The Irish Independent leads today with the following:
July reopening ‘may be reviewed’ if people don’t follow rules, says Taoiseach as local lockdowns possible
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar warns local lockdowns possible as gardaí called in for second night to clear crowds in Dublin
This is a remarkable article for a number of reasons, the main one being that it does not make reference to increases in cases. Other outlets today led with headlines that claimed these threats were associated with an increase in cases, yet there is no quote from Varadkar or Martin indicating that. The Independent headline is the most honest for pointing out that the comments indicated that rules were the priority.
The government makes reference to using lockdown as a punishment for behaviour that they do not approve of.
Although then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was outdoor drinking like a yob during the most worrisome part of lockdown last year, he has been leading some of the calls to punish those doing so now. The article states:
The Taoiseach’s comments came after Tánaiste Leo Varadkar warned local lockdowns remain an option amid scenes of large crowds across the country over the weekend.
Varadkar was heavily backed by the mainstream media last summer when his drinking in the Phoenix Park made international headlines. Many ordinary people have not missed out on the irony this time however.
Infection rates from outdoor events are roughly 1 in 1,000.
The same media that is now presenting outdoor drinking as the vehicle of an incoming apocalypse, paradoxically presented recent Black Lives Matter and Pro Palestine protests as inconsequential to the spread of the virus.
In fact, some outlets simply presented the images of thousands in attendance without alarmist headlines (though we give the Independent credit for being one of the fairer outlets).
Having seen these massive crowds, without any political condemnation or Garda interference, it was easy for ordinary people to assume that such behaviour was now acceptable.
Perhaps the psychological impact of seeing massive crowds return to normality in the UK, at the Eurovision and at the European club football finals contributed to people understanding that normality was returning to neighbours and should be the case in Ireland too, especially since the lockdown here was more strict than in any of those countries.
The psychological elements at play are constant. On the same weekend that they condemned the drinking in Dublin, RTE even had a broadcast celebrating the Soros funded protests for regime change in Brazil, even sneakily showing an Antifa flag in the background and presenting it as a normal part of any protest. The broadcast made out as though thousands of people in the streets there (where the virus is apparently raging) is more innocuous than the same occurrence here. You are all smart enough to know that that is not possible.
Most of all however, there was the fact that Leo Varadkar himself has spent months telling the public to prepare for an ‘outdoor summer’.
Varadkar actually teased the same last year and never fulfilled it.
His promises for this summer have been more consistent.
In a video earlier this year, Dave Cullen pointed out that there is a puritanical streak evident in those imposing lockdown, this goes all the way back to Micheal Martin’s smoking ban in the early 2000s and is reflected in their apparent aversion to anything which is perceived to be apolitical.
In another video, he pointed out that the government’s lockdown relationship with the public contained the hallmarks of an abusive one, where the government keeps telling people that if they change, things will improve, only for the government to change the rules at the last minute and thus continue the cycle of abuse.
Northern Ireland has returned to relative normality, there are towns that are minutes away from ones South of the border, where relative normality is permitted in one but not the other. It does not bother the government that people are travelling in large numbers between the two, just as it did not bother them that large numbers of migrants were travelling in and out of the country during the pandemic.
In a video this morning, NPHET’s Doctor Colm Henry said ‘this virus doesn’t surrender. It exploit complacency…outdoors is safer than indoors but big congested crowds with alcohol for long periods of time do not mix well’.
One group who have advocated for more lockdowns are the Independent Scientific Advisory Group (ISAG), who are an unelected group of scientists who advocate for ‘Zero Covid’. ISAG have no mandate from the public, yet the Irish media affords them wall to wall coverage. Many have used the term ‘cult’ to describe their aims of shutting everything down until Covid no longer exists.
One of their members, Tomas Ryan, is quoted in the Independent article as saying:
“A lot of those young people who are out there [in crowds] are going to be expected to work in indoor hospitality settings very soon, with a one-metre distancing which is not sufficient since we know the virus is airborne and I don’t think that has been really well thought out,” he said, calling for more focus on ventilation.
“The Isag position is one of caution. We want a situation whereby we can get through vaccination without a fourth wave and without having to bring back restrictions in autumn or sooner.
“As a neuroscientist, I am increasingly concerned about the effects of long-Covid. It is important to remember that long-Covid doesn’t care about your age. It affects all people, and I don’t want this to turn into a summer of long-Covid on top of the risk of exposure to death.”
