This article was originally published by John W. Whitehead at The Rutherford Institute.
“Fear is a primitive impulse, brainless as hunger, and because the aim of horror fiction is the production of the deepest kinds of fears, the genre tends to reinforce some remarkably uncivilized ideas about self-protection. In the current crop of zombie stories, the prevailing value for the beleaguered survivors is a sort of siege mentality, a vigilance so constant and unremitting that it’s indistinguishable from the purest paranoia.”— Terrence Rafferty, New York Times
What do zombies have to do with the U.S. government’s plans for dealing with a coronavirus outbreak? Read on, and I’ll tell you.
The zombie narrative was popularized by the hit television series The Walking Dead, in which a small group of Americans attempt to survive in a zombie-ridden, post-apocalyptic world where they’re not only fighting off flesh-eating ghouls but cannibalistic humans.
For a while there, zombies could be found lurking around every corner: wreaking havoc at gun shows, battling corsets in movies such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and running for their lives in 5K charity races.
Understandably, zombie fiction plays to our fears and paranoia, while allowing us to “envision how we and our own would thrive if everything went to hell and we lost all our societal supports.” Yet as journalist Syreeta McFadden points out, while dystopian stories used to reflect our anxieties, now they reflect our reality, mirroring how we as a nation view the world around us, how we as citizens view each other, and most of all how our government views us.
Indeed, the U.S. government has spent a lot of time and energy in recent years using zombies as the models for a variety of crisis scenarios not too dissimilar from what we are currently experiencing.
For instance, back in 2015, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put together a zombie apocalypse preparation kit “that details everything you would need to have on hand in the event the living dead showed up at your front door.” The CDC, in conjunction with the Dept. of Defense, even used zombies to put government agents through their paces in mock military drills.
Fear the Walking Dead—AMC’s spinoff of its popular Walking Dead series—drove this point home by dialing back the clock to when the zombie outbreak first appears and setting viewers down in the midst of societal unrest not unlike our own experiences of recent years (“a bunch of weird incidents, police protests, riots, and … rapid social entropy”). Then, as Forbes reports, “the military showed up and we fast-forwarded into an ad hoc police state with no glimpse at what was happening in the world around our main cast of hapless survivors.”
Forbes found Fear’s quick shift into a police state to be far-fetched, but anyone who has been paying attention in recent years knows that the groundwork was laid long ago for the government—i.e., the military—to intervene and lock down the nation in the event of a national disaster.
We’re seeing this play out now as the coronavirus contagion spreads.
What we have yet to experience (although it may only be a matter of time) is that the government through the imposition of martial law could pose a greater threat to our safety (and our freedoms) than any virus.
As the Atlantic noted about Fear the Walking Dead: “The villains aren’t the zombies, who rarely appear, but the U.S. military, who sweep into an L.A. suburb to quarantine the survivors. Zombies are, after all, a recognizable threat—but Fear plumbs drama and horror from the betrayal by institutions designed to keep people safe.”
Indeed, zombie fiction perfectly embodies the government’s paranoia about the citizenry as potential threats that need to be monitored, tracked, surveilled, sequestered, deterred, vanquished and rendered impotent.
Why else would the government feel the need to monitor our communications, track our movements, criminalize our every action, treat us like suspects, and strip us of any means of defense while equipping its own personnel with an amazing arsenal of weapons?
For years now, the government has been carrying out military training drills with zombies as the enemy. In 2011, the DOD created a 31-page instruction manual for how to protect America from a terrorist attack carried out by zombie forces. In 2012, the CDC released a guide for surviving a zombie plague. That was followed by training drills for members of the military, police officers and first responders.
As journalist Andrea Peyser reports:
Coinciding with Halloween 2012, a five-day national conference was put on by the HALO Corp. in San Diego for more than 1,000 first responders, military personnel and law enforcement types. It included workshops produced by a Hollywood-affiliated firm in…overcoming a zombie invasion. Actors were made up to look like flesh-chomping monsters. The Department of Homeland Security even paid the $1,000 entry fees for an unknown number of participants…
“Zombie disaster” drills were held in October 2012 and ’13 at California’s Sutter Roseville Medical Center. The exercises allowed medical center staff “to test response to a deadly infectious disease, a mass-casualty event, terrorism event and security procedures”…
[In October 2014], REI outdoor-gear stores in Soho and around the country are to hold free classes in zombie preparedness, which the stores have been providing for about three years.
