As stated before, there are plenty of reasons to doubt the government and the Covid episode is no exception. Over many years the government and media have destroyed their own credibility and so in some respects they have brought this on themselves. And yet as also stated, conspiracies (to be judged as viable) have to make some kind of sense and they have to operate within the framework of reality. Many of the conspiracies floated by today's Right are divorced from reality and in other cases indicate a pervasive unfamiliarity with basic concepts, how institutions work, history and the like.
When it comes to Covid one thing has always been clear – the
Establishment wants people working and generating profits. They didn't want the
Covid crisis. Vigano thinks this was planned and orchestrated but he and others
like him are dead wrong. The Establishment didn't want this. They want the
economy humming along and making them money.
It was real and it threw the system into disarray. As events
have unfolded the response has changed and it's not the same today as it was in
early 2020. The attempt to eradicate the disease has been abandoned and as
always the profiteers are looking for ways to capitalise on the current
situation. Other power-mongers look to exploit it. As far as the vaccines go, I
believe they represent a genuine attempt to arrest the disease. They have been
imperfect and indeed in some respects experimental. They might have worked but
with the steady stream of variants appearing and the vaccine's now evident
limits in terms of effective duration – their utility is waning. This does not
mean they're of no value. Far from it, but they're no longer the safety measure
they once were.
Covid could have been eliminated early on but societal
pressures broke the will of those who had the power and the mandate to arrest
it. And frankly in terms of the Trump administration there was a gross
incompetence and criminal negligence on display. Trump who actually sought to
create a dictatorship (one that Vigano would support) proved utterly inept and
incompetent. Covid was a dictator's dream, a sure vehicle for emergency powers
and the like. But Trump is unsophisticated and lacks even a basic knowledge of
political theory, the workings of government, and history. He threw away his
opportunity but that doesn't make him any less obscene or less morally culpable
for what resulted.
Vigano's commentary only sows confusion with regard to Covid.
He has misunderstood the situation and the nature of the world order. He is an
ally of evil forces that vie for the same kind of powers and control within the
established world order – forces that have also lied and deceived and are quick
to dispense with law and manipulate the very nature of morality. There are
things afoot to be sure but Vigano is no discerner and no guide.
With regard to the environment and Vigano's critique of those
who seek to repair it, once again there is a crisis afoot even if it's not as
the mainstream would frame it. The climate is changing. This is indisputable.
Why it's changing can be argued and whether man has any control over its change
is another point to be considered.
But it's changing and there are deep fundamental problems
looming on the horizon – problems related to growing populations and limited
resources. Vigano may believe Covid is a means to cull the population – in
which case it's not fake nor a farcical disease. His thinking on this point is
incoherent and echoes what we hear from the larger Right.
Economies are in danger, war is looming, and the refugee
crises of today are child's play compared to what is coming. There are those on
the Right who acknowledge the climate is changing, seas are rising,
desertification is spreading, and water resources are insufficient. For
argument's sake let's say nothing can be done to correct these situations. What
then? Either massive populations must die or there will be tremendous social upheaval
as coastal and desert cities are abandoned and wars are fought over the resources
required for techno-industrial society.
The Right's response is to build walls, heavily arm, and
block and kill anyone who would enter their would-be edenic realms. The Left is
arguing a different case and yet in many instances their corrections are not
serious but token, slight reforms, not the social revolution that is required.
The truth is this – the wealthy countries consume too much.
The US is a global hog, a small percentage of the world population consuming a
quarter of the world's resources. What a strange notion of a Christian culture
and yet if these points are raised, the response is violent and often
hysterical. Mine and Thine is the ethic of modern Christendom. Today's
Christians have more in common with the Christ-rejecting rich young ruler and
Lamech son of Cain than they do Christ and the apostles.
It is comical to see the environmental measures exhibited by
the American Left. I can think of several cases of Liberal 'green' minded
people that I know who dutifully recycle, buy 'green' products and yet at the
same time are absolute energy hogs and über-consumers. Without even trying I
can think of several single older women who live alone in gigantic houses,
loaded to the gills with 'stuff', and they keep the heat turned on high –
unbearably high (24C/75F). In the summer their central air is running non-stop,
in some cases running all day long while they're gone. Some have second homes. All
are heavily invested in the markets. This kind of lifestyle (the morality of it
aside) will have to end. There are ways to bring it to an end that don't
involve direct force or regulation – such as heavy taxation, but as long as
this class is connected to the corridors of power it's not going to end. But in
the meantime as their market-based wealth grows leaps and bounds, it is built
on the backs of the working class and the people of the developing world who
are growing poorer by the day and ever more desperate.
This is the difference between the American Right and Left.
