Bleeding Edge

Please do love yourself and each other today, because it is now that the Individual, the Family, the Economy and the Society are all threatened during this time of the pandemic in the much promising New Millennium when people suffer and the greatest threat of our lives is that our societies are dissolving into hate, discord and division.

I wrote this prophetic article about the upcoming dangerous and fairly negative transformations for the individuals, the families, the economies and all of the societies and the nations of this world stepping into the new millennium — some two decades ago.

Naturally I explained the changes coming from the so-called technological, financialization and globalization forces exponentially muddying the waters and making unclear the future of our lives, because I have the capacity to see through the lens of history and with a great deal of prophetic flow — things turned out as I predicted.

And all this is within the new conditions that were evolving right after Humanity left the 20th century for the new vistas of the 21st century Space Age, and I had presciently recorded before hand.

Indeed, a few years later I summarized this article’s predictions that have come true, based upon the impacts on the Individual, the Family, the Economy and our Societies — insisting more on the impact of Life Science, Biotechnology, Financialization and Computer Science, in ushering the era of Globalization.

My writing was just deep enough to help me realize I had hit upon a gold mine of information a few years later, when I knew the Debt Crisis broke many nations around the world but also Burma, Greece, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Sub-Saharan Africa, and most others amongst the poor nations — and thus I saw that this article was really prophetic in that I had the luxury to record all of it in my writings, hoping against all hope, that what I saw happening was merely an illusion. 

Yet, suddenly at the end of 2019 COVID-19 entered our lives, and the whole balanced matrix of the relationships of Individual, Family, Economy and Society, changed again completely.

And in this case, a quarter century later, I do exactly the same, starting from the article I wrote back in 1998 about the upcoming Globalization and its consequences on the Individual, Family, Economy and Societal structures — by simply pointing out what has already been said about what the COVID-19 crisis caused to all, and precisely stating the impacts of this pandemic upon the people and their families, upon their economy & upon their society.

Come now to 2022 in order to follow with more prescient articles of thorough analysis of these consequences in modern Life Science, in modern Politics, in modern Anthropology and perhaps most importantly, in modern Philosophy.

Next are the problems of GeoPolitics and the analysis of these problems, as globalization is changing the face of individual freedoms, and as refuseniks are placed in jail, decades-old employment relationships and century old labor conquests are erased, and Civil Society becomes distinctly un-civil.

Add to that the mere fact that traditional trade and day-to-day transactions are being reversed, the so-called digitalisation or digital system seems to rule over all citizens rights and the individual privacy has become a distant memory of a bygone era.

The incoming changes, are not welcome by most people, especially the bad ones, whose acceptance will certainly depend on the tolerance of individuals, of societies, of nations and of the various Peoples around the world, for that kind of change.

Certainly there will be a struggle between social and national states, between solidarity and confrontation, and between personalization and cannibalism of our freedoms.

Yet, on the other hand — the temptations of Tyranny, or of the Dictatorship as in Hungary where Orban’s emergency law imposed on the occasion of the pandemic has been described as a “dictatorship” within the EU are grave and lurking dangerously under the surface of the statist fabric covering our curtailed freedoms. In China, in Vietnam and in the Philippines — the mandate to shoot those who violate quarantine and lockdown rules — constitutes a nightmarish development for all of us and for all of our childrens’ tomorrows.

In China, under the pretext of the pandemic not only mass surveillance and full electronic monitoring was given the green light, but any human move is only done by scanning a code so the state knows the exact movement of all its citizens at every moment.

In Europe and the U.S. state governments tend to be more careful with individual freedoms, privacy and personal data, but we have also seen beatings and arrests of citizens for refusing to snitch on each other, for disobeying the masking rules, for breaking the lockdown and for dissing the traffic bans.

In the US they have started using facial recognition, while in India citizens are forced to send a message with an app that will have their coordinates in order that state officials know exactly where they are at every given moment.

All these nightmarish and freakish measures enacted on the occasion of coronavirus pandemic, have set up an Orwellian state much like the book 1984 describes in its scenario; and now the question for my prophetic flow remains:

“Will these measures continue their seemingly inexhaustible and unchecked rise?”

“Where will they stop?”

“Will they continue to be implemented after the pandemic?”

“Will individual freedoms continue to be violated so that the “big brother” state can continuously become stronger?”

“Will the overturn of business relationships due to Coronavirus “crush” the global economy and shutter all established labor / management relations?”

“Will the many millions of layoffs, contract suspension, divergent employment, citizens living only on benefits and extreme poverty and homelessness persist to be the main growth indicator in our national economies?”

“Will the trend toward teleworking cause systemic changes in the job market while other groups of workers are on the forefront of unemployment?”

“Will the international borders remain mostly closed?”

All of these questions will require a real prophet to answer them but for now I can safely answer with a resounding “YES” to all of these.

Yes, but still we must be rather careful on what outcomes we expect to see, because we must also guard against those totalitarian outcomes that we wish to escape.

Of course, every tragedy brings fear, but when dealing with a global pandemic — major upheavals are really expected.

Globalism, open borders and tolerant societies have all collapsed in these many months and years of crisis.

Yet, it is certain that the next years will bring further restrictions on the movement of people and products, increased controls, exclusions and stigmatization of states and citizens, and all manner of awful things because during the epidemic, the state in most countries, and especially in the US and in the EU, has not extended a protective umbrella of protections to its citizens through the public health system or its equivalents throughout the modern advanced world.

Yet, for the first time in the US, the public health system endures, and the citizens resort to it, while the states fall behind as they still control the local health work, the epidemic response scene and the private sector health providers.

The Public Health system now can mandate how clinics, geriatric facilities, old people’s homes, private clinics and private hospitals, can be run, as it closes many businesses and regulates the operations of all.

The state, when organized correctly it can dominate our pandemic response, but unlike everything we’ve known to date about liberal democracies, freedoms, rules & regulations, the sovereignty of private initiative, open markets and free competition — we’ve come to forget in these non tranquil times.

Our own Western liberal Democracies appear to be in full fledged retreat, and the complete route of Civil Liberties is a sign of the receding Freedoms, crushed between the states’ insatiable demands for power and the ever-growing tyranny of the digital revolution that has already begun.

Economic disequilibrium and the increasing gap between the haves and the have not are claim to poverty on a different level.

Still, a few years ago no one would have imagined trillions would be found to save the world economy. The phrase “printing money,” used to be a well regarded taboo, but now all that has collapsed in the face of pandemic necessity.

The United States announced trillions in new spending. China did the same. All European countries struggle but realize that if they don’t give many billions and even Trillions — the euro will collapse.

The “hated” Eurobond is no longer ruled out — instead it is now officially being discussed. Economic restructuring is shattering all economic models and theories that were in force today.

So pray-tell, what do you think is the conclusion of all that you read?

And please share with us, how will this affect your future and that of your family and nation in this new year to come?

Yours,

Dr Churchill

PS:

I hope you didn’t come to any negative conclusions because today in early 2022, history is simply being made as the future of Family, Individuals, the Economy and Society — are all defined anew.

But it is our own resilience that will uplift us and remake us in the image of God, as we all experience the pain of death and dying in these difficult times of the pandemic and the new era soon to come.