Transcript
1 The: Cell block sociology: depopulation phase 1 Author: Levert Brookshire Date: 5-30-20 The dawn of a new era is upon us. In these recent months while planning the final stages of my fast approaching release date. Assessing all of the details of my parole plans, trying to ensure the most comfortable and smoothest transition possible can be made, after spending 18 years behind bars. Coming from prison back into the civilized world again much of the challenges I have planned for, everything I could've prepared myself to face, thought of or predicted, taking every precaution necessary to prevent any surprises. But, in these recent weeks I've been forced to pause on any kind of plans that I've been working on or looking forward to carrying out once released. As it turns out, what started out a few months earlier as a brief world news segment about an aggressive new virus largely contained to Wuhan, China exclusively to an area with basically thousands of miles separating our population's from each other, within a very short span of a few weeks the news started to report the U.S. very first cases out of Washington state using the name coronavirus, I started to hear this being said a lot more often. It wasn't much longer we had other cases of infections showing up in other states with an increasingly high death rate, following the first reported cases being introduced. 2 Since it's first reported cases showing up here on U.S. soil three months ago, this so called coronavirus aka COVID-19 has now spread all over the country infecting all fifty states wreaking havoc on our entire nation's health care system, shutting down our nation's supply chain of goods and services, and crippling our nation's economy, causing the world's global financial system to simultaneously seize up. Multi-national corporations, Wall Street and all other foreign economies have recently reported devastating losses in just a matter of days, as the spike in death rates are continually rising all over the world. Within these first three months of its introduction this COVID-19 pandemic has already claimed the lives of many thousands, responsible for millions more infected with serious life threatening illnesses requiring emergency hospitalization with life support treatment, largely in special ventilation controlled designated areas. With thousands more being infected daily it's starting to inundate our entire health care system beyond its sustainability, creating an unprecedented urgency to expand out countries hospital capacity overnight to meet the sudden demand for emergency room admissions of patients infected with COVID-19 requiring acute respiratory medical care. Watching the news and reading the daily publications 3 it looks like the population being hit by this pandemic the hardest has been the elderly and those living at nursing homes and long term care, assisted living facilities, creating a very difficult and extremely tough situation for staff and infected senior citizen patients in need of acute care, and ventilator's, for lives to be saved. Nursing homes, long-term care, assisted living facilities are particularly vulnerable to the spread of this infectious disease, because of senior's vulnerable and weakened immune system's while many of the elderly there are already grappling with pre-existing health conditions, a lot of these facilities are often times understaffed, short cutting federally mandated operating standards and skirting around safety regulations to keep themselves afloat, allowing for violations to fall under the radar. While evaluating the data coming in I've been looking closely at the news reports regarding the cases that are being reported inside the prison system. So far the virus has been introduced into California's Dept. of Correction's prison system, Ohio Dept of Corrections, and several other's also, and ultimately it's expected to hit other states prison system's too. It's moving rapidly from prison to prison. I recently recieved word that it's now been introduced to this prison system here in AZ, 60 confirmed cases, two death's. Leading the state to implement new changes to their normal operating procedures, in order to slow the spread among the prisoner 4 population, facing concerns that the state may have an explosion of infected prisoner's spreading it from one prisoner to the other, administrator's imposed a strict no transfer policy in-place, temporarily halting all prisoner movement, from one institution to another until further notice. There's been a statewide temporary suspension of all visitation from outside friends and family, to keep the spread of infection limited to a controllable number of potential carrier's who come in-contact with the prisoner population. All prison guards and administrative staff have to be pre-screened for temperature readings and symptomatic signs before they are even processed and allowed to enter the prison facility. With more and more rigid contingencies being considered if the rate of infections increase, any higher, over time. With the prospect of having to get out facing such ominous, and daunting challenges the odds could not be more stacked against me, during these current times and economic conditions. Having just spent the past two decades out of the social scene, taken out of the everyday circulation of normal "civilian" life for the life inside of cellblock has rendered me 'out of touch' with the ways of current social norm's. Besides what I've come to see on T.V., or read from pop-culture magazines while sitting inside these cellblocks. 