronavirus against President Trump, it does not seem so.