Socialist Saul “the Red” Alinsky’s work Rules for Radicals is widely embraced by Machiavellian leftist social engineers. But some on the Right are now also taking a leaf from the book — in particular, the counsel that mockery is one of man’s most potent weapons.
Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift used this strategy almost 300 years ago (his Gulliver’s Travels critique of lawyers is hilarious). Late radio host Rush Limbaugh, also quite swift, did likewise and called it “illustrating absurdity by being absurd.” And satirical site The Babylon Bee uses the technique to great effect, and most recently, a day after ex-presidential nominee Bob Dole’s passing, ran the headline “Bob Dole Switches To Democrat Party.”
Yet proving that this could be applied to the COVID-1984 situation, and maybe should, American Thinker’s Tim O’Brien notes that the “World Health Organization (WHO) is a lot of things, but one thing it is not is a branding agency.” They really could do better marketing their coronavirus variants, is his point.
Not all variants are created equal (not even by China). Unbeknownst to many, while the Alpha, Delta, and now Omicron variants have, well, gone viral, there are mutations you don’t even hear about. As NBC related in August, “Variants are categorized as ‘variants of interest,’ ‘variants of concern’ and ‘variants of high consequence.’”
They’re named using the Greek alphabet and, O’Brien points out, we first learned about Delta over the summer in the midst of the mass-“vaccination”-hysteria-phase during which emerged what the health authorities should’ve known all along: The genetic-therapy agents (a.k.a. “vaccines”) aren’t as safe and effective as billed.
Then we learned about “Omicron” during the slow-news Thanksgiving week period; this mutation, according to O’Brien, would have been assigned the Greek letter “nu,” except that this could be confused with “new.”
The next letter up was “xi,” but far be it from the powers-that-be to name a variant after the man whose country actually created the virus (and gives them mega money), President Xi Jinping. Full disclosure, though: WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said the real reason is that “Xi” “is a common last name.”
This prompted O’Brien to ask, “Would they have decided against ‘the Smith variant’ for the same reasons?”
I’ll add, “German” describes a common language, nationality, and ethnicity, but we still have (hopefully not literally) the German measles.
But O’Brien, who says he’s spent much of his 35-year communications career on branding issues, has some advice.
Scrap the antiquated Greek system, he counsels and, “as Biden says, build back better.”
No, O’Brien doesn’t recommend rebranding Omicron, as it appears a bust (thus far, no deaths are attributed to it). But we still “need to start thinking of a name for the next variant that will justify lockdowns, masks, mass firings, vaccinations, and more vaccinations,” he insists. “Maybe some vaccine passports, contact tracing, and a quarantine camp for good measure.” He then writes:
I’m going with COVID Plus. It’s simple, it’s to the point, and borrows enough of that core COVID brand to leverage the original coronavirus recipe of scary.
After that, the next variant should be called COVID Max. COVID Max will take fear-mongering to an even higher level, just in time for summer vacation planning. That’ll empty those beaches, hotels, and airports.
In the run-up to the midterms, we’re going to need something even more potent. Something that will guarantee that local election boards will change up decades-old election procedures providing more flexibility and a chance to stretch their own creativity.
Let’s call that one the COVID Doom variant. Hey, go big or go home.
After this, however, we can perhaps do even better. Some suggestions:
- COVID Death Star
- COVID Annihilation
- COVID Supernova
- COVID Terminator
- COVID Apocalypse — COVID End Times works, too.
But one shouldn’t forget the young people, who, largely unaffected by the virus, aren’t sufficiently terrified. Hence:
- COVID Thanos
- COVID White Privilege
- COVID Microaggressions
- COVID Anti-LGBT
- COVID AR-15
- COVID No Participation Trophy
And finally, when we really need to effect that final transition into tyranny, there’s COVID Trump.
Satire does have its place. After all, the COVID panic-porn hustlers, driven by misguided emotion and/or ulterior motives, are immune to reason and data — to Truth itself. And those who cannot be reasoned with can only be fought. Satire is invaluable in this regard.
If you have a good idea for the next COVID variant, let us know in the comments below. Hey, your great insight could be tomorrow’s great fright.
