Dear Dirty America

MICHAEL J BLAIR
Perthshire, Scotland

I have swithered for a few days over writing this piece, as I have found having an opinion which doesn’t agree with the majority of people who are convinced closing down the liberty of the entire planet was a good idea, is tantamount to treason.

My opinion is consistent with many other people. Doctors. Scientists. Psychologists and numerous journalists, have very similar opinions, but are shouted down and called conspiracy theorists.

It would appear that there is only room for one version of events.

The main reason the public feels outrage at a different or opposite opinion, is because in almost every country which has been locked down, the media has decided that this is what the public should think. This is especially true in the UK.

They report and broadcast images of the worst kind and then the public hangs on every word from the likes of BBC, Sky News and ITV, who of course never twist the truth.

Of course the public are angry with the government who, according to the media, is going to allow hundreds of thousands of people to die horrible deaths.

This then puts extra pressure on the politicians to do something that they, in their hearts, know isn’t going to solve the problem, but have to do because the media has whipped up such public hysteria.

This hysteria resulted in the emptying of giant supermarkets across the UK. The supermarket owners could have stopped the worst of this if they had the tiniest bit of morality, but greed prevailed from both customers and stores.

Had the stores put in rationing from the beginning and employed proper security staff, this would have helped immensely. But of course that would have limited profits.

This forced the hand of the government to put in place a lockdown. This stopped the panic buying, because admit it or not, the stocks were running low.

It also stopped people from having a normal life. But the human rights and personal liberty issues took a back seat to containing the virus, which started the wave of hysteria and panic buying in the first place.

Now the store shelves are full and the stores are limiting customers, the owners of the stores aren’t happy. Hundreds of extra staff have been taken on to herd small numbers of shoppers round the new one way system in the aisles.

Profits are being hit hard. No more than the greedy bastards deserve.

So now the government has a real problem. They have stopped the economy of the UK dead in its tracks. As we know, the global economy has also been stopped dead. But this focuses on the UK.

First the Chancellor finds hundreds of billions of pounds down the back of the government sofa, to pay people 80% of their wages and also to give to companies to help them remain solvent until after the great panic is over.

They have factories all over the country lying idle. Workers along with the rest of the population, under virtual house arrest.

So what else can the government do?

Well they changed laws immediately. In fact the speed that new legislation was drawn up, would make a sceptic think it had already been written.

Well, we must have extra powers because it makes government look tough.

This is the same the world over. Tough muscular politicians, making tough decisions and tougher laws.

None of which are necessary and none of which will be repealed once the crisis is over. This is the way of emergency laws.

We find that we are allowed to go out and shop for essential things.

Of course one person’s essential items won’t be the same as other people, but that’s for the shopping trolley police to monitor.

We are also allowed outside for one hour of exercise. Same idea as prison but with stricter rules and no drugs.

The public has been bombarded with different ways to interpret their new lockdown rules.

They are also being bombarded by government messaging, using mainly guilt to push the “stay at home” message.

“Stay at home and save the NHS”

“Stay at home and save lives”

We are being guilt tripped into staying home.

Even the motorway signs have messages saying “Stay at home and save lives and the NHS”

Television show hosts appear on our screens telling us that we must stay inside to “Save the NHS”.

Now the NHS is a wonderful institution, but it is there to save lives. That’s its function. At the moment because people are obediently staying at home, hospitals are running well below capacity.

But I hear you say, what about the virus victims?

Good question. Figures are bandied about and statistics are juggled to put the worst possible spin on the victims of the virus. Apparently no one is dying of any other cause than this virus.

Figures for death from other causes don’t seem to be available. So deaths from cancer, heart attack, stroke or diabetes are either not happening or are all being blamed on the virus.

This makes no sense whatsoever.

Then we do a quick change of direction and look at the building of temporary hospitals across the country.

This was another push by media, which was taken up by the public and government had to respond.

The media was saying up to 500,000 people could die in the UK due to the virus. The hospitals will not be able to deal with excess numbers of the sick and dying.

You government, have allowed the NHS to be underfunded by (name any number of billions of pounds) and it’s your fault all these people are going to die.

You government, will have the blood of these people on your hands.

So of course, the guilt suffering government starts building temporary hospitals from London to Glasgow. Large facilities are leased at huge cost and transformed in hospitals with the capacity of small countries.

The only real problem so far is that very few will, in all probability, be needed.

Ordinary common or garden hospitals, because of the lockdown and the constant government television doom mongering commercials to “stay at home and save the NHS”, hardly have any patients.

Accident and Emergency units are gathering dust because people are staying at home, pubs are closed and minor injuries are exactly that, minor. People are discovering that they can manage to put on a band-aid themselves and take a couple of paracetamol.

The sheer stress being put on people who suffer with a wide range of mental health issues stuck at home, is immeasurable. This isn’t something which was taken into consideration when the draconian lockdown was put in place.

The fall out from this and the damage caused to people who are losing businesses which they built up over many years, with be felt for decades.

So I suggest that all politicians across the UK, spend the same amount of money on help for mental health, that has been spent making people unwell in the first place.

This lockdown has been an utter disaster for the people of the UK. Oh there are some, mainly the comfortably off retired middle class, who are perfectly content with the situation.

Those are usually the ones who tell the mentally unwell, to “man up” and stop complaining.

This lockdown, unless it is eased soon and hope given to people, will be broken by the members of the public who have had enough.

There has been exceptional compliance to this by the people of the UK, but even most prisoners have a release date to work toward.

All people want is hope and to see an end to this in sight.

There has been enough sacrifice. Death awaits us all regardless of how it happens.

[header photo courtesy of Brian McGowan on Unsplash]