Kōan Fragments of a Distorted World #4 (with a nod to Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s book "Pictures of the Gone World")

Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants 
Oh, Jokerman, you don't show any response

- Bob Dylan, from his song “Jokerman”

When life gives you lemons... has been updated to: If life gives you lemons...
“CNN's Don Lemon talks to Paul Allen, co-owner of R.C. Hatton Farms, about why some farmers are destroying their crops and dumping fresh milk despite the skyrocketing demand at food banks across the country.”[1] The video segment shows a miles-long food bank car line and mentions lack of restaurants, schools and cafes to deliver to.

Is there enough intelligence in the so-called richest country in the world for coordinating one of the most obvious and essential progressions: Earth > food > people.

Soap, another unsung hero
Another essential progression: Earth > water > people.

Medical/hygiene experts and the corporate news tell people “wash your hands.” Helpful information for sure, yet laced with the language of authority figures speaking to children. At Standing Rock (2016-17), the world learned of the phrase “water protector.” To simply “wash your hands” is a selfish act, MY hands. Yet if giving thanks to the water for cleansing and helping to maintain my health and in return doing what I can to protect the water in my area, then they are not simply MY hands.

Yet that little guideline of gratitude is not applicable to those who don't even have access to clean water:

“Water shutoffs continue amid the coronavirus pandemic in Detroit, despite a moratorium and a program to help thousands of residents restore service last month. The lack of water access comes as nearly 1,500 people in Michigan have died from COVID-19, and 40% of those who have died are African-American, despite making up just 14% of the state’s population.”[2]

As a friend mentioned to me, "Capitalism's inequities are being brought into sharp focus by the pandemic.”

The emperor, er, empire has no clothes (gowns, masks, gloves, ventilators, medicines)
Hans Christian Andersen's little tale is known to most. In the past decade or so I have seen umpteen references to the naked emperor story in non-corporate news articles. Published April 7, 1837, it took 183 years almost to the day to become a physical reality, if you replace “emperor” with “empire”.

Headline: “Using Trash Bags for Gowns: Interview with a New York Nurse”

When asked about health care workers being called alarmists by right-wing politicians and media outlets, RN Diana Torres responded, “I would invite any of these people to come in to the hospital and spend one day walking in the shoes of a nurse. Come in to Mount Sinai and wear what we are given: a small gown that goes down to our knees and doesn’t cover us fully, one mask and one face shield and one set of gloves that you have to reuse as you walk around to see patients.”[3]

The global military death machine – of which was not in the news every single violent day as a global pandemic for the past 20 or 528 or more years with everyone concerned and clamoring for when things would get back to normal, though maybe around 1493 the Native Peoples started to wonder if things would get back to normal – continues to wield a humongous budget, yet masks and ventilators, gowns and gloves are challenging to come by, especially in the USA whose military budget is the #1 biggest and who recently became #1 for COVID-19 death toll.

Time to not only rethink but readjust priorities. Food. Water. Clothing/Protective Gear.

6 degrees, now feet of separation
6 feet, 13 feet, and 27 feet are the measurements that have been provided as necessary for physical-distancing. Seems most people are abiding by the 6 feet measurement as post offices, supermarkets, and other places have put down colored tape at such intervals, so people know where to stand in line. But why the discrepancy? What's the fact? Is there some secret code with the numbers? . . . 6+7=13 . . . 13+7+7=27 . . . so 27+7+7+7=48 . . . Does that signify anything?! Hey I'm no conspiracy theory numerologist, I'm just standing in line wanting a clear answer. Peoples lives are at stake!

Space > air > people.

Don't throw out the motto with the tainted bathwater
The Boy Scouts filed for bankruptcy in February of 2020 due to hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits.[4]

In April of 2019 it was reported:

“The Boy Scouts of America believed more than 7,800 of its former leaders were involved in sexually abusing children over the course of 72 years, according to newly exposed court testimony -- about 2,800 more leaders than previously known publicly.

“The Boy Scouts identified more than 12,000 alleged victims in that time period, from 1944 through 2016, according to the testimony, which was publicized by attorney Jeff Anderson, who specializes in representing sexual abuse victims.”[5]

Yet their motto “Be Prepared” need not fall by the wayside. But when it comes to Boy Politics, it has. Esteemed journalist and filmmaker John Pilger reports of how the UK suppressed information – four years ago – of how to handle a pandemic.[6]

In the USA in November 2019 an “Event” occurred and is perhaps best summed up with the following article title: “Coronavirus and Event 201: Eerily similar!?”[7]

From the article:

“On October 18 last year, John Hopkins Center for Health Security, in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Economic Forum, conducted a pandemic simulation exercise. Named Event 201, the exercise simulated the outbreak of a novel coronavirus, modeled largely on SARS, with no known vaccines. From bats to pigs to people, the hypothetical pathogen was assumed to be efficiently transmissible with mild symptoms in a community.”

According to Danielle Ryan's article “These US intel reports ACCURATELY PREDICTED pandemic years ago. Why was NOTHING done?”: “A pandemic was cited in a separate 2004 US National Intelligence Council (NIC) report”; also 2008 US NIC report; and “2012 German government risk analysis also highlighted the threat.”[8] 

And, from yet another article, Gareth Porter writes, “In May 2018, Luciana Borio, the director for medical and biodefense preparedness on the NSC staff, declared publicly that a flu pandemic that we “know cannot be stopped at the border” was the leading health security threat, and that the United States was not prepared for it.”[9]

 Ironic, considering that Border Wall so-called construction has been destroying sacred Native lands of the Tohono O'Odham, the saguaro cactus, and adversely affecting various critters who see no lines in the sand.

Whether any direct connection between the warnings/simulations and the coronavirus or not, at the least these reports reveal – to quote former Secretary of Defense and Zen master wannabe Donald Rumsfeld – “known knowns.”

But here's where the Boy Politics gets decidedly dicey; Gareth Porter’s article highlights the lack of preparedness and its insidious flip side:

“Responsibility for pandemic preparation was privatized under the Obama and Trump administrations. It’s time to face down the national security state that wasted trillions on imperial wars and abandoned Americans to fight coronavirus alone.”

Also quietly under the radar, the Global War On Terror morphed. After a 2017 document, in 2019 the name publicly changed to Great Power Competition,[10] a strategic move primarily to thwart the ascending global status of Russia and China, while pesky terrorists continued to be on the ground in the warfare mix, sometimes indistinguishable from those supposedly fighting them.

Was the “Global War On Terror” protecting Americans? Who will be the winners, the losers of the “Great Power Competition”? What will be the next name in the geo-political shell game?

NOTES
1. “Lines at food banks grow as some farmers destroy food”

2. “Wash Your Hands? Despite Pandemic, Thousands Still Have No Water in Detroit, a Coronavirus Hot Spot”

3. See here.

4. “Boy Scouts of America files for bankruptcy. Hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits are now on hold”

5. “The list of Boy Scouts leaders accused of sexual abuse has nearly 3,000 more names than previously known”

6. See here.

7. See here.

8. See here.

9. “As Washington privatized pandemic preparation, the national security state left Americans defenseless against coronavirus”

10. “The New Concept Everyone in Washington Is Talking About”

Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet at Axis of Logic. In addition to his work as a writer and small press publisher, he travels a holistic mystic pathway staying in touch with Turtle Island. See his new book of nonfiction with a poetic touch, “photo albums of the heart-mind”.

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