And here we go again. Lockdowns are again being threatened by the Deputy Prime Minister. One case of Omicron crosses their leaky border and all bets were off for any thoughts of so-called freedom. Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson, in an interview recorded on Friday and aired on Saturday morning, said that “lockdowns remain a possibility if Omicron made its way here and began to spread – even after we’ve shifted to the traffic light system.”
“We’ve always said from the beginning of this is that we believe that the framework is robust. We’ve got the opportunity if we have to for localised lockdowns within that. But we also see that the alert level framework sits there in the background. If we had to use it, it is a last resort assignment. It is not something that we are considering at the moment.”
Then why mention it?
He continued, “But we said from the beginning of the launch of this framework in late October that we have to be mindful of the fact that COVID is not finished around the world. We will keep an eye on any new variants. There is no proposal to return to lockdowns, but we do have the legal framework sitting there in the background if it needed to be used.”
So they have the opportunity but with no proposal and lockdowns remain a possibility? How do his statements make sense?
So, notwithstanding our being stalled at the traffic lights feebly clutching defective and possibly bought-on-the-cheap passports to nowhere, or worse, having the audacity to refuse to have such a passport, we can once again contemplate seclusion and bubbles and loss of liberty. A shot fired across the bows of the ship of doom that is the new New Zealand. It is soul-destroying. It is enough to make lying in bed an art form as it is too depressing to think about getting up and booting up to learn of the latest chapter and verse from the ‘experts’ and Ministers of the Crown.
The Prime Minister with her billionaire nuptials in a country gone to the wall on borrowed money. And not even a Kiwi wedding to support an industry she has gleefully wrecked. She has chosen to support off-shore Americans. Well done, Prime Minister. We are, for now, spared her squinched face interview question responses, all scripted, while purporting to be off-the-cuff. “First Tova, then Jessica, no, not you Barry.”
The Deputy Prime Minister, having demonstrated with his boorish, masked, hyperventilated mirth in Parliament that too much inhaled CO2 is not a good thing and mucks up blood gases to no advantage. Dr ‘Gloomfield’, the Director-General of Health, with his soulful piety. The obsequious backstop Chris Hipkins. Shaun Hendy with his defective abacus. The pink person with her inability to diagnose the difference between a paddle and a swim. Little. Enough said. If Michael Baker’s ‘expert’ face were never to be seen again on the MSM we would all be better off. Hone Harawira and his outlaws, his henchmen holding Northland and its potential visitors to ransom.
I am sick and tired of every one of them. Of every utterance and pronouncement. Of their fear-inducing, hysterical announcements that the 49% deluded continue to believe. Of economic sabotage and the destabilisation of our democracy. Of manipulation and mandates. Of double-jabbed now meaning triple jabbed. Of Police attending a fracas between masked and un-masked.
For the non-believers, the ‘far-right extremists’ (as they love to brand us), the level of personal distress far outweighs any possible fear-factor of Covid in any form, of Delta or Omicron or its soon-to-be-identified next variant. We realists have had enough.
The PM may have had an awful year, like the one she has inflicted on the rest of us, but she is paid, is with her family, does not ever have to even think about how the gas bill will be paid or how to feed and clothe the kids. We have gone through unrelenting loss and heartache without our families, with businesses under threat or wrecked beyond repair, with thousands of jobs destroyed and families along with them, with medical procedures and surgeries cancelled or not even scheduled. And there is no end in sight.
They can spin this out forever – and for many of us it will be our forever as we will succumb to the vagaries of increasing age without a sniff of the tricky little virus, and shuffle off, heartbroken and broken, away from our families, and without access to medical help, as we are not part of the illustrious 16% of Pae Ora, and in any case we are too old to be considered worthy of the help that our taxes have paid for.
And while we contemplate at year-end the lexicon of ‘new’ words and interpretations we have had to endure; lockdown, elimination, eradication, traffic lights, steps and levels, transitioning and the rest, let’s look back at the words of old that we could consider bringing back, as apt and true as they are.
Quanked – to be overpowered by fatigue – we’ve put up with this nonsense all year and now we’re quanked. This is a perfect description for the way we feel after yet another year of lies and lockdowns. Completely quanked.
I am particularly fond of snollygoster – an old English term for a shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician. We have far too many of these, snollygosters all.
And how about our feeling a bit frobly-mobly – neither well nor unwell. This has an appeal all of its own. “I feel frobly-mobly. Thank you for asking.”
Ultraquididarian – somebody who gives opinions on subjects they know nothing about. 19th century. Mm – plenty of those around. Possibly a synonym for ‘experts’.
The building head of steam against the Government’s mandates and law changes, their devious and deceitful dealings with us may lead someone to experience cacoethes – the irresistible urge to do something inadvisable.
We could all be said to be undergoing a feeling of selcouth – when everything feels strange and different. Our world has indeed become strange and different. The vaxxed are scared of the unvaxxed. The unvaxxed are reviled, jobless, forbidden to experience any of life’s pleasures such as a haircut, and blamed for the woes of the world.
The virtuous masked tut-tut at the freely-breathing unmuzzled. The mandated misery of MIQ continues and will now ramp up again as Omicron enters the picture. The inability of the Government to successfully run a test home-isolation programme. Their arrogant refusal to listen to real-world, real experts such as Sir Ian Taylor whom they consistently ignore. There is definitely a feeling of selcouth around.
Metanoia. This has been forced on us – the journey of changing one’s mind, heart, self or way of life. Our way of life will never be the same again, they tell us. We will live in perpetual fear and have our rights stripped one by one until we reach their required state of compliance. We will very likely be required to be microchipped in light of the Government’s massive and predictable failure with vaccine passports that will destroy yet more businesses.
Kakistocracy – government by the least qualified or worst people. Indeed we are governed by a kakistocracy. This word sums it all up so eloquently.
And to conclude, the feeling of shivviness – the uncomfortable feeling of wearing new underwear: as a metaphor, given the very uncomfortable feeling that is our new life now. A definite and incontrovertible feeling of shivviness.
Happy Christmas indeed.
Pinterest: Source of old words.