CNN recently trotted out Hollywood actor Sean Penn to give the nation expert advice on how to deal with a novel virus pandemic.

Did they do this because we live in a meaningless, godless universe where madness reigns and everything is chaos? Close, but no. They wanted Penn to explain to the public that it would be wonderful if the US military were deployed inside US borders to deal with the pandemic, because the US military is the greatest humanitarian force on planet Earth.

“There is no greater humanitarian force on the planet than the United States military,” Penn said. “The logistical skills, commitment to service, their care for the people. It’s really time to give the military the full breadth command and control of this operation. I wouldn’t blink, I would have put command and control in their hands a month ago, certainly today.”

The US military is in fact one of the least humanitarian forces on this planet, second only to malaria-laden mosquitos (and even that’s debatable). No other force is circling the globe murdering people in countless undeclared military entanglements and bullying the world into complying with the interests of a nationless alliance of plutocrats and opaque government agencies at the expense of ordinary humans everywhere. They are the exact opposite of a humanitarian force on this planet.

Medical staff are a force for humanitarianism on this planet right now. Grocery store clerks are a force for humanitarianism on this planet. The US military are the armed thugs of a metastatic globe-sprawling empire run by sociopaths.

Don’t say “Thank you for your service” to veterans whose only contribution to humanity has been helping to murder people for imperialist fossil fuel control agendas and Raytheon profit margins. Say “Thank you for your service” to your local cashier. To do the former is to participate in a cruel collective propaganda operation which only encourages more young people to hurl their bodies into the gears of the US war machine in search of the respect and honor you’re displaying, while to do the latter is to thank someone for actually providing a crucial service to human beings.

The malfunction in Penn’s mind is the result of many malignant factors, but among them is the fact that people who rise to fame and fortune naturally experience a gravitational pull toward elitist echo chambers which cultivate narratives that favor the status quo which gave rise to their fame and fortune. You have a hard time hanging out with normal people because most of them don’t treat you normally anymore, so you find yourself spending time with other rich and famous people, and with people who have a vested interest in the rich and famous.

This dynamic naturally fosters an environment where celebrities are eager to believe positive stories about the system which favors them, and where narrative managers are eager to circulate those stories among influential voices. This is why, with very few exceptions, the closest you’ll ever get to seeing a Hollywood celebrity express an anti-establishment opinion is one of them saying “Fuck Trump” at the Tony Awards. It’s also why every few weeks you’ll see some celebrity tweet something disgusting and then go into a meltdown when thousands of ordinary people react with revulsion; they don’t have ordinary people in their lives giving them feedback on what’s normal anymore, all they have is the elitist echo chamber.

This echo chamber is what led a group of self-quarantining celebrities to believe it would be an awesome idea to share a video compilation where they all badly sing lines from John Lennon’s “Imagine” from inside their mansions with a world full of people who’ve been laid off from their jobs and are terrified for their futures. The figuratively and literally tone-deaf video was universally panned and people have been mocking it on social media ever since its release, which probably would have come as a surprise to the celebrities themselves since nothing in their insulated day-to-day lives would have told them they could all be collectively rejected with such disgust.

The celebrity “Imagine” project was spearheaded by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who as an IDF veteran would not have required any Hollywood echo chambering to have undergone deep psychological programming in favor of the empire. Gadot, who famously came under fire for publicly cheerleading the 2014 Gaza massacre, first shared the video on Instagram with the caption “We are in this together, we will get through it together. Let’s imagine together. Sing with us.”

Memesters have of course been having fun with this.

Then you’ve got celebrities like Rob Reiner, who just tweeted “No more fucking around. We’re standing on a precipice. Time to consider a Federal lockdown.”

Reiner is one of the more ham-fisted of the right-wing Democrats who we first saw promoting Russia hysteria, then working against the Sanders campaign, and are now promoting drastic totalitarian measures from their high-profile platforms. If you still hadn’t seen these people for what they are yet, you should definitely be seeing them now.

It is an absolute guarantee that powerful people will use this pandemic to advance authoritarian measures which they have no intention of rolling back once the pandemic is over. They are working to do this currently. This is not a possibility, this is an absolute certainty.

While it does appear necessary to collectively use self-quarantining and social distancing to avoid crashing our healthcare systems and needlessly killing millions of people, we need to make sure we slam on the brakes long before we yield any more ground to the authoritarians than they’ve already shored up over the years. And we need to loudly shout down any celebrities who try to tell us otherwise.

Hollywood is a giant propaganda mill which when it isn’t cranking out movies which are literally funded and controlled by the US war machine is putting on spectacular ninety-minute “The imperialist world order is perfectly sane and capitalism is totally working” infomercial presentations. It is an arm of cultural control which is unrivaled by anything else in this world, so of course it has powerful forces at work within it ensuring status quo loyalism.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, and Hollywood celebrities are psyops wrapped in human skin. May our collective disgust with them continue to grow.

____________________________________

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122 responses to “Hollywood Celebrities Are Psyops Wrapped In Human Skin”

  1. Greetings Caitlin,
    Just wanted to alert you to the fact that I created a video on YouTube using some of your content. Here is the link, please leave a comment and subscribe to my channel if you wish. Also, please let me know what you think.. https://youtu.be/bf3zCi53tlU

    Thanks so much for all you do in sharing your thoughts and ideas.

    Peace and Blessings, Nana Baakan

  2. I never thought I’d see the day when our presstitutes turn to Hollywierd actors and actresses for “advice” on how to solve a viral crisis. But then when I observe how they have turned the word, “viral,” from meaning the way an illness or disease spreads (or from a slang term for “bad”), I can’t find any redeeming qualities among either group anymore.

    But since even my imagination can’t predict what stupidity will emanate from either camp, I’m not that surprised anymore.

    And then they choose to speak with noted “intellectual” Sean Penn, and my mind has truly been blown. That person has spoken out against every military action engaged in by US armed forces since I’ve been born, and he advocates…using the military to solve the problem!

    Does he have a death wish for the rest of the population? I mean, now we’ve just entered Michael Moore territory.

    I have more that I could say about this, but Country Joe McDonald stole my idea 51 years ago.

  3. Is anyone else here getting volumes of spam emails on random subjects from ? I’m suddenly getting about 20/day.

    It is logical to wonder if the WordPress platform is compromised regarding the responsible use or security of the email address registered with it for comment on this site.

    1. WordPress uses a database and that is where your email address is. Malware could possibly get it but chances are small. You might wonder instead if the deep state can get it and I’ll say they absolutely can. The 5 eyes. WordPress is a complicated app with a huge software base. There have to be a million back-doors. That is why I wrote my blog software from scratch originally. My reasons changed, but that is one of the reasons which made me do it.

      1. I’m getting scores of emails from this same address, each with a different subject matter and all with no content in the email body.

        What purpose could there possibly be in doing this?

  4. Penn must have missed the Katrina fiasco, where the military behaved like a belligerent, Kafkaesque bureaucracy in New Orleans. Many Americans have a cult-like worship of the military and Penn must be one the cult acolytes. Incidentally, many American police persons come from the military.

    There was a scandal about 10 or 15 years ago where a military psychological warfare specialist was discovered to be working in the CNN newsroom, directing their coverage. Has much changed? Maybe CNN quietly brought in a new specialist.The U.S. has a system that would leave Goebbels slack-jawed in awe.