The zombie exercises appeared to be kitschy and fun—government agents running around trying to put down a zombie rebellion—but what if the zombies in the exercises were us, the citizenry, viewed by those in power as mindless, voracious, zombie hordes?
Consider this: the government started playing around with the idea of using zombies as stand-ins for enemy combatants in its training drills right around the time the Army War College issued its 2008 report, warning that an economic crisis in the U.S. could lead to massive civil unrest that would require the military to intervene and restore order.
That same year, it was revealed that the government had amassed more than 8 million names of Americans considered a threat to national security, to be used “by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law.” The program’s name, Main Core, refers to the fact that it contains “copies of the ‘main core’ or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community.”
Also in 2008, the Pentagon launched the Minerva Initiative, a $75 million military-driven research project focused on studying social behavior in order to determine how best to cope with mass civil disobedience or uprisings. The Minerva Initiative has funded projects such as “Who Does Not Become a Terrorist, and Why?” which “conflates peaceful activists with ‘supporters of political violence’ who are different from terrorists only in that they do not embark on ‘armed militancy’ themselves.”
In 2009, the Dept. of Homeland Security issued its reports on Rightwing and Leftwing Extremism, in which the terms “extremist” and “terrorist” were used interchangeably to describe citizens they perceived to be disgruntled or anti-government.
Meanwhile, a government campaign was underway to spy on Americans’ mail, email and cell phone communications. News reports indicate that the U.S. Postal Service has handled more than 150,000 requests by federal and state law enforcement agencies to monitor Americans’ mail, in addition to photographing every piece of mail sent through the postal system.
Fast forward a few years more and local police were being transformed into extensions of the military, taught to view members of their community as suspects, trained to shoot first and ask questions later, and equipped with all of the technology and weaponry of a soldier on a battlefield.
The Obama administration then hired a domestic terrorism czar whose job is to focus on anti-government American “extremists” who have been designated a greater threat to America than ISIS or al Qaeda. As part of the government’s so-called war on right-wing extremism, the Obama administration agreed to partner with the United Nations to take part in its Strong Cities Network program, which is training local police agencies across America in how to identify, fight and prevent extremism.
Nothing has changed for the better under the Trump Administration.
Those who believe in and exercise their rights under the Constitution (namely, the right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share their political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), continue to be promoted to the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.
“We the people” or, more appropriately, “we the zombies” are the enemy in the eyes of the government. This coronavirus merely ups the ante.
So when presented with the Defense Department’s battle plan for defeating an army of the walking dead, you might find yourself tempted to giggle over the fact that a taxpayer-funded government bureaucrat actually took the time to research and write about vegetarian zombies, evil magic zombies, chicken zombies, space zombies, bio-engineered weaponized zombies, radiation zombies, symbiont-induced zombies, and pathogenic zombies.
However, in an age of extreme government paranoia, this is no laughing matter.
The DOD’s strategy for dealing with a zombie uprising, outlined in “CONOP 8888,” is for all intents and purposes a training manual for the government in how to put down a citizen uprising or at least an uprising of individuals “infected” with a dangerous disease or dangerous ideas about freedom.
Rest assured that the tactics and difficulties outlined in the “fictional training scenario” are all too real, beginning with martial law.
As the DOD training manual states: “zombies [stand-ins for “we the people”] are horribly dangerous to all human life and zombie infections have the potential to seriously undermine national security and economic activities that sustain our way of life. Therefore having a population that is not composed of zombies or at risk from their malign influence is vital to U.S. and Allied national interests.”
So how does the military plan to put down a zombie (a.k.a. citizen) uprising?
The strategy manual outlines five phases necessary for a counter-offensive: shape, deter, seize initiative, dominate, stabilize and restore civil authority. Here are a few details:
Phase 0 (Shape): Conduct general zombie awareness training. Monitor increased threats (i.e., surveillance). Carry out military drills. Synchronize contingency plans between federal and state agencies. Anticipate and prepare for a breakdown in law and order.
Phase 1 (Deter): Recognize that zombies cannot be deterred or reasoned with. Carry out training drills to discourage other countries from developing or deploying attack zombies and publicly reinforce the government’s ability to combat a zombie threat. Initiate intelligence sharing between federal and state agencies. Assist the Dept. of Homeland Security in identifying or discouraging immigrants from areas where zombie-related diseases originate.