5 It looks like the challenges I've spent the past 17 1/2 years preparing myself for, training myself to take on and even create strategies for, have just been intensified and quadrupled in size. All because of this unexpected current pandemic. It's time to scramble through all of the year's and years of notes I've saved up and collected over the duration of my sentence, take out the copious notes I've sorted and packaged under the label "social crisis". Something I've already devoted years and years researching, collecting data on and developing a plan for, while becoming increasingly wary of recent changes, I've been observing towards our essentially most common ways of life. Looking at the changes to our financial system, since my incarceration. How the "cash" system has been rapidly moving out of our daily lives. More and more consumers have been enticed by the ease and conveniences of digital currency instead, created by the 'tech' giant's leading the charge, who are ushering in a new era, how we will be doing business in the near future, developing the ways in which, our "economic" activity will take shape, among other things such as "transportation", "food distribution", "health insurance", "affordable housing" and "communication", through a growing increase in sophisticated technology I've seen a growing increase in data collection technology, to drive these new systems. 6 According to my research this emerging technology presents many potential risks and dangers for out personal freedom's and privacy. For the promise "convenience" and "easy" access we surrender our freedom's and privacy too. I've researched compelling evidence that proves 'much-touted' bio-technologies we see being introduced into the airlines security program, retina scanning, palm reading, identification cards, facial recognition and other bio-metrics technology. According to my research notes given the ever expanding, technological advancements being made in our essential, commonly-used things, combining all of our essential needs into one centralized source, carries with it a hefty price tag. If we are still the kind of individual's who takes deep pride in the freedom of choice, having the option to choose the people that we entrust our private and personal data with. Well now that's highly questionable. It's practically impossible for any of us to steer clear of disclosing our private, and personal info. to these tech giant's nowaday's. With our growing dependency on smart phones, with all of the rapidly expanding capabilities, data-driven technology, to deliver everything that we wish for, can be quickly delivered to us at the touch of, a small screen. Compelling us to impulsively wish for more and more, giving up more and more 7 of our controls, our privacy and our freedoms. It's just going to get more and more far reaching and sophisticated, as we move forward into the future, bringing with it perverse consequences causing big problems for those opting-out of the new social experiment. Did anyone ever think they'd live long enough to Amerika taking a page out of Nazi Germany's playbook. In our worst nightmares we have ever have imagined that Amerikan citizens would be forced into social-distancing, staying indoor's, competing for scarce food supplies, and toilet paper, probably not.... But here we are, living in 2020 being told when we are allowed to leave our homes and limited to how much food, hand sanitizer and toilet paper we can buy, citizens are being forced to leave their jobs behind, go without income, shut down their businesses. We have the perfect condition to test what all of this emerging technology was made for. Allowing for everyone to become isolated consumers without ever leaving their homes. All of the tech giant's are getting exactly what they have always had their sights on while designing and developing these digital capabilities in the first place, it's as if they finally have the world that they dreamed of, living in. The opportunity to have each and every person on this planet completely 8 and totally dependent upon your patented intellectual property for their survival, goes to show how far ahead these "tech" inventors had to be thinking in-order to foresee the urgent need for such things like social media, Zoom, Microsoft team, Google Meet, and Facebook Live, even Skype. Networks that allow for people to have actual close interactions with one another even though being separated by thousands of miles, through real time video chatrooms, technology allows for our world to stay connected people to have business conference's, doctor's appointments, court hearing's and personalized one on one visiting, bringing family and friends from all over the globe into our homes, depicting crystal clear images, live. Such tech companies like Amazon further allows us the convenience of never leaving our homes to have anything we desire delivered to us in express time, even while being forced to stay home. One has take all of this, into account when we are thinking about how we got to this point and how did our technology predict what nobody else could ever imagine. Quite frankly it's hard to believe that these technology giant's didn't have explicit insights into what was soon to come. It would be detrimental to their industries if they did not have specific information deemed vital to their developing technologies interest's. 9 As all of these tech companies have such great expansion and far reaching power abroad, globally. That our entire world