  5. “While it does appear necessary to collectively use self-quarantining and social distancing to avoid crashing our healthcare systems and needlessly killing millions of people” You have sooo drank the Kool-Aid.

    Celebrity status, progressive, bloggers are often awful. As Caitlin is right now with her fear porn over covid 19, a freaking flu.

    “A Yappy Trade Barrier” / http://arrby.wordpress.com/

    1. It is NOT a flu. It is a corona virus, and is a completely new and unknown iteration of the type. On the available evidence It may well (or may not) be worse than the flu, perhaps by up to a factor of ten. On that same evidence it is highly unlikely to be as bad as the media and the total lock-down responses are making it out to be. Your linked page includes a republication of an article by John Ioannidis who recognises the risk in that exact way. Don’t you read the articles you post on your page, or do you simply not comprehend them?

      Self-quarantining and social distancing is a sound basis for dealing with a flu epidemic, and thus also a corona virus threat of similar or slightly greater proportion. It is a long, long way from the extremity of the lock-down measures and media exhortations that are now underway.

      How can you possibly ever learn or better understand anything if you reflexively shit-can anything you do not already completely agree with?

  6. Damn this was a powerful essay among many powerful essays by CJ. The celebrity message is indeed for passivity and obedience. Yah imagine heaven not fight for it. Oh and if you fight for it, the military will fck you up.

  7. Thank you for your work, Caitlin (and Tim),
    What is your take on Liz Crokin (u-tube – several fake ones so make sure you get the real one)?

  8. Omg… Neil Diamond singing Sweet Caroline, with lyrics altered to “Hands.. washing hands”. I love this. Am I in trouble for liking the wrong celebrity? This isn’t out of touch, is it? YouTube comments seem to approve.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPLgsV_Ms3Q

    P.S. Can we make a game out of how many people’s pets we’ve seen in their videos? I can now add Neil Diamond’s dog to Gordon Dimmick’s dog, Jill Stein’s dog, and Ron Placone’s cat. And of course Brownie is a regular on the Jimmy Dore show.

  9. ‘Sean Penn on what needs to be done in a crisis.’

    — Just another many times a day reminder that CNN is the worst ever…

    I saw a great fb meme yesterday:

    “Shut down the media for two weeks.
    Panic over”

  10. Let’s not forget something. One of the reasons these people have a voice is because of us. The celebrity worship that goes on in this country is terrible. We are the ones that go to these peoples movies, follow them around, stand behind barriers and scream there names and ask for autographs.
    Same with all the sports figures
    Most of these people don’t contribute much to society. they certianly do not live in the same country as the rest of us. The politicians do not either. They do not have to live under all the oppressive rules and regulations they force upon everybody else.

    The best thing any of us can do is tune them out. What I mean is that, we can no longer give them a platform. Stop going to their movies. Stop spending 100’s and thousands of dollars supporting sports teams.
    Most of them would fade into the woodwork pretty fast once real people, the people that matter stop lifting these idiots up on pedistals.
    I stopped many years ago going to the movies or spending my hard earned dollars on anything these people do.
    I remember reading a lecture by L Vonn about our carbon footprint, a day later she posts on instagram a picture of her boarding some private lear jet. She should start with herself, first.

    Until we wake up as a people and realize the masses have all the power in numbers, nothing will change.

    1. Its VERY nice to see a comment from someone that is AWAKENING!

    2. You might be amused, TimK, by my English exchange student’s reaction after the death of Diana Spencer. He shrieked about the tabloids and their incessant pursuit of her, then his father sent him a huge envelope filled with tabloids. I suggested — apparently the thought had never occurred to his family — that buying the tabloids was not exactly a discouragement to their behavior.
      You are SO, SO right about celebrity worship, something that utterly escapes me, but then the emptiness of most people’s lives in the U.S. utterly escapes me. Nothing to do while staying home? Omigod, you might learn to cook!

      1. Growing up here 40 years ago, it was still a great place to be a kid. It escapes me why at this point we have an immigration issue. Coming here now is no picnic anymore. The citizen barely has a chance anymore. Somebody from another country has no chance.

        This place has become a nightmare of dysfunction. Look at the federal government and that is all you need to know.
        It would take me to long to write it all here.

  11. Hollywood Celebrities Are The Court Jesters Of The Modern Age.
    Did Monarchs take advice from their court jesters?

  12. I posted this link before within a list of others, which may have caused it to be overlooked. It needs to be viewed and understood as the ground-zero position on what is happening right now.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=43&v=yn074EB5NNY&feature=emb_logo

    It presents an explanatory over-view of the basic technical (medical) deficiency at the root this current global frenzy. From that basic understanding one can reasonably consider a range of political bases to this active frenzy. These range from a complete systemic, loss-of-shit madness and meltdown due to captured bubble thinking, through to a construct of mindfully purposeful planning and intent.

    It is not possible to certainly pick any position along this gradient of possible causal states. Those who do are simply exhibiting their own bubble-thinking. As such the only real thing that can be done is to work out how to best maintain individual and limited collective (family, etc.) well-being within the manifest elements of the madness, as they now are and as they appear most likely to develop. The common need, whether the basis of this be a total fuck-up or an evil conspiracy, is to quickly consolidate maximum solidarity of family and/or local numbers around cooperative and optimally informed support systems. Water, food, and housing are crucial. Are you and those close to you covered for that? Actively seek, to the greatest degree possible, development of localised autonomous production capacity, in conjunction with localised trusting relationships, or, in deficit of that, increase your propensity for totally eating shit.

    What is certain is that the current system has melted. It will never be the same again. Either by abysmal foolishness or with some dark, quite possibly unviable purpose, Govt’s are completely liquidating the on-ground economic structure that is now commonly depended upon. The recovery time on this liquidation will be huge and, if at all possible, things will not look the same on the other side as what is now being shut down.

    The danger intrinsic to the virus itself pales in comparison to those posed within this structural shut-down. It is either the absolute zenith of collective human madness, the deepest depths of human evil, or a variously chaotic mixture of the two. This instability and destruction is perhaps a huge opportunity, set alongside enormous, conceivably mortal risk.

    1. Thank you, Greg!

      I often find the comments section to be a treasure of critical thought in a world where such is increasingly rare and exponentially discouraged…

      Great video from Dr Wodarg!!

      1. It gives a very broad outline of the basis of the hysteria unfolding. However Wodarg does make a few errors in his reference to some historical and sequence data. Although this make little real difference to his key summations it has given grounds for attack by entities (many) who do not like his basic propositions.

        This next link presents an account of essentially similar critical concern by an even more eminent practitioner. It is far more detailed in its dissection of the serious flaws underway and is far less easy than Wodarg’s to dismiss as hyperbole or fiction. The author is not as dismissive of the virus as Wodarg but he similarly deems the re-action to it to be massive overstated, misdirected and at risk of creating far worse outcomes than the virus itself.

        https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

        The simple question thus arising is why such pandemonic fuss? Is it terminally Imbecilic system melt-down or nefarious agenda? Or some mixture of both? Unfortunately the whole lurid drama of it is so narcotically engaging as to make getting anything else done excruciatingly difficult. Is this what it’s like watching a multiple car crash in extreme slow motion.