Phase 2 (Seize initiative): Recall all military personal to their duty stations. Fortify all military outposts. Deploy air and ground forces for at least 35 days. Carry out confidence-building measures with nuclear-armed peers such as Russia and China to ensure they do not misinterpret the government’s zombie countermeasures as preparations for war. Establish quarantine zones. Distribute explosion-resistant protective equipment. Place the military on red alert. Begin limited scale military operations to combat zombie threats. Carry out combat operations against zombie populations within the United States that were “previously” U.S. citizens.
Phase 3 (Dominate): Lock down all military bases for 30 days. Shelter all essential government personnel for at least 40 days. Equip all government agents with military protective gear. Issue orders for the military to kill all non-human life on sight. Initiate bomber and missile strikes against targeted sources of zombie infection, including the infrastructure. Burn all zombie corpses. Deploy the military to lock down the beaches and waterways.
Phase 4 (Stabilize): Send out recon teams to check for remaining threats and survey the status of basic services (water, power, sewage infrastructure, air, and lines of communication). Execute a counter-zombie ISR plan to ID holdout pockets of zombie resistance. Use all military resources to target any remaining regions of zombie holdouts and influence. Continue all actions from the Dominate phase.
Phase 5 (Restore civil authority): Deploy military personnel to assist any surviving civil authorities in disaster zones. Reconstitute combat capabilities at various military bases. Prepare to redeploy military forces to attack surviving zombie holdouts. Restore basic services in disaster areas.
Notice the similarities?
Surveillance. Military drills. Awareness training. Militarized police forces. Martial law.
As I point out in my book, Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if there is any lesson to be learned, it is simply this: whether the threat to national security comes in the form of imaginary zombies, actual terrorists, American citizens infected with the coronavirus, or disgruntled American citizens infected with dangerous ideas about freedom, the government’s response to such threats remains the same: detect, deter and annihilate.
This plan was obviously conceived by retarded lunatics. Obeying and cooperating with them is not an option.
“Not to have a correct political point of view is like having no soul.”
— Mao
“… Hellenistic philosophy asserted that elite and exceptionally heroic men had virtus (Greek: ἀνδρεία, romanized: andreia). Virtus (once again linked to vir, the brave man abiding by society’s highest values and ethics as opposed to homo, human being) defined the traits of excellence for a man in ancient Rome (and Greece), including valor and heroism, but also morality and physical strength.”
— en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virago
Imagine, if some notorious cult assigned these spiritual values to outsiders, or based on unquestioning service.
resistance is feudal
futile?
This is also referred to as a military coup in Libya. What a coincidence that the most likely military that created the COVID-19 at Fort Detrick Bio-weapons lab before it was shut down by the CDC for repeated pathogen leaks, prior to the U.S. military going to the Wuhan World Military Games two months prior to the outbreak has the “solution” for the COVID-19 which they created!
Well, I’ll be damned! Knock me over with a feather!
This is also known in the world of psychology as the Superman Complex, in which someone creates an emergency situation, and then “runs to the rescue.”
This is also referred to as a military coup in Libya. What a coincidence that the military that most likely created the COVID-19 at Fort Detrick Bio-weapons lab before it was shut down by the CDC for repeated pathogen leaks, prior to the U.S. military going to the Wuhan World Military Games two months prior to the outbreak has the “solution” for the COVID-19 which they created!
Well, I’ll be damned! Knock me over with a feather!
This is also known in the world of psychology as the Superman Complex, in which someone creates an emergency situation, and then “runs to the rescue.”
The retarded,fascist,psychopaths are extremely eager to commence the Bullshit Revolution. A revolution based on bullshit. The only sane and intelligent thing to do is abide by the constitution and disobey all that violate it!
Here is the Important Info you must have for the ChiCom bioweapon, False Flag media / Liar politician induced panic.
1. Go to YouTube:
2. Search: “George Carlin – Germs, Immune System”
. . . but you might discount the Calcutta Sidewalk Cafe info.
Stay out of India if you want to grow old.
RIP: God Bless George Carlin. Funny and thoughtful.
PS- Also search on YouTube: “Stages of communist takeovers- Yuri Bezmenov (Leftists are useful IDIOTS)”
Looks Like California Commies have now “normalized” California to commie standards of “Normal”.
