Wednesday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning Deplorables, hope that you are adjusting well to the new normal.

Detect, Deter and Annihilate: How the Police State Will Deal with a Coronavirus Outbreak

By John W. Whitehead

What do zombies have to do with the U.S. government’s plans for dealing with a coronavirus outbreak?

Read on, and I’ll tell you.

The zombie narrative was popularized by the hit television series The Walking Dead, in which a small group of Americans attempt to survive in a zombie-ridden, post-apocalyptic world where they’re not only fighting off flesh-eating ghouls but cannibalistic humans.

For a while there, zombies could be found lurking around every corner: wreaking havoc at gun shows, battling corsets in movies such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and running for their lives in 5K charity races.

Understandably, zombie fiction plays to our fears and paranoia, while allowing us to “envision how we and our own would thrive if everything went to hell and we lost all our societal supports.” Yet as journalist Syreeta McFadden points out, while dystopian stories used to reflect our anxieties, now they reflect our reality, mirroring how we as a nation view the world around us, how we as citizens view each other, and most of all how our government views us.

Indeed, the U.S. government has spent a lot of time and energy in recent years using zombies as the models for a variety of crisis scenarios not too dissimilar from what we are currently experiencing.

For instance, back in 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put together a zombie apocalypse preparation kit “that details everything you would need to have on hand in the event the living dead showed up at your front door.” The CDC, in conjunction with the Dept. of Defense, even used zombies to put government agents through their paces in mock military drills.

Fear the Walking Dead—AMC’s spinoff of its popular Walking Dead series—drove this point home by dialing back the clock to when the zombie outbreak first appears and setting viewers down in the midst of societal unrest not unlike our own experiences of recent years (“a bunch of weird incidents, police protests, riots, and … rapid social entropy”). Then, as Forbes reports, “the military showed up and we fast-forwarded into an ad hoc police state with no glimpse at what was happening in the world around our main cast of hapless survivors.”

Forbes found Fear’s quick shift into a police state to be far-fetched, but anyone who has been paying attention in recent years knows that the groundwork was laid long ago for the government—i.e., the military—to intervene and lock down the nation in the event of a national disaster.

We’re seeing this play out now as the coronavirus contagion spreads.

What we have yet to experience (although it may only be a matter of time) is that the government through the imposition of martial law could pose a greater threat to our safety (and our freedoms) than any virus.

As the Atlantic noted about Fear the Walking Dead: “The villains aren’t the zombies, who rarely appear, but the U.S. military, who sweep into an L.A. suburb to quarantine the survivors. Zombies are, after all, a recognizable threat—but Fear plumbs drama and horror from the betrayal by institutions designed to keep people safe.”

Indeed, zombie fiction perfectly embodies the government’s paranoia about the citizenry as potential threats that need to be monitored, tracked, surveilled, sequestered, deterred, vanquished and rendered impotent.

Why else would the government feel the need to monitor our communications, track our movements, criminalize our every action, treat us like suspects, and strip us of any means of defense while equipping its own personnel with an amazing arsenal of weapons?

Read the entire article HERE.

Philadelphia Unleashes Looters, Police Will Not Make Arrests For Property Theft, Drug Crimes During State of Emergency

Via Big League Politics

The Philadelphia Police Department will not be making arrests for several forms of petty theft and drug crimes, according to a new internal memorandum leaked to local media.

Documents detailing the city’s policies for its state of emergency revealed the questionable law enforcement move.

The policy instead will require police to temporarily detain offenders suspected of the crimes and verify their identity. Their information will be provided to a police detective, and ostensibly the case will be investigated when the coronavirus panic is over.

In the meantime, it largely appears that criminals will be provided with essentially free reign to commit theft, property offenses, burglary, vandalism, grand theft auto, and prostitution without fear of quick arrest.

Such a policy could actually prove to be a looter’s best dream, as if enough citizens take advantage of the opportunities for arrest-free property crimes it’ll be all but impossible for the Philadelphia police department to follow up in weeks or possibly months and book them on account of crimes committed during the coronavirus epidemic.

Read the entire article HERE.

Jail Break: LA Sheriff Releases Inmates, ‘Socially Distancing’ Them from Jail but Not From Law-Abiding Citizens

Via PJ Media

The LA County Sheriff is freeing prisoners from Los Angeles County jails and curbing arrests of more law-breakers because of the coronavirus, COVID-19. That means inmates will be socially distanced from one another but not from law-abiding citizens in LA.

Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who won election based partly on his promise to free more prisoners, announced that he asked local law enforcement, such as the LAPD, to not arrest so many people.

The sheriff also said that he’s ordered law enforcement not to bring anyone into jail whose offense is less than $50,000 bail to cut down on the numbers.

The jail officials are testing the inmates for the flu and coronavirus. The sheriff says that no inmates have tested positive for COVID-19.

Villanueva proudly announced that he’s freed 600 inmates and ordered local cops to reduce their arrests. He said they’ve cut their arrests by 80%, from 300 per day to 60.

Maybe that’s why residents are buying a record number of guns, Everclear and weed.

Read the entire article HERE.

The Top Eight Most Totalitarian Proposals in The Wake of the COVID-19 Threat

Via PJ Media

As governments around the nation and the world struggle to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, lots of proposals have emerged. In his press conference Friday, President Trump brought together corporations to handle the crisis via private industry. Other politicians have suggested much more draconian uses of governmental power. Many Americans have begun to succumb to the siren call of the government doing something, perfectly willing to surrender their civil liberties out of fear of the unknown. The furthest-left of America’s politicians have responded, demanding that this crisis lead to state seizure of several industries. This harkens back to Rahm Emmanuel’s famous directive when he served as Barack Obama’s chief of staff: Never let a good crisis go to waste.

Here now are the top eight most totalitarian socialist proposals to use the coronavirus crisis to seize the means of production for the state, destroy the Bill of Rights, kill capitalism, and remove personal liberties from every American. And one friendly reminder that socialism always leads to communism and totalitarianism—because it has to.

Read the entire article HERE.

In the Pandemic, It’s Every Nation for Itself

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time,” said Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey to a friend on the eve of Britain’s entry into the First World War.

Observing from afar as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the Old Continent, Grey’s words return to mind. And as the Great War changed Europe forever, the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be changing the way European peoples see each other.

“All for one and one for all!” These were the words by which “The Three Musketeers” of Alexandre Dumas lived their lives.

This was the ideal upon which the EU and NATO were built. An attack against one is an attack against all. The Schengen Agreement by which citizens of Europe are as free to travel through the countries of their continent as Americans are to travel from Maryland to Virginia is rooted in that ideal.

Yet, suddenly, all that seems to belong to yesterday.
How the EU’s nation-states are reacting to the coronavirus crisis brings to mind another phrase, a French phrase, “Sauve qui peut,” a rough translation of which is, “Every man for himself.”

The New York Times has written of the new reality. In Sunday’s top story, “Europe Locks Up and Faces Crisis as Virus Spread,” the Times wrote:

“While some European leaders, like President Emmanuel Macron of France, have called for intensifying cooperation across nations, others are trying to close their countries off.

“From Denmark to Slovakia, governments went into aggressive virus-fighting mode with border closings.”

Describing a host of countries heeding the call of tribalism and nationalism, the Times laments Monday:

“Today, Europeans are… erecting borders between countries, inside their cities and neighborhoods, around their homes — to protect themselves from their neighbors, even from their own grandchildren.”

“Confronting a virus that knows no borders, this modern Europe without borders is building them everywhere.”

In a few days, the Europe of open borders has become history.

Read the entire article HERE.

Ocasio-Cortez: ‘If You Don’t Infect Yourself With The Coronavirus, You Are A Racist’

Via The Babylon Bee (Satire)

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In an Instagram video filmed from her posh D.C. apartment, socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on all Americans to infect themselves with the Wuhan coronavirus to prove they are accepting of viruses and diseases of all colors and nationalities.

“If you refuse to get infected with the coronavirus just because it’s Chinese, you are what’s wrong with this country,” she said as she struggled to figure out how to operate a toaster. “Every inch of America crawls with the germs of hatred, and we must stamp out all hint of racism by welcoming this disease with open arms.”

“We must stop ostracizing this brave disease of color just because it’s from a foreign country,” she said on an Instagram video. “Americans are segregating themselves from this Chinese virus, and this hateful bigotry must stop.”

Ocasio-Cortez is quarantining herself, of course, but says it’s different for her because she is an important politician. “I have, like, a name placard and everything,” she said. “If you do it, it’s racist. If I do it, it’s for the greater good. All Americans are equal, but some Americans are more equal than others.”

Check out all of the Bee’s great takes on politics and society HERE.

Be sure to subscribe to Def-Con News to get Breakfast For The Brain in your morning mailbox.