    2. Greg, that was refreshing to hear. The video connected well to my analysis. My website, which I started before this current crisis addresses the priorities you mentioned. I’d appreciate any insights from a like-minded thinker. fellowhumansclub.com
      photomusicart@yahoo.com

      1. It’s a good concept. Clearly a work in progress. What is your schedule for getting the blanks filled in?

        I suggest filling them as much as you can with references of practical methodologies and examples of community cooperative action, particularly highlighting the facilitation requirements of such action.

        The formula for community engagement could be stylised as: Identifying (and Identifying with) Vital Need / Concept and Ideas / Actions and Programs. Your site has largely developed the second of those categories with a tiny bit of the first. Global events are very rapidly adding to the clarity and urgency of the common Need. As this recognition catches on, options and methods for response action will become much easier to promote and facilitate.

        Following prominent recognition of a vital need, most people respond well to credible action templates. Only a relatively few engage well with the conceptual framework that links those two parts. I guess it is that group your site reaches out to. Nonetheless, more will ‘get’ the middle if the two ends of the equation are also well defined and exemplified.

        Do you have any local plans for on-ground projects/developments?

  13. It’s bad enough that we have to deal with a health care system that will such a hard time dealing with the corona virus outbreak, let alone deal with all the other viruses and diseases that are still around; that the economy is in the toilet with more people having to figure out how to keep a roof over their heads; the number of people with mental health issues such as depression will increase due to staying inside 24/7 – even if it ends up being a few weeks. Now we have Hollywood, along with establishment politicians, wanting the military be the police. That will not end well. Screw Sean Penn and Rob Reiner.

  14. Thanks for your clarity. There are at least 19 different types of coronavirus, most of which have already reached epidemic levels. Is the test specific for all strains? But most strains won’t kill you. Many more people die of seasonal influenza without this police state hysteria brought on by the beasts on top and their bureaucracies. A big fascist engineering program seems to be taking place. The street revolutions now have an antidote the 1%ers have found. Since everyone has been brought to a state where death seems imminent because of economic despair, introduce a disease threat greater than cancer(?) and the sheep go over the cliff.

  15. Only 1 ‘real’ statistic is needed to extinguish both Deadly Pandemic & Pandemonium
    Rhetoric:

    For US: # Deaths (289) / Tot Population (331,002,651) = 0.00008731047% Risk of
    Death

    That’s about a Zillionth of a percent chance any individual in that population will die
    from the same causes as the 289, which would make this at most a NanoDemic, and
    if CoV19 Causation can’t be proven, then it would be a NoDemic…

    I’d suggest opening one’s eyes in the morning would present a geometrically greater
    risk, yet if you can even imagine, the equivalent to the CoV19 “Death Prevention”
    regimes would be a Mandate to Superglue your eyelids shut…

    Perhaps this massive accumulation of Cognitive Dissonance will be the spark of
    Awakening we need to Thrive, Wipe the Superglue from our captive eyes…

  16. Let Us Not Forget that MOST Celebrities Are among the “One-Percenters”, and have IN-vested interest in keeping the Sheeple in Their Place.
    Many are also Luciferian Satanist in bed with the Kharzarian Mafia of Fake Jews.
    Like some people posting here agree this whole “False Pandemic” is just another Ruse to HIDE what is Really going on…and its Not about Their Fake Financial System too….Its about “Something Else” They Already know about “Written-in-Stone” THOUSANDS of years ago in ANGKOR CAMBODIA.

  17. Coming back home last year in the Pittsburgh airport there were a whole bunch of sailors in uniform in the terminal and all the people in the restaurant where we were sitting cheered and applauded. For Christ’s sake! What I felt is, I am really sorry for you poor guys who got involved in this shit for this reason or that. You have to get shot up with six zillion vaccines and all kinds of experimental drugs and you may have to go into combat! Then, when your brain is toast you can come back to the States and beg on a street corner.

  18. I think we Americans have gotten too accustomed to throwing the military at problems we don’t understand then wondering why they don’t get solved. I once spent a long boring summer at Fort Knox learning how to kill people and blow things up; being a humanitarianism force wasn’t even on the agenda. It’s like expecting your barber to fix your transmission- it sounds great but is entirely unrealistic.

    1. AMEN! to That!!! They are Taught to be BRUTAL & KILL!

  19. Yechh, Sarah Silverman is the most viscerally disgusting to me. Her entitled and condescending scolding of Bernie Sanders supporters who protested the stealing of the 2016 primary at the convention was the height of … I don’t even know what word there is for it. And I have not forgotten Al Franken was standing behind her, smiling and clapping. He wasn’t in the Imagine video, I guess he’s smart enough to lie low since being driven from the Senate over a dubious sex accusation. But Al Franken started as a comedian who I liked. Like many funny people, he was very smart. He got a political talk show on Air America which I listened to regularly. I was a huge fan of his talk show. I was excited at the prospect of him running for Senate, and I donated money to his campaign. He actually won, and then immediately betrayed his supporters and aligned with his party (Democrat). It’s funny that Hollywood celebrities that get elected to political office are usually Republicans though. BDS the war parties.

  20. I completely agree that celebrities are dim bulbs and that the military is not a cure for Corona (perhaps an enabler for a fascist takeover by Trump – something Penn et al clearly did not think through). We have a National Guard to control riots and other civil violence that risks harm to innocents.

    However, I take umbrage with the stereotyped characterization of the US Military. Our troops do what the Administrations we elect tell them to do. They are not all evil thugs. They are our brothers, sisters, and cousins.

    Sure, some rogue troops do atrocious things – Abu Ghraib would probably not have happened had those in charge supervised and taken action to nip it in the bud. The recent special forces soldiers and sailors pardoned by our Fuhrer were psychopathic killers who should have been spotted early and discharged rather than nurtured because we needed them to murder for us. It is our ugliness we see in such behavior because we enable it.

    1. “Sure, some rogue troops do atrocious things”
      Like Fallujah?

      And these rogue troops you speak of,
      how did they divorce themselves from the chain of command?
      After all, they only do what the elected (O RLY? YA RLY)
      administrations tell them to do.

      But recently our Fuhrer did pardon psychopathic killers
      that should have been discharged before they killed
      but were not because we (the royal we?) needed them
      to murder for us. And the ugliness of their behavior,
      the killing they perpetrated, is ours and we enabled it?

      More than a bit of muddle in this textual puddle.

      1. So again, make no mistake. The military is not protecting anybody’s freedom.
        They are advancing a governmental agenda.
        They have nothing to do with helping me or you or anybody
        They are the government enforcement agency to advance a political agenda

  21. I agree about nearly every Hollywood figure being a clueless idiot, except for Sean Penn, who has spent the last twenty or more years of his life doing everything he can to help the people of Haiti ON THE GROUND. He’s risked his life for Haitians and dug deeply into their situation, trying to do anything helpful for them.
    .
    US military is doing horrible stuff everywhere. It also has a multi-generational history of rescue and relief operations that save tens of thousands of lives. What Penn is talking about is an organized force that is not corporate, not seeking to make a profit or install itself permanently. He’s talking about massive and unencumbered intervention with one agenda: preservation of human life.
    .
    Caitlin, if you’re going to insist that all government sourced efforts are bad for humanity, you’re going to share in fostering complete and total chaos leading to mass death on levels unimaginable. Governments and their military are often terrible, but it’s what we have to work with.

