Many thanks for your information on the virus.1 It seems rather like the steps taken in the UK are similar.
David Icke has his own interpretation of course.2 I like to check in on Icke these days, especially when there is a global news story on the boil. I like how he embroiders a version of events that are logical from his point of view and that's enough for him to present quite an exciting political fiction. The world and the events therein are his material to build with, he just plugs into the news and starts building and elaborating. His world in relation to the commonly accepted 'real' world: harmony in parallel with nature!
To see someone in their element in this way, like Icke at his desk, is somehow very watchable to me even if the flavour of his once rather endearing theories is tasting increasingly alt right. Someone in their content place, a place where everything makes sense and the pieces fit, a place that seems to provide all that one might ever need; in the same way I enjoy watching snookers. It goes without saying though that in Icke world there is not much questioning of his version, his political reality, so when you listen to him it can be convincing and certainly one is convinced that he is convinced. But look here, the way Icke interprets events to fit what he wants, has that not become pretty much how politics is done in the post truth era? Indeed Mr Icke might well be watching the news, seeing how the alt right operate and quite rightly wonder whether he should be given more credit. All that said I could only listen to part of his lengthy monologue on the coronavirus and needless to say he believes that the virus was introduced knowingly by globalists who have the vaccine already prepared and will profit but the bigger question is; what is in the vaccine....? I'll tune in next week and find out. At this point I brought things to a close by copying the address sending it to my sister as provocation, although she has been known to like a bit of Icke.
Don Quixote rumbles on. What an anomaly this book is. So modern. Its four hundred years old by God! Having barely recovered from a terrible beating at the hands of some young men that he attacked a couple of nights previous, the Don has now just charged full tilt at a flock of sheep he imagined to be a hostile army. With the squire Sancho looking on, the shepherds came running to stop the mad knight, who was indeed running the sheep through with his lance, by casting 'fist sized rocks' from their slings at him. The result? Two broken ribs, several fractured fingers, a loss of several of the Don's teeth and seven dead sheep! And this is how it proceeds; farcical attack followed by serious injury. It is becoming deliciously demented and indeed it seems old Nabokov was dead right; this is pure cruelty in prose.3 It reminds me of old Gibson and his Passion!4 But look here, we are but a third through this great work and it already is clear that we must re-read the whole thing (perhaps in self isolation) but I already feel we have a kinship of sorts with the Don. Can the Don's insistence that he is a knight and indeed his consequent actions that see him behave and live like one, not be seen in our own 'donning' of the identity of a 'plein air painter' in the Torpoint Art Service? Is not our ensuing quest to become a 'real' painter and the many and various farces and comedies we have experienced along the way akin to the delusion of the drifting Don and his self sustaining fiction? Was not our dismal year of failure our own personal 'charge at the sheep'? And furthermore, our little game of authorship, our little self institution upon which we continue to insist, is that not all there in this centuries old volume?
Perhaps not exactly but I must say the notes within the text had me puzzled at first. So taken was I with the cleverness and modernity with which the story began I thought they were part of the novel! But in any case the way the translators notes are weaved into the story is a splendid reference for us or rather to you, as we move ahead. Indeed all I want is to move ahead and just at the time when the phase was changing after my fathers return to Scotland and the necessity of employment loomed large we have been handed a reprieve in the shape of the coronavirus and the governments advice to stay at home. With this the pressure is off and I'm doing my duty!
Currently life as we knew it has stopped. It's a miracle! It has stopped! Cities have been closed off, all flights into the USA were stopped, then planes were grounded around the world, sport has stopped, it's all cancelled, schools have closed.....as young Neville5 pointed out this is 'uncharted territory'. That the world of sport has stopped is a real indicator of seriousness. as usually the worst news imaginable is cheerfully followed by a round up of the days sporting news; "we'll have more on the genocide in Rewanda later on but now; sport...." So as it stands we have reigned in our movements and my visits to my mother who should be isolated as far as the advice goes, but we are not in full lock down yet and we are all quite unaffected so far. So saying, life is breezy and the work flows in an unusually pressure free state.