The Left is not revolutionary or radical. It simply grasps that this can't go
on. There will be blood in the streets. Bread and circuses are the answer and
given what other societies have to pay out to support a social safety net – the
American system is an absolute bargain. The wealthy should pay their due and
shut up. If the Right has its way, the wealthy class will live in gated
communities and compounds, patrolled by armed guards and they will travel in convoys
of armoured vehicles. They fear an authoritarian system but ironically their
actions will produce one – it just will be one they happen to dominate. The
2013 film Elysium attempted to
portray this in simplistic terms but for most it was just an action movie.
The Left that Vigano hates is pro-capitalist and pro-Western
imperialism – just like him. As far as anti-Christian – the notion of New
Testament Christianity is not part of the discussion and Vigano is out of his
league as he has no concept of what Christianity actually is. His religion is
Roman Catholicism and his kingdom is that of sacralist Christendom. The
Christianity of the New Testament is not part of his thinking – it is a world
unknown to him and as such the entire conversation is thrown into confusion
because the terms become more or less meaningless.
While we can say that none of the options are Christian, the
Right pseudo-Christianity of Vigano and the Christo-Trumpist movement are (as
counterfeits) subversive to the truth and far more dangerous than rank unbelief
or the rival (and literally soulless) religion of Scientific Materialism.
The geopolitical symphony that Vigano sees is an illusion, a
vision divorced from reality. He seems to believe that millions of health care
workers are knowingly lying and killing. By implication we must conclude that
he believes that de-wormer, anti-malarial drugs, and perhaps bleach are the
better alternatives to treating Covid – when it's not fake.
Again, conspiracies exist but the numbers in the know are
usually small. The narratives that seek to explain why doctors will knowingly
go along with ineffective and harmful treatments are unconvincing and the
medical authorities appealed to by these figures on the Right – the doctors and
others who appear on Catholic, Evangelical, and Libertarian websites are
quickly revealed (almost universally) as hacks and frauds. Literally a few
minutes of investigation leaves no doubt.
The 2020 election was not a fraud and yet it must be admitted
that the DNC destroyed a great deal of its own credibility in perpetuating the
now-collapsed Russiagate narrative that sought to delegitimize Trump's victory.
Trump clearly won in 2016. The Clinton led DNC was revealed as being completely
out of touch with large sections of the public – sections they took for granted
that had once been a key component of the Democratic base. Trump's victory was
a shock the system though he was not the maverick he was made out to be. He
represented powerful interests and a minority faction within the larger
Establishment. He had real and powerful enemies and in some respects he was a
real threat to the order America established after WWII. This was the state of
things when he came into office. Over the course of his presidency his status
would change. His erratic and reckless behaviour represented a real threat to
American power and while his base became more fanatical and even more fervent
in their devotion, the mainstream and the Establishment have grown increasingly
hostile.
While he won in 2016, Trump clearly lost in 2020. There's no
evidence of fraud. Has fraud been part of the American experience? Yes, there
has been electoral fraud in the past – 1960 comes immediately to mind. And yet
the need to intervene has largely been controlled by the two-party system which
has limited the viability of outsider candidates. 2016 got away from them –
from both parties as even the RNC was in
a state of disarray and collapse.
By 2020, things had changed and while Trump still commands
considerable support, he alienated and alarmed enough of the public that he
lost the vote. Vigano's statements are again revealed as incoherent because
Trump was not the Covid-opposition candidate that Vigano dreams him to be. On
the contrary, he largely abdicated his leadership during that period and later championed
the vaccines. Today, there are Covid-opposition figures that are ascendant in
the Republican Party – men such as Florida governor Rick DeSantis and Texas
governor Greg Abbott. Trump wasn't one of them. He continues to promote the
vaccine.
By the end of the essay we're left wondering what world
Vigano inhabits? The world he knew no longer exists but he doesn't understand
why and in his eight decades of life he hasn't garnered a great deal of wisdom.
He blames it all on the abandonment of Thomism and the Catholic concept of
Natural Law. This is but the final nail in the coffin, further evidence that
Vigano (while an interesting figure to be sure) is but another blind leader of
the blind. He is to be pitied as the world is more complicated than he can
conceive of and lost in the cloud of Roman falsehood he has no way to find his
footing and is instead slipping into Right-wing delusion. God help him.
Vigano's warning is dangerous in and of itself because it is
so misleading and is meant to provoke an extreme reaction. Its reasoning is
false and its ethics are far removed from New Testament Christianity. His views
and the unbiblical premise upon which they are based must be rejected. And we
must wonder about those, (especially within circles that claim to be Biblically
informed) who promote him. Can they be trusted?
See also:
https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2019/09/vigano-in-hiding.html
https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-latin-mass-and-catholic.html