    1. I agree. Earlier I quoted Paul Erlich “The military is already way ahead of the present civilian government on dealing with existential threats like climate disruption. Various military units have already employed in dealing with emergencies ranging from pandemics to hurricanes, and there is no reason why they cannot be used to help in tasks ranging from building medical isolation facilities to de-carbonizing energy systems. The gigantic amounts of money wasted on such nearly useless toys as nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, main battle tanks, and air superiority jet fighters could be directed toward rebuilding infrastructure such as sewage systems, electric grids and water-handling grids, and on and on.”

      It is not the military itself that is evil but the idiots in charge and their dark souls. By association that makes American military evil. As they demonstrated when the Standing Rock encampment was crushed. As long as Trump is in charge the US military can’t do much good, only evil.

    2. I think I see what you did there Mr. Bowman.
      A very thoughtful and considerate effort.
      Now, about Sean Penn and his dealings with Haiti and its people, ON THE GROUND
      (as in “boots on the ground”), how are the Haitians doing today?

      Paragraph 2 is even worse.

      Paragraph 3 I like a lot. If Miss Johnstone refuses the help of an organised force
      that is not corporate, not seeking to make a profit and install itself permanently,
      let her suffer the consequences! Reap the whirlwind!
      Because after all is said and done all we got are governments and their military.
      That are, or can be, occupied with the preservation of human life in general,
      which could include the likes of our wonderful Miss Johnstone, myself
      and Mr. Bowman.

      1. “On the ground” means Sean Penn has been physically in Haiti for many many months of his life over the years, exposing himself to genuine danger to help truly desperate people who want to govern their own nation instead of being murdered by both Democrats and Republicans by proxy.
        .
        Where is Haiti now? Probably in completely chaotic turmoil as its ongoing punishment for black rebellion centuries ago.
        .
        You can think and say whatever you want, but my para 2 is a statement of extremely well documented historical fact. Ask any African who they hope will bring some security because it’s not coming from anywhere else. The US has shifted away from helping since 2001 and into killing everything that moves everywhere.
        .
        Mission definition matters.

    3. The original German Nazis set up soup kitchens. Applying your logic, the German Nazis are helping people–do not attack their policies.

      1. There is no danger of your application of logic, considering the example provided. Context is pretty much all that matters, yet you manage to elide that entirely. Nice work.

  22. The wicked social control experiment using virus as the pretext for further enslavement is performing magnificently by implanting a sense of helplessness, dependence, and blind conformism. It should be noted that the favorable atmosphere enabling Them (whoever they are) to accomplish just that was contrived by the controlled and unscrupulous media in under a month of intense, coordinated, global brainwashing. You can read this article here:
    The Latest Plague So Far Is a Brilliant Success by Stephen Karganovic!
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/03/22/the-latest-plague-so-far-is-a-brilliant-success/

  23. Karen and Jeff Avatar
    Karen and Jeff

    Hi Caitlin, your insight into to this madness we take to be “normal” is a breath of fresh air . Regarding “Imagine” apart from Will Farrell my wife and I had no idea any of the singers are celebrities.

  24. We must remember that Sean Penn’s brain is most likely pickled at this point in time. Great article though, Caity. that “Imagine” thing is cringe-worthy. Those people live in such a goddamned thick bubble of privilege. And then there is Meathead McCarthy, spouting off his usual goose-stepping fascist garbage. Ugh. I am glad I stopped being a supporter of or member of any of these crappy political parties in the US. They’re all full of IDPol nutjobs.

    1. Michel Bélisle Avatar
      Michel Bélisle

      “Those people live in such a goddamned thick bubble of privilege.”

      Yes, you cannot be more part of the elites than a guy like Sean Penn, Hollywood legend and pharisaic Jew. So, I guess he knows what the plan is.

      It is sad to see the elites becoming so decadent but we live in the return of the days of Noah just before the Second Coming of Jesus and I pray the Rosary to hasten His Glorious return because I do have seen enough of all the bs.

      1. Think of the maids and cooks chauffeurs and private ass-wipoers they have. They could catch it from any of them. You would be worried too. That Hollywood sleeps with the police state should be no surprise because their demographic is privileged and it is natural for them to consider themselves superior in their class. It is human nature. They feel they are superior and it feels fine.

  25. Are Reiner, Penn et al so oblivious to the fact that the military hero who gave this treasure to the world was just in the headlines around a week ago?
    The whole freakin’ lot of ’em should be forced to sit and watch the long version; no breaks, piss in your Coke cup if you need to, but WATCH DAMMIT! Then let’s discuss our “most humanitarian military in the world”.
    Dumbasses.

    https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/

  26. Excellent CounterPunch
    Editor Jeffrey St. Clair offers each week his thoughts: Roaming Charges.
    This weeks offering, Always Look on the Bright Siide of Death.

    Also read Paul Street there.

  27. Caitlin and Tim, how to I transmit an 8,500-word “comment” to you. Its title is “Why the world WAS the way it WAS”?

    1. My vision is deteriorating. The first sentence above should be: How do I transmit an 8,500-word comment to you?

  28. Frank Thompson Avatar
    Frank Thompson

    Dude! I’ll take my political cues from the guy who embodied Jeff Spicoli.

    *Sure, Sean Penn the actor is not Jeff Spicoli the character, but just saying, just like the rest of the celebrities with statements to make about politics, “What makes him more of an authority on policy than the rest of us?” Only name recognition, that’s all..

  29. Check out the Washington Post, February 2019 and read about the US experiments on viruses. The check out the Military Games in Wuhan with 110 countries involved in October 2019. First reported case of CVirus in November 2019 in Wuhan. You think there might be some connection? We just sent another 20,000 troops to Europe, to add to the 175,000 that are already there. for war games.

    I suggest this fiasco we are now involved in was created by the US to further US military control here and abroad.

    1. Michel Bélisle Avatar
      Michel Bélisle

      Everything is possible with a decadent empire rule by decadent elites and in which the wealthy socio-economic class is decadent as well as the golden youth.

      If you like music, have you noticed for example that since the end of the 1980’s, the West haven’t produced good music all countries taken together?

      And this is the same for much of the arts.

      Truly, the return of the days of Noah just before the return of Jesus and I pray the Rosary to hasten the return of Jesus because I do have seen enough bs.

  30. The cover of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan comes to mind. Hobbes imagined the dumb beast with a human face, but that must have been pareidolia. The organ that serves to pass for a human face is the mass media. Hollywood. The cable networks. The same two hundred songs on radio over and over. Car ads showing a whole landscape with one car in it. George Clooney sipping Nespresso.
    The Leviathan is like a Chinese dragon in a parade, coming alive by the effort of a whole crowd of people holding it up with sticks. That’s what we’ve been doing, That’s what work is. And right now, for the first time in our lifetime, that’s been interrupted. That brings with it a whole new set of opportunities and perils.
    Westerners, and Americans in particular, have been prepared for this with Mad Max, The Living Dead, and the rugged individualism ethic. That manifests in the absurd toilet-paper-hoarding sprees and people sitting on top of a mountain of stuff someone else needs. What we need right now is a rugged collectivism. Like it or not, we’re in this together.