Why do liberal local gov’t officials in some areas want to close down gun stores, ban sales of guns and ammo, and trying to suspend gun rights during this virus outbreak? What in the hell does this have anything to do with this virus? These leftists just can’t help themselves, they can’t control their impulse to eliminate our 2nd Amendment Rights, and other freedoms. Rather than using their position and resources against a public menace, they are using a public menace as a tool to achieve their political agenda. In other words, put their political ideology ahead of actually helping people in a tangible way.
I see one reason why some of these people get elected. I saw a local lib being interviewed, she acknowledged that some measures she supported would have no beneficial or useful effect, and could even harm her “community”, but wanted to see certain measures put in place anyway. I’ll translate that for you, she hates us more than she loves her own.
As long as a vast underclass of victims, and entitled, and people with grievances can be manufactured, we will have lousy public officials who are really nothing more than opportunists. Their sole qualification is knowing how to create grievances and exploiting them. Other than that, frankly, they are really just plain stupid.
Stubborn and wrong with strength in numbers is how the retards plan on winning, but sick evil retards that are stubborn and wrong multiplied by the quantity of them serves as a negative factor, weakenning each of them far more than they would have been singularly.
When being wrong is the only thing that they can do with 100% accuracy, they have decided to run with that. At least they have perfected somethng. Being wrong!
I think we all can see the drift to a national wide Marshal Law.
Keep you heads down – eyes and ears open.
This could happen any day now – What will or should you do?
Hide you food and personal protection?
Red flag!!!!!!
Before C/W got banned, he told you about people hearing weird noises and the Wild Hunt.
See pla’quin’el side effects and ‘quin’-ism. This ‘quin’ class of drugs produces frightening, auditory and visual hallucinations, on par with a hellscape. In exposes, troops compare it to the next Agent Orange.
The military and the police will do nothing. The military has one priority: continuity of government. As for the police, they are terrified of getting sick themselves.
If they haven’t started dealing with the sheeboons now (who are already causing problems looting etc.) they certainly won’t do anything when they riot.
Fascists on Sputnik Radio that want to increase authoritarian control and decrease liberty are leading the Bullshit Revolution allowing the predators to go unpunished and free to continue their rapacity and predation at an increased speed.
These people on Sputnik Radio leading this Bullshit Revolution are so mentally incompetent that they are claiming how brilliant and innvative the Chinese are saying, “They created a machine that extracts water out of thin air! These are the types of things that the Chinese have bedn doing!”
The dehumidifier was invented in 1902 in America by Willis Carrier! Yes, it is a machine that extracts water out of thin air!
Are they time travellers?!
Please do not follow the lead of people that are over a century behind on basic everyday technology that has been in common household use for decades!
Exactly! The Chinese have yet to invent hygienic food practices so why should we trust them on this?
They need to be sued for causing this mess in the first place. Here is what we should do:
1) Asset seizure: this would run into the trillions so it would be enough to compensate businesses and people for the crisis
2) Education bans: currently most universities are packed with Chinese students using tax payer funded facilities. Open these courses to white, black and Hispanic students so they can get the opportunities to become the next generation of scientists, doctors and engineers
3) Intellectual property compensation: most of the technology the Chinese use is stolen from the West. Calculate what that is worth and then seize assets accordingly
All these measures will tackle two challenges: the crisis costs, and restoration of the economy after three decades of damage done by unfair trade practices by China
Frank Thoughts,
I have never been to China, but as far as unclean eating habits are concerned, the U.S. homeless population dumpster dives and state and local governments have prohibited and shut down churches, charities, and businesses for feeding the homeless. So, yes, that definitely should be addressed for the sake of public health!
San Antonio Texas has the world’s largest bat cave population with 15 million Mexican free tailed bats, hosting tours and hikes at the Backen Bat Cave purchased by Bat Conservation International.
Logic would place this as ground zero for the corona viruses that have been occuring in this country and throughout the world, then transported to Fort Detrick Bio-weapons lab to be used for population control in an act of domestic and international terrorism to prevent the spread of the truth about the fourth financial fraud induced economic collapse in 33 years.
http://www.batcon.org/
The Mexican free tailed bat is also referred to as the Brazillian free tailed bat. It was discovered in 2017 that the species has had coronavirus A. Also worth noting is that coronavirus has not been detected in European or Asian bats.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5456339/?report=classic