In his novel Essay on Blindness (1995), José Saramago described what Wikipedia calls “an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows”. The story is exceptionally dark and frightening, because when everybody else is blind, the book tells you, you will find nobody to guide you safely home. You won’t even find a toilet. Or water. Much like in Gaza.
Another frightening aspect of the book is that mass blindness can occur anywhere, and at any time, for no apparent reason.
Saramago, it is true, was a communist, and he might have felt that those who were not were blind. I was not a communist, however, when I read the novel several decades ago. Yet, I felt intuitively, that his story reflected reality in an uncanny way. I just couldn’t put my finger on just why it rang so true. Now I can. And yes, mass blindness can occur anywhere and at any time and for no apparent reason.
I was taught and brought up to believe that everything known to mankind was dutifully recorded in Encyclopaedia Britannica. Subsequent information, arrived at after the tomes had been printed, would be reported in the New York Times. Only many years after I left home to study, did I fully understand that Britannica was the legacy of a colonial power in collaboration with a neo-colonial superpower. I could still rely on it to find the birth dates of potentates, and the names, dates and places of important battles. But the underlying causes of violent conflicts, for instance, were not satisfactorily explained.
I haven’t used Britannica for years, and I have also noticed that the New York Times exists mainly to cover the tracks of globalists going about their nefarious business. What the NY Times conspicuously fails to do, for instance, is to explain mass stupidity or, if you will, mass blindness, which is what we are seeing now, and to which the famous news outlet contributes in a big way.
Were there ulterior motives for deluding Ukraine, back in 2022, into imagining the country could win a war against Russia? Why is “the coalition of the willing”, or “Coalition of the Twats”, to quote Pepe Escobar, so rabidly eager to fight the Russians? If they actually send troops to Ukraine – God help us all! – will they stand to gain something?
Have there been ulterior motives for loyally supporting, for decades, an apartheid state? Are there ulterior motives for being complicit in genocide?
The realisation that I could not trust Britannica or the NY Times, that I had to be as wary of them as of the Murdoch press was awful; almost comparable to the discovery that a beloved father is a dictator who has his political opponents imprisoned and tortured.
My question “dense, deceived or devious?” was not about Trump. Not that I like Trump and better than Biden, but I actually think he understands that the European triumvirate plus Santa Ursula are killing Europe. Surely, they are not themselves suicidal? What, then, are they after? The 300-335 billion USD of Russian frozen assets?
By the way, of those 300-335 billions, only 5-8 are in the USA, but 70 billion are in France, according to the market analyst Alex Krainer; were in France. Now only 22.8 billion remain. Where did the rest go? It is true that thanks to Candace Owens, Macron would not be anybody’s choice of a son-in-law, but a 40 billion dollar thief? Surely, not. Or…?
I honestly don’t know. Cross my heart.
Conspiracy theories abound, as they always will when people lose faith in governing establishments. In a Democracy, we expect to be able to hold our politicians accountable. In France, England and Germany – at the very least – not to mention in the USA, Democracy has been so eroded that people are prepared to believe practically any wild story about the leaders of their governments. Anything, or as in my case, nothing. Whether or not we hitch our wagons to a conspiracy theory, we distrust the leaders of the pack and their henchmen.
Mind you, here in Norway (we have oil, remember), the standard of living is still reasonably high, although we are seeing a marked deterioration of healthcare. So here in Norway, people still have faith in their favourite politicians. Here, conspiracy theories are peddled only by a small minority.
Here too, though, what is sure is that the establishment – regardless of what party heads it – lies and steals (we, too, have a financial class) and deceives voters. I did not know, for instance, that the OSCE kept a special monitoring mission in Ukraine during the period 2015-2022. More importantly, I did not know what the OSCE observers observed. What they observed was not publicised, you see, because it did not confirm the official narrative, cf. the recently published book, “What I Saw in Ukraine 2015 to 2022, Diary of an International Observer,” by Benoit Paré. You will hear very interesting examples of what the author saw on Grayzone.
So in Norway, we do not yet know that nobody is guiding us home and that sooner or later, we, too, will lack drinking water. We cling to the belief that technology will solve the climate issue, and that life as we know it will prevail; that the plucky Ukrainians will beat horrible Putin, and that Ukraine has been a Democracy since 2014; that justice will be done in Gaza and that the Israelis will suddenly stop being sadists; that Trump will be replaced by a Democratsand that Democrats are decent. We need not “hope” that USA is our kind uncle and protector, because we have never doubted that was the case.
Norwegians are living in Never-never-land, unwilling to wake up. Why? Because the press serves as a bulwark against information that undermines the official narratives. Here we are not told that Europe is in deep trouble. Even official EU poverty statistics are grim. We are not told that in the UK, and in France, reality is loudly knocking on doors.
Here in Norway, we do not know that people in UK and France have growing trouble covering basic expenses, while real wages are falling, and prices – not least the cost of servicing mortgages – rise. Increasingly, people resort to credit cards and accumulate very expensive credit card debts. Need I continue? Foreclosures… homeless people… real, really real poverty which is getting worse by the day. The UK is on its way down a slippery slope.
In France the poverty rate is 15.4 % and growing. The country has a growing public deficit (6.1% of GDP in 2024), a rising national debt (above €3.1 trillion), and political chaos because nobody (left, right or centre) likes Macron, who nevertheless hangs on like a leech.
France is the second largest economy in Europe (after Germany), driving nearly 20% of the Eurozone economy. Yet, it is a sinking ship. If you lend money to someone who wants to save a sinking ship you will demand an exorbitant price (interest rate) for your “kindness”, cf. the NY Times article of 26 August: Fears of a French Government Collapse Send Its Borrowing Costs Soaring, The article also discusses how the general public might react to the steps the government plans to take to avoid having to resort to an IMF bailout.
Look up the following three words on the internet: “debt, France, IMF” (and set time to “past week”) and you will see a long list that include expressions such as “IMF bailout”, “meltdown”, “debt explosion”, etc. As an analyst remarked the other day, people are preparing for a new Bastille day and are bringing their old guillotines up from the cellars.
Look up “UK and IMF” (and set time to “past week”), and you will find an even longer list of forebodings.
Whatever the causes of this very obvious and dramatic slippery slope state in two of Europe’s three most important economies (and Germany is not much better off, I gather), they are not being addressed. On the contrary. The UK and EU have made a disastrous deal with Trump, one which will finish them off completely if complied with. Are Macron, Starmer, Mertz and Santa Ursula dense, deceived or devious?
Meanwhile, in an interesting development, Denmark is discovering to its dismay, that USA is quietly making progress in conquering the hearts and minds of people in Greenland. Maybe Denmark is learning that with such “friends”, who needs enemies.
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And no, the double tap strike against Nasser Hospital, killing 20 people including 5 journalists, was not “a terrible mistake”. It was deliberate! On second thought, take a longer look at https://www.972mag.com !!!!