I'm in the forest.
If I sound a little cheerful then let me say that I am well aware that this is no joke! As you know I am exposed to Sky News at my mothers flat and we hear in England of some very worrying developments that seem to suggest that the government, having wrecked the place through austerity, are not in good shape to deal with the situation. Added to this the amount of people that are vulnerable, precarious, homeless is very high, again as a result of 'don't care' policies. Even perfectly healthy, regular people shall be in pickle as a result of having to self isolate and having no sick pay, again as a result of Tories and their love of the 'zero hours' agreements. But is this the time to lay into the tories? There's never a bad time if you ask me. They didn't know a pandemic was coming (unless the Icke is right) and any government would struggle but it is the Tories vision to deny society, to dismantle the state. It is they who have performed the austerity cuts, they who do not care about poor people, people in need or struggling, or vulnerable.....how do we know? Because it is they who have consistently taken away the from money and resources from institutions which exist to protect, support and improve society and as usual it takes something serious to happen and happen to everyone, to demonstrate that society exists and is rather important actually. But will it last?
Nothing quite like this pandemic has happened before and so dare we hope that it might scare us sensible. By 'us' I mean both the power butchers of the post truth world who rig and rob elections, who twist and turn minds and also 'us' helpless succubents to perhaps look for something a little more solid behind the veils, to choose our masters with less tribal blindness. Will it help us reach a better place? While the Eton Trump and his lapdog Cummings plot in the back room how to come out on top, is it possible that we may emerge with some sense of hope, some sense that our barmy minds have been reset to the reality of what is happening; we are humans, we have life, life is precious, life is fragile, we are vulnerable, we have to be careful, we have to help each other.... Could such a sudden and hitherto unimaginable change in circumstances in life we have witnessed have some far reaching benefits vis a vis global politics. Could this slap in the face bring us out from the alt right sleeper hold we have been choked by? Somehow?
We shall work on quietly regardless.
I hear that 'its all gone quite over there'6 on the alt right side in Sweden? That living spoonfull7 Åkesson8 was last seen in Greece personally handing out letters to stricken and helpless refugees explaining that they should not consider seeking asylum in Sweden because there are no houses and they are not welcome, and this signed by the 'Swedish People'! Well that's just great Jimmie! Way to go! This man is on track to be a leader of Sweden is he not? He justifies his demented little stunt by claiming he wants to prevent another 2016 when the migrants flowed freely into Europe from Syria...come off it Jimmie, that crisis made you and all of the far right success around Europe was built off it. If it happened again you'd be president; Nostrovia!
Now here's an idea. During the past 5 years (the post truth era) the political weather has been manipulated by far alt right populism so that now we have a climate where a man like Jimmie Åkesson and his sinister far right party have become mainstream political players. What we are asking now is whether the event of the pandemic could cause enough of a break in the collective societal imaginary of the world that we are shocked out of the populist mindset, instigating a very necessary and ameliorative political climate change? But before we get too carried away with that little fiction let us just imagine for a moment the other side of the coin where from the far alt right point of view the effect of the coronavirus - the closed borders, the national lockdown - is nothing short of a dream come true! They must be loving it and imagining how their own political vision might be expanded by all this. And let us just also tentatively say that if some accelerationist billionaire cartel were dreaming up ways to advance their cause in a hurry then this coronavirus is an triple A star!
Yours,
John'
1 We provided some information and recommendations about the Swedish response to the Coronavirus
2 Professional researcher of conspiracy theories.
3 See Nabokov's Lectures on Don Quixote.
4 Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ movie which contains graphic scenes of torture.
5 Reference unknown.
6 Football chant aimed at opposing supporters following a score.
7 Appears to be an pejorative remark but it cannot be verified.
8 Leader of the Alt right in Sweden.