Paul Craig Roberts
OpEds

April 2, 2020 |
My Take On Covid-19 “Conspiracy Theories”

Paul Craig Roberts

Some of the “conspiracy theories” lack plausible motive.  Others lack evidence. Others have circumstantial evidence—for example, a meeting of the global elite conducted a simulation of a pandemic a few weeks prior to the outbreak.  Why?  And some of the circumstantial evidence looks more real than circumstantial.  For example, this: https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/newsfromunderground/24dOim8rSvc/8zEtMrmcCwAJ 

What is the point of blocking information about a successful treatment of Covid-19 other than to keep the profit opportunity open for a vaccine?  The more people who die from the virus, the more acceptance a vaccine will have regardless of its effectiveness or danger.

I appreciate readers confidence that I know so much.  But I don’t.  I cannot answer the questions.  However, I do appreciate the questions, because they provide an opportunity for me to draw an important lesson. Let’s begin by calling the conspiracy theories alternative explanations. What all of the alternative explanations have in common is distrust of the authorities and the official explanations.  This is the fault of the authorities and the media, not of those with alternative explanations. If the public had confidence in the authorities, there would be no scope for alternative explanations. By not being forthcoming up front, by politicizing the virus against Trump and against China, by taking so long to acknowledge the seriousness of the threat while doing nothing to prepare, the authorities have harmed public trust in them.  

Trust in public authorities and the media was already thin.  The lies about Washington’s wars—“weapons of mass destruction,” “Iranian nukes,” “Assad’s use of chemical weapons”—and the Russiagate hoax, have undermined the credibility of Washington and the US print and TV media.  

Now with the virus, denial and unpreparedness and the impact on the economy and people’s economic condition have further eroded confidence in authorities, thereby producing a receptive audience for alternative explanations.  But those with alternative explanations are themselves undermining confidence in public authorities.  Yes, questions are in order.  There is no doubt that we are confronted with large scale failure by an unprepared government and health care system. Capitalism with an inadequate public sector has exposed us to both health and economic failure.  These are all legitimate points to be made.  However, the purpose of some alternative explanations seems to be to attract attention to a website or to a person with a podcast, and others produce division that prevents a coming together and leadership, however belated, from public authorities by discrediting such leadership in advance.

Thus, the alternative explanations can be just as debilitating and irresponsible as the authorities prevarications.

If the virus is used for self-interested purposes by the many interests affected, no common interest can form that would provide a basis for leadership by authorities.  To survive as a society, we need realism, decisive action, and commitment to everyone by public authorities without favoritism.  From doubters, we need questions in place of the denunciations and explanations that imply our doom.  If we believe we are doomed in advance, it will be hard to muster the will to prevail over the health and economic challenge.

The challenge from the virus might be greater than we know, for example: https://stephenlendman.org/2020/04/new-covid-19-outbreaks-in-china/ .  If we are discouraged in advance, the catastrophe will be greater.

As we experience the shortcomings, and perhaps the failure, of our health and economic system, we should be prepared to demand and force through substantial reforms, reforms even more far-reaching than those brought by the Great Depression.  The neoliberal globalism of recent decades has left the United States and Europe extremely vulnerable.  We must not contribute to making this vulnerability worse, and we must replace neoliberal globalism with a less dysfunctional system at the earliest opportunity. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Craig Roberts has had careers in scholarship and academia, public service, and journalism. From 1971 until 2004, he was associated with the Hoover Institution, Stanford University as National Fellow, Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow. A former editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service, he is a nationally syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate in Los Angeles. In 1992, he received the Warren Brookes Award for Excellence in Journalism. In 1993, the Forbes Media Guide ranked him as one of the top seven journalists in the United States.He was Distinguished Fellow at the Cato Institute from 1993 to 1996. From 1982 through 1993, he held the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. During 1981-82, he served as assistant secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. President Reagan and Treasury Secretary Regan credited him with a major role in the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, and he was awarded the Treasury Department’s Meritorious Service Award for "his outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States economic policy."