depends on their technology to hold ourselves together. As it turns out, I can also see in such times of crisis. With their ample power to deliver there much needed service's when--needed most, this could warrant our government to incentivise these same tech companies in the private business sector to exercise the resources, taking such action to come up with a 'vaccine', then having an 'intellectual property' patent secured, to give our U.S. government, first opportunity to grant a trillion dollar contract for the exclusive rights to mass produce the vaccine and distribute it to the rest of the world. While controlling supply and production, distribution chains deciding which of the countries worldwide get the vaccine first and how much? Completely in control of the price, production and distribution channels would place the U.S. in the drivers seat across the globe, managing the per capita death rate happening in every country, ultimately being able to see countries surge or drop in death rates, across the globe. It is these same tech giants like Microsoft's president Bill Gates with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that has been investing hundreds of millions into big pharmaceutical companies to research and develop an effective vaccine. 10 As the race for finding a vaccine begins, the conspiracy theories have also begun to circulate as fears grow increased speculation also grows, whenever people are left to draw their own conclusions in an attempt to rationalize such an unexpected and sudden social transition from one social normalcy to another without any warning or notices beforehand. One theory which is floating around out there has been that we are in the midst of a global depopulation program that has been orchestrated by the elite status quo in an effort to reduce strain of consumer's depleting our Earth's resources. Similar theories being leaked by some, who are implying that the "Wuhan" laboratory in China has deliberately developed and intentionally released the coronavirus COVID-19 as a bio weapon into the world, in an attempt to disrupt the global economy. So that China can position themselves better, in the "global trading" discussions. Following their recent trade war with the U.S. and the "Trump administration's" foreign trade policy, and sanctions. Since the introduction of this Wuhan coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic strict government imposed "stay at home" orders have led to more tha 30 million Americans having to give up their livelihoods, abandoning the jobs in an effort to reduce the spreading of this virus. 11 This has led tens of millions of Americans no other choice except to file millions of new claims for unemployment benefits in just a matter of a few weeks. The politicians have pushed hard to pass legislation through the Senate trying to get a provision into what's being called the CARES act that offers unemployed workers an additional $600.00 a week included with their standard unemployment benefits, to expire July 31, 2020. While politicians are now considering data that could force them push an extension further beyond this date. So much for the 17 1/2 years of planning and research that I've painstakingly put into my pre-release and post-release plans. Gathering data, and mapping out how to navigate the transition from prison to the outside world again earning my associates degree inside here, becoming a certified substance abuse/addiction counselor, making myself an employable ex-felon with sought after job skills that are in demand has been my goal. Now all of this preparation and planning could be ultimately set aside, temporarily side-lined until all of this becomes easier to control, and we find a way to manage this crisis. On May 1st last week another highly suspicious and skeptical piece of legislature was pushed through out government introduced by 45 representatives, 44 of which were Democrats and only one Republican, the piece of legislation was referred 12 to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, it's given the tracking number of HR#6666 "to legally authorize the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services the power it needs to award government contracts and funding to qualified eligible subcontractor's to set up formal operations to conduct data collection, diagnostic testing for COVID-19 and an assortment of other related pandemic activities, activities which also "contact tracing", aka "testing, reacting, and contacting everyone" (T.R.A.C.E) using mobile health units fully equipped and staffed by specially trained data collection personnel, would contact those who've been exposed to people with COVID-19 infection." Through the use of these mobile health units making their way around to document individual's contact with other's at residences, public places and work sites. California has already trained and certified 3,000 people so far while still training more to test it's residents, for this virus, and then trace those they've made contact with, seems a bit innocuous when we think about all of this. A central part of the contract includes an $8.7 million state funded grant Univ. of California San Francisco with UCLA to mobilize 20,000 of these trained "disease detectives" over the course of the next two month's as California starts preparations to relax their stay @ home orders. The Whittier Daily News reported that the Pandemic Workforce Training Academy will begin to train 13 it's very first (20 hour) long on-line instructional training sessions in