{"id":73264,"date":"2020-02-11T06:00:54","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=73264"},"modified":"2020-02-09T17:17:32","modified_gmt":"2020-02-09T23:17:32","slug":"the-plague-of-deceit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=73264","title":{"rendered":"The Plague Of Deceit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The situation in China seems to be much, much worse<\/a> than the all-powerful Communist Party is willing to let on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From an American doctor with a Chinese wife:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother-in-law lives in a smaller city \u2013 far on the western fringe of China \u2013 If Wuhan were Atlanta \u2013 she would be in a place like Boise. She had a fever about 8 days ago. Please note \u2013 official statistics note that there are 9 people in her province confirmed to have the virus. This belies the fact that she (never known to me to be a liar or fabulist ) has been telling my wife for days that there are hundreds upon hundreds of people all over the sidewalks and streets outside the hospital \u2013 and that the hospital is completely filled with patients. And apparently the crematorium has been very busy. Of most grave concern to her \u2013 is Beijing nationalized all of their small province\u2019s health care workers and sent them to Shanghai or Beijing \u2013 leaving their city of a million with only a handful of doctors. When she had her fever \u2013 a nurse looked at her for 10 minutes. They found out she had a runny nose \u2013 and because of the runny nose told her she did NOT have the virus. NO TEST WAS EVER DONE \u2013 WHY? they simply do not have enough kits \u2013 and are having to go by their gut instinct. She was sent back to her own home \u2013 and placed in quarantine there \u2013 never having been tested. She is unable to leave \u2013 and this is being violently enforced in her city. They bring her food 3 times a week. All this to say \u2013 any and all numbers coming from China are highly suspect \u2013 and basically worthless. And thankfully my mother-in-law is getting much better.
Her younger brother and his young family live in Nanjing. I cannot tell you the grief expressed by my wife the other night \u2013 when he called her the last time \u2013 and said all international calls have been stopped effective at midnight that day. Nanjing is now under martial law \u2013 for the first time since the Japanese occupation before World War II. He told her about the tanks going down the streets and all the main streets being guarded by men with sub-machine guns. All exits out of the city are now being blocked with layers of concrete blocks. Each family has to designate one person who can go outside 2 times a week \u2013 to the nearest store for food and supplies. Anyone caught on the streets without appropriate permission \u2013 or not wearing a mask is immediately arrested \u2013 and placed in quarantine camps themselves. Anyone who thinks this is all being done just because of a \u201cflu\u201d or \u201ca little virus\u201d really needs to have their head examined.
Her father is in Beijing \u2013 and has not been heard from in two weeks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Traditionally, one “advantage” of totalitarian government is their ability to enforce <\/em>public health restrictions – see also Cuba’s crackdown on HIV, using old-fashioned public health methods reinforced by thugs with guns. But this plague seems to have circumvented even China’s totalitarian reach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which – maybe, possibly – is causing “reform”, perhaps even collapse of the central Communist government,<\/a> to cross peoples’ minds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Li Wenliang is the doctor thought to be the first person to sound the alarm over the coronavirus. The Chinese government responded by detaining and silencing him for spreading \u201cfalse rumors.\u201d The authorities\u2019 lockdown on information about the virus undoubtedly increased significantly the magnitude of the epidemic that now plagues China and threatens other countries.
On Friday, Dr. Li died from the virus. According to\u00a0the Washington Post<\/a>, within hours of his death millions of Chinese tried to bypass censors to post the hashtag #WeWantFreedomOfSpeech. The censors eventually prevailed, but deleted sentiments are still real sentiments.
The link between the government\u2019s suppression of speech \u2014 the lack of freedom \u2014 and the public health disaster in China could not be more clear. Li has become the symbol of that link.
This Washington Post editorial<\/a>\u00a0tells us that the cononavirus outbreak \u201cis shaking the foundations of a political system built on President Xi Jinping\u2019s assurance that the party knows best for all.\u201d I don\u2019t know if the epidemic actually is shaking the system\u2019s foundations, but it should.
Speaking of Xi, he was\u00a0scarcely seen<\/a>\u00a0in the days following the outbreak. When he finally appeared, after days of speculation as to his whereabouts, it was at an event with Cambodia\u2019s dictator, a stooge of China.
In free nations, leaders can\u2019t get away with going into hiding during times of disaster. Dictators can. However, doing so erodes confidence in their leadership.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Random tangential thought: if the Chinese government is anywhere close <\/em>to spiralling out of control, I’m happy that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are out of power. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The situation in China seems to be much, much worse than the all-powerful Communist Party is willing to let on. From an American doctor with a Chinese wife: My mother-in-law lives in a smaller city \u2013 far on the western fringe of China \u2013 If Wuhan were Atlanta \u2013 she would be in a place […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73265,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73264\/revisions\/73265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}