CoViD-19 Pandemic???

Numbers turned out to be hard to come by. Trying to look up the 'normal' annual number of deaths from respiratory infections proved much more difficult than I thought it would be. For that matter, looking up the average number of deaths per month didn't turn up much in a Google search, only some data from before 2017. But, after gleaning all that Google could find, it looks like the total dead from all respiratory infections varies greatly year to year, and the total for this year is well within normal limits.

So I think it's clear that the White Horseman of pestilence is not the problem it's being presented as. Total CoViD-19 deaths in the US were mostly caused by the states that shipped old people with CoViD-19 off to nursing homes where everyone caught the disease, and, since they all had DNR orders, all were allowed to die. That's most of the CoViD-19 deaths in the US. The number of deaths in the US could be much, much lower if they hadn't maximised it to empty nursing homes of elderly residents, many with dementia, that many figured the US would be much better off without.

US newspapers have a problem: they hate China and they hate Trump, and say everything coming out of China is a lie and everything Trump says is a lie, so when Trump says China deliberately started the pandemic, and China says they didn't, it's hard to call both of them liars at the same time (but the establishment media are all trying their best). They're saying Trump is completely and totally responsible for every one of the 90,000 deaths from CoViD-19 in the US, and also that China is completely and totally responsible.

Gordon Chang wrote a book, The Coming Collapse of China, back in 2001 saying China would be back to peasants unable to grow enough to feed themselves in a very few years. Everything in the book was completely wrong from beginning to end, but no matter, he's now considered one of the best experts on China, and he says CoViD-19 has killed millions of Chinese (not the 5,000 they claim), that it started before November 2019 and was a major problem China covered up completely until January 20, 2020, and China deliberately sent people out to infect every other nation so China's economy would not be harmed by China having the only epidemic. Again, just about everything he says is easily proved false, but he's now hailed as the World's Greatest Expert on China. Chang is now saying China must acknowledge its guilt and pay reparations on the order of $20 trillion (for starters), enough to finally make his 2001 book come true. And Pompeo agrees with him.

So the White Horseman is now being used as an excuse to bring out the Red Horseman of War. After Vietnam, every president starting with Reagan started a shooting war in his 3rd year. Starting with Grenada, then Panama, two countries with People living in Darkness who were very profitably (for the US) brought the light. Until Trump, who started trade wars with everyone his 2nd year, but no new shooting wars. Yet. (He tried with Iran, but they refused the bait.) It should be noted that Obama wanted a trade war with China, but one where the US had a treaty with all the Pacific nations except China to cut China off as much as possible. (The treaty also said that most national laws would no longer apply to corporations, so it would not be possible to sue a chemical plant if it leaked and killed a bunch of people, thereby protecting the Important Rentiers of the World.)

Americans are strangely split: a little less than half figure Trump is one of our greatest presidents and Obama was one of our worst, and a little more than half figure Trump's the absolute worst and Obama was one of the best, when both pretty much did the same things. (OK, I must admit, Obama had a lot more style than Trump, a fact that really appeals to the Obamabots and infuriates the Trumpeters. But style ain't substance!)

Not much time left between now and the election. Trump keeps withdrawing from the arms control deals his predecessors signed, but not much sign he's doing anything provocative after withdrawing. Makes the US Defence Industry happy, and gets condemned by those that criticise everything Trump does, starting every morning when he gets out of bed on what they're sure must be the wrong side. But not all that much in the press about the US doing anything new after cancelling the arms control agreements.

And, after murdering an Iranian with a clever trap (an offer to meet MbS from Saudi Arabia to talk peace, on a specific date and at a specific time so he could easily be tracked and droned), not much more military action under Trump, except continuing all the wars he inherited from Obama.

But there's Chang and Pompeo who both say war with China is necessary to avenge the pandemic. And China ain't no Grenada or Panama.