  31. Compared to what’s about to be perpetrated against us by the Sociopaths In Charge, C–virus is a moderate inconvenience, which has still killed fewer than died slipping in their bath tub last year. The US economy has intentionally been crashed. Without an economy we don’t eat. Which means you won’t need TP after all. This entire episode is by design of the international banking cartel to hide their failure, and minimize the effect of such failure on the self proclaimed elite. Now the DOJ has requested suspension of Habeas Corpus, so they can lock you up and forget about you. Possibly in camps? Its been done before. I first became aware of celebrity illusion/delusion many years ago as I watched Meryl Streep testify to congress on the evil of Alar being used on apples, as if she were somehow an expert on the subject. Whether Alar is good or bad is not the issue. The issue is that they revel in their celebrity, and will delightfully participate in any exercise that increases their visibility in a positive light, and too many willingly accept whatever they say as if they were expert. There was a time when actors held a well deserved social position slightly above prostitutes. I’m not sure when or why this changed. Perhaps because there is no reason involved.

  32. Many celebrities, like ordinary people, are not geniuses. And fools are entitled to their low IQ opinions – whether they are celebrities or not. The answer is to get out a few celebrities who DO have something intelligent to say. Roger Waters and Susan Sarendon for instance. Tom Hanks?

  33. Thanks Caitlin. And may your skillfully wielded rapier slash these phony Hollywood fakers to ribbons before they spread any more of their disgusting crap!

  34. Where could all the money come from to make the changes to preserve civilization. That’s one of the challenges for the economists who today are operating in a perpetual-growth fairy-land.[3] Much obviously depends on the course of events and whether the debt pyramid collapses. One obvious step, however, is repurposing the military. When Anne and I were working with them on nuclear winter issues we were greatly impressed by the intelligence and ethics of some of the field-grade officers with who we were involved. The military is already way ahead of the present civilian government on dealing with existential threats like climate disruption. Various military units have already employed in dealing with emergencies ranging from pandemics to hurricanes, and there is no reason why they cannot be used to help in tasks ranging from building medical isolation facilities to de-carbonizing energy systems. The gigantic amounts of money wasted on such nearly useless toys as nuclear weapons, aircraft carriers, main battle tanks, and air superiority jet fighters could be directed toward rebuilding infrastructure such as sewage systems, electric grids and water-handling grids, and on and on. The same can be said on the other money used for decades to support (often clandestinely) U.S. state terrorism that has cumulatively killed millions since the second World War.[4] Those now engaged in building the military’s junk-of-tomorrow could be re-deployed as well. — Paul Ehrlich March 20, 2020

    1. Fine by me as long as every officer from lieutenant up is flanked by a people’s komissar with with full veto powers in the unlike event that some soldier decides they’ve had enough of being a humanitarian

      1. That’s unfair. I think you only need a people’s commissar for majors and up in the US army.

  35. LOL, probably right, but had to give up both television and radio long ago just because you are so right, so I wouldn’t know, but my guess is that you are right on. And of course not a word about the individuals responsible for any of this, so it all works out for the best; we die thank God, and the criminals responsible go to heaven and sit on the right side of God. LOL.

  36. Leah Remini talked about the use of Hollywood celebrities on her show about the abusive cult of Scientology. They actively recruit and groom celebrities to use, and they use their influence to get Scientology members TV roles. It’s quite an operation.

  37. Penn said. “The logistical skills, commitment to service, their care for the people. It’s really time to give the military the full breadth command and control of this operation. I wouldn’t blink, I would have put command and control in their hands a month ago, certainly today.”
    .
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/army-had-quarantined-troops-mingle-with-healthy-ones?source=articles&via=rss?utm_source=digg
    .
    Headline: Army Had ‘Quarantined’ Troops Mingle With Healthy Ones

  38. Ah, that ” make believe world of owners and masters ” who lavish us with their wit and wisdom as they rob us blind. Praise be to them that run everything and shame humanity beyond belief.

  39. What better way to make the normally unacceptable acceptable? Use celebrities to put on a good act to make it all sound perfectly reasonable and justified.

  40. https://youtu.be/RBi7YHbNdWA

    From Truthstream Media. I’ve been thinking about that Twilight Zone episode too lately. It made a major impression on me when I saw it as a kid many years ago. Something really creepy is going on.

    1. Defiance Demon Avatar
      Defiance Demon

      What a fascinating video. (And an episode of “The Twilight Zone” I was totally unfamiliar with.)

      The panic and fear induced by this contagion or any other will inevitably strip away the very thin veneer of human civility and expose the ugliest beast behind it. In it’s rawest, fang-baring form, it will scare the shit out of you. What the woman described in the video that she experienced in those stores is rather weak sauce compared to just how bad it can really get.

  41. Michael K Rohde Avatar
    Michael K Rohde

    While I agree with your diatribe about Sean Penn, i’m personally offended by your global comment about men under arms. I started and ended my military service in the Marine Corps as a teenager, like thousands of others. By and large, we were youngsters trying to grow up and had learned from a very early age military service was part of that. Unless you had money. That meant you had options. I’m not sure what world you and yours come from. But I find you biased and bigoted about something you display almost no understanding of. You put your credibility at risk.

    1. Read it again, Caitlin is not criticising the individual service men/women, but the country and its armed forces. Don’t take it personally.

    2. Everyone’s options at a given moment in time are constrained by their personal history, including their family background, financial circumstances, education and an entire constellation of knowledge and attitudes that will limit or channel the choices they make. Everyone also continues to have new experiences, learn new truths and incorporate new ways of thinking as they progress through life, in a process we call personal growth. You may well not make the same choices today that you did years ago. How does the saying go, “if I only knew then what I know today.” You can bet your boots that, no matter how old you become, there will always be those who want to limit your knowledge, your personal growth, financial circumstances and the rest to pressure you into making choices that benefit them and not yourself. Always be alert to such people and recognise them for what they are… but sometimes ya got to do whatever it takes to eat or feed your family… as long as you are not destroying others or their families in the process.

    3. You have GOT to be joking. Caitlin is absolutely spot on about how dishonourable the US military is. How could you have served and not realise that. Wake up. How many world govts have you changed so you can plunder the countries’ resources? How can you still be so deluded? Or are you a fake troll or plant trying to blunt her message?

      1. Self-righteousness that is devoid of understanding of the other is no solution to anything. Michael is trying to convey the complication embedded within many service-people’s engagement in military service. You want him to submit completely to vilification for his actions. Life and reality are much more complicated than that.

        I understand and agree with the basic principle of Caitlin’s admonishment, as well as the emotional release it provides. However its not a practical action. Nor is it a fair one. How does Michael feel in hind-sight about his military service? How does he deal with the imposition of those choices upon him as a youth now that he better understands their mechanism and their cost?

        The soldiers are victims in this mess almost as much as those they have injured or killed. Their capacity for awareness of and redemption for their errors is the critical issue. Some, maybe many, are beyond hope and reasonable compassion. There can be no differentiation if they are all categorically attacked.

        Resort to excommunication (Troll-calling) within a disagreement is a device to avoid understanding the humanity of the other party and the useful common ground that might be shared. This in turn demands more effort on your part to forge a meaningful position. Stop being lazy and a hostage to your base emotions.

      2. I think he was speaking to why he personally joined… he was young, limited in his options and channeled in his thinking by what he was taught. I don’t think he addressed his combat roles, if any, or critiqued the policies of his commanders or their consequences on other human beings. I would hope he looks at these matters differently through the prism of time and personal growth.