the month of May. This COVID-19 army of disease detectives will be getting paid $19.00 per hour, for collecting data and completing the training program. This HR6666 will set up the model for each and every other state to follow. Once an individual is confirmed to test positive for the COVID-19 virus, they will be told to self isolate for a minimum of 14 days. Supposedly when carried out effectively these protocols will help us to break the chain of transmission, scaling back the spread of the virus allowing for all of us to eventually return back to a normal life again. What I've come to find a bit alarming about all of this, although this COVID-19 is a vey serious thing in need of some serious measures to be taken. The facts are this, those vast majority of people who are infected, turn out to be either 'asymptomatic' or only show mild or no symptoms whatsoever. So, is it this necessary or warranted to get this aggressive, should we be separating family members from each other if they test positive for the virus? The surgeon general of the U.S. Jerome Adams recently dismissed the Center for Disease Control (CDC), (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and the (World Health Organization) (WHO) predictive model that showed far greater number of death rates than there actually is, proving to be very exxaggerrated and over blown, he began working 14 with real time data as it comes in, verifying that those predictive models over estimated the number of deaths, and cases in the United States. HR6666 is authorizing other states to award grants that set up "contact tracing" "disease detectives" much like California. For some reason I'm uncomfortable about this whole plan, especially because of it's deep ties to the "tech giants" and big pharmaceutical companies. At a press conference on April 20th, 2020 New York City mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled his most current strategy to compel his New York residents to help him keep his city healthy and safe by enforcing social distancing rules. He said: "it 's up to every citizen to watch and monitor everyone else around you, and report to police anything that you don't like." de Blasio said: "That's why we've created a new enforcement program: "Knowledgeable Actor's Reporting Edict Noncompliance." Or KAREN for short. Asking the residents to become a KAREN by using a special hotline to snitch on anyone seen ignoring social distancing guidelines, encouraging the public to report violators directly to police. To incentivize the reporting, de Blasio announced a reward to the snitches, who reported on the violators. Using the rapid and efficient contact tracing data collection technology along with the sophisticated epidemic surveillance, with widespread COVID-19 testing. 15 I believe it was George Washington who once said "When the people fear their government, it's tyranny". "When the government fears the people it's freedom". With all of the financial instability and economic pandemanium being created from this pandemic many are feeling anxious to go back to work, so they can pay their bills again. Citizens are protesting every where trying to raise their voices, and make their states open up again. As I watched an episode of "Meet the Press" this past Sunday. Michigan state governor Gretchen Whitmer stated, to the host how she personally sees "revolutions and revolts as simply unamerican". She called on all protests in her state to put a stop to all of their illegal assembly, emphatically telling them in no-uncertain terms that any protest's against tyranny is a foreign idea to the history of the United States. "If youre really Americans, you'll stop with this dangerous revolutionary activity" she concluded. We have an important duty to speak up and express what we are feeling and seeing, particularly whenever it concerns something ultimately changing how we live our lives, or violates our inalienable rights. I'm a big supporter of the government taking necessary actions to keep us all safe and healthy. However, being forced to stay quiet, during such a dramatic 'social transition' troubles me. Especially as an Afrikan Amerikan male myself, who has some questions of my own. Seeing the way all of the data is showing that COVID-19 16 cases, has been disproportionately affecting the Afrikan Amerikan population and Hispanic also. Data collected from all survey's reveal 25% of all newly reported cases involved Afrikan Amerikans while 20% were Hispanic and Latinos. The CDC's study showed that the elderly population and the Afrikan Amerikan population were the most likely populations to be susceptible to the COVID-19 disease. Right now life or death will come down to what we ourselves decide to do in an effort to protect ourselves, society has been shut down, the government has even done a great deal to reduce the rate of infection, our population has jumped on top of this together to contain it, now it's up to us as individuals to decide how we would like to proceed? Are we going to move forward by becoming a part of the problem or do we move forward by becoming part of the solution? Ultimately this decision will rest in our own hands. Again we are witnessing the Dawn of a new era upon us, major changes are coming our way, reopening our society again, will usher in new social norms which we've never had before. This time period will become marked by this social crisis being the time when everything changed. I, only wish there was more transparency between the tech companies, big pharma and the public.
