Autumn reflections are luxuries afforded by age and enhanced by the freedom of working from home – or no longer working – and living in a house from which children have long since departed.
This quotation from James Clear’s weekly newsletter appealed to me.
I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death.
Lin Yutang – My Country and My People
Autumn or Fall as it’s called in my new country of Canada can be a difficult period for me. The days seem to get shorter very quickly. It seems just a couple of weeks ago I was watching the sunrise when walking away from home before 6 in the morning. Now it’s still dark when I get back at 7.
Even after living in the Northern Hemisphere for 18 years – almost a quarter of my life – it still seems “wrong” that the days get shorter and colder as Christmas approaches. In Southern Africa, October, before the rains arrive, is the hottest, driest month of the year. It was often called “suicide month” because in the old days before air conditioning, the relentless heat, dust and dry atmosphere combined to push people over the edge.
I don’t ever recall feeling that desperate, but I know that many people were as depressed by “suicide month” there as are many here by “cabin fever” in the short dark days of the Northern Hemisphere winter.
Reflections on The State of The World
I am one who has survived a terrorist war, political chaos in two countries, sanctions, desperate shortages of consumer, farming and business essentials, fuel rationing, hyperinflation, business failure and finally losing everything because of government persecution. I have also experienced serious illnesses, malaria, tick bite fever, a heart attack and bypass surgery.
In this post in July, I wrote about my reactions to the changing world we find ourselves in. This post is a continuation.
With those experiences, I have huge difficulty in understanding how most of the Western world has been brought to a state of disunity, fear and surrender by a disease that is causing no more deaths than seasonal flu. A virus that affects few people and has a survival rate of over 99% for the otherwise healthy that do get it. If they actually show any symptoms. A disease that would not have made any headlines if not for widespread use of a test that was not designed for the purpose and is misused to provide a high level of false positives. I can provide verified sources for all the above, however, if in doubt do your own research.
Now we have a situation where people are being fired from jobs – many after decades of working for the same employer – because they are exercising their constitutionally entrenched rights to reject a mandatory injection of an experimental drug with limited efficacy and high rates of adverse effects.
Firing workers without justification from most types of employment is immoral and unethical, firing doctors, nurses, police officers and emergency responders are both those and a form of malicious vindictiveness when the employers are hospitals or services already suffering from shortages of qualified staff.
Am I An Anti-vaxxer?
I am not anti-vaccination, I and my sons have had all the childhood vaccines, others for tropical diseases when living in Africa. Regular tetanus boosters as a farmer and horse owner for most of my life. The difference is that all those were fully approved, had passed all the required, long-term tests, had few side effects and had a high probability of protecting me against those illnesses with high rates of serious consequences or death.
Regular readers will know that I am not in a “low risk” age or health category. I am 71, and have had a few health issues as mentioned above.
After considerable research, I believe the risk of submitting to “the jab” far outweighs the risk of relying on my natural defences and should I contract the virus, proven remedies.
It should be left to each individual to choose to take the risk of having “the jab” or not. If you have it because you believe it works and will protect you, whether I or anyone else does or does not have it should be of no concern to you. However, if you have it purely to get into restaurants and theatres without believing that it will protect you, then you have no right to condemn others who exercise their freedom of choice.
My Autumn Reflections Are About More Than Mandatory Jabs
Why my autumn reflections are giving me concern is the effect that the propaganda about the virus is having on society.
Propaganda:
ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.
the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
Meriam Webster
It seems that in 18 months we have gone from a society that practiced and praised, tolerance, unity, diversity, freedom of movement, speech and religion to one that has adopted a divided, fearful, intolerant and accusatory culture.
A society where people who would consider themselves “normal” now believe in segregation. One where yesterday’s heroes from “the frontline” can now be deprived of their income without due cause. A society where coercion, threat and blackmail are now considered acceptable. Where the failure of small businesses and the channelling of commerce into the online funnels of a few mega businesses are considered reasonable – if considered at all.
This is not the Canada that our brave soldiers died on Juno Beach for. It’s not what the USA, Great Britain, Australia or other Allied countries fought for.
The damage to economies around the world by ridiculous government policies is already being seen in empty shelves and shortages of many commodities from electrical wire to new cars and pickups. Inflation is creeping upwards.
There Is Hope
Yes, although my autumn reflections are tinged with concern – not for myself, my life is winding down – but for my sons, my grandchildren and all the other younger people who still have all their lives in front of them.
There is reason to hope. Countries, states and regions are standing up to the persecution. A few that imposed no or few restrictions, for example, Sweden, Florida, Texas have healthier populations and economies than many of the most locked-down, masked and vaccinated ones.
Opposition to authoritarianism is rising, protests are more frequent and better supported. It seems the vaccine mandate may be the “straw that broke the camel’s back“. Thousands of workers in the private and public sectors are risking unemployment by refusing to be coerced into taking the shots.
Churches that resisted the oppression and continued to do what churches are supposed to do – minister to those in need of spiritual, emotional and physical support – are seeing their congregations increasing.
Conclusion
Is this all part of The Great Reset? A new world order engineered by the WHO, The Deep State and a few billionaires with their own agenda? There is strong evidence to suggest that. There is also strong evidence to support the idea that what started as a gross overreaction to a non-pandemic has pushed politicians into a corner.
No politician ever wants to admit he or she was wrong. Any such confession would open the floodgates for a wave of litigation never before seen. There are also the added complications of greed, incompetence, pride and ordinary human stupidity. Examples can be found whenever one considers the situation as it is now – 18 months from the fraudulent cry of “3 weeks to flatten the curve”.
It is all of the above. Massive profits are being produced for a handful of pharmaceutical companies and online retailers. The embarrassing increase in the wealth of a small group of billionaires, the increasing control of daily life by many levels of government, and the manipulation by the old and new media show that the situation has little to do with health.
I lived through a situation very similar to this in Zimbabwe, millions of others experienced similar or worse in Nazi Germany, the USSR and Eastern Europe. All the regimes responsible for the crimes against humanity in the 20th century followed the same playbook.
We were naive to think it would not happen in Western democracies. Now, 21st-century leaders have joined the campaign and are increasingly enthusiastic to follow the examples of the tyrants of old.
Ultimately, authoritarianism oversteps itself and is defeated by reasonable people who come to support its victims. Sadly this time around, there are many more tyrants and fewer reasonable people.
I am hopeful that enough people will wake up and say no. I only hope that they don’t wait too long.
Are you experiencing your own autumn reflections? Leave a comment and share them.
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