n C.J. Hopkins
The War on Death For those of us who remember the War on Terror, the new war is just like that, except this time the enemy is Death …
O
K, I’ve got some good news and I’ve got some bad news. The good news is mainly for authoritarians who missed all the fun during the War on Terror. The news is … welcome to the War on Death! Yes, that’s right, global capitalism (aka “the world”) is now at war with Death … which is great news for authoritarians! No more bothersome critical thinking. The time for questioning our leaders is over. It’s time to shut up and follow orders. We’re in a global state of emergency, folks! We’re talking lockdowns, soldiers in the streets, abrogation of our constitutional rights, arbitrary arrests, indefinite detentions, round-the-clock media fear-propaganda … the whole totalitarian megillah! What, you’re probably asking, is the War on Death? Well … for those who remember the War on Terror, the War on Death is just like that, except this time the evil enemy is Death … or, all right, maybe not exactly like that, but there are a number of striking similarities. For one thing, just like the War on Terror, we didn’t start it.
12 ColdType | April 2020 | www.coldtype.net
Death attacked us! There we were, peacefully going about our global capitalist business, quelling a worldwide “populist” rebellion orchestrated by Russian-backed Nazis, when Death attacked us with a coronavirus … more or less exactly the way that the terrorists attacked us in 2001. And, just like after those terrorist attacks, the world has united and forcefully responded. No, we haven’t invaded Iraq again (well, actually, we did bomb them a little), but we have locked down almost the entire planet, virtually shut down the global economy, and are scaring the masses into a state of unprecedented mass hysteria.
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olice are patrolling the streets of Europe, checking people’s “permission-to-go-outside” papers. In the UK, soldiers are standing by to assist with “protecting possible quarantine zones”, or to “cope with the breakdown of civil society”. Israel is tapping its formerly secret collection of everyone’s mobile phone records to identify people who might be infected, and assorted “others who need to be
quarantined”. Macron (now relieved of his Gilets Jaunes problem) is ready to “rule by decree” if necessary. California is “prepared to enact martial law”. The US military is “prepared to deploy in support of potential extraordinary missions”, including “quelling civil disturbances”. The US Department of Justice is asking Congress for the power to detain people indefinitely. The British Parliament is on the brink of passing an emergency “Coronavirus Bill” that will (among other unsettling provisions) grant authorities the power to arrest and indefinitely quarantine anyone they deem a “potentially infectious person” … or, in other words, pretty much anyone they want. As if that wasn’t dystopian enough, according to a report in Politico: “Counter-terrorism troops have been redeployed across Italy to beef up police forces throughout Italian cities. Patrol cars are now circulating in every major city in Italy with a monotone male voice warning citizens over a loudspeaker not to leave their residences or