Ryan tweeted his celebration of the anniversary Ireland’s removal of the right to life for unborn children, using the hashtag #maknmhours which is directed at removing Catholic involvement in the National Maternity Hospital, where babies are now aborted.
Ryan had previously criticised the church, bizarrely calling Blessed John Sullivan a ‘crank’. He also comically suggested that the date of Christmas could be moved.
He also previously claimed that the church ‘damaged’ education in Ireland.
After seeing leaked messages earlier this year, Gript had reported on members of ISAG quoting anarchist radical Saul Alinsky. The leak was so worrying that it was even raised in the Seanad by Ronan Mullen.
In an article last week, Gript shared a video where Ryan discussed autism and the vaccine.
Another scientist frequently quoted by the media is Professor Luke O’Neill. O’Neill was quote by RTE with similar concerns as those across other media platforms yesterday.
It recently emerged that O’Neill had appeared in a State Funded ‘comedy’ segment with pro establishment ‘comedians’ Rubberbandits, one of whom has spoke of developing an irrational fear of door handles in the past year. The segment involved the ‘comedians’ mocking the Eucharist.
The wide ranging statements of the government on the whole matter are difficult to understand.
On one level, Varadkar is promising the same as he did last June, large outdoor gatherings of thousands of people. On the other level, he is threatening people with lockdowns as punishment for behaviour that he himself has engaged in.
There is really no point in trying to wrap your head around it, it is not supposed to make sense, this is a government that this week bragged about reducing the native birth rate by 25% in 10 years.
They wrote the IMF a blank cheque to make each person within its borders a de facto serf of the international banking system. And Irish people went along with it because the government marched in pride parades and celebrated abortion. Compare the Ireland today to the Ireland of 15 years ago, the confidence is gone, the hope is gone and the Irish people are too paralysed by their own moral collapse to do anything about it. They are a demoralised people.
This has been evident in the disinterested reaction to the new series of the once loved RTE show Reeling in the Years. It shows highlights of each decade year by year with music from the time and is often remembered with great fondness. Yet the new season has bombed with the audience, because there is little to look back on in the past decade with nostalgia.
In the ESPN documentary Unguarded, basketballer Chris Herren states that when he was a drug addict he used to shave in the shower, not being able to look himself in the mirror until he was clean. Ireland’s attitude to Reeling in the Years is a bit like that, the past decade has been such an uninterrupted freefall that they do not want to see it reflected on the screens in front of them. For example, one of the most sinister leaders that the country has ever had, Leo Varadkar, was a wealthy elitist who attended Ireland’s premier Protestant boarding school. Only 4 years ago, his election was hailed as an incredible story of triumph over adversity! Irish people thought that they had their own Barack Obama, in a way maybe they were right.
Interestingly, the threat of lockdown comes after Ireland’s Cyber disaster, where the government refused to update old Windows computers in the health system and ended up facing a bill of up to €100 million according to Paul Reid. Reid is the head of the HSE, and a former active member of the Marxist-Leninist Worker’s Party, once stating: ‘I was quite active at the time with the Workers’ Party’, he almost ran for election but stated ‘I would have had a nomination and just pulled out at the last minute’.
What the public are finding now is that they are in the grasp of a regime that does not seem to have any end date in sight for lockdown. Even as vaccinations increase, even as other countries return to normality, even as so called strains slow, no definitive end date is offered.
In a humorous comment, TD Thomas Byrne (who voted for abortion) said that he wants Green Certificates, mentioning his own experience when he flew to Brussels. Micheal Martin has flown to Portugal, Simon Coveney has flown to China and Iran in recent weeks.
Catholics tried to warn the rest of Ireland for months that what was being done was not proportionate, banning people coming and going from Mass in small numbers, with no scientific evidence of transmission, yet they chose to sit back and enjoy it, even as Gardai invaded churches and surrounded villages like in the days of the Penal Laws.
Everything that this government has done in the past decade, from reducing birth rates, to increasing the prices of homes, to shutting down the Vatican Embassy has been about controlling its own people in a negative way, while presenting it as progress.
We have not seen the last of the lockdowns, if you really want to stand up to the government during the next one, attending a Mass would antagonise them more than drinking cans in the street. Blindboy mightn't approve, but then again, that’s the point.
The question is, will the church accept it next time just as they did last time? Even in a return to relative normality now, Communion on the tongue is banned by government edict.
Will we see Gardai storm churches and surround villages where Mass is taking place once again this year? We hope not, but at least be ready for it.