    4. This may be a hard swallow for you because your identity is tangled up in this, but, you’ve been had. You were youngsters trying to grow up and had learned from a very early age military service was part of that. Unless you had money. That meant you had options. You had no options at the time, or couldn’t perceive any, same thing. Your whole life had been set up that way from birth. So you ended up serving an institution that does not serve humanity at all, at all. That’s the generic story of everyone you served with. That’s your world.
      That generic story is also the first part of the Chelsea Manning story. In the second part, she became a true American hero when she broke away from that.

  42. Nailed it, and very expressively, Caitlin.

    (The “troops” have been thoroughly brainwashed, of course. Probably most are not intrinsically bad guys, and would see themselves as giving us a hand. Maybe we should say “Sorry for you, and appalled by your service.”)

  43. Observant of narratives and their power within human belief/response capacity, some substantial evidence suggests that this whole pandemic might be little to nothing more than a narrative:

    https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=650&v=p_AyuhbnPOI&feature=emb_logo

    https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBB9bA-gXL4

    Why isn’t there yet a clear assessment of the Covid19 deaths in comparison to the background death rate? To what extent have ‘excess deaths’ risen due specifically to Covid19? Surely this is a vital metric to give meaning to the global consternation now underway?

    The crucial factor of excess deaths due directly to Covid19 seems to be (kept as?) extraneous to our agitation over the virus,. Similarly, yet for opposite effect, the readily verifiable, very significant excess death rate in the Middle East and South America due to US expansionism remains (is kept) extraneous to our complacency toward that active pathogen. Same basic ignorance leading to a completely inverted effect – acute agitation toward an unconfirmed threat, compared to general apathy toward an extant, extremely virulent one. The congealing agent in both situations being homogenous media and role-model narratives.

    So what is going on? Maybe viral armageddon is at large. But maybe, as the linked resources propose, it is not. And if not, WTF!!!! Have we reached Terminal Delusion such that everyone, right to the very top, has completely lost their shit and pulled the stop switch on everything they depend upon?

    Or are we perhaps witnessing a profound new level and scope of deception and manipulation? Is this a sublime step toward Terminal Control, or at least the next necessary survival phase required within the progress of the capitalist cycle:
    https://knowledge.insead.edu/strategy/the-next-cycle-of-capitalism-5226

    It is fact that we are now at a point where the imaginary towers of financialised wealth, and the concomitant real transfers of material wealth ownership, have over-shot peak resources and the system’s capacity to include the debt-drowned have-nots within the functions crucial to the constructed economic model. How does this constipated machinery now re-invent itself into an ongoing ‘stable’ state for the service of established elites? It is naive to think those with real power would not ensure that decisions are made toward outcomes that are of paramount service to themselves.

    What if the global socio-economic construction could be completely re-modelled as a neo-feudal state under the cover of an essentially harmless but ostensibly rabid viral onslaught? Most people will give anything for the immediate security of their comfort, let alone their lives.

    As with most things these days, there are some very significant aspects and data points within this event beyond the relatively homogenous scenario that is currently being klaxonned 24/7 into our collective consciousness. It is not un-reasonable, indeed it is healthy, to speculate upon these omissions.

  44. I agree that these celebrities are a bunch of idiots, but the people calling themselves holistic practitioners are much worse since they can cause real harm to people. Many of them are totally writing off the virus as something imagined by our psyches. Here is a link to one of these “brilliant” people: https://kellybroganmd.com/message-to-dispel-fear/

    1. Read through the links I’ve just posted. These are relevantly qualified professionals genuinely concerned at the lack of basic science being employed within the threat- evaluation of this virus and the consequent response(s) to it. Also referenced is an outline, with links to official reports, regarding the actual death profiles. These are not showing a pattern supportive of the ‘character’ of media coverage and political response.

      But do we really need data and an understanding of its contextual meaning? Maybe a collective global loss of shit is a good thing? The current framework wasn’t going anywhere ultimately useful. Maybe the global state of mind was due to a nervous breakdown. It certainly wasn’t in a healthy condition.

      1. Johny Conspiranoid Avatar
        Johny Conspiranoid

        “The current framework wasn’t going anywhere ultimately useful.”
        Whatever your seeing is designed to support the current framework by resetting the mechanism.

    2. Congratulations on living in the real world, the only one in which verifiable public knowledge is available to every person who makes the effort to access it. Anything else is opinion or even less useful illusion, delusion or confusion, perceived or understood only by its purveyor. But don’t let me stop anyone from living in his own movie. After all, no one less wise than the Telosians advised Captain Kirk that “Captain Pike has his illusions and you have yours.” You are certainly correct about the fools writing off the very real consequences of this virus. The biggest fools are those who choose to believe that it is all a hoax or no big deal because some subset of victims will suffer only mild symptoms, or because there is verifiable evidence that the vector has been bioengineered rather than evolved in nature, or because those in power may be tempted to exploit the crisis to expand their extra-constitutional powers that curtail our freedoms. All those contingencies may be concomitantly true without lessening the reality or impact of the experience for humanity by one iota. The proper reflex is not to party hearty and talk trash like a Hollywood know-it-all, but to use one’s brain in effective analysis as you did.

      1. Please tell me, or refer me to a resource that might tell me, the number of deaths due specifically to the virus over and above the background death rate. This could be for any specific locality, region or globally. Whatever. What is the actual numerical magnitude of the threat, rather than simply the story about the threat? We are 4 months into this thing now. This data should be available. It is utterly pivotal to the accurate estimation of real threat and commensurate response. Where is it?

        I’m not saying one way or the other. I don’t know. However I am pointing to highly qualified people who say that it is crucial to know this number within the escalating emergency response and that the absence of it is utterly remarkable.

        You say you do know for sure that this is a crisis. How can you without any clear reference to the elevation in normal death rate or sever disability rate occurring due directly to the virus?

        1. That is a totally meaningless question. You can ask it, if you are so driven, about any form of death for which it would be equally meaningless. Some unknown number of victims might die from some other cause during the interval and others would not. There is no way of quantifying “deaths above background” other than to use the standard actuarial tables as an accepted standard. How many more people than usual will have died during the duration of this event than is the statistical norm? They use that to estimate war casualties. You’re also forgetting that deaths are not the only human cost in this catastrophe, there is plenty of raw physical pain and suffering done by people that eventually recover. Then there are those who carry the scars of damaged lungs and reduced respiratory capacity for life. Often this shortens their life considerably. What more do you need to be told to accept that this is an extraordinary event of tragic consequences on many different levels to (at last count) hundred of thousands of people. You sound like you are saying that doesn’t count for much because something equally bad would have happened to them, or to a roughly equal number of other anonymous individuals. That thinking seems quite flawed to me. Have a nice day.

          1. If it is meaningless, then why are the eminent professionals within the articles/videos I’ve linked to asking he same question? The metric of ‘excess deaths’ is a scientifically real and acutely pertinent measure. Your ignorant dismissal of it doesn’t change that fact.

            Certainly a scatter of deaths for whatever cause would be invisible upon the background data. However a pandemic of the scale and intensity conveyed by current messaging should show a spike on that background, shouldn’t it? To say no is tantamount to sayng nothing exceptional is happening in the death rate. That is not what the death numbers being energetically, if not luridly, reported are conveying. They very palpably infer a spike. Is there one? What do the numbers say? How is that a silly question? And how can it be silly to enquire why this crucial metric is missing from the public conversation?

