The Great Reset and the Not-So-New Normal

Beware of 3-word slogans:

• The Great Reset
• Build Back Better
• Green New Deal
• Trust The Science

We already had (among others):

• Stay at home
• Flatten the curve
• Save the NHS
• Keep them safe
• Lock them up
• Covid-19 rising here
• Hands, face and space
• Track & trace

For those who still have a memory, there was:

• War is peace
• Freedom is slavery
• Ignorance is strength

With all the conflicting, illogical and farsical information and advice being given about the current coronavirus and its recent variants, you might wonder if the Great Reset was the trigger for the 2020 coronavirus and not the other way round. 

You might wonder if the situation that pushed the Federal Reserve into magically creating out of nothing hundreds of billions overnight, with very little press comment or publicity, towards the end of 2019, didn't make the horrible lab experiments at Wuhan and the probable leak of a nasty, enhanced virus more than propitious. Because in late summer 2019 the Western economies crashed again, for the third time this century, and the central banks did what they like doing best, which is printing money (or, as they like to say in this digital age, 'injecting' money) and giving it straight to large, zombie corporations. Which is why during the pandemic so many of the stinkingly rich have become much richer and why inflation is knocking on our doors, after three decades of printing money, pardon, 'quantitative easing'.

In the buses where I live, out of the speakers comes a repetitive and extremely loud exhortation to not speak to anyone, in order to stop the spread, preceded by a 3-note chime. Pavlov would have loved it.

The Great Reset rose to prominence at the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in June 2020 and refers to a plan to rebuild the world’s infrastructure ‘in a sustainable way’ (the Green New Deal). The funny thing about The Great Reset is how much it strongly resembles business-as-usual, only with EXTRA globalism. Most of the plan’s outlines include a further weakening of national boundaries and individual national autonomy, in favour of a more ‘universal governance.’ As usual, it is the rapidly vanishing Western middle class which must shoulder this burden, as their freedoms are further curtailed to meet the quotas of corporate-media-fuelled activism.

Much stress is put on the fact of global warming and, yet, none of our elite at the October 2021 COP26 summit saw a problem with the hundreds of private jets they used to get there, nor with the lavish dinners; although we, the little people, are told to eat less meat and dairy in order to save the planet. And, remember, private jets currently cause 50% of aeroplane emissions, not to mention the huge processions of limousines flown in specially, nor the electric cars and the generators to charge them. 

No mention was made of the fact that the military is the largest single source of global warming, especially the US military. No mention was made of the fact that capitalism, with its absolute need for exponential growth and technological advancement, will always end up trashing the planet and making more and more of us obsolete. It is an economic system that ultimately makes the generation of waste the primary engine of the economy.

Nothing was said of how the 99% - or 99.9% - of the world's population, including you and me, are not consulted over any of this, not permitted to be masters of our own lives, not even of our own bodies. COP26, however, did not have any restrictions concerning vaccination status.

Their solutions to specific environmental or scientific problems become entwined with LGBTQ+ rights, workplace equity, open borders initiatives and other unrelated social justice causes, as the New Left forgets about class struggle and embraces identity politics in a big neoliberal lovefest, thereby neutralising itself and subdividing the left. Therefore, a united response to a global pandemic mysteriously also equals trans rights activism, the most neoliberal cause ever conjured up.

Very absent from all this are the following:

• Removing big corporations' subsides and tax breaks, which would stop Big Oil in its tracks and remove most of the environmental problems that come with it, plus the corruption and cronyism endemic to big corporations and their revolving doors with government.
• Raising corporation tax on profits.
• Making fiscal paradises impossible by not allowing multinationals to move funds between one fiscal regime and another and by obliging them to pay tax on profit in the same country as sales are made.
• Penalising all air travel beyond a minimum number of flights or air miles per year.

So beware modern-day euphemisms: current state healthcare is NOT care of your health. The Green New Deal is not new and it's not green. Comfort is a poor substitute for freedom. The mRNA jabs are not vaccines. Our democracy is in fact oligarchy. The Opposition is NOT opposing the status quo. And the elites are getting richer and will stay in power.

And, above all, beware 3-word slogans.