R. Gordon Dalrymple
Here in the palatial editorial penthouse offices of the Toast, ennui and consternation have reigned — fatigue with coronavirus and the infoglut of contradictory new studies, statistics, analyses, protests, conspiracy theories, political spin and prophecies that drove one of our staffers, Glen the copy editor, into a cabin-fever frenzy yesterday — he hurled his iPad across the room before rushing out onto the balcony to rub his ungloved hands all over the rail, then all over his face, after ripping off his mask and screaming to the empty streets below: “I don’t care any more! Roll the fucking the dice! I’m tired of this shit!”
I dragged him back into the office before he might jump, uncapped a cold Spaten Optimator for us both, and commiserated. Glen has been drifting into the conspiracy camp lately, crediting that New World Order global control freaks could be behind Covid-19 — a plot to force the whole world to adopt China’s Orwellian new panopticon society, with mandatory vaccination certificates, contact tracing everywhere for the biological virus first, and then the political viruses of heresy, dissent, “fake news” and “harmful speech” that could wreck your social credit score and blacklist you from ever buying toilet paper again. A Covid vaccine is just the Trojan Horse for finalizing Brzezenki’s “technotronic era” surveillance grid! Is your neighbor grumbling about the health hazards of 5G? Report him to your neighborhood commissar!
Glen settled down with his head in his hands and blubbered, “I bought an N95 mask on the black market back in January, then tossed it based on the CDC’s guidelines. I’ve spent the last two months scrubbing my hands and potatoes like a pre-op surgeon, now the CDC says contaminated surfaces are not the vector. Now it’s “wear masks!” and I can’t find my N95! I haven’t been to a restaurant or bar in months, and even CuriosityStream is boring now. They’re driving us crazy! They’re driving us like cattle to the Big House of technotyranny!”
“Who is ‘they’?” I asked.
“Big Pharma and its press poodle, The Lancet, are pushing unproven Remdesivir as the miracle cure on the horizon while dissing Hydroxychloroquine as dangerous quackery. Never mind that it’s been around for 60 years without killing many malaria or lupus patients. Suddenly, it’s just way too risky. But as risky as the latest Big Pharma wonder drug advertised with a full 30-second disclaimer warning about all the harmful side effects caused? Is hydroxy as dangerous as fentanyl and all the murderous opioids they pushed?”
“Never mind that all the negative studies never reproduce Zelenko’s successful cocktail, or address the mounting body of international ‘anecdotes.’ There’s a fortune to be made on Covid, but Hydroxy is dirt cheap — $12 a dose — so unless they let Martin Shkreli out of jail to engineer a monopoly, it has to be discredited. No, Gilead Sciences and Moderna are the horses to watch — place your bets there.”
“Gates and Moderna’s new RNA vaccine — that actually mutates your body, with God only knows what side effects — another ear sprouting from your anus? — will be mandatory. Well, maybe you can opt out, but then you can never go to an airport or a shopping mall or a music concert again. Your vaccination papers, please!”
“So Big Pharma seeded Covid-19 to make unheard-of profits?” I asked.
“No, that’s just a side benefit. The Deep State Neocons seeded the bioengineered virus at the Wuhan Military games to sabotage the Belt-and-Road initiative. What nation now is eager to run their caravans on a new Silk Road chronically infested with deadly bat viruses?”
“But Glen,” I argued, “Cui bono alone is never sufficient to make the case. Because some group with an agenda opportunistically exploits a crisis, doesn’t mean, ipso facto, they created the crisis. And look at the blowback — 35 million unemployed, Wall Street fortunes destroyed. That’s a helluva lot of collateral damage for the oligarchs! Wouldn’t ‘they’ — our Machiavellian overlords — have anticipated this? They may be mad and ruthless, but they’re not stupid.”
“You have to break eggs to make an omelette. Fortunes lost, fortunes to be regained,” said Glen. “If the crippled economy takes down Trump, it’s the perfect trifecta, as Dubya would say, for the Brennan crowd: Big Pharma profits beyond imagination, Chinese hegemony scuttled, and Trump finally gets his well-deserved comeuppance. If hydroxychloroquine plus zinc could really cure the pandemic now, would you really want it to? The curve flattens to the ground, there’s no second wave in the fall, the economy rebounds like a popped wine cork, so the voters in November choose the devil they know — a certified moron over an incipient Alzheimer’s patient.”
“But Glen,” I objected, “All the innocent lives lost. Over 100,000 Americans now, and all those other strange humans in lands we don’t understand. Could our scheming powermongers really be that callous?”
“You mean like the CIA?” said Glen.
I shrugged yes. A grin slowly spread on his downcast face, accelerating into a soft chuckle, then a roaring guffaw. “Good one! That’s a good one!… Thanks, I needed that.”
“Your welcome. It’s really a war of faith,” I mused. “Trump believes in HydroxyCH, so if you’re anti-Trump, you must be resolutely, religiously, against HydroxyCH. Continuing the lockdowns effectively lock down Trump, when nothing else has worked.”
“It boils down to this,” said Glen. “Which is worse — another year of Covid-19 or four more years of Trump?”
That thought pulled on me like the medieval rack. “Please don’t ratchet this up another notch, I can’t take it!” I cried. I gulped the rest of the Optimator down and went for another one as Glen rushed to the balcony, dirtying his hands on the rail again and screaming, “Give me immunity, or give me death!”