            As for disability impacts during and post-infection, I think you probably know as much about that as I do – SFA.
            So again, as with the death rate, you are relying on inference and induction for your postion, not evidence. You are trusting… who exactly?

            Previously you disdainfully referred to people living in their own movie. Ironically, you may well be living wholeheartedly within a movie constructed for you by others. Why did you drop the prefix ’sur’ from your user name?

  45. There is a recent documentary of John Lennon & Yoko Ono (I don’t recall the name) with footage from when they basically hung out in a mansion in England & while there wrote the song Imagine. The words were written by Yoko not John as evidenced by the film footage.

    1. The film is on Netflix & is called “Above Us Only Sky.”

  46. Michel Bélisle Avatar
    Michel Bélisle

    I am not surprised that the elites do not perceive the real dimension of what is happening.

    Why God is allowing this crisis to happen for example. Most of the elites would never touch this (probably because it points to something going wrong with our society and they do not want to admit it; we know that for them they consider everything to be all right, mainly because the current society gives them money, prestige, social status, fame etc…)

    You have to have a certain “distance” vis-à-vis the “System” to understand what is the message here with this crisis.

    What is surprising to me is to see many ordinary folks reacting the same way as those elites.

    I know I repeat myself but:

    “As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. And THEY WERE OBLIVIOUS, until the flood came and swept them all away. So will it be at the coming of the Son of Man.… (Matthew 24:37-39)

    It looks like we are there and I pray the Rosary to hasten the return of Jesus because I do have seen enough bs.

    1. I imagine people felt the same way in 1347.

  47. It’s so adorable the way Anderson Cooper pretends to be a real journalist… maybe he really believes it. And Sanjay Gupta, an authority on health and wellness… just precious… bless their clueless little hearts! Speaking of clueless, Sean… hey, great idea! Let’s deploy the U.S. military over a virus that hasn’t killed nearly as many people as the seasonal flu! What could go wrong there? We’ll just temporarily submit to martial law, and then once the bug goes away, everything will just go right back to normal. Sounds like a plan… nothing fishy there.

    1. As a part of the Vanderbilt family, Anderson Cooper gets to pretend to be anything he wants.

  48. Well the world is definitely living as one right now. In terror.
    I wonder why Yoko allowed this petty misuse of John’s iconic song, unless she, too, is completely out of touch with ordinary people.
    As for Sean Penn, what an idiot. That’s the thing about celebrities, they’re mostly not very bright, with the obvious exception of thinkers like Oliver Stone, Roger Waters.

  49. With all due respect, Sister Caitlin, you are being WAY too hard on malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
    I’ve had malaria, and I grew up on USMC bases during the Vietnam War. When my fever broke in Luong Prabang , Laos, I took the doxycycline.
    I carried my pack the next day, slowly and without sleep or enthusiasm, but that was it…
    I got off easy with malaria. http://www.johndayblog.com/
    There is effective treatment for coronavirus: chloroquine phosphate 200 mg three times per day, plus 6 pills of 250 mg azithromycin, 27 pills total. BOOM!
    https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Hydroxychloroquine_final_DOI_IJAA.pdf

    1. My gut reaction to reading that line was that if I had to chose between being locked in a room with no escape with either a) Malaria-laden mosquitoes, or b)members of the US military, that I’d chose the Malaria-laden mosquitoes.
      I have to live here, so I know the sort of people who go into the military. If there are more than three of them, the odds of getting someone who’s part of a right-wing death cult that honors Hitlers birthday is way too high. And even if you are lucky enough not to draw that straw, they are certain to be both poorly educated and highly prone to violence. I’ve been in bars with them before, and I would definitely choose the mosquitoes.

  50. Christopher Volpe Avatar
    Christopher Volpe

    YES thank you for stripping away the shit and showing what is.

  51. “…bullying the world into complying with the interests of a nationless alliance of plutocrats and opaque government agencies at the expense of ordinary humans everywhere…”
    Wonderfully said. Through the downplay of education and the exalting of sports, over decades, the created herd mentality is going to follow empty icons like Hollywood actors and sports figures. We are doomed to the future of the scifi writers or we can revolt.

  52. Cait, while I agree with a lot of your points, IMHO this pandemic is a classic case of where authoritarianism would produce a better outcome: saving thousands of lives.
    Shanghai and South Korea both successfully flattened the curve. Ultimately, so did China, although with an iron fist.

    1. So, what exactly was that “Iron Fist”. Travel Restrictions? Just like is currently happening in Europe and parts of the Land of the Free.
      Its not like China nuked its own cities to kill off the virus. They did pretty much exactly what the West is doing now. Well, the one thing the Chinese did that the western capitalists are resisting was closing the factories. That Chinese Iron Fist was more willing to interfere with profits.
      Its funny how language gets accepted and then passed on. The message about China’s Iron Fist goes out, and then people repeat it. But I can’t think of anything specific that they’ve done. It seems to be evidence-free, like so much else in this world today. And I suspect Europe and the Land of the Free are going to do far worse before this is done. I suspect machine guns will be used on crowds of people who can’t be treated in overloaded hospitals and who are thus left to die.

      1. Correct me if I am wrong but didn’t China go door to door checking for fever and then forcible removing those individuals and placing them in quarantine. Of course, they may or may not have had coronavirus. And if you didn’t have coronavirus and you were quarantined with those that did, you probably came down with it shortly. So I imagine a fair number of those forced into quarantine were never seen again.

        Perhaps those videos of people being dragged kicking and fighting from their homes were misleading but I remember them. And now, I can understand better why they were kicking and fighting. Would never work in the US as too many are armed.

    2. Defiance Demon Avatar
      Defiance Demon

      And then the ‘benign’ authoritarianism would recede again into the background once the pandemic is over?

  53. I stopped paying attention to “Meathead” a long time ago. Probably before I got out of high school.
    Except, “This is Spinal Tap” is still a great movie, if only because it captures the insanity of the people we call stars.

  54. Sean Penn has obviously been living under a rock for the past several decades.

    1. Funny thing is that I remember Sean Penn giving an excellent speech at a Nader rally.
      Ah, yep, you really can find anything on the internet. This was going on across town from the coronation of Obama in the NFL stadium. IIRC, the riot police had attacked the protesters that day. What I can’t find is any videos of the police in riot gear attacking what, IIRC, was called Democracy Village in the park. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL_tGxoy2fI
      ——-
      The only explanation I can think of is the invasion of the body snatchers scenario. An alien is obviously now inhabiting the body of Sean Penn.

      1. Sean Penn is an actor. Slipping in and out of roles is what he does for a living (and then some).

  55. “Imagine there’s no countries
    It isn’t hard to do
    Nothing to kill or die for
    And no religion, too
    Imagine all the people
    Living life in peace…”
    –“Imagine” by John Lennon
    ——-then, once I’m done with those big things, I’ll imagine there’s no Hollywood.
    I doubt those air-heads actually understood the words to the song. Or, maybe that’s why they split the lines up between all the non-singers, so they didn’t actually hear the song and what its trying to say.

    1. The incongruity of them picking this song, made me think of other songs they might have done. Others can feel free to add to these suggestions.
      First, I saw Paul McCartney’s name, and he was always good for a star singalong. The song title was “Live and Let Die”, which would so perfectly capture these people who are very unlikely to die in this case with their money and fame making sure they get a bed in an ICU.
      Next, I saw “End of the Line” by the Traveling Wilburys. Despite the apt title, its actually a happy upbeat song about people who’ve moved to the end of the line and are quite happy away from the rat race.
      But, if you would give me the envelop please, my personal winner on a song they should have picked is ……
      “Money for Nothing”, created by Dire Straights, or in this video song by Mark Knopler, Eric Clapton, Sting and Phil Collins. This song captures their lives so perfectly, and having it sung from their mansions would be a special touch.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CB9OrGZ7-c
      Since we are all in lockdown, does anyone else have any songs they want to share?

      1. I like your song choices. I can’t resist a call to name that tune…

        How about “Just a Shadow” by Big Country?
        “I know there is no need for what’s been done,
        I know there is enough for everyone,
        but frustration brings a heavy hand to bear,
        and there never is a hand outside that cares.
        Still the promise comes of living fit for all
        if we only get our backs against the wall
        I looked at backs that pushed the wall for years
        scarred by many knives and too much fear.”
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vICRcyzxAbo&list=FL97Zzo48E8SE4vTcAYSxr2Q&index=59

        Wait, are we naming songs we want the dumb celebrities to sing? Or great songs someone should sing to them?

        This one is timeless: “Driven Out” by The Fixx
        “I hope it comes, it comes, it comes around
        Driven out,
        holding out,
        day by day survival
        castaways have silent lives,
        with the strength to rival you.
        Now I’m hoping that we’ll find,
        More to life than meets the eye
        Can we escape the grind,
        Build a life that’s more worthwhile
        Be rid of this empty pride,
        Full of selfishness inside
        Bathe in a turning tide,
        Until then we all hide
        We all hide
        I hope it comes, it comes, it comes around”
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vOn8yqX1NE

        How about “Fall on Me” by R.E.M.?
        “Buy the sky and sell the sky and lift your arms up to the sky
        And ask the sky and ask the sky
        Don’t fall on me…”
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QziZsyDA-Q

        Or “Orange Crush” by R.E.M.?
        “I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush
        (We are agents of the free)
        I’ve had my fun and now it’s time
        To serve your conscience overseas”
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j12kusJqDQs

        Ack, stop helping, YouTube…

        Or “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” by R.E.M.?
        “Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
        World serves its own needs, don’t misserve your own needs
        It’s the end of the world as we know it
        (It’s time I had some time alone)
        And I feel fine”
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfyNlISf_No

        I hope none of these artists have been dumb in public, and I just haven’t heard about it yet.

      2. Ok, one more:

        “Hollywood” by Marina and the Diamonds
        “Hollywood infected your brain
        you wanted kissing in the rain
        Living in a movie scene
        puking American dreams
        I’m obsessed with the mess that’s America”

      3. I found your perspective interesting, enlightening, and funny. It’s so great to have all these great humanitarians, looking out for our health and future, I just wish I could crawl up to D.C. and kiss their feet, for allowing me to “squat in place”, and be safe.
        Dire Straights, Money for Nothing, is exactly on target, was then, a harbinger for now. Some of us were watching the “money pit” happening, and understood their meaning at the time.
        I’m not singing much, while I “squat in place”, to be safe. The truth is, this virus is getting those with weakened immune systems, and the main concern, is the fact most people can get it, never feel a thing, many would feel like having a cold, maybe a mild case of the flu, however “they are carriers”, and those “plutocrats, oligarchs” are mostly old people, who don’t exercise, don’t walk five or six miles in the morning, drink late at night, many smoke, and their chief concern is someone healthy, might bring it into contact with them.
        At 62, kind of young for being old, I work like I did thirty years ago, and work hard at being healthy, don’t drink except very occasionally, don’t smoke any more, and take my dogs for long walks in the woods every day, I’m not afraid, if I get it, I’ll live or die, it won’t be much different than this year’s cold virus, or flu, shit, if they didn’t have it planned, we wouldn’t even notice a “bump on the annual flu season”, but somehow, they thought they could let it loose, let it hurt China, make it hurt Iran, I expect Italy might have been targeted for having been first to sign on to the BRI, but they had bad respiratory infections, before the virus, so they were already “down” healthwise, but all in all, we’d all be better off treating it like the normal seasonal issue, noting it began with Ft. Detrick, shut down last summer for failure to control pathogens, and “home base” is here in the U.S., with high likelyhood, it was carried to Wuhan, by our “bio-warfare specialists” to Wuhan, for training, and deliberately set loose.
        China and Iran have every right to panic, all evidence suggests a “focused attack, with a designed vector”. The rest of us, are dealing with the “fall-out of idiot games played by elitists, with no real understanding of real world happenings”, how things actually work, not on t.v.
        We all lose far more from the deliberate panic invoked by our governments, which are absolutely hapless to do anything productive, so they’ve shut down all “productive things”, and perhaps they are stupid enough to not have considered the economic impact, they probably don’t know phrases like “just in time delivery”, “no need to have capital, lying around, tied up in a quarter’s worth of raw material”, modern trade means no need to “be prepared for problems”.
        Thirty years ago, stores had three months of staples, business ordered raw material, delivered three or even six months advance, and knew “epidemics meant keeping doors open, with great care”, not merely “squat in place for everyone, government has money to pay everyone to do nothing”, even if the trillions printed, are worth nothing, and reduce the value of held money, while nothing is produced.
        “Live and let die” is definitely in line to be played, we can all sing along.
        Semper Fidelis,
        John McClain
        Vanceboro, NC, USA

      4. Defiance Demon Avatar
        Defiance Demon

        “Money for nuthin’… chicks for free”.

        “I want my… I want my…. I want my white tp”

      5. “Love Me, I’m a Liberal” by Phil Ochs

    2. I skipped watching the BS celeb We Are The World video, because I know in advance I’d have to go watch baby goat videos to wash it off. Much more wholesome to watch John Lennon instead.

  56. The unpunished terrorists of 9/11 are rolling out their G7, Davos, Bilderberg and Bohemian Grove wet dream, bioweapon extermination machine. To conceal the demonic origins of this pathogen, the CIA Operation Mockingbird, faux science division is assuring us….this bug flew out of a bowl of WuFlu bat stew.

    “Debunking NATURE magazine’s….Coronavirus didn’t come from a Lab….Chinese Propaganda” at ZeroHedge(.)com

    1. I really appreciate your writing and your intensity. But I have to admit that I didn’t read this yet because I wanted to get this out there. Take the time to listen to this YouTube. Now I will read your post.

    2. Then there is this warning from Bill Gates: https://youtu.be/9AEMKudv5p0

      1. Note his choice of language in the video – “excess people”. I interpret that as meaning he thinks there are people in the world he considers dispensable.

        1. Defiance Demon Avatar
          Defiance Demon

          Uh huh— those of us who have the brazen gall to use APPLE! ; )

  57. finally Donny will be able to pin medals to himself & cohorts of germs who so lovingly hover around

  58. you REALLY REALLY NEED TO TALK TO ME

    reallllllly

    on the dl

    blow your mind, and relates to basically everything